Blake is looking at the history of the dildo in early modern culture not as a physical object, but as fulfilling the function of a fashion accessory. This, despite opening the conversation by stating that she is not viewing it for its symbolic purpose, but for its functional one. In passing, she notes that philosophical arguments about the function on the dildo in history have resonances with modern arguments about the symbolism and function of dildoes in lesbian relationships.
Early Modern (general)
This tag is used when a more specific date isn’t available, but consider it to cover roughly the 17-18th centuries. This tag is unlikely to be used much.
LHMP entry
The chapter opens by noting the severe gender imbalance in both sources and attention in the Chinese history of homosexuality. The author cites male-centered and phallocentric attitudes toward sex that led to the invisibility of female homosexual relations. The chapter covers 2000 years of history and so is necessarily uneven. The primary focus is on male homoeroticism in the late Imperial era.
As indicated in the chapter title, this section solely concerns relations between men.
Lanser connects female rule over England in the wake of Henry VIII’s death with the rising debate regarding women’s nature and women’s place in society in the later 16th and 17th centuries. That is, that the undeniable fact of Elizabeth’s lengthy reign forced society to grapple with the concept of the equality of the sexes, while Elizabeth’s relationships with her female courtiers helped sanction the validity of female friendship bonds.
Traub claims the title of this article is a “bait and switch” as she follows Halperin in treating “homosexuality” as such as only existing in the last 100 years, with “the lesbian” as an even more recent discursive invention.
Introduction - Clothes Make the Man
Introduction: Sex before Sexuality
The text opens with a manuscript illustration of the concept of sexual temptation and resistance to that temptation to introduce various themes relating to how sexual objects and desires were understood in “pre-heterosexual” culture.
Part I - We “Other Victorians”
As usual, the introduction to this collection includes laying out the basic concepts of the topic, a review of the existing literature, and then summaries of the papers that discuss how they relate to each other.
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