Private rooms and back doors in abundance
The illusion of privacy in pornography in seventeenth-century England
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3140210 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sarah Toulalan (0000-0002-3722-2972, Royal Holloway University of London, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2001 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 701-720 |
| Publication date | 2001-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Women s History Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0961-2025 • E-ISSN: 1747-583X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09612020100200611 |
| PMID | 19678423 |
| OpenAlex | W2038694100 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 7 |
This article discusses pornography in seventeenth-century England in relation to the public/private debate. The seventeenth century is seen as bordering a shift from a communal, ‘public' style of living to a private, confined, inward-looking sensibility discernible from the eighteenth century. The increasing availability and development of a market for pornography, which goes hand in hand with the expansion of print culture, is seen as part of this shift, as it seems to exemplify par excellence the private consumption of printed material for private pleasure. The pornographic literature of the seventeenth century repeatedly invokes the idea of a public/private distinction to produce an eroticised narrative in which the illusion of privacy is constantly breached by the pursuit of voyeuristic pleasure
Art · Art history · Biology · Doors · Illusion · Internet privacy · Media studies · Political science · Pornography · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Visual arts · Computer Science · Engineering · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Ecology
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |