The Frail Social Body: Pornography, Homosexuality, and Other Fantasies in Interwar FranceAmid the national shame and subjugation following World War I in France, cultural critics there—journalists, novelists, doctors, and legislators, among others—worked to rehabilitate what was perceived as an unhealthy social body. Carolyn J. Dean shows how these critics attempted to reconstruct the “bodily integrity” of the nation by pointing to the dangers of homosexuality and pornography. Dean's provocative work demonstrates the importance of this concept of bodily integrity in France and shows how it was ultimately used to define first-class citizenship. Dean presents fresh historical material—including novels and medical treatises—to show how fantasies about the body-violating qualities of homosexuality and pornography informed social perceptions and political action. Although she focuses on the period from 1890 to 1945, Dean also establishes the relevance of these ideas to current preoccupations with pornography and sexuality in the United States. |
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André André Gide Anquetil argued body's Bonmariage bonnes mœurs censorship claimed context critics cultural defined degenerate denounced desire discourse discussions emasculation erotic eroticized fantasies Fascism female feminine feminist feminized Femmes flagellation Foucault France French Garçonne Garréta gender hence heterosexuality historians History homo Ibid images increasingly insisted interwar inversion Jean La Garçonne late nineteenth century lesbian liberal literary literature male body male homosexuality manly Marquis de Sade masculine meaning men's metaphor Michel Foucault modern moral mosexuality narratives nography Nordau normative novel numbers obscene Oxford University Press paradoxically Paris pederasty perceived perversion pleasure police political pornog pornogra pornography and homosexuality postwar prostitution quoted raphy Réja Renée Vivien repression rhetoric Robert Nye Routledge sadomasochism sadomasochistic same-sex sapphism Sappho sexual deviance social body sought Stora-Lamarre symbolized texts tion transformed tribades violence virility Voivenel woman women writers wrote York