foeofthelance Posted November 20, 2007 Report Share Posted November 20, 2007 Just looking for a few comments over the next few days. Content, structure, accuracy, etc. all is appreciated. -------------------- Foeofthelance Professor Rodriguez Comp and Lit Honors 20 November 2007 Sex in Literature: Revealing the Hidden Fantasies Throughout much of history sex has been considered a taboo topic. Religions have dismissed it as evil, decrying it as a sin. Society picked up on the attitude, and sex was soon relegated to private family discussions, technical courses in schools covering the barest information on the biological aspects, and ‘back of the barn’ educations between youths making up as much as they actually knew. Yet sex is an inherent part of human nature, as it is the driving forces behind the perpetuation of the species. We can not help but be fascinated by it, and its taboo nature only helps add allure to it. As society grew, sex began to become more and more intertwined with entertainment. Hollywood began to produce starlets, women whose careers were based as much on physical appeal as an ability to act, and singers became known as much for their status as sex symbols as their voices. Yet sex appeal was not limited to the mere visual entertainments. The written word became just as erotic and arousing as anything designed to address the physical senses. I Modi, Marcantonio Raimondi, 1527 Sex in literature can be traced back at least to the sixteenth century, as the above woodcut shows. Based on a series of works done by Giulio Romano, it was included in a collection of vulgar sonnets written by Pietro Aretino. However, more modern writings, such as Lady Chatterly’s Lover, have become more commonly known, both as people read them and for the controversies they spark. Lady Chatterly’s Lover, written in 1928 by D.H. Lawrence, tells the tale of Lady Ottoline Morell and her fling with a young stonemason named Tiger. The scandal of a noble bedding a commoner aside, it also featured explicit sexual scenes. The book itself “underwent various printings due to its sexual content: it was published privately in Florence in 1928, in a bowdlerized version in London in 1932 and finally unexpurgated by Grove Press in America in 1959” (bibliomania.com). Afterwards the book would be put on trial in both Great Britain and the United States to see if it should be declared obscene, and was banned outright in Australia. In both cases it managed to win standing as being of literary worth, and was thus not obscene. This could be seen as the move that opened the door for today’s authors, some of whom enjoy much racier content in their books. For today’s society sex has been granted a certain set of standards in order to be accepted, outside of which anything else is labeled “deviant”. Yet today’s authors seem to enjoy teasing their readers with forbidden fruits. For them, simply placing a man and woman in bed together isn‘t enough. Modern characters are thrilled at the thought of domination fantasies or habitually enjoy multiple partners, sometimes ones who are not entirely human. This seems to be an extension of sexual fantasies, both on the part of the author and the part of the reader. Harold Leitenberg, of University of Vermont’s Psychology Department, defines sexual fantasies as “referring to almost any mental imagery that is sexually arousing or erotic to the individual. The essential element of a deliberate sexual fantasy is the ability to control in imagination exactly what takes place. Even reminiscences of past events can be altered so that only particularly exciting aspects are recalled or enhanced”. In a novel format, this can be especially easy to replicate. The reader only has to accept the details offered by the author in order to imagine the scene, and it is not too difficult for the reader to replace themselves in the scene should they choose. The ability to recall or enhance details is also made easier, as a reader can simply book mark the passages they wish. Yet what do our choices say about us as readers? Obviously these books sell, or the authors would stop writing them. This in turn, if logic follows, means that people are enjoying them. I think this means that the readers are experiencing the same fantasy as these authors, and for the sake of convenience allow another to form their fantasies for them. People are instructed at an early age to be ashamed of their natural impulses, and finding those impulses put on display for them by another’s hand is most likely a small comfort of sorts. The basest examinations of these fantasies can be seen in the so called “bodice ripper.” These are novels, generally of the romance genre, featuring what best amounts to gratuitous sex. The general theme is that the heroine, for what ever reason, ends up meeting the tender hearted but rough natured rogue, and through a tangled web of seduction, romance, and yes, sex, manages to cure him of his errant ways. A good example of one such novel, Wicked Loving Lies by Rosemary Roger, has a plot best summarized as by one reader as, “Rape, kidnapping, pirates, Napoleon's France, marriage, England, flagrant adultery, harems, anal sex, divorce, pregnancies, murders, a stolen baby, enslavement of the hero then the heroine, spying, counterspying, Comanche raids, slave rebellions, priests, nuns, convents, politicians, and prisons” and the characters are summed up with “The heroine, Marisa, is an idiot, the "hero," Dominic, is a vicious bastard (literally), and you end up liking them, anyway” (rampaging.blogspot.com). This serves as the base for these style of novels. It is not a simple case of boy meets girl falls in love, gets married and has children. Instead, sex becomes associated with danger, hardship, and general excitement. Heroes do not need to be dashing princes on white stallions, but can be, as Dominic is described, vicious bastards. Nor does the sexual aspect need be predictable. Rape? Harems? Adultery? Anal sex? All of these are frowned upon by society, yet here they show up in a typical romance novel. Now that we have a general idea of what to look for in a novel, it is time to examine several specific cases in depth. In order to get a better idea of the bigger picture, we shall examine three different cases: John Ringo, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Robert A. Heinlein. Each of these three authors writes in a unique style, but at the same time sex has played a key part in some of their major works. In 2005, the novel Ghost by John Ringo won best romance of the year. The title, sadly, is slightly misleading. The book is not about love beyond the grave, as one might assume based on the title, but is in fact it is quite the opposite. Ringo is better known for his military science fiction novels, such as A Hymn Before Battle or There Will Be Dragons. Ghost follows the basic pattern laid out by these novels, as it follows the adventures of a retired Navy SEAL named Mike Harmon. Mike spends his time in the book shooting bad guys, stopping weapons of mass destruction, and generally causing mayhem and destruction wherever he goes. Hardly what one might consider award winning romance material. Yet Ghost feature one other feature: the main character is also a dedicated sadomasochist dominant. A good third of the book is dedicated to him teaching two young girls about the intricacies of bondage and rape fantasies, while the last third sees him jetting about Europe with a prostitute. (The first third is rather tame by comparison. He simply has to rescue fifty naked co-eds.) Now, at this point the novel has already gone well into the wish fulfillment zone. Ringo, however, was not finished. The next two books in the series, Kildar and Choosers of the Slain, saw Harmon not only acquiring a harem, but being informed that it was now his sacred duty to sleep with the daughters of the farmer retainers he had eventually acquires. The sexual fantasies present in the books became so prevalent in the material that the Barflies, regular posters to the website forums hosted by Ringo’s publisher, began to joke that the fourth book in the series, Unto the Breech, should have properly been re-titled Untie the Breeches. Looking at the material presented in the books, it is easy to see where fantasy takes over for reality. The main character, as noted above, is a self proclaimed fan of domination scenarios. When he encounters two girls in the Florida keys, not only do they discover they enjoy being submissive to him, willingly giving into being tied up, restrained, and simulated rape, they discover that their parents are also into the “scene”. The fact that the two girls would give in so willingly, especially to a man twice their age whom they had just met, does not seem realistic. By the end of the third book Harmon has already bedded perhaps two dozen different women, all of whom are almost slavishly devoted to him. Admittedly Ringo was “exorcising some personal demons” as he put it to several fans, so perhaps the excessive nature of the books can be chalked up to that. Yet are these “demons”, as he put it, his alone? Or are they ones commonly held by his reader as well? Leitenberg cites several studies, showing a range of thirteen to fifty-four percent of men having domination themed fantasies, in which they are the dominant partner, with the difference being made up for in the variable nature of the studies cited. This is coupled with female submission fantasy, which had a range between twenty and fifty-one percent of those tested, again with variables ranging between studies. In both sexes submission/dominance fantasies tended to be in the top three of preferred fantasies, falling continuously only behind fantasies involving romantic overtones. These numbers are presented more conclusively by William Ardnt of the University of Missouri. In the study he conducted, titled Specific Sexual Fantasy Themes, he finds thirty-nine percent of males had dominance fantasies, with thirty percent of his female responders admitting to submission fantasies. If these numbers are representative of the population, that would mean nearly a third of the world’s population, close to two billion people, share the same “demons” as Ringo. If that’s the case are they still demons, or merely an aspect of human nature yet to be accepted? Or is it merely a case of boys will be boys? It is generally accepted that males are more sexually active, and thus a male author would be more likely to have sexual material in his books. Yet, this is not a safe assumption to make. Laurell K Hamilton is best known for her Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels. The Anita Blake books read like a more adult version of Joss Whedon’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The title character, Anita Blake, is a necromancer by trade, as well as a monster executioner. Her skills are often in demand, as her world is populated by vampires, lycanthropes, zombies, demons, and the occasional minor god. In the course of her adventures, Anita finds herself risking life and limb rather often. So when she’s not nearly getting killed, she likes to relax with the various men in her life. First there is Jean Claude, the three hundred year old French vampire, who happens to be the Master of the City. Then there is Micah, the Nimir Raj of the local wereleopard pard. Essentially the king of the pack, Anita serves him as his Nimir Ra, or queen. She serves a similar function for Richard, the Ulfric of the werewolves. Finally there is Nathaniel, her pomme de sang or blood apple. Normally a term used to describe the human servant from which a vampire feeds on blood, Nathaniel serves Anita in a slightly different focus. As a result of her marriage to Richard and Jean Claude she has been infected with the ardeur. Essentially, she needs sex, and lots of it. Should she fail to “feed” at the proper interval she will eventually lose control and simply have sex with the first person she comes across. While Hamilton’s novels also tend to feature extensive amounts of rough sex, Hamilton prefers to focus on a fantasy only briefly touched upon by Ringo: that of multiple partners at once. Leitenberg finds this particular fantasy to occur between seven to twenty-seven percent of women, and nineteen to fifty-two percent of men. Ardnt once more finds there to be a common area between the ranges, with close to thirty three percent of women fantasizing about parties where they might summon as many men as they wish, with men having a much greater percentage. Eileen Zurbriggen, writing for the Journal of Sex Research, makes the following claim: Submission in women was correlated with explicit sexual imagery and marginally correlated with interaction with multiple partners. Women's fantasies of submission (as well as dominance) tended to occur in the context of threesomes or group sex. Thus, Hamilton’s novels are aptly written. Much like Ringo, she explores fantasies most likely to be enjoyed by her readers. More so, the difference between genres is important. Neither of the two authors looked at so far writes what is considered contemporary romance. One writes for a hard military audience, while the other writes dark fantasy. Yet both write explicitly detailed sex scenes in their novels. Is it to help them sell books, or is it more? Personally, I think it is as much self release of their own fantasies, and so that those fantasies might be enjoyed by others. The reason these authors remain popular is that they tap into the portions of the reader’s subconscious that has been suppressed by societal norms. On some level, these authors awaken the basic primal urges, and readers come back to it time and again as a sort of self discovery. The authors explored above are hardly alone when it comes to putting erotic materials in their novels. Authors in all genres do it. For horror fans, the likes of Phillip Laymon sprinkle sex scenes about liberally, such as in his books The Island or Beast House. Piers Anthony, a popular fantasy author, bases much of his works in the land of Xanth, were nudity is common and not as unnerving as some find it in the real world. The femme fatale has been a staple in the mystery/spy novel genre since the time of Mata Hari. The readers do not want what they consider to be mundane options they would normally partake of in real life; instead they wish for the characters of these novels to be placed into situations similar to their own fantasies, so that they might replace the characters with themselves without having to fill in any of the details, whether it be a noir detective seducing the dame in distress or the woman caught in the middle of a pentangle of passionate lovers all desperate to show her their favors. So what does this say about people? Is everyone secretly a pervert at heart? (And if that’s the case, would it be fair to call it perversion?) To answer that, we must attempt to understand where do these fantasies come from. In some cases, such as the desire to bed multiple partners, it can be easily linked to the nature of sex itself. As noted before, the prime purpose of sex is reproduction of the species. Having sex with multiple partners is, or at least in a time before HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, was, a valid method of ensuring that a female was pregnant, and hopefully with the best possible donor as the father. Domination and submission fantasies could be to an extension of this, with males feeling a natural urge to prove their worth as a mate and women being genetically programmed to accept and enjoy such demonstrations. What about love then? Love was the one aspect of each study that always provided the strongest results, often providing the most erotic of fantasies. It should be noted however, that love is an emotion generally attached to the person who we think will be our mate for life, and thus having strong sexual urges for that person would also be of benefit to the species in general. Not only do we see them as a source of pleasure and comfort, but we feel the need to protect and care for them, as well as any offspring that might occur as a result of the relationship. Are these novels simply the first signs of a sexual awakening of the human race? We have seen fashion go from considering a bare ankle as risqué to an age ruled by plunging necklines and the g-string. Homosexuality has gone from being a totally unheard of phenomenon to a hot button social issue. So what might this future world look like? For an answer to this we turn to one man who is considered a legend in the science fiction community: Robert Anson Heinlein. Heinlein often wrote of the future, and what society might hold for the human race, and he never shied away from the topic of sex and sexuality. For example, in his novel I Shall Fear No Evil, Heinlein tells a tale of a rich old man who has his brain transplanted into the body of his much younger secretary. From their the character, alongside the spirit of the deceased secretary, begins to explore both aspects of his/her newfound existence. On one hand, he has the mind of a ninety year old man, and the sexual habits and fascination of such. On the other, she has the body and sex drive of a normal, sexually active twenty eight year old woman, and the result is a curious mix of the two. In fact, it becomes an interesting examination of just where one might draw the line on what sexual acts might be committed. In the Future History novels, such as Time Enough for Love and To Sail Beyond the Sunset, Heinlein’s characters are polygamous, sharing relationships with multiple male and female partners. This ties in nicely with the common multiple partners fantasy. In fact very little becomes taboo in Heinlein’s future society, with incest becoming acceptable once the technology to correct birth defects becomes available. As science continues to progress at a rapid pace all of these fictional ideas suddenly seem plausible. As homosexual couples challenge old laws polygamists see their way made open. We’ve so far managed to transplant everything from eyes to hair. Why should a brain be so difficult? The Human Genome Project has revealed the causes of hundreds of genetic defects. Now that we know what they are, how long before we learn how to fix them? So are these authors simply purveyors of perversity? It would seem that they are not. Instead they simply give us the ability to explore our own sexual fantasies in a manner which can be accepted by a still growing society. As mankind continues to grow and evolve we constantly find what might once have been sinful to be entirely tolerable, if not openly enjoyed. The presence of sex in common writing is just one sign of this, and who knows? Heinlein just might be right in his predictions after all. Works Cited Ardnt, William B., John C. Foehl, and Elaine F. Good. “Specific Sexual Fantasy Themes: a multidimensional study.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Volume 48, Issue 2. 1985, 472-480. PsycArticles. State Universtiy of New York, WCC Lib., Valhalla, NY. 8 November, 2007. http://libproxy.sunywcc.edu:2458/ehost/det...6&sid=a8f0c0e0- c022-4199-91f7-f3d1b20cc6b4%40sessionmgr103#psp-48-2-472-EBCIA “Bodice Rippers-the Lost Art (Relatively Speaking).” Aquaria. http://rampaging.blogspot.com/2005/06/Bodi...relatively.html Hamilton, Laurell K. Micah. New York: Jove Fiction, 2002 ---. Narcissus in Chains. New York: Jove Fiction, 2006 Heinlen, Robert A. I Shall Fear No Evil New York: Ace Books, 1971 --- Number of the Beast. Canada: Del Rey, 1980 --- Time Enough For Love. New York: Ace Books, 1973 “Lady Chatterly’s Lover.” Bibliomania. <http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/32/68/frameset.html> Leitenberg, Harold. “Sexual Fantasy.” Psychological Bulletin Volume 117. Issue 3 1995: 469-496 PsycArticles. State University of New York, WCC Lib., Valhalla, NY. 1 November 2007 http://libproxy.sunywcc.edu:2458/ehost/det...sid=887a29c6e4d 7-4f92-85e0-df06c67ff777%40sessionmgr102#bul-117-3-469-ECFA Ringo, John. Ghost. Riverdale: Baen Books, 2005 --- Kildar. Riverdale: Baen Books, 2006 --- Choosers of the Slain. Riverdale: Baen Books, 2006 Rolph, C.H. The Trial of Lady Chatterly: Regina vs. Penguin Books Ltd: The Transcript of the Trial New York: Penguin Books, 1961 Zurbriggen, Eileen L. and Megan R. Yost “Power, Desire, and Pleasure in Sexual Fantasies.” Journal of Sex Research Volume 41, Issue 3. 2004, 288-300. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. State University of New York, WCC Lib., Valhalla, NY. November 20, 2007 http://libproxy.sunywcc.edu:2458/ehost/det...0&sid=0b05f54a- 7af8-4e9f-9e59-fe1e6231df12%40sessionmgr107#AN0014514724-25 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solaris Posted November 20, 2007 Report Share Posted November 20, 2007 Wow, that is a very interesting research paper, you did foe. You probably will get good grades off of it. The works you cited are very good and clear. Everything the reader would need to know to further their own research on this topic. Well done! Beth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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