Walt Whitman makes several references to women’s pleasure in sexuality like the following passage: Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather, The rests did not see her, but she saw them and loved them. The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their long hair, Little streams pass’d over their bodies. An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies, It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs. The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them, They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and banding arch, They do not think whom they souse with spray (Whitman 1336-1337).
Beginning with the theme of sexual exploration, we look to Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. The story of Edna Pontellier is less about societal acceptance, since New Orleans inhibits Edna’s desires far less than other parts of American society could have, and more about experimentation and sexual awakening. Both of these factors leads to Edna eventually reclaiming her own sexuality. In the beginning of the story, Edna simply seems content in her marriage to her husband, Léonce. It is as if she is either unaware of her sexual desires, or that they have
In Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible,a good reputation is something one strives and wants to have. If one was being accused of witchcraft would he/she lie or tell the truth? Abigail and Elizabeth were brought up in court many times. Abigail would blame others to get out of everything, while Elizabeth would try to tell the truth, so that she wouldn’t be hanged or put in jail.
In her book, Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America, Morris P. Fiorina talks of the lack of polarization in today’s politics. “The “culture war” refers to a displacement of the classic economic conflicts that animated twentieth- century politics in the advanced democracies by newly emergent moral and religious ones” (Fiorina, Abrams, Pope, 2005, p. 2). Fiorina argues that this phenomenon does not exist; her argument under is persuasive for many reasons. I see the following as the main reasons: the first, is that the media portrays more polarization that there is in reality and the second being that Americans are more pragmatic that the advertised.
One of the worst experiences I have ever had was to attend Mardi Gras in 1994. This feeling is not due to the floats, parties, decorations or food and drink, rather it was due to the lack of space between me and other people. I was caught within a living organism which was made up of tens of thousands of people all located within a very few narrow streets in New Orleans. The amorphous body of which I was but a small component forced body to body contact from all directions with no ability to prevent or control the situation.
The excerpt from Leslie Bell’s “Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom” explains the reality of how the expectation of sexual exploration for women in their twenties plays a reverse role on their behaviors and actually limits them. Bell thus groups female attitudes and behaviors in regards to their interaction with sexuality and relationships. She categorizes women into one of three: the sexual woman, the relational woman, and the desiring woman. Although this could result in a possible loss of individualism by grouping women and their experiences into three groups, and Bell acknowledges this, but insists that it provides an opportunity to study how women can share the same behaviors in a sexually confusing era.
Clifton also wrote Adam Thinking and I believe Whitman as one of the greats poet would agree with this poem because his faithfulness of humans and as believer of Adam and Eve. Especially this poem is talking about Adam himself asking for partner in life saying that “to reconnect the rib and clay and to be whole again” (Clifton) we see Adam asking god to make out of his rib an other human to fulfill his sexual desire. We also sense the lost of direction because Adam has not named yet by god. Going back to Whitman automatically after reading this poem by the title I remembered Children of Adam by Whitman. Particularly in A Woman Waits For Me in Leaves of Grass shows us the sexual desire of man by saying “A WOMAN waiting for me, she contains all, nothing yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking ” (Whitman, 258) this poem is talking about the important of sex and that without female and male in this earth life would not last forever. Therefore, Whitman promotes “sex” because it to help us as human kind not only to be partner, but also to have children to carry on your last name. Overall, to live happily and joyfully in this earth with another human, basically to complete one
Sexuality is a particularly perplexing topic for young women. Bell notes that “Their (women’s) twenties ought to be a decade of freedom and exploration. But… I have found them to be more confused than ever about not only how to get what they want, but what they want.” (Bell 26) Yes, they are young and has so many opportunities in front of them. Yes, most of them have a college degree and are highly educated. Yes, there are too many choices and they are condemned whichever way they choose.
"WHITMAN WAS MORE MAN THAN YOU'LL EVER BE," said a student of Louisiana State University. When asked questions of your sexual preference or thoughts on the issue of sex, I would venture to say it makes most people uncomfortable. This is an age-old topic that people know about, yet do not want to talk about. He was particularly reticent about his issues regarding sex and his particular sexual preference. In fact, of Whitman's struggles the most difficult for him to deal with was his ever so strong homosexual desires (Hubbell 283). Whether homosexuality is right or wrong is not for me to decide. Though I feel it should not be used so explicitly in works of
Rubin’s theory on sexuality completely transformed the way feminists in that period thought about the intersection of gender and sexuality. By declaring the necessity that sex must be its own category with its own theory, Rubin would forever change the face of sexual theory. They start out by examining the consequences of Victorian morality on
As a forerunner to the free-love movement, late eighteenth century poet, engraver, and artist, William Blake (1757-1827), has clear sexual overtones in many of his poems, and he layers his work with sexual double entendres and symbolism. Within the discussion of sexuality in his work Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Blake seems to take a complicated view of women. His speakers use constructs of contraries, specifically innocence/ experience and male/female. Of the latter sex, he experiments with the passive (dependent, docile, virtuous) and active (independent, evil, a threat to the masculine) female subjects. Blake’s use of personification specifically of nature and botany suggest the use of nature to discuss human society. In Songs
The first of Whitman’s slightly problematic comments on women comes in the next section of Song of Myself, section eight. In this section of the poem Whitman is observing all these events that are occurring around him. He starts with a baby in its cradle and continues on, seeing suicides, snow, a sick man and more. As the section is coming to a close he observes “exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home and give birth to babes” (163). Albeit small, it is impossible to ignore that Whitman observation of women is them “hurrying” to give birth. The word implies an
Sexuality is defined as one’s sexual character which possesses the structural and functional traits of sex. In the Renaissance, this definition was accompanied with ideologies of gender. This incorporated knowledge led to their notions of the female being inferior to the male based on what was
Known as the Two Sex theory, devised by historian Thomas Laqueur, female sexuality would be characterized purely by a woman’s reproductive potential, where the concept of an innate maternal instinct would become the new prioritized ideal. The female orgasm was renounced by a new essence of masculine superiority. This notion can be asserted with the Phallocentric inclination of the late 18th century, examined by historian Tim Hitchcock, as period characterized by penetration and precedence of the phallus. This “both encouraged and made possible the denigration of female sexuality and perceived passivity.” Consequently this caused the de-emphasis of female sexual pleasure and desire. However, female sexual identity would reemerge with potency, attributed to social flux, the emerging field of sexology and disposition of the interwar years.
Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" is a vision of the American spirit, a vision of Whitman himself. It is his cry for democracy, giving each of us a voice through his poetry. Each of us has a voice and desires, and this is Whitman's representation of our voices, the voice of America. America, the great melting pot, was founded for freedom and democracy, and this poem is his way of re-instilling these lost American ideals. In this passage from "Song of Myself" Whitman speaks through his fellow man and speaks for his fellow man when his voice is not socially acceptable to be heard.
“In men, in general, sexual desire is inherent and spontaneous” whereas “in the other sex, the desire is dormant, if not non-existent, till excited” (457). Greg’s terminology is extremely power-laden. “Spontaneous” has the connotation of energy and activity, whereas “dormant” and “victim” imply inactivity. An important concept is the assumption that men, the “coarser sex,” act on women, the “weaker sex” (457).