Group Work: Sex and Culture

1. Have each member of the group share the object they brought in, and they're essay, for the second short essay assignment. Everyone in the group should actively listen: ask questions, add insights, take notes, and participate as each person shares.
2. As a group, decide which of the cultural objects has the most potential for a deep analysis. That will be the object you present and talk about to the class.
3. Then, as a group, think about what messages we can take about cultural attitudes to sex from that object. What messages do you get about whether it's good, bad, or neutral to have sex, when, under what conditions, and with whom. Do you get different messages if you're a man or a woman? Are there messages there about what kind of sex is deemed socially "good" and what's deemed "bad"? What messages do you get about what it means to be sexy, or what it means to be sexual? Are those different if you're a man or a woman? Are they different if you're heterosexual, homosexual, bi-sexual, asexual? What messages do you get about gender roles? What it is to be masculine or feminine?
   
4. On Tuesday you'll give your presentations. You'll show whatever you brought in to the class as a whole, and then discuss it in depth. If you've brought a film, you might want to give a brief introduction, show a whole clip, then talk about it a bit more at length. You will have about 10 minutes to present.
   

The Nude

Don't forget to do your readings, posted below, so that you have the background information to follow the presentation.

Short Paper 2

Humanities 160: Birth, Sex, and Death
Short Paper 2
Sex and Culture

Bring in some cultural object that you think reflects ideas or attitudes about sex. It can be a scene from a movie, a magazine, a game, a book, what have you.

Write a 2-page paper in which you say what attitudes and assumptions are reflected in your example. Try to analyze the object in as much depth as you can. Some questions you can ask yourself as you think about the example you chose:

o Are there any people portrayed in the example? Do they seem strong, weak, indifferent? What makes them seem that way?
o Who, if anyone, is sexually aggressive and who, if anyone, is sexually passive? Are men and women treated the same way (if both are featured)?
o Does the example seem to comment at all about the goodness, badness, or appropriateness of the objects or actions featured? What comment do you think it makes?
o Imagine switching the genders of the people featured – would the way they’re portrayed strike you as unusual or noteworthy in any way? Why or why not? What if you switched the sexuality of the people involved? What about the gender expression?
o Who do you think is the audience for this expression? What messages do you think it sends to that audience?
o What is the history of that object (for example, if you were looking at magazine advertisements, in what ways have they changed over time, and in what ways have they stayed the same)?

Your paper should be typed, double-spaced, in 11- or 12-point font, and with 1” margins (approx. – leave me enough room to write in the margins). Don’t use a cover page.


Here's a link to a PDF of the assignment.

Reading for October 8

Here's the link for your reading for Thursday. Let me know if you have any questions. See you then!

Don't forget we're doing 2 quizzes on Thursday.

Reading for October 6

Hi all; here's the link for your reading for Tuesday. There will be a short quiz at the beginning of class on the reading. Let me know if you have any questions.

Discussion Questions from 9.24

Please give your own response to these questions by 2 a.m. on Sunday morning; then read your colleagues' thoughts and respond to them by 2 a.m. on Tuesday morning. Have fun! I hope it'll be an interesting discussion.

Remember to treat everyone with dignity and respect.

1. The movie argues that romantic love could withstand quite profound changes in personal qualities - what do you think about that?
2. What do you think about the relationship between love and sex implied by the movie?
3. What else did you find particularly interesting about the concept of love raised by the movie?
   

Project for 9.29

…this touch binds and unbinds two others in a flesh that is still and always untouched by mastery. Dressing the one and the other without and within, within and without in a garment that neither evokes, not takes pleasure in the perversity of the naked but contemplates and adorns it, always for a first time, with an in-finite, un-finished flesh. Covering it, uncovering it again and again, like an amorous impregnation that seeks out and affirms otherness while protecting it...

The most subtly necessary guardian of my life is the other’s flesh.

--Luce Irigaray, An Ethics of Sexual Difference

Assignment
For Tuesday, bring in your favorite expression of love. That is, something that you think captures some insight about what love is, how it feels, what are its obligations, moods, or consequences.

This can be a poem, a section of a book, a scene from a movie, a song, a short story, or anything else that makes some statement, or asks some question, that you think is particularly insightful about love. A photograph of someone you love is not an expression of love. It's a more or less realistic depiction of that person. A song that you really really love is not an expression of love unless the song itself says something about love - the thing you bring in must actually express something about love.