until we began to realize that she was reciting Freud; then an uneasy hush fell over the class. Ouch.
Ow. Ow. Ouch indeed.
His original ideas had been much more "feminist" in nature and I'd say more accurate; he took his patients' reports of sexual abuse much more seriously, but was encouraged by peers to alter his theories to fit current male-dominated ideas
That is really interesting, actually. I'll have to look her up.
they've learned to masturbate
Wasn't male masturbation extremely frowned upon for a while, though? I think I read/heard things to that effect. Of course, I doubt that at that time, people were aware female masturbation was even possible, because no way would a woman have sexual urges unless she's a whore, of course. :|
Our bodies, our genitals, our menstruation, is a dirty shameful secret. I never heard the worlds "labia" & "clictoris" until i was in college in the late '80's. "Down there" was the source of blood, piss and shit, someplace dirty and forbidden. It was near the area my stepfather spanked me with a belt: no positive associations there.
Oh honey, I'm so sorry. :( *hugs and loves on* I think for me personally, having grown up in the 90s, it was better. I was still scandalized at masturbation when I first learned about it, but then I was also a strange kid. I learned about it in an article praising its advantages for women especially and pleading for more acceptance and less shame, no less! But somehow I had this thing where no matter how it was treated, if I learned about something taboo I would mostly pick up the taboo factor. I had and have my own hangups with "being a good girl" etc.
I loved it when I came across a sort of picture book a couple of decades later, "Care and feeding of your clitoris" aimed at preteen girls, because that's something I would want to give to all girls, to teach them, preferably before they were teens.
Oh, that sounds like a great book! I definitely think that open, shame-free and consent-oriented sex education is something children should be taught at a young age.
Buffy fears that sex with Spike is a sign that she's evil.
YES. It's in part because, well, Spike is evil, and what does it say about her that she is attracted to someone evil? Does it mean she condones all his evildoing? But yes, she is absolutely scared of her own sexual desires.
Dru plays of helpless little girl until What's My Line when she is "healed"; then she puts on a red dress, flirts openly with "Daddy" and sides with Angelus in his scheme to end the world.
Funnily enough: how Freudian. :[
She's no longer just wacko
Y'know, an aside about Dru & mental illness would be really interesting. Actually, I just remembered a Spuffy fic I read: an AU wherein it was decided Buffy had to flee Sunnydale to escape a Quentin Travers who had gone completely megalomanic, and then Giles got still-evil!Spike as her bodyguard and lured him with a magical artifact which could "cure" Drusilla of her mental illness (for the sake of being together 5eva, of course). Towards the end of the fic, one of the perils Buffy faced was a poison which warped her perceptions to the point of making her suicidal. Of course, she and Spike had fallen in love at that point and Spike used the artifact to cure Buffy instead. There was an interesting thought in there about how Drusilla's illness was arguably a part of her personality (in the sense that it she had been driven to illness by Angelus even before becoming a vampire, and then fixed in that state forever), to the extent that "curing" her just like that might perhaps be considered a violation, or at least Spike trying to mold her according to his desires; whereas Buffy had clearly been poisoned. Which, of course, raises questions about the nature of mental illness itself.
but dangerous in her own right. In School Hard she kills "bad girl" Sheila; in Becoming she kills the virginal, inexperienced Kendra. Women are supposed to be good girls, but if they remain innocent they are also increasing the risk of being victimized so damned either way, right?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
Re: 2/3, actually.
Date: 2013-07-03 09:35 pm (UTC)Ow. Ow. Ouch indeed.
His original ideas had been much more "feminist" in nature and I'd say more accurate; he took his patients' reports of sexual abuse much more seriously, but was encouraged by peers to alter his theories to fit current male-dominated ideas
That is really interesting, actually. I'll have to look her up.
they've learned to masturbate
Wasn't male masturbation extremely frowned upon for a while, though? I think I read/heard things to that effect. Of course, I doubt that at that time, people were aware female masturbation was even possible, because no way would a woman have sexual urges unless she's a whore, of course. :|
Our bodies, our genitals, our menstruation, is a dirty shameful secret. I never heard the worlds "labia" & "clictoris" until i was in college in the late '80's. "Down there" was the source of blood, piss and shit, someplace dirty and forbidden. It was near the area my stepfather spanked me with a belt: no positive associations there.
Oh honey, I'm so sorry. :( *hugs and loves on* I think for me personally, having grown up in the 90s, it was better. I was still scandalized at masturbation when I first learned about it, but then I was also a strange kid. I learned about it in an article praising its advantages for women especially and pleading for more acceptance and less shame, no less! But somehow I had this thing where no matter how it was treated, if I learned about something taboo I would mostly pick up the taboo factor. I had and have my own hangups with "being a good girl" etc.
I loved it when I came across a sort of picture book a couple of decades later, "Care and feeding of your clitoris" aimed at preteen girls, because that's something I would want to give to all girls, to teach them, preferably before they were teens.
Oh, that sounds like a great book! I definitely think that open, shame-free and consent-oriented sex education is something children should be taught at a young age.
Buffy fears that sex with Spike is a sign that she's evil.
YES. It's in part because, well, Spike is evil, and what does it say about her that she is attracted to someone evil? Does it mean she condones all his evildoing? But yes, she is absolutely scared of her own sexual desires.
Dru plays of helpless little girl until What's My Line when she is "healed"; then she puts on a red dress, flirts openly with "Daddy" and sides with Angelus in his scheme to end the world.
Funnily enough: how Freudian. :[
She's no longer just wacko
Y'know, an aside about Dru & mental illness would be really interesting. Actually, I just remembered a Spuffy fic I read: an AU wherein it was decided Buffy had to flee Sunnydale to escape a Quentin Travers who had gone completely megalomanic, and then Giles got still-evil!Spike as her bodyguard and lured him with a magical artifact which could "cure" Drusilla of her mental illness (for the sake of being together 5eva, of course). Towards the end of the fic, one of the perils Buffy faced was a poison which warped her perceptions to the point of making her suicidal. Of course, she and Spike had fallen in love at that point and Spike used the artifact to cure Buffy instead. There was an interesting thought in there about how Drusilla's illness was arguably a part of her personality (in the sense that it she had been driven to illness by Angelus even before becoming a vampire, and then fixed in that state forever), to the extent that "curing" her just like that might perhaps be considered a violation, or at least Spike trying to mold her according to his desires; whereas Buffy had clearly been poisoned. Which, of course, raises questions about the nature of mental illness itself.
but dangerous in her own right. In School Hard she kills "bad girl" Sheila; in Becoming she kills the virginal, inexperienced Kendra. Women are supposed to be good girls, but if they remain innocent they are also increasing the risk of being victimized so damned either way, right?
PRETTY MUCH.