Penetrating Boundaries
An Ethics of Anti-Perfectionism in Victorian Pornography
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10867458 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Joudrey Joudrey (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 423 |
| Publication date | 2015-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Victorian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0042-5222 • E-ISSN: 1527-2052 |
| Publisher | Indiana University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2979/victorianstudies.57.3.423 |
| OpenAlex | W2150332158 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 3 |
What do we talk about when we talk about an ethics of pornog raphy? The very proposition seems preposterous. A skeptic might put the case as follows: Victorian pornography glee fully portrays the rape, abduction, and subordination of women; it seldom alludes to the social problems that preoccupy mainstream litera ture; it focuses obsessively on the performance of conduct rather than on the adjudication of proper conduct; its characters are predominantly fungible placeholders without complex interiors. Seeking ethics in pornography would be like soliciting pet-care tips from a taxidermist. When I speak of ethics, I do not mean to imply that the vast genre of pornography, composed of unconsolidated and heterogeneous subject matter, dictates sound moral prescriptions. Nineteenth-century pornog raphy postulates neither a categorical imperative nor a set of rigid prin ciples. Rather, it allows the presence of certain themes, materials, and desires that were excluded, suppressed, distorted, and demonized within the major fiction of the century. George Eliot’s systematic extirpation of sodomy in Romola (1862–63)—which is made visible only through the symptoms of its repression—has the effect of casting a dark penumbra of unthinkability over the act and its associations (Henry 329). What does it
Aesthetics · Art · Perfectionism (psychology · Pornography · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Social Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.11 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2017 - 2017 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |