Booknotes: Therese Philosophe

Last Tuesday, in my intellectual history class ("The Modern Imaginary"), we discussed Therese Philosophe, a bawdy, "forbidden best-seller" of pre-revolutionary France. The novella is an erotic novel and philosophic treatise in which the titular character, a young woman named Therese, recounts her sexual and philosophic coming-of-age to her present lover, the unnamed Count. Not having previously read any one complete example of Enlightenment-era pornography, I had few pre-conceptions about the genre when I sat down to read Therese.

This is an anonymously-written work, published in 1740s, tentatively attributed to a marquis named Jean-Baptiste de Boyer and was a runaway best-seller, according to translator Robert Darnton. Yet even though the author is likely male, and his understanding of the pleasures of sexual activity is definitely phallo-centric, the novel presents us with a complex, possibly even (early) feminist, understanding of sexuality. The novel is told from the point of view of a woman who discovers that sexual fantasy and sexual activity (whether alone or with a partner) can be a "healthful" and deeply gratifying part of her life. Sexual activity is assumed to be pleasureable for both women and men, and there is little differentiation between how women and men experience that pleasure, at least physically. Women, as well as men, for example, are encouraged to masturbate. At the same time, the characters acknowledge the material vulnerability of women who engage in heterosexual activity: the fear of pregnancy and death in childbirth; potential loss of social standing which will threaten their ability to contract a financially stable marriage. Therese and her mentors negotiate with their sexual partners over what sexual activities are acceptable given these real-world constraints, and those conversations serve as both philosophical debates and integral to the erotic encounters themselves.

Some of the students in the class were skeptical that this text constituted "intellectual history," and in addition there was a lot of resistance to reading the sexually-explicit passages as necessary or integral to the intellectual importance of the work. Their impulse was to argue that either the smut was a ploy to sell the philosophy, or the philosophy was an excuse to write the smut. Either way, they considered the sex was gratuitous to the historic or intellectual importance of the piece. I would actually argue the opposite. In Therese Philosophe, it's not the sex or the philosophy that are the "real" reason for the novel's existence -- it's the sex and the philosophy. Both are necessary to make the story work. More importantly, I would argue that it's not just the philosophy that works better because of the sex, but the sex that works better because of the philosophy.

Reading this one example made me curious to sample more 18th-century erotica and see how gender and sexual negotiation are portrayed. Is Therese an exceptional voice? And is is possible to uncover why her story was so compelling to the readers who purchased it is such great numbers that it became a best-seller? I am also fascinated by the similarities, as well as the differences, I see between how human sexuality and sexual relations are portrayed in Therese and how they are written in modern-day erotica. Perhaps that project can be thesis number three or four . . . !

Cross-posted @ feministing community.

YouTube "Kidsploitation"?

I ran across this comment by Hanna Rosin at Slate about a YouTube video that's making the rounds on the internet. It is of a kid recovering from dental surgery and still not completely in touch with reality (as any of us who have ever had dental surgery can identify with!):

It's taken me a while, and a schooling from a couple of Slate men, to figure out what's wrong with David's dad. As anyone online this afternoon knows, his dad posted a video of him freaking out after getting anesthesia at the dentist . . . Probably, in that car, what Dad and David were doing made some kind of sense. But from the outside, here's what it looks like: David is sitting in the back of the car, suffering.

While Susanna Breslin, also at Slate, disagrees with Rosin, her main argument in support of the video seems to be that "kids say the darnedest things" is a justification for making children's experience of the world the fodder for adult amusement. The missing element here is knowledgeable participation (informed consent, if you will) of the kids in question: they are being laughed at for experiences and reactions they are often taking utterly seriously. As a former child myself, I can remember vividly the feeling of humiliation that accompanies hearing the laughter of grown-ups over something you've done that, to you, is not the least bit funny. I'm not saying that being charmed by the logic of children is never acceptable, but I do think we owe it to them to not turn their lives into public spectacle.

Movienotes: Inkheart

Hanna beat me to a review of Inkheart, which we saw last week at the cinema down on the Boston Common, which offers morning tickets at $6 a pop (Sunday morning is the new "movie night" at our apartment). Check out what she has to say, since I agree with her assessment that it lacked a certain depth of character (in spite of a brilliantly-cast cast), and a satisfying quotient of wonder and peril, all of which are found in abundance in the original novel. The novel actually moved me to tears in places, and I find the relationship between Meggie and Mo, her father, one of the most satisfying parent-child relationships I've seen in children's fiction in recent years. So often, authors feel compelled to make their child-protagonists orphans or otherwise removed from the family sphere in order for them to be an independent actor. Meggie, on the cusp of adolescence -- though still very much a child -- insists on her autonomy while simultaneously clinging tenaciously to her relationship with her father. She holds her own alongside (rather than against) Mo, her great-aunt Elinor, and other adults to rescue her missing mother. If you're looking for a fun fantasy film, I'd encourage you to consider seeing the film version, but before or after you see the movie, be sure to check out the book (and as extra incentive, the book has sequels!)

As another small item of note: This is my 200th blog post!

Womyn's Land (Take Two)

I didn't have any big, new reactions after reading the New York Times article about lesbian communities. It felt a bit superficial and simplistic to me, but most newspaper articles on subjects one cares deeply about seem reductive. It turns out that some of the women I met in the course of our oral history project were interviewed for the piece. I spoke with one woman yesterday who'd spoken with them and reported that the collective response to the finished piece was, predictably, mixed. Meanwhile, the article has, also predictably, been fodder for debate on some of the blogs I regularly read. I particularly wanted to highlight a post up at the new blog In Persuit of Harpyness, What We Should Talk About When We Talk About Lesbian Separatism. In reflecting on both the article and the conversation generated about it, the blogger writes:

As a feminist it is my job to recognize that such experiences exist, that it is important to listen to the women who lived through them, and not try to shame them or make their choices about mine. It is important to listen because they have something to contribute to my feminism, these lesbian separatists.

. . . I can cut their critics some slack, but only a little. Sometimes, when I am in the heat of an internet argument, I start to forget how much of my devotion to feminism is rooted in good old boring ordinary compassion. Because I am a person who enjoys talking about ideas abstractly, I can sympathize with those who want to synthesize the contributions of these women . . .

But those discussions, they aren’t the whole truth of the matter. They aren’t about the women themselves. And though I’m always going to keep talking about feminism abstractly, I often wish everyone would keep their eyes on the ball.

As someone who has spent time on womyn-only land, and has listened extensively to the life stories of the women who were kind enough to let us ask nosy questions about their lives as lesbians and as feminists, I think this post gets to the heart of the matter here. Communal living arrangements, sort of like feminist thinking and activism, is a response to a particular historical context and personal experiences, and like feminism communal living is an organic, fluid project that constantly grows and changes to meet new challenges. Hopefully, the New York Times article will spark conversation between generations of women who are intrigued by the idea of communal life, and spark creative, contemporary approaches to experiments in living that will help our elders and youngers improvise lives worth living.

Midweek Lego Post

From my sister, Maggie, comes this endearing example of (art? social commentary? material culture?) by Christoph Neimann at the Abstract City Blog: I Lego NY. Even though it's about New York, a lot of the images relate to big city life generally. I particularly liked this one:


Hanna and I like to play this game while we wait for the T. Hanna is much better at spot-the-mouse than I am. She says there's a trick having to do with un-focusing the eyes. I just think she was a cat in a previous life.

Womyn's Land in the NYT

I don't have time right now to write a longer reflection on this article in the New York Times about lesbian communities and women-only land -- but I wanted to post a link to it because it quotes my women's studies professor and from undergrad, Jane Dickie, with whom I collaborated on an oral history project involving a group of women who have ended up living on a women-only land trust in Missouri.* As Joseph (who forwarded the link to me) says, "it's the first time I've ever read the NYT and gone, 'Hey! I've met that person!' and it is kind of a strange feeling."

Miriam, over at feministing, has already posted her reflections on the story and on the phenomenon of lesbian communities. If I have any Big Thoughts after sitting down to read the piece, I'll be sure to follow up with a "take two."

*You can read about the research project we did in the essay "The Heirs of Aradia, Daughter of Diana: Community in the Second and Third Wave" published in the Journal of Lesbian Studies (vol 9, no. 1/2, 2005) also published as Lesbian Communities: Festivals, RVs, and the Internet, edited by Esther Rothblum; also in "Responding to Aradia: Young Feminists Encounter the Second Wave" by Leslie Aronson, Adrienne Bailey, Anna Cook, Jane Dickie, Bethany Martin, and Elizabeth Sturrus, published in Iris: A Journal for Women (issue 47, Fall/Winter 2003).

Image from Hawk Hill Community Land Trust, Missouri, Summer 2005 (personal photo)

Random Room Decor

I was putting on a warmer sweatshirt just now (I'm airing out the apartment on this warmish sort of day and it's cold at the computer!) and I noticed upon hanging up the t-shirt I'd been wearing on the door to my closet that virtually every item of clothing hanging there was some shade of purple. I guess I have a color theme going without even trying!