TY - JOUR
T1 - Engendering Sexual Desire
T2 - Love Magic, Sexuality and Agency in Papua New Guinea
AU - Eves, Richard
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The University of Western Australia.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Through a study of love magic, this paper examines the ways in which sexual desire is culturally mediated among the Lelet of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. The Lelet regulate sexuality heavily through what Foucault refers to as ‘prescriptive discourses’ which severely constrain expressions of sexuality, especially for women, who are construed as properly lacking sexual desire. While women are readily the object of men’s desire, men are not readily the object of women’s desire. Despite passionlessness being the ideal for women, men turn to love magic as a means of cultivating sexual desire in them.
AB - Through a study of love magic, this paper examines the ways in which sexual desire is culturally mediated among the Lelet of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. The Lelet regulate sexuality heavily through what Foucault refers to as ‘prescriptive discourses’ which severely constrain expressions of sexuality, especially for women, who are construed as properly lacking sexual desire. While women are readily the object of men’s desire, men are not readily the object of women’s desire. Despite passionlessness being the ideal for women, men turn to love magic as a means of cultivating sexual desire in them.
KW - Love magic
KW - Papua New Guinea
KW - gender
KW - sexual desire
KW - sexuality
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85096514340&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/00664677.2020.1846497
DO - 10.1080/00664677.2020.1846497
M3 - Article
SN - 0066-4677
VL - 30
SP - 426
EP - 442
JO - Anthropological Forum
JF - Anthropological Forum
IS - 4
ER -