Author: Captain Tihahme

William Acton’s views on prostitution were, for the most part, surprisingly unbiased, unemotional and logical. He believed that women fell into prostitution through seduction or because of poverty in the majority of cases. He also believed that these women are not entirely bad, although that is what the masses concluded. He thought prostitutes were just women who had lost their way, but that did not mean they could not return to a pure life. This may have been a slightly radical belief in the 1850s where unchaste women were shunned and exiled from society. Even now, after many radical movements about gender, age, and race, our society tends to uphold those standards of chastity.

Despite the disapproval of the moral majority, there are societies today that encourage women to have sex with multiple men. This practice is called polyandry. Polyandry occurs when one woman has more than one husband. These polyandrous societies exist today in the Himalayas and other secluded parts of the earth where this conduct is seen as neither unusual nor immoral. These people have practical reasons for their practices, the same way that Acton thinks prostitutes have practical reasons for their impurity. Fraternally polyandrous families (those in which one woman marries two or more brothers) have many important reasons for their way of life. This lifestyle means they do not have to split up the family’s farmland, which is already scarce in the Himalayas. If the small amount of farmland was divided for each new generation, everyone would go hungry. Also, polyandry keeps the population from booming because women can only get pregnant so often, but if each of her husbands had a different wife, the number of newborns would multiply rapidly.

Our society tells us that these beliefs and practices are wrong. It also says that there is no cure or return from prostitution and that those women have already fallen.  Acton’s piece disagrees by taking a professional stance as opposed to making biased statements about prostitution. The thing about falling is that with strength, you can pull yourself back up and brush the dirt off.

~J.W.

“Multiple Husbands.” You Tube. National Geographic. 18 May, 2007. Web. 23 Sept., 2012.

Picturesque seems to have multiple definitions. Gilpin refers to the term to mean more rugged and rough. More detail if you will. I feel there is much more to it. I do agree with Gilpin but I think beauty is involved with picturesque. It is not always but in this case it is. Beauty is more plain and simple but very nice in my opinion. This photo I have taken of a Gothic church that resembles 18th century architecture. The sky is beautiful, simple yet complete at the same time. The color of the sky has good contrast with the church. Darkness and light. This photo was taken in the evening so the sky shows that the sun was setting at the moment of time when I snapped this photograph. The picturesque can be also be seen in Watt’s painting of a dead nameless woman, and this portrait demonstrates the sublime many poverty-stricken people were experiencing. Looking even further the vague outline of an industrial civilization resonates with the powerful idea of changing beliefs and technologies.

-SW

Hogarth: Before and After

Before, a painting by William Hogarth depicts a woman resisting her sexual desires and her last minute attempts not to give into the man who awaits her. In the painting she is leaning away from from the man with a frazzled look on her face. The man on the other hand is pining for her love and affection while he stands close to her body, hoping to intrigue her imagination. In contrast to the first painting, After shows a scene of exhaustion. The sexual tension that was present in Before is no longer on the faces of either the man or woman. Their emotions are ones of satisfaction and relief. 

Hogarth had many strong beliefs and was a controversial artist in his time. He believed in the mockery of the English society of the 18th century and he missed no chance to quarrel with contemporaries. His beliefs got him in trouble with many people though he strongly stuck with his point of view in everyone of his pieces. They were always unusual depictions that were controversial with many English citizens. It is said that these paintings were made for a vicious nobleman and were intended to depict comical portrayals of sexual moods. Hogarth’s belief of sexual tension is shown in these two paintings.