Sexuality and the Self Flashcards
1
Q
Sexuality and the Self Secondary Literature
Claire Langhammer - Adultery in Postwar England
A
- BRIEF ENCOUNTER 1945 - Affair between Doctor and housewife - not consummated. Duty trumps passion. 1967 Cambridge audience - laughed at incredulity of film.
- Mutual sexual pleasure - centre of Marie Stopes’ Married Love, 1918.
- Sexual compatibility - only 9th on list of things important to marriage in 1951. By 1969, Sex and Marriage in England Today - author detected significant shift in attitudes.
- 1857 - Matrimonial Causes Act - Men could sue for divorce on the grounds of single act of adultery. Not reciprocal; though extended in 1937 Matrimonial Causes Act. Between 1937 and 1969, one party had to be ‘guilty’, legally, for a divorce.
- 1949 Legal Aid opened up divorce - increasing access to divorce cases.
- 1953 Case proved that hotel-bill evidence was not sufficient to end a marriage.
- Resulted in sub-culture of detection - PIs, fabrications, adulterous liaisons. Brighton Quickie - staging an affair with obvious intent of getting caught in a hotel room.
- Pill - 1961 - women given hitherto unknown degree of control. 1961 to married women, 1967 to single women.
2
Q
Sexuality and the Self Secondary Literature
Lynn Abrams, ‘Liberating the Female Self: Epiphanies, Conflict and Coherence’
A
- Construction of feminine self in 1950s massively different to IW period.
- Domesticity to liberation between 1950s and 1970s. Transition generation - unique historical entities.
- IW period saw rise of culture which saw women depart from parents at younger age.
- 1960s - respectable woman and empowered woman came into conflict. Homemakers became self makers.
- Autobiography - popular genre in second half of 20th c.
- Unconscious agency requires more focus.
- Typically two models used to traverse from past to present in autobiography.
- Epiphanic moment - major moment of transition, such as leaving school, abortion, leaving home, marriage.
- Coherence system - manipulating past self to forge a narrative understandable to the listener.
3
Q
Sexuality and the Self Secondary Literature
Matt Cook, Gay Times: Identity, Locality and Memory and the Brixton Squats in 1970s London
A
- Brixton gay commmuntiy - shaped as revolutionary entity, from 1974 onwards.
- Oral testimonies - local material circumstance, occupations, local politics, race and political formations mediated gay environment.
- Interviews: 1983-4; 1996-7; 2008.
- First GLF meeting - 1970s LSE basement. Leftist, sexual politics. Failed by 1972 - did not connect with women.
- Squatting = positive alternative. Escape the restriction of home which was oppressive, sexually.
- Lambeth, 4.6% properties were vacant in 1978
- Drew from the anti-Vietnam crowd.
- West end squats were conspicuously male.
- AIDS - another form of community networks in the 1980s.
- Soho, Vauxhall - higher numbers of gentrifying gay men and lesbians.
4
Q
Sexuality and the Self Primary Literature
Lorna Sage, Bad Blood, 2000
A
- 2000, Bibliographical memoir. Welsh literary critic and novelist. Set in North Wales, reflects dysfunctional generations of a family, its problems, and effects on Sage.
- Recounts Sage’s earliest years growing up with her grandparents, whilst her father is off fighting in the War. Grandfather is vicar of Hamner. Referred to as ‘the old devil’ - he carries on numerous affairs with local women, most infamously with the best friend of his then teenage daughter. Grandmother despises. “Sex, genteel poverty, the responsibilities of motherhood… degrade her”. Grandmother blackmails husband. The abrogation of parental responsibility becomes sharply clear as Lorna enters adolescence. The “bad blood” of the title also comes into play as Sage seems to have inherited her grandfather’s amorous passions. Sexually free and naive, Lorna finds herself pregnant at 16. She marries the father and they keep the baby, surprising all. The young couple is determined to continue their education at Durham University where they both study literature. The book ends with the couple’s graduation from university. Seen as a symbol for a post war woman.
- Describes relationship with Gail, her friend, undertones of sexual intimacy. Idolises Elvis. Describes Jerry Lee Lewis marriage to cousin. Detailed abrasion with church. Bad blood referred to sanitary towels. Make-up lessons at school, detailed how women couldn’t sit science exams.
5
Q
Sexuality and the Self Primary Literature
Whitehouse International, 1975
A
- Named after Mary Whitehouse, an English social activist known for her strong opposition to social liberalism and the mainstream British media, both of which she accused of encouraging a more permissive society. As of 2001, the Guardian reported ‘Gold Star’s best-selling publication is Whitehouse magazine. The title, defiantly named after the anti-pornography campaigner Mary Whitehouse, sells about 11,150 copies a month, according to industry estimates. With a cover price of £2.75, Whitehouse has a turnover of roughly £250,000 a year: not even enough to keep the Golds’ Lear jets in the sky.’ Self-titled: “The international quality glamour magazine”.
6
Q
Sexuality and the Self Primary Literature
GLF Manifesto, 1972
A
- GLF, founded in 1972 under LSE. Short lived, collapsed from internal fractiousness with women’s movement.
- Covers ‘how we are oppressed’, ‘why we are oppressed’, and ‘A New Lifestyle’.
- How -> family, school, media, employment, violence and self oppression.
- Why -> undermine family, channelling the male oppression from second-wave feminism.
- New -> more advanced, remove discrimination, raise awareness, greater employment rights.
7
Q
Sexuality and the Self Primary Literature
Angela Phillips
A
- Spare Rib, Nov 1973 (Post Abortion Act 1967, highlighting continued barriers to abortion fronted by groups such as The Protection of the Unborn Child, headed by Viscount Barrington.
- Abortion in the eyes of SR ‘happen because of the inadequate use of contraception’ .
8
Q
Sexuality and the Self Primary Literature
Nell Dunn - Poor Cow
A
- 1st full-length novel by Nell Dunn, 1967. WC girl - Joy, in London during ’swinging sixties’.
- Also wrote ‘Up the Junction’ 1963 (WC London girl). Poor Cow was turned into Ken Loach film, 1967. Selina Robertson argues Loach was inspired by Czech formalism - her situation out of her control due to socio-political circumstance.
- 1960s saw interest in WC women, Dunn was inspired by Shelagh Delaney’s proto-feminist play ‘A Taste of Honey’, 1961. Dunn was seen as part of the Angry Young Men school (Alan Sillitoe). The AYM generation were characterised by vocal dissatisfaction with the status quo and Establishment. Not ideologically coherent nor organised. Epitomised by John Osborn’s ‘Look Back in Anger’.
- SYNOPSIS: explicit rejection of feminine image; promiscuous, explicit, deep exploration of sexual interests (‘I love being possessed’; ‘me tits haven’t half come up lovely and firm since I went on the Pill, Joy’, ‘bollocks to respectability’
9
Q
Sexuality and the Self Primary Literature
Angela Phillips
A
- Spare Rib, discussing the role of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child - remarkably similar to the earlier 1973 article by Betty Underwood.
