In The Chastity Plot, Lisabeth During tells the story of the rise,
fall, and transformation of the ideal of chastity. From its role in
the practice of asceticism to its associations with sovereignty,
violence, and the purity of nature, it has been loved, honored, and
despised. Obsession with chastity has played a powerful and
disturbing role in our moral imagination. It has enforced
patriarchy's double standards, complicated sexual relations, and
imbedded in Western culture a myth of gender that has been long
contested by feminists. Still not yet fully understood, the
chastity plot remains with us, and the metaphysics of purity
continue to haunt literature, religion, and philosophy. Idealized
and unattainable, sexual renunciation has shaped social
institutions, political power, ethical norms, and clerical abuses.
It has led to destruction and passion, to seductive fantasies that
inspired saints and provoked libertines. As During shows, it should
not be underestimated. Examining literature, religion,
psychoanalysis, and cultural history from antiquity through the
middle ages and into modernity, During provides a sweeping history
of chastity and insight into its subversive potential. Instead of
simply asking what chastity is, During considers what chastity can
do, why we should care, and how it might provide a productive
disruption, generating new ways of thinking about sex, integrity,
and freedom.
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