Inhabiting the Uninhibited

2019 ◽  
pp. 263-290
Author(s):  
Manon Hedenborg White
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Sexual Liberation ◽  
Feminine Sexuality ◽  
Unwanted Sexual Advances ◽  
The Right ◽  
Sex Positive

This chapter analyzes how feminine sexuality is articulated in the contemporary Babalon discourse. The idea that female sexuality has been repressed, and that women are in need of sexual liberation, is a recurring trope in the source material. Babalon is frequently conceptualized as a sexually liberated woman. She is also associated with sexual modalities outside of the sexual norm (e.g., sex work, BDSM, and nonmonogamy). My interviewees critique expectations of female sexual availability resulting from notions of Babalon as a “sex goddess,” and they emphasize the right to decline unwanted sexual advances. I argue that understandings of feminine sexuality in the contemporary Babalon discourse show influence from (sex positive) feminism and broader discourses on sacred sexuality, with concepts of “sacred whoredom” recurring. I also contend that notions of universally repressed female sexuality, prevalent in the Babalon discourse, obscure racialized and classed inequalities between groups of women and femininities.

The Eloquent Blood

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manon Hedenborg White
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Sexual Freedom ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Positive Reinterpretation ◽  
Feminine Sexuality ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Western Esotericism ◽  
Written Sources

The study analyzes constructions of femininity and feminine sexuality in interpretations of the goddess Babalon, a central deity in the British occultist Aleister Crowley’s (1875–1947) religion Thelema. Babalon is based on Crowley’s positive reinterpretation of the biblical Whore of Babylon and symbolizes liberated female sexuality and the spiritual modality of passionate union with existence. Analyzing historical and contemporary written sources, qualitative interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork in the Anglo-American esoteric milieu, the study traces interpretations of Babalon from the works of Crowley and some of his key disciples—including the rocket scientist John Whiteside “Jack” Parsons and the enigmatic British occultist Kenneth Grant—from the fin-de-siècle to the present. From the 1990s onward, female and LGBTQ esotericists have challenged historical interpretations of Babalon, drawing on feminist and queer thought and conceptualizing femininity in new ways. Femininity has held a problematic position in feminist theory, often being associated with lack, artifice, and restriction. However, the present study—which assumes that femininities are neither exclusively heterosexual nor limited to women—indicates how interpretations of Babalon have both built on and challenged dominant gender logics. As the first academic monograph to analyze Crowley’s and his followers’ ideas from the perspective of gender, this book contributes to the underexplored study of gender in Western esotericism. By analyzing the development of a misogynistic biblical symbol into an image of feminine sexual freedom, the study also sheds light on interactions between Western esotericism and broader cultural and sociopolitical trends.

scholarly journals Diaspora Policies, Consular Services and Social Protection for Maltese Citizens Abroad

2020 ◽  
pp. 337-355
Author(s):  
Hillary Briffa ◽  
Alessandra Baldacchino
Keyword(s):  
Social Protection ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Diplomatic Protection ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right ◽  
Domestic Law

Abstract This chapter assesses the social protection policies enacted by the Maltese government to support Maltese citizens living abroad. First, the current status of the Maltese diaspora and their engagement with the homeland is contextualized, and key infrastructure and policies outlined. In the Maltese legal system, there is no domestic law granting the right to consular or diplomatic protection, however this is offered as a matter of practice based on respect for the fundamental rights of the individual. The strength of historic ties with the destination countries of Maltese emigrants is mainly reflected in the number of Reciprocal Agreements signed between Malta and partner countries. An overview of these formal treaties and their assured benefits is provided. Thereafter, five areas of concern for the social security needs of Maltese diaspora are addressed: unemployment, healthcare, pensions, family-related benefits, and economic hardship. The chapter concludes by acknowledging the communication initiatives between the Maltese government and its citizens abroad; however, it recognises that there is still a long way to go in terms of ensuring democratic participation of citizens in elections. Throughout, the evidence has been compiled primarily as a result of consultation with primary source material, as well as interviews with a range of experts within relevant Maltese governmental bodies.

Figures of Interest

2018 ◽  
pp. 175-185
Author(s):  
Elissa Marder
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Dominant Male ◽  
Legal Process ◽  
Feminine Sexuality ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship

In his seminar on the Death Penalty, Derrida insists upon the irreducibly theatrical and spectacular nature of any legal execution. An execution is not merely the material outcome of a legal process, but also the very representational means by which the law stages and asserts its own legitimacy. He also raises a set of questions concerning the relationship between the machines that administer the death penalty and dominant male fantasies regarding feminine sexuality, calling attention to the fact that the death machine is always a woman (virgin, mother, whore or widow) who, in carrying out the cold decree of the law, is depicted as a voracious and terrifying vampire. This chapter examines how discourses surrounding the death penalty have consistently called upon and been haunted by powerful phantasies about female sexuality and why those phantasies paradoxically belong to the very logic rational justice to which they appear to be opposed.

Becoming a Vampire

2011 ◽  
pp. 83-86
Author(s):  
Anne Billson
Keyword(s):  
Drug Addiction ◽  
Body Fluids ◽  
Sexual Liberation ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Right ◽  
Physical Changes

This chapter looks at vampire movies that became a metaphor for drug addiction in films like Martin, Near Dark and Abel Ferrara's The Addiction from 1995. It recounts how AIDS hit the headlines in the 1980s and sex was once again regarded as a dangerous pursuit after a couple of decades of unfettered sexual liberation. It also explains the vampire life-and-death cycle that offered a convenient way of dramatizing the idea of a virus transmissible through body fluids, leading to extreme physical changes and death. The chapter cites the scene in Tomas Alfredson's Let the Right One In when Virginia is bitten and says to Lacke that a kid has infected her somehow. It describes Lucy Westenra in Bram Stoker's Dracula as the first and one of the best-known transformation of human into vampire.

scholarly journals Erratum

1993 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 625-625
Keyword(s):  
Female Choice ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
First Line ◽  
Arranged Marriages ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Female Partners ◽  
Hand Column ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Right

Owing to a printer's error in the Author's Response of Daniel Pérusse's “Cultural and reproductive success in industrial societies: Testing the relationship at the proximate and ultimate levels,” BBS 16(2) 1993, two lines were transposed. On p. 314, the first line of the right-hand column should appear as the first line of the left-hand column on p. 315 and vice versa.The corrected sentences should read:(p. 314, sect. R3.1) The confounding of mating success with male status is accordingly not straightforward, since the status of female partners was unknown and could well have covaried weakly, if at all, with that of respondents; indeed, the strong correlation found between muting success and social status in men suggests that the latter must have “mated down” on many if not most occasions, as is commonly observed in openly polygynous societies (e.g., Dickemann 1981).(pp.314–15, sect. R3.2) In modern human societies, however, many factors contribute to the fact that female choice is unlikely to be absent from any mating occurrence except rape: (1) Pure female-defense polygyny is not encountered; (2) traditional restraints on female choice such as arranged marriages (Whyte 1978) have disappeared; (3) claustration and general control of female sexuality (Dickemann 1981) are nonexistent or highly reduced. For these reasons, any explanation of mating behavior that completely ignores active choice by women (and men) does not seem very compelling.

Not a moment too soon: A juncture of BDSM and race

Sexualities ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 136346072097930
Author(s):  
Ariane Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Black Female ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
The Core ◽  
Racialized Sexuality ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship

This piece reflects on the contemporary scholarly juncture of bondage/discipline, dominance/submission, and sadism/masochism (BDSM) and race. After a period largely marked by the invisibility and marginalization of racialized sexuality in the study of kink, scholars have recently taken up race, specifically blackness, as central not periphery to the study of BDSM. Intervening in and building upon a black feminist tradition that has historically exhibited an ambivalent relationship to topics of BDSM, pornography, and sex work in the context of black female sexuality specifically as well as an investment in politics of respectability, this work illuminates the racialized erotics of pleasure and power at the core of sexuality.

A new view of medieval Persian history

1989 ◽  
Vol 121 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-121
Author(s):  
J. M. Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Conspicuous Feature ◽  
Ottoman History ◽  
The Right ◽  
As If ◽  
New View

A conspicuous feature of Ottoman history from the sixteenth century onwards, or even of fifteenth-century Mamluk Egypt, is that the mass of surviving administrative documents, well complemented by European sources, makes it possible to apply a range of economic and social concepts to illuminate their economy and society. For Persia the documents are far fewer and, even where, as in seventeenth-century Iṣfahān, the extant Safavid documents are exceptionally well complemented by European source material, doubts, often of a Marxian or Braudelian order, on the legitimacy of applying European concepts to Persian society are often entertained. In other periods the paucity of material is compounded by ethnic diversity – tribal versus settled populations; Turks versus Iranians or Iranians versus Turco-Mongols, all with deeply rooted authentic traditions – which is rarely documented, let alone explained, by the contemporary historians. It is almost as if the right kind of anthropologist could do more than the historian to exploit what material there is.

scholarly journals El derecho de las mujeres trans al ejercicio del trabajo sexual en condiciones dignas, como desarrollo del principio de no discriminación

2020 ◽  
pp. 15-41
Author(s):  
Alejandro Gómez Restrepo ◽  
Lisset Juliana Betancur Vásquez
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Labor Rights ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
Derechos Humanos ◽  
American States ◽  
Mujeres Trans ◽  
Trans Women ◽  
Las Mujeres ◽  
The Right

Las mujeres trans, dadas sus condiciones particulares de vulnerabilidad, están expuestas en mayor riesgo a la violencia y a la pobreza. Por estas razones, en la mayoría de casos, el trabajo sexual se torna la única opción de supervivencia. Los Estados latinoamericanos se encuentran obligados a la protección de los derechos humanos de todas las personas, sin discriminación; no obstante, respecto al trabajo sexual continúan prácticas discriminatorias, volviéndose inoperantes las garantías que emanan de los tratados internacionales. Resulta imprescindible que los Estados despenalicen, regulen y protejan el derecho al trabajo sexual, en aras de salvaguardar a las mujeres trans como personas en una situación particular de vulnerabilidad, específicamente respecto a su derecho al trabajo sin discriminación.  The Right of Trans Women to the Exercise of Sex Work in Decent Conditions as a Development of the Principle of Non-discrimination Abstract: Trans women, given their particular conditions of vulnerability, are at greater risk of violence and poverty. For these reasons, in most cases, sex work becomes the only survival option. Latin American States are obliged to protect the human rights of all people without discrimination; however, with regard to sex work, discriminatory practices continue, rendering the guarantees emanating from international treaties inoperative. In this sense, it becomes essential that States decriminalize, regulate and protect the right to sex work, in order to safeguard trans women as people in a particular situation of vulnerability, specifically regarding their right to work without discriminationn. Keywords: labor rights, principle of non-discrimination, sex work, trans women.  

The Origins and Development of Bahasa Indonesia

PMLA ◽  
1957 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Nugroho
Keyword(s):  
Annual Meeting ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Modern Language Association ◽  
Valuable Contribution ◽  
Great Honor ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
The Right ◽  
Bahasa Indonesia

First of all I should like to express my deepest appreciation for your invitation to participate in the discussions at this Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association. It is indeed a great honor you have extended to my country in inviting me to speak to such a distinguished gathering. It is, however, an honor which I have accepted with some hesitancy. As a layman in the field of linguistics I know that I am not the right person to address an association of scholars. Moreover, my desire to make a somewhat valuable contribution to these discussions has been greatly handicapped by the lack of source material and reference books which I wished to consult but which are not presently available in Washington.

Defenses of Pornography

2018 ◽  
pp. 239-295
Author(s):  
Andrew Altman
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Sexual Minorities ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Sexual Autonomy ◽  
Sexual Liberation ◽  
Sex Equality ◽  
Gays And Lesbians ◽  
The Right

This chapter addresses criticisms of the sex equality approach from those who argue that pornography is a right flowing from a right to freedom of expression—the free speech defense of pornography, by self-styled feminists, who claim that pornography (its making and its use) is a part of sexual liberation for women, and by gays and lesbians insofar as they allege it plays an important role in the communities of sexual minorities. Finally, I examine the arguments to those, like Altman, who locate a “right to pornography” in the right to sexual autonomy. I argue that none of these arguments sufficiently establishes their conclusions.

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