{"id":1281,"date":"2018-10-31T09:56:42","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T13:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=1281"},"modified":"2018-10-31T09:56:42","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T13:56:42","slug":"questions-of-sexuality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2018\/10\/31\/questions-of-sexuality\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions of Sexuality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The question of sexuality is evident in Bram Stoker\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dracula<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. In the novel, three very beautiful women with \u201cbrilliant white teeth, that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips\u201d approach Jonathan Harker. Dracula enters to fight off the women, and is then accused of never having loved. He studies Jonathan&#8217;s face as he replies \u201cyes, I too can love.\u201d This brings to question Dracula\u2019s sexuality because despite being in the presence of beautiful women, his only focus is of Jonathan. Given the context, the Count\u2019s interest in Jonathan causes the reader to wonder if his attraction is directed towards him. The idea of a homosexual desire would defy all beliefs of the Victorian time period as only heterosexual relationships were seen as acceptable. In the scene leading up to Dracula\u2019 fighting off the women, the Victorian ideals of sexuality are contested as \u201cThe fair girl went on her knees and bent over me, fairly gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal\u2026 I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there.\u201d (45,46) The exaggerated type of sexual energy and desire displayed here questions the Victorian ideas about the function of sex. In the Victorian time, sex was solely seen as procreative, but here there is a desire that is not driven by the idea of procreation, solely pleasure. The three women are able to act on their sexual desires, unlike the men and women of the Victorian time period. Through the questions of sexuality throughout <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dracula<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Stoker displays the coming of the \u201cNew Woman\u201d and a changing time period. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The question of sexuality is evident in Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula. In the novel, three very beautiful women with \u201cbrilliant white teeth, that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips\u201d approach Jonathan Harker. Dracula enters to fight off the women, and is then accused of never having loved. He studies Jonathan&#8217;s face as &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2018\/10\/31\/questions-of-sexuality\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Questions of Sexuality<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3890,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125359],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3890"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}