Gg. Pattheychavez et al., WATERY PASSION - THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN HEGEMONY AND SEXUAL LIBERATION IN EROTIC FICTION FOR WOMEN, Discourse & society, 7(1), 1996, pp. 77-106
Erotic texts have historically been written for male consumption and w
omen's erotic preferences were either marginalized or assumed to coinc
ide with men's. Following Lakoff (1987), this paper examines the metap
hors and semantic associations constructed in and through the first er
otic genre explicitly directed to a female audience: the erotic romanc
e novel. The sexual experiences portrayed in 16 romances representing
a typical contemporary North American selection were excerpted for a d
etailed analysis guided by the precepts and methods of critical discou
rse analysis (Fairclough, 1989; Van Dijk, 1993) and cultural critiques
(Christian-Smith, 1993; Lutz and Abu-Lughod, 1990). The genre present
s a unique erotic style (Youmans and Patthey-Chavez, 1992) even as it
reflects prescriptive formulas meant to enhance its marketability (Pal
udan, 1994). The analysis reveals that it is contested ground-at once
consummation of female desire and hegemonic channeling of that desire
into the safety of accepted/acceptable patterns of female agency and f
emale experience.