Fantasies of Femininity

Representations of woman's sexuality in culture and throughout history position women as both a site of danger and of desire. Drawing on academic texts and popular culture the author argues that representations have had a direct influence on individual women's experience of their own sexuality.

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Representations of woman's sexuality across cultures and throughout history position women as both a site of danger and of desire; yet paradoxically, also as asexual, invisible, defined always in relation to men, confined to a patriachal prism which distorts or denies their own experience. Drawing on academix texts - psychoanalytical, historical, feminist and sociological - and popular culture, both historical and contemporary, the author argues that academic and cultural representations have had a direct influence on individual women's experience of their own sexuality. Through interviews with women and analysis of diary and interview material from Sussex university's mass observation archive, the means by which women regulate these competing messages in an effort to achieve an positive sexual identity will be revealed. The question whether all women internalize the negative representations, the way these impact upon development of identity, the effect on sexual behaviour, on relationships and on a woman's self-image is not clear.