A Cinematic Half-Twist: Art, Exploitation, and the Subversion of Sexual Norms in Kim Ki-duk’s Moebius

Author(s):  
Hye Seung Chung ◽  
David Scott Diffrient
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Penny Farfan

This introduction sets forth the book’s central argument and establishes the historical, theoretical, and critical context for its case studies. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, modern sexual identities emerged into view while at the same time being rendered invisible, as in Oscar Wilde’s 1895 trial on charges of gross indecency and the 1928 obscenity trial of Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness. Early stage representations of homosexuality were typically coded or censored, yet the majority of the works considered in this book were highly visible in their subversions of conventional gender and sexual norms. Queer readings of these plays and performances establish connections across high and popular cultural domains, demonstrating that some of traditional modernism’s perceived failures, rejects, and outliers were modernist through their sexual dissidence. These insights in turn contribute to a more precise understanding of how modernity was mediated and how such mediations enacted change.


2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
GREGOR MASBAUM

AbstractWe use elementary skein theory to prove a version of a result of Stylianakis (Stylianakis, The normal closure of a power of a half-twist has infinite index in the mapping class group of a punctured sphere, arXiv:1511.02912) who showed that under mild restrictions on m and n, the normal closure of the mth power of a half-twist has infinite index in the mapping class group of a sphere with 2n punctures.


Author(s):  
Torbjörn Bildtgård ◽  
Peter Öberg

Until recently the sex life of older people was more or less invisible in family and gerontological research. This chapter contributes to breaking this silence by focusing on the role and meaning of sex in intimate relationships in later life. Based on biographical case studies, the chapter investigates how sexual norms have changed over the life course of contemporary cohorts of older people and how they have experienced this change. The chapter considers sexual intimacy as part of new intimate relationships established late in life and questions the persistent assumption that older people who date are primarily looking for companionate relationships. It is shown that older people’s ideas about sex are deeply embedded in an ideology of love, where sex tends to be viewed as a natural part of a loving relationship, while sex outside of a loving relationship – also in a loveless marriage – is frowned on.


1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross H. Sanders

This study was designed to investigate the effect of ability on technique in the forward somersault with half twist (Barani) and the forward somersault with one and one half twists (Rudi) on the trampoline. Eleven trampolinists ranging in ability from elite (national representative) to early intermediate (regional representative) were analyzed using three-dimensional analysis techniques. Cumulative twist angle, rate of twist, angle of tilt of the twist axis, chest rotation, hip angle, and hip lateral flexion angle were measured. Characteristics of the arm actions were also assessed using an internal frame of reference. To generate twist in the Baranis, trampolinists tilted the axis between 5° and 14°; the amount of tilt was inversely related to ability (p < .05). In the Rudis, subjects tilted the axis between 15° and 23° using more asymmetrical arm actions and larger and more rapid hip extensions, hip lateral flexions, and chest rotations than in the Baranis. The timing and magnitude of the actions differed among the subjects and were related to ability.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (02) ◽  
pp. 273-292
Author(s):  
Charalampos Stylianakis

In this paper we show that the normal closure of the [Formula: see text]th power of a half-twist has infinite index in the mapping class group of a punctured sphere if [Formula: see text] is at least five. Furthermore, in some cases we prove that the quotient of the mapping class group of the punctured sphere by the normal closure of a power of a half-twist contains a free abelian subgroup. As a corollary we prove that the quotient of the hyperelliptic mapping class group of a surface of genus at least two by the normal closure of the [Formula: see text]th power of a Dehn twist has infinite order, and for some integers [Formula: see text] the quotient contains a free group. As a second corollary we recover a result of Coxeter: the normal closure of the [Formula: see text]th power of a half-twist in the braid group of at least four strands has infinite index. Our method is to reformulate the Jones representation of the mapping class group of a punctured sphere, using the action of Hecke algebras on [Formula: see text]-graphs, as introduced by Kazhdan–Lusztig.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotta Löfgren-Mårtenson ◽  
Pernilla Ouis

Today’s multicultural society is characterized by contradictory sexual norms that may have consequences for youths with intellectual disabilities’ possibilities of choosing a partner and expressing their sexuality. However, the body of knowledge concerning the area of youths with intellectual disabilities is limited. This study aims to examine professionals’ views on honor-related experiences among youths with intellectual disabilities. The data consists of nine qualitative interviews with professionals in special schools (personal assistants and teachers). In addition, 11 professionals were included at pre-meetings while designing the study. A thematic analysis was conducted while using sexual script as a theoretical framework. The results are presented in the following themes: (1) The professionals’ perceptions of the young people’s abilities to deal with honor-related experiences; (2) The professionals’ opinions of the existence of honor-related experiences among youth with intellectual disabilities; and (3) Descriptions of the professionals’ conduct toward the youths with intellectual disabilities concerning honor-related experiences. The analysis shows an honor script geared towards youths with intellectual disabilities, which can be described as a continuum between care and control connected to cultural sexual norms and to the disability. The families’ strive for a so-called normality seem to be an important factor in understanding for example arranged marriages among youths with ID. To meet the needs of these youths, the professionals require tools to navigate between care and control in this complicated arena of contradictory sexual and cultural norms.


Author(s):  
Bogdan Popa

In this chapter I show that queer genealogy helps us rethink nineteenth-century feminist activism. By drawing on Judith Butler and Jacques Rancière’s ideas, I develop a conception of queer genealogy that mobilizes the performativity of shame to identify practices that challenge the police. The method of queer genealogy illuminates Mill’s unconventional relationship with Harriet Taylor as a creative intervention that disrupted Victorian sexual norms. In developing a genealogical method, I draw on Mill’s concept of experiments in living, which points to the sexual and affective value of relationships that take place outside marriage. Also, I investigate Mill’s use of silence as a politician and his deployment of humiliating language to resignify the shame associated with his sexual and political transgressions.


Sexualities ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 194-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ofer Parchev ◽  
Darren Langdridge

In recent decades, BDSM communities have engaged in a political struggle for rights by separating their practices from the oppressive gaze of legal and medical praxis, seeking to legitimize BDSM discourse and actions under the slogan of ‘safe, sane and consensual’. The espousal of principles governed primarily by health and safety nonetheless carries a normalizing overtone, apparently trapping the community within the epistemic codes against which they struggle. This article suggests that the security mechanism Foucault identifies as forming part of biopower can serve as a critical analytic capable of arbitrating between BDSM as a form of political resistance to hegemonic sexual norms and the restraints imposed by the ‘safe, sane and consensual’ code itself. We argue that communities using health and safety codes shift the political struggle from direct resistance to sovereign power to the transgression of hegemonic regimes of truth through contingent sexual identification and practice.


Author(s):  
Mary s. Trent

Grown men do not play with paper dolls; or, at least, they are not supposed to. Nevertheless, self-taught Chicago artist Henry Darger (1892–1973) worked over many decades to create an elaborate fictional world. This chapter examines a series of collage-paintings that Darger like created at mid-century to consider the significance of paper dolls to his art. It argues that domestic space and girlish crafts offered Darger opportunities for creative expression that were otherwise inaccessible to him in the public sphere due to his designation as a sexually degenerate man. In the privacy of his apartment, away from society’s judgments, Darger offered an alternative to the restrictive sexual norms of his time by celebrating ambiguously gendered children.


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