WATERY PASSION - THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN HEGEMONY AND SEXUAL LIBERATION IN EROTIC FICTION FOR WOMEN

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.