Masculinity and Virility : Representations of Male Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century Sweden

What should historians do with contrasting and contradictory accounts of male sexual practices and how should these be connected to notions of masculinity? Although the analysis of masculinity has developed sophisticated models of hierarchic and multiple masculinities, the history of sexuality has long been dominated by a phallocentric model. In this model, before the emergence of modern concepts of sexual identity in the nineteenth century, male sexual behaviour and desire were really about domination and the demonstration of social power, primarily symbolized by the active performance of penetration and the passive submission of the penetrated partner whether in hetero- or same-sex relations. The first sections of this essay deal with the relevance of this model for eighteenth-century Sweden, with reference to male self-apprehension and descriptions of male sexual practices in two secret diaries and autobiographies which, taken together, provide very different images of male sexuality. It will be argued here that the concept of virility in the sense of culturally constructed notions of bodily and sexual comportment as ultimate symbols of masculine strength and vigour could play a crucial role in connecting male sexual practices and meanings of masculinity. The essay closes with a brief suggestion of where the basis for hegemonic ideas of masculinity may be found.Volume 2, The Trouble with Ribs: Women, Men and Gender in Early Modern Europe, ISBN: 978-952-10-4073-3</p

BERÄTTELSEN OM DROTTNING MARGARETAS MÄRKE – KÄNSLA, KÖN OCH POLITIK I DEN SVENSKA PROPAGANDAN MOT DANMARK UNDER 1500- OCH 1600-TALEN

I fokus står berättelsen om hur den danska drottning Margareta under sin regenttid i Sverige (1389–1412) lät prägla ett mynt med en bild av sitt eget könsorgan på för att skämma ut svenskarna. Berättelsen har sitt ursprung i Ericus Olais krönika om de götiska kungarna Chronica regni Gothorum, skriven på 1470-talet i en tid av ständiga konflikter mellan danska unionskungar och den svenska rådsaristokratin. Historien kommenterades och återgavs på nytt under 1500- och 1600-talen då danskarna framställdes som Sveriges arvfiender. Artikelns syfte är att analysera de kränkande innebörderna i berättelsen utifrån ett känslohistoriskt perspektiv och då närmare bestämt hur negativa känslor som förakt, hån och avsky har mobiliserats och kommunicerats i anslutning till historien. Analysen tar sin utgångspunkt i en närläsning av de ordval och reaktioner som kan urskiljas hos krönikörer och kommentatorer. Dessa har i sin tur förankrats i en bredare propaganda- och samhällskontext. Ytterligare ett syfte har varit att ge ett kritiskt bidrag till diskussionen om vilken roll genitalierna och det biologiska könet spelade i förmoderna genusföreställningar

"Visa aktning för din far och din mor": Ett historiskt perspektiv på vuxna barns våld mot sina föräldrar

Today, violent abuse of parents by their grown-up children is veiled in silence; hut this has not always been the case. In 17th and 18th century Sweden, violent and verbal abuse of parents constituted a capital crime, and in the 19th century physical abuse of parents was still regarded as a serious crime. The turning point came in 1864 when parental abuse was excluded from the new penal code as an independent category of crime – a first step on the road to the modern veil of silence. The aim of this article is to analyse today’s silence and violent abuse in the light history. In the long run this was a history of changing attitudes and meanings. While the children of early modern families were obliged by both law and religion to respect their parents as the fundament of society, the rise of the modern bourgeoisie ideology implied that families should be united by bands of love and affection as a natural fact which didn’t need to be regulated by law. What was seen as sin and crime in early modern society was diagnosed as a psychological and social deviation in the emerging modern society

"Du ljög som en tjuv och skälm" : Okvädande inför rätta i 1600- och 1700-talens södra och mellersta Norrland

 ‘You are lying like a thief and rogue’. Verbal abuse cited before the courts in 17th and 18th centuries southern and middle parts of Northern Sweden The aim of this article is to investigate the frequencies and meanings of abusive words cited before the town courts of Gävle and Härnösand, and the district courts of Hälsingland and Ångermanland respectively, during the periods 1665–69 and 1745–49. The main questions at issue concern gendered meanings and to what extent the words honesty and dishonesty had different meanings than today. ‘Thief’ and ‘rogue’ were the most common abusive words directed against men, and ‘whore’ and ‘thief’ against women. ‘Whore’ was, however, also strongly associated with lying and deceiving whereas the expression ‘you hit me like a thief and rogue’ could be used to blame the violent attack of an antagonist as unfair and dishonest. Thus, the abusive triad ‘thief’, ‘rogue’ and ‘whore’ indicate a much broader yet fundamentally similar meaning of dishonesty as today

"Du ljög som en tjuv och skälm" : Okvädande inför rätta i 1600- och 1700-talens södra och mellersta Norrland

 ‘You are lying like a thief and rogue’. Verbal abuse cited before the courts in 17th and 18th centuries southern and middle parts of Northern Sweden The aim of this article is to investigate the frequencies and meanings of abusive words cited before the town courts of Gävle and Härnösand, and the district courts of Hälsingland and Ångermanland respectively, during the periods 1665–69 and 1745–49. The main questions at issue concern gendered meanings and to what extent the words honesty and dishonesty had different meanings than today. ‘Thief’ and ‘rogue’ were the most common abusive words directed against men, and ‘whore’ and ‘thief’ against women. ‘Whore’ was, however, also strongly associated with lying and deceiving whereas the expression ‘you hit me like a thief and rogue’ could be used to blame the violent attack of an antagonist as unfair and dishonest. Thus, the abusive triad ‘thief’, ‘rogue’ and ‘whore’ indicate a much broader yet fundamentally similar meaning of dishonesty as today

Morsgrisar och kärlekspiltar i barockens krigs och duellretorik : en studie i (o)manlighet

Unga lättkränkta ynglingar och pojkar med vapen i hand är i dag ett högaktuellt ämne. Så var fallet även i 1600-talets patriarkala hederskultur. Misogyna skymford saknades inte i 1600-talets duelljargong, men till skillnad från idag var anspelningar på pojkaktighet minst lika gångbara som skymford. Bland dessa intog morsgrisen en särställning. Men strider utkämpades också på andra slagfält än det militära under barocken. Ett sådant var kärleken, ofta skildrad som ett krig mellan könen. Här härskade en liten naken pojke eller pilt under namn av omväxlande Cupid, Astrild och Amor som tyranniserade alla och envar med sin pil och båge och sina eldbloss. Vilka föreställningar om manlighet och omanlighet återspeglades i dessa till synes motsägelsefulla pojkgestalter? Det är ämnet för den här artikeln. Images of young, easily offended youths and boys, with weapons in hand, are today rarely out of thenews cycle. Interestingly, this was also the case in the patriarchal honour culture during the 17thcentury. Misogynistic insults were not lacking in 17th-century duelling jargon, but unlike today, allusionsto boyishness were not solely pejorative. Among these, mama’s boy occupied a special position. Battleswere also fought in arena other than the military during the Baroque period. Love, was, for example,often depicted as a war between the sexes. Here ruled a little naked boy, referred to as Cupid, Astrildand Amor, tyrannizing everyone with his bow and arrow. The questions to be explored in this article arethe following: what notions of masculinity and unmanliness were reflected in these contradictory boyfigures? And what was it about the boy’s alleged character that actualized these contradictory rhetoricalfigures of the boy as submissive versus his tyrannical omnipotence

The use of court records and petitions as historical sources : introduction

El 2018 marca el 20º aniversario de los Principios Rectores de los Desplazamientos Internos. Se ha logrado mucho en los últimos 20 años, pero con más de 40 millones de personas desplazadas internas como consecuencia de los conflictos y la violencia, y sin que haya indicios de que la cifra vaya a disminuir, debemos preguntarnos a nosotros mismos: ¿Hacia dónde vamos a partir de aquí