| Title |
‘Gushing Out Blood’: Defloration and Menstruation in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Journal of Medical Humanities, December 2016
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s10912-016-9426-0 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Sara Read |
| Abstract |
John Cleland's 1740s pornographic novel, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure repeatedly depicts and eroticises the act of defloration. As such it is a revealing illustration of what Ivan Bloch termed the 'defloration mania' of the eighteenth century. This article maps narrative events on to contemporary medical depictions of first intercourse to show the ways that the theories and ideas presented in medical and pseudo-medical texts transferred into erotic fiction and demonstrates how in some instances the bloody defloration scenes can be read as being sex during menstruation, an act which was culturally forbidden at this time. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 17 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 5 | 29% |
| Canada | 1 | 6% |
| Netherlands | 1 | 6% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 6% |
| Unknown | 9 | 53% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 16 | 94% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 1 | 6% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 20 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 20 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 3 | 15% |
| Researcher | 2 | 10% |
| Student > Bachelor | 2 | 10% |
| Other | 1 | 5% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 1 | 5% |
| Other | 2 | 10% |
| Unknown | 9 | 45% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Arts and Humanities | 3 | 15% |
| Social Sciences | 2 | 10% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 2 | 10% |
| Psychology | 1 | 5% |
| Philosophy | 1 | 5% |
| Other | 2 | 10% |
| Unknown | 9 | 45% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 13. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 07 June 2018.
All research outputs
#2,858,257
of 25,880,948 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Medical Humanities
#55
of 427 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#54,168
of 424,684 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Medical Humanities
#2
of 11 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,880,948 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 88th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 427 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.3. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 424,684 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 11 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 81% of its contemporaries.