Monthly Archives: February 2014

ok first of all let me just admit that i really dropped the ball this week haha. i was about to dig into paine but then got the various emails about the wollstonecraft reading and panicked and thought that we had suddenly switched and started reading that instead. SO ill make a much better blog post on rights of man when ive actually read more of it so my questions arent just based on the lecture, haha.

there are quite a few things i like about thomas paine already!

1. i like how he chose to use common language. it shows that he didnt care what type of education or background somebody had, as long as they can read theyll be able to understand his pamphlets. which is good for me because i admit i can have some trouble deciphering, lets say, decorated language, so that makes me excited to continue reading this

2. revolutionaries are awesome. its awesome to read about them but reading primary sources of revolutionaries are like getting into their heads and knowing exactly what their thoughts are. its way too easy to just read about them but really reading their works is so interesting.

3. look at those lips. hes up to something you know he is

4. what i noticed was that this book is surprisingly cheap! thats really cool to me. anyone would be able to buy this book because of how cheap it is, you dont have to be rich to be able to read it! so not only does it to cater to everyone of all sorts of educational backgrounds (as long as you can read, at least) but anyone could purchase it, regardless of wealth or lack thereof. which makes me wonder, sorry if i missed this during lecture today, but did you have to pay or something to read his pamphlets in the 1700/1800s?

anyway. like i said, a better post when ive finished the book! unless this post is fine as it is, haha.

nicole

i supposed there were two questions that rang in my head throughout my reading of this book

1. “wait, wouldn’t freud’s case of hysteria and this book link better in terms of essay topics?’

2. “wait, i know this is a history of sexuality but it was written almost 40 years ago. how different is it now?”

unfortunately due to the terrible headaches ive had through the wisdom teeth surgery and the post-op meds im still only partway through the book, i admit it, but those two questions have still stayed. to be honest i dont really understand a lot of what its trying to get at, but i really want to relate it to current times… and to be honest, his writing style is kind of dry and could do with some spicing up. it is a very mixed-feelings reading that i am having right now, and hopefully watching christina’s lecture will help with my understanding later on!

anyway, theres one thing that ive noticed that have stayed the same throughout this history and between this book being written and now and they are that sex is completely taboo in some ways and overly celebrated in others. there are so many huge double standards and oddly different things that are assumed and accepted in our everyday lives. like, why is masturbation a widely accepted thing for men but not for women? but women can be oversexualized in our culture but as soon as men are oversexualized men get all uncomfortable with it?

i have a lot of feelings about sexuality that i cannot hope to condense into a blog post under 300 words. i apologize! im sure ill have a lot to say during seminars about this, haha.

nicole