CLC 1023: Sex and Culture Lecture Two: Sexual Terms / Sexual Tropes

PLAY (while class is coming in): “Honey, Honey” by the Archies (1969)

Slide 1: Title – Lecture #2: Terms and Tropes

Slide 2: Announcements

1. Course Guidebook (Syllabus) –> PDF file now posted on WebCT Owl [can be printed] 2. Lecture notes + Powerpoints posted on WebCT Owl [see me after class for a demo]. 3. Lecture notes will be posted on the course website after each lecture [NB: it may take a day or two to appear, but normally it’s just a few hours.]

Slide 3: Policy on Submission of Assignments

No reading assignments this week –> but I did suggest last class that you read over the course guidebook carefully. I’d like to focus in on one important aspect of the course today, the Submission Policy for Assignments.

Slide 4: Policy cont’d

There are FOUR short written assignments for the course: two assignments per term. Assignments handed in on the Official Due Date (see schedule below) will receive a grade plus written comments.

Slide 5: Policy cont’d

If for any reason you’re unable to submit your work on the Official Due Date, you are automatically granted an extension of two weeks in which to complete the assignment. You do not have to ask for this extension. Assignments handed in on the Extended Due Date will receive a grade without written comments. Work worth an A will receive an A regardless of which due date it’s submitted on: in other words, no marks will ever be subtracted from an assignment simply because you have opted to submit it on the appropriate Extended Due Date. Overdue assignments, however, will be not be accepted after their extended due date unless the circumstances are extraordinary.

Slide 6: First Term Assignments

Assignments Official Due Date Extended Due Date (For Written Comments) (No Written Comments) 1. Lay Down Your Tracks Mon. Oct 5. Mon. Oct. 19 2. Come Together Mon. Nov 23 Mon. Dec 7

NOTE: Due Dates always fall on a Monday. ANY QUESTIONS? Slide 7: Topics Covered Last Class [Note: a recap like this will be included in my opening remarks for each lecture]

1. Erotic Vehicles –> Lady Gaga’s exploding bustier 2. Overarching Theme –> “Sex and the Cities” 3. Sex before Cities –> Ice Age Dildo 4. Sexuality / Textuality –> Carrie’s Laptop 5. Taboo / Transgression –> Definitions

Slide 8: Foundational Concepts –> Taboo / Transgression

REVIEW: Definitions

TABOO: A socially prevailing prohibition (against acts, conducts, or attitudes) which is designed to distance and protect whatever a culture considers sacred from whatever it condemns as unholy, impure, uncivilized.

TRANSGRESSION: a ritualized rebellion against taboo

Slide 9: The Big Q

Here’s a feature I’ll be adding to my lectures starting from today –> it’s a quiz-type review question I’m going to call the Big Q.

This daily question will help to sharpen your minds up for the Midterm Test. So use it as a self-testing device.

Slide 10: Movie Poster for the movie Superbad

Q: “This poster places the two boys on which side of the Taboo/Transgression border?”

ASK for answers from the CLASS

Slide 11-12: Answers

Be careful to distinguish the poster from the movie it advertises.

The graphic design of the poster suggests the censoring/censuring operation of TABOO The boys seem to be labelled “Superbad” by a disapproving parental/legal authority, though they’re actually quite innocent –> even clueless. They don’t know what they’re getting into when they stray to the dark side of Adult Experience.

But the movie itself celebrates McLovin’s wild night of violence and erotic TRANSGRESSION –> the term “superbad” is ritually inverted into a term of approval. (Like “supercool” or “bad-ass”) Slide 13: Cyclical Interplay of Taboo and Transgression

Taken together, the poster and the movie it advertises illustrate the interactive relation between taboo and transgression. The official voice of disapproval or condemnation PROVOKES or INCITES a correspondingly strong impulse to glimpse or experience whatever is condemned. And vice versa: McLovin and his friends experience a night of transgression that makes them want to return to the normal rule-bound order of their ordinary daytime lives...and to their future after high school as decent hard-working college students.

Slide 14: Taboo and Transgression –> Sexual Discourse

The Taboos on Sex and Violence, as I pointed out last class, largely “go without saying”: they operate culturally as UNWRITTEN RULES.

Language, however, constantly points to the ritual interplay of Taboo and Transgression. E.G. The slang term “superbad” with its two meanings –> a taboo meaning (strong disapproval) and a transgression meaning (intense admiration/ approval for the brave initiates into the nighttime world of the police).

Today I’d like to take us a bit deeper into the cultural domain of Erotic Language (or “Sexual Discourse”) by exploring the connection between Sexuality and Textuality as it plays out within the cyclical dynamics of Taboo and Transgression.

Slide 15: Foundational Concepts –> Sexual Discourse: Terms and Tropes

When we consider sexual terms – along with what I’ll call sexual tropes, or “figures of speech” – we soon discover that the rhetorical domain of sexual discourse is deeply affected by the dynamic interplay of TABOO and TRANGRESSION...i.e. the prevailing social prohibition against or religious “pull” away from sex (“Thou shalt not...) and the ritual rebellion against taboo, the transgressive impulse to “step over the line,” to “misbehave,” to “go with the flow” towards sex, to be “superbad”...

Slide 16: Superbad Thought Experiment

To illustrate this point and to get us thinking about sex and language in general, I’d like each of you to conduct a brief SUPERBAD THOUGHT EXPERIMENT.

Instructions: Jot down a synonym (closely related word or phrase) for each of the following five terms from the erotic vocabulary of Modern English.

Ready? Here are the five terms... Slide 17: Experiment cont’d

Keep the list to yourself – it’s not for handing in to me or showing to your neighbour.

Slide 18-19-20-21-22: Five lists of Sexual Terms

TABOO ------> <------TRANSGRESSION

Orgasm Ecstasy Fornication Fuck Fist-Fuck Vagina Rosebud Maidenhead Cunt Boy- Penis Manhood Male Member Cock Horse- Coitus Make Love Missionary Position 69 Bareback Ejaculate Climax Spill Seed Cum Pitch-Catch

These lists form what’s known as “lexical sets” because the terms in each list are felt to belong to the same field of discourse or semantic domain. Can you identify these domains?

Slide 23: Lexical Sets

Left to right:

List 1: Scientific/ Medical List 2: Romantic / Literary List 3: Religious / Theological List 4: Pornographic (Straight) List 5: Pornographic ()

Now check your own list. Perhaps all five of your terms come from a clearly discernible LEXICAL SET. Or maybe you can discern a number of lexical sets emerging in your list.

The main point I want to make about sexual terms is simply this. There are MANY competing lexical sets at work in the sexual vocabulary of any culture —> there’s no authoritatively “correct” way to talk about sex, no single monolithic mode of textuality that decisively covers every aspect of sexuality.

But you can also see from this little thought experiment that SOME ways of talking about sex are dominant or privileged in public discourse, while others are “hushed up” or “censored” or “relegated to the private domain” because they are perceived as vulgar, lewd, defiant, immoral, superbad –> in a word, transgressive. The Taboo/Transgression dynamic is immediately felt at the dividing line between polite speech (what you can say about sex in a courtroom, a classroom, a dining room) and “dirty talk” (what you can say about sex in a bedroom, a locker room, a chat room). The boys in Superbad disclose their transgressive impulses as soon as they open their mouths (even before they’ve done anything bad) Why? Because they use transgressive erotic terms – especially “fuck” – in polite environments such as their Home Economics classroom.

Slide 24: Sexual Tropes: Definition

I’d like to turn now from SEXUAL TERMS to SEXUAL TROPES, by which I mean figurative modes of erotic signification. Because of the Taboo/Transgression divide, sexual discourses are almost never explicit – even those terms we usually consider as “explicit” or “blunt” or “plain” turn out to be deeply figurative or metaphorical in their implications.

So, when I use the term “sexual tropes,” I mean FIGURATIVE modes of erotic signification... i.e. using figures of speech to talk about sex

Today I’d like to define and illustrate three common sexual tropes.

Slide 25: Sexual Trope #1

Sexual Metaphor: representing an erogenous zone or erotic act by something analogous to it in form or function.

Slide 26: EXAMPLE –> Vagina as Sheath

Here’s a slightly hidden example of a sexual metaphor. Now you might consider “vagina” an explicit term, but its original meaning in Latin was “sheath.” The male doctors who applied this Latin military term to the female body were evidently thinking metaphorically Analogy of form –> an opening at the end of a enclosure Analogy of function –> protective insertion of a long hard object

Slide 27: Sexual Trope #2

Sexual Metonymy: representing an erogenous zone or erotic act by something culturally associated or ritually linked with it.

Slide 28: EXAMPLE –> Jock

The use of the word “jock” for an erotically hot athlete illustrates sexual metonymy.

A fetishized article of sports attire is used to represent the hot male athlete who typically wears it and has come to be ritually associated with it Wearing a jockstrap is a fashion ritual associated with male athletics: it is protective of the male genitalia yet also fetishistically highlights what’s in the pouch.

Slide 29: Sexual Trope #3

Sexual Synecdoche: representing an erotic whole by one of its inherent parts: e.g. a sexually active person by a genital organ or “private part”

Slide 30: EXAMPLE –> Dickhead

An erect penis with a condom hat “stands in” for a guy who uses his head by practising safer sex. A “private part” is being used to represent the whole guy.

When you start looking for them, sexual tropes start popping up everywhere:

Slides 31-32 –> Penis enlargement ad [not a spoof]

QUESTION: What sexual trope is illustrated here? ANSWER: Sexual Synecdoche [wheelchair penis] Sexual Metaphor [hung like a horse]

Slide 33 –> Camel Toe Cup ad [this is a spoof]

QUESTION: What sexual trope is illustrated here? ANSWER: Sexual Metaphor [formal analogy between labia and camel toe]

Slide 34: Absolut Vodka hunk [Smith from Sex and the City]

QUESTION: Does this image illustrate sexual metaphor or sexual metonymy?

Slide 35: ANSWER

Both at once. Metaphor and Metonymy are both operating in this image. The vodka bottle resembles an erection in form and function (liquid pours out of the end of a rigid cylinder): The analogies –> indicate SEXUAL METAPHOR (pretty explicit) YET: The vodka bottle is also ritually associated with drunk guys who like to party and have sex (even plain ordinary guys like the kids in Superbad).

So the sexually active hunk is symbolically represented by the Vodka bottle that literally stands in for his “intoxicatingly” beautiful erection.

Sexual Metonymy is discernible in an image or text when something normally unerotic (in itself) “stands in” for something erotic commonly associated with it by physical analogy or social proximity or cultural custom. The symbolic substitution usually reflects the pervasive influence of the Taboo of Sex (especially Sexual Nakedness).

Similarly, when “vagina” is used as a sexual term, it carries with it a set of distinctly metaphoric implications : e.g. its primary purpose is to protect the male’s phallic “sword.” Deeply embedded in the term “vagina” (however) is a highly patriarchal way of understanding female genitalia as a tool for men’s use.

Slide 36: Overlapping of Metaphor and Metonymy

SO... while there are examples of “pure” sexual metonymy and “pure” sexual metaphor, don’t be surprised to find them often overlapping.

Let’s consider the overlapping of Sexual Metaphor and Metonymy in another example, this time a poetic one....

Slide 37: Lyrics for “Honey, Honey”

RECALL the Pop-Song I played at the beginning of class: “Honey, Honey”

Sugar, ah Honey, Honey! You are my candy-girl, And I can’t stop lovin’ you! Etc.

Like the summer sunshine, pour your sweetness over me! Sugar, pour a little sugar on it honey!

Can anyone identify the group who sang this song? The Archies (1969)

Sexual pleasure is associated with the sexualized body in this song

BOTH by METAPHOR and by METONYMY

Slide 38: Sexual Troping (Metaphor/Metonymy) of Honey (1) body of sexually desirable girl ------> honey, sugar, candy

Basis of association: both are “sweet”

Implications: sexual pleasure = a fluid taste treat Sexualized body = a vessel to pour sweetness over lover

Slide 39: Sexual Troping (Metaphor/Metonymy) of Sunshine

(2) body of sexually desirable girl ------>sunshine

Basis of association: both are warm, luminous, energizing

Implications: sexualized body = cosmic life-force, radiantly beautiful, “hot”

Now let’s consider a love song written some four thousand years before the Archies belted out “Honey, Honey”:

Slide 40: Ancient Babylonian Love Song

READ: My beloved knows my heart, My beloved is sweet as honey, She is as fragrant to the nose as wine, The of my feelings.

Language: Old Babylonian (written in wedge-shaped “cuneiform script, on clay) Date: 18th century BCE (early in the second millennium “Before the Common Era” =BC ) From a temple or palace library Notice –> the sexual metaphor/metonymy of “honey” representing the female beloved There’s evidence that this compound trope of honeyed sexual sweetness is even more ancient than that. It’s to be found in a language predating Old Babylonian, a language known as Old Sumerian after the Sumerian people who were building cities in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BCE, hundreds of years before the founding of Babylon.

Supplement to Lecture #2

NB: This section was not presented in class.

Here’s a spectacular example of sexual troping, the dominant figure of which is SEXUAL SYNECDOCHE

Slide 41: We’re Talking Vulva

Lesbian performance artist Shawna Dempsey asserting the power of female sexual agency represents herself as a giant talking vulva Check out the video “We’re Talking Vulva” online –> zed.cbc.ca.

Analysis of the video –>

–> sexual synecdoche is brilliantly employed for transgressive political purposes in Dempsey’s video: lesbian defiance of patriarchal silencing of women’s voices is represented here as a giant “gynemorphic” vulva (a vulva turned into a woman, a woman turned into a vulva) who cannot be silenced or concealed or censored. Her “labia” become lips singing a song of liberation and proclaiming the power of female sexuality.

While sexual synecdoche is certainly foregrounded in the video, I’d like you to look at the background –> the Vulva’s urban context. This is another version of “Sex and the City,” with a female figure synecdochally identified with a city –> it’s not Carrie Bradshaw as glamorous Manhattan this time, but Shawna Dempsey in her Vulva outfit as gutsy down-to-earth Winnipeg

Let’s consider these questions about the video:

1. What social/sexual roles does the Vulva adopt? 2. How is male sexual power represented in the Vulva’s city? 3. What Erotic Icon does the Vulva embody?

ANSWER to question #1: Health teacher/nurse –> like “Sex with Sue” Johanssen Housewife / Working Woman Feminist Professor / Democratic Citizen Mother (at the end) Rock Singer in a “Girl Band” = Sexually Empowered Woman

Ironically, all these roles (except maybe Rock Singer) are associated with social institutions promoting social order, the everyday world governed by TABOO. The Vulva invests the social order of Winnipeg with the erotic energy of TRANGRESSION, and that’s why the parody music video is so funny.

The Vulva effectively collapses the binary opposition of TABOO and TRANSGRESSION so that we can see clearly how the erotic energy of transgressive sexuality (in this case, woman’s literally gigantic sexual power) invades and pervades the male-dominated world of work. In other words, the Vulva exposes the dynamic interplay of Taboo and Transgression operating in the social order of the City.

ANSWER to question #2: Symbols of male sexuality are represented by phallic metonymies

E.g. “tools,” the tower on the Manitoba Legislature, the “Golden Boy” sculpture on the top of the tower

ANSWER to question #3:

Note how the Vulva symbolically gives birth to a mini-vulva, her daughter, in the credits of the video. The Vulva is a site of procreative energy (in this case, apparently NOT needing any male penetration to regenerate itself!).

Origin of the word “Vulva” (like “Vagina”) is metaphorical. Vulva –> “Turning Thing,” “Revolving Thing,” “Thing wrapping round” –> had a cosmic significance in ancient times (the “Womb of Nature” –> humanity whirled round in the great cycles of the turning universe) from L. vulva, earlier volva "womb, female sexual organ," lit. "wrapper," from volvere "to turn, twist, roll, revolve," from Proto Indo-European base *wel- "to turn, revolve"

Slide 42: Sexual Synecdoche refined

Not just a sexual organ for a whole person but also –> an iconic person for a whole city

Example: Carrie Bradshaw for New York City

The substitution of Carrie Bradshaw for “NY” in a Times Square billboard indicates Sarah Jessica Parker’s status as an erotic icon of the City. She is metonymically “troped” as the erotic embodiment of the gendered city of New York (Manhattan specifically).

She is a part of the population of NY yet she “stands in” by symbolic substitution for the whole of New York, or at least the whole erotic-consumerist culture of Manhattan.

Notice the sexual metonymy on her dress (the Empire State Building skyscraper as a phallus): this BIG BUILDING also “stands in” as a symbolic image of her chief love interest “MR BIG”

The implication of all this, of course, is that Mr. Big has a big powerful penis. The use of the Empire State Building as a symbolic stand-in for his (always concealed) member effectively exaggerates its size – makes it awe-inspiringly GIGANTIC.