Introduction: "Our tantalizing double": envious virgins, envying virgins, virgin envy / Jonathan A. Allan, Cristina Santos, and Adriana Spahr -- "I will cut myself and smear blood on the sheet": testing virginity in medieval and modern orientalist romance / my Burge -- Between pleasure and pain: the textual politics of the hymen / Jodi McAlister -- The politics of virginity and abstinence in the Twilight saga / Jonathan A. Allan and Cristina Santos -- Lady of perpetual virginity: Jessica's presence in True blood / Janice Zehentbauer and Cristina Santos -- The queer saint: male virginity in Derek Jarman's Sebastiane / Kevin McGuinness -- Troping boyishness, effeminacy, and masculine queer virginity: Abdellah Taia and Eyet-Chekib Djaziri / Gibson Ncube -- Bollywood virgins: diachronic flirtations with Indian womanhood / Asma Sayed -- The policing of viragos and other "fuckable" bodies: virginity as performance in Latin America / Tracy Crowe Morey and Adriana Spahr.
Summary:
"Virgin Envy sets out to reconceive the ways we relate to virginity as a cultural construct. Who is a virgin? How do we lose our virginities? What if we regret our "first time"? Contributors to Virgin Envy examine everything from the medieval romance to Bollywood films to True Blood and Twilight, to destabilize the many "certainties" about sexual purity. In particular, the hymen is called into question. How is virginity determined for those without a hymen? How do we account for the ways in which the "geography of the hymen" has changed over the course of history? And what about male and queer virginity? Issues of commodification, postcoloniality, and religious diversity are also addressed."-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.