Sexuality (Other Keyword)
1-14 (14 Records)
Places of organized prostitution in the nineteenth-century operated within a very particular sensory framework. In many ways male patrons were paying for ambiance and sensory experience as well as sex. Through analysis of the material remains of brothel sites, such as items related to dining, lighting, or even personal hygiene, archaeology can potentially recreate the experienced context of these spaces. Sites, such as the brothel at 27/29 Endicott Street in Boston’s North End, have the...
Built on Sand: The Historical Roots of Modern Queerphobia within Christianity (2017)
Homosexuality’s place within the church has been a topic of considerable debate among modern theologians. However, most theologians have only focused on homosexuality, disregarding the presence of all other alternative sexual identities and have used only Biblical textual evidence to justify their views on homosexuality. This text contributes a broader scope to the sexuality debate. It considers all queer sexualities, archaeological artifacts, and uses a queer theoretical lens to deconstruct the...
The construction of archaeological practice: Sex/gender and sexuality on the fringe (2017)
Archaeologists have incorporated sex/gender and sexuality research in projects for decades, yet such foci have failed to become widespread as they are largely considered a specialty or niche topic. This paper first looks at why the topics in question have remained on the fringe of archaeological research. The subsequent discussion analyzes ways in which contemporary practices can counteract deeply embedded ideas about the archaeology of sex/ gender and sexuality, making this approach to the...
Gender, Power, and Color in the Life of a Creole Midwife (2018)
During investigations in advance of the redevelopment of the Lafitte Housing Project in New Orleans, Louisiana, routine excavations by Earth Search, Inc., of a well in the rear of what had been a series of townhouses produced a rich assemblage containing distinctive artifacts. These were eventually determined to be associated with the household of Julia Metoyer, an African-American midwife. The story of Metoyer, told through historical documents and the material record, provides insight into...
Ghosts in the Archives: Using Archaeology to Return Life to Historical Prostitutes (2016)
Studies in historical prostitution are uniquely poised to demonstrate the importance of partnership between historians and archaeologists. Sites of prostitution may be present in the historical literature; however, the transience of the women employed at these sites means that they often leave ephemeral traces in the written record. Though typically unable to illustrate individual actors within these sites, archaeology can help to reanimate the everyday lives of women in sex work. Using the...
"Love is a Sweet Insanity": The Hidden Gender Revolutions of the 19th-Century Asylum (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Gender Revolutions: Disrupting Heteronormative Practices and Epistemologies" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In the 19th century, a new impulse toward the humane treatment of the insane prompted the establishment of lunatic hospitals across the United States and Europe. Within the normalizing disciplinary regime of these asylums, expressions of gender nonconformity and “deviant sexual instinct” (i.e.,...
Making Women: Gender, Sexuality, and Class at an Early Twentieth Century Women’s Retreat (2015)
The intimacy of guest artifacts like toiletries, cosmetics, and corset hooks from an early twentieth century privy deposit are compared with the contemporary assemblage recovered from the yard of the male caretaker of a women’s retreat located on the shores of Lake George, New York. Founded in 1903, Wiawaka Holiday House provided affordable vacations for "Girl Guests" (single women who worked in the garment factories around nearby Albany) free from the potentially corrupting presence of men....
"Oysters In Every Style": Food and Commercial Sex on the New Orleans Landscape (2018)
During the late-19th and early-20th centuries, the sex trade flourished in New Orleans throughout the city, despite legislative efforts at spatial restriction. Guides to the Storyville red-light district (1897-1917) containing advertisements for both places to buy sex and places to eat and drink suggest that food played a significant role in the business of commercial sex. Landscape analysis using data derived from censes, city business directories, newspapers, and other historical sources...
Performing a Queer Aesthetic in Early 20th Century Washington: Preliminary Findings from the Halcyon House Site (2018)
Located in the Georgetown area of Washington, DC, the Halcyon House is one of the only archaeological sites with a documented queer inhabitant. Albert Adsit Clemons, who was purportedly a relation of Mark Twain, lived on the property with a male carpenter, and together the two filled the house with oddities and antiques. In this paper, I will analyze the way that Clemons performed a queer aesthetic through his household décor and personal adornments. Although the site was excavated in 1985, the...
Resurrecting Piercing: Experimental Archaeology at a Global Scale (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Body Modification: Examples and Explanations" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Across continents, material evidence of body piercing jewelry abounds in the archaeological record. However, the varying procedures and processes of piercing, healing, and stretching these wounds for adornment remains unfamiliar to most archaeologists. This PowerPoint presentation discusses the early self-experimentations that led to the...
The Role of Seminary Schools in the Colonization of Hawaiian Gender Structures (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of Contact and Colonialism" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Seminary boarding schools were established in Hawai‘i following the arrival of missionaries in 1820 for the purpose of educating the young men and women of Hawai‘i. These 19th century boarding schools were instruments of the colonial structure that worked to exact power and control over Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) bodies and land. Control...
The Seraglio of the Great Turk: Ethnosexual and Engendered Violences in the Mariana Islands (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. After the arrival of a group of Hispanic Jesuits to the Mariana Islands in 1668, an ethnosexual conflict emerged between the colonists and the local communities (the Chamorros). After that conflict, Chamorro communities were relocated in new villages, the so-called reducciones, under the close surveillance of the Spanish colonial powers. This reduction brought...
Sexuality and Gender in Samoa: Conceptions and Missed Conceptions (1981)
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Sexuality in the (Nineteenth-Century) City: Practicing Class in Gotham’s Bedrooms (2016)
Sexuality provides a powerful mechanism for patrolling the boundaries of socially constructed communities. Imagined as a natural expression of basic human behavior, sexuality naturalizes social boundaries and marks them as immutable. In the Nineteenth Century, the medical ills of the "overly-civilized" were identified as having a sexual basis. Hysteria was given an etiology of too frequent sexual activity. Education or business would interfere with the proper development of the uterus. For...