tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post2264653775621811113..comments2024-03-26T01:10:13.720+00:00Comments on Teach Me Tonight: Come Now and Look at MeE. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-21635515097965807522008-12-17T10:48:00.000+00:002008-12-17T10:48:00.000+00:00I think you're right, RfP, that that sort of descr...I think you're right, RfP, that that sort of description can have more than one function. It partly depends on the perspective the reader adopts, and within the text, different characters interpret what they see in different ways. The heroine, for example, tends not to see herself the way the hero sees her, and she often misunderstands the hero or only partially "sees" what his true nature is.<BR/><BR/>Seeing and interpreting the way other people look, falling in love, and preparing to be seen and fallen in love with, can be very closely connected in these texts.<BR/><BR/>And on the issue of appearances, your description of how to write html tags is much prettier than mine and I'm jealous! ;-)Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-68262095957791825672008-12-16T22:47:00.000+00:002008-12-16T22:47:00.000+00:00Sorry--obviously I didn't mean "didactic and how-t...Sorry--obviously I didn't mean "didactic and how-to", as how-to is a subset of didacticism. I meant didactic in both the sense of making moral or normative statements ("You must look and act this way") and the sense of offering detailed instruction ("... and here's how to do it").Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-47990933978299216532008-12-16T22:39:00.000+00:002008-12-16T22:39:00.000+00:00I haven't had a chance to read the Nagel yet, but ...I haven't had a chance to read the Nagel yet, but Laura, those quotes from Anderson and Snitow are much better explanations of what I mentioned after your <A HREF="http://teachmetonight.blogspot.com/2008/10/hometown-cinderella-and-beauty-myth.html" REL="nofollow">Cinderella/beauty myth</A> post. (I suggested that passages dwelling on the minutiae of appearance in part reflect a combination of didactic and how-to messages about achieving beauty and put-togetherness; rather like a women's fashion mag, which sets a standard and then demonstrates how to live up to it.)<BR/><BR/>Your HTML would be all this on one line:<BR/><BR/><a href="http://wrightjj1.people.cofc.edu/teaching/PHIL3000/Nagel,%20Sexual%20Perversion%20(1969).pdf">Nagel</a><BR/><BR/>= <A HREF="http://wrightjj1.people.cofc.edu/teaching/PHIL3000/Nagel,%20Sexual%20Perversion%20(1969).pdf" REL="nofollow">Nagel</A><BR/><BR/>However, it works just fine to put the link in your name. On some blogs that's even preferred.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-89096208118436640012008-12-16T22:11:00.000+00:002008-12-16T22:11:00.000+00:00Yes, the link in your name in the first comment do...Yes, the link in your name in the first comment does link to <A HREF="http://wrightjj1.people.cofc.edu/teaching/PHIL3000/Nagel,%20Sexual%20Perversion%20(1969).pdf" REL="nofollow">Nagel's article</A>. Linking in comment boxes is really quite easy. You just need to do the following:<BR/><BR/>1) open a pointy bracket <<BR/>2) insert the following immediately afterwards<BR/>3) a href="URL GOES HERE"<BR/>4) put in a real url, not "URL GOES HERE." But do remember to keep in the quotation marks. They're important. There shouldn't be a space anywhere except between the "a" and the "href="<BR/>5) close the pointy bracket with a ><BR/>6) type in some text which will appear as the link<BR/>7) open another pointy bracket <<BR/>8) type in the following<BR/>9) /a<BR/>10) close the pointy bracket ><BR/><BR/>Sorry, that's probably not the best way to explain it, but if I tried to demonstrate it would probably confuse Blogger and it would tell me I've got an unclosed bracket or something, and then it wouldn't allow me to post the comment.<BR/><BR/>Thinking about that quote from Nagel, it strikes me that it might provide an insight (pun unavoidable) into the long descriptions one often finds in romances of how the heroine looks, how the hero looks, how each thinks about the way the other one looks etc.<BR/><BR/>Here's how Rachel Anderson described this sort of thing:<BR/><BR/><I>In some romantic fiction of the 1950s and 1960s the account of the heroine’s outward appearance is developed to such an extent that one is given a peepshow of her entire toilette, rather in the nature of a Louis XIV levée, including a description of her bath, the putting on of her underclothes as well as her outer ones, the application of her make-up, and the combing out of her hair. But some indication, however slight, of the heroine’s physical attributes has always been an important part of the romantic novel.</I> (85)<BR/><BR/>Ann Barr Snitow commented that<BR/><BR/><I>Harlequins revitalize daily routines by insisting that a woman combing her hair, a woman reaching up to put a plate on a high shelf (so that her knees show beneath the hem, if only there were a viewer), a woman doing what women do all day, is in a constant state of potential sexuality. You never can tell when you may be seen and being seen is a precious opportunity.</I> (249)<BR/><BR/>Anderson, Rachel. <I>The Purple Heart Throbs: The Sub-literature of Love</I>. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1974.<BR/><BR/>Snitow, Ann Barr. “Mass Market Romance: Pornography for Women is Different.” <I>Radical History Review</I> 20 (1979): 141-61. Rpt. in <I>Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality</I>. Ed. Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell and Sharon Thompson. New York: Monthly Review P., 1983. 245-63.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-80376638370557373092008-12-16T21:23:00.000+00:002008-12-16T21:23:00.000+00:00Sorry again for the messed up formatting! And I th...Sorry again for the messed up formatting! And I think the link in my name takes you back to the Nagel article!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-12369674155292298902008-12-16T21:21:00.000+00:002008-12-16T21:21:00.000+00:00I agree that the meaning of the phrase "come for m...I agree that the meaning of the phrase "come for me" could be just what you've suggested. It's interesting, actually, how many different things it can mean, when it seems so unambiguous.<BR/><BR/><BR/>I had never noticed the "watch me" bit, but just last night, reading the fourth Sookie Stackhouse novel, Dead to the World, I read this:<BR/><BR/><BR/>"After a moment he said, 'Don't close your eyes. Look at me lover.'<BR/><BR/>... 'Watch me' he said in my ear."<BR/><BR/><BR/>There are some accounts of sexuality which hold a version the account of the gaze you've outlined -- that it is about mutual recognition, or recognition of the other, or recognition of the self via the recognition of the other. This last account is found in Sartre, but also, more recently, in Thomas Nagel:<BR/><BR/>"Sexual desire involves a kind of perception, but not merely a single<BR/>perception of its object, for in the paradigm case of mutual desire<BR/>there is a complex system of superimposed mutual perceptions- not<BR/>only perceptions of the sexual object, but perceptions of oneself.<BR/>Moreover, sexual awareness of another involves considerable self-<BR/>awareness to begin with-more than is involved in ordinary sensory<BR/>perception. The experience is felt as an assault on oneself by the view<BR/>(or touch, or whatever) of the sexual object."<BR/><BR/>wrightjj1.people.cofc.edu/teaching/PHIL3000/Nagel,%20Sexual%20Perversion%20(1969).pdf <BR/><BR/>(sorry I cannot seem to figure out HTML when I am in comment boxes!)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com