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When “perverts” were religious: the Protestant sexualisation of asceticism in nineteenth-century Britain, India and Ireland

Janes, Dominic (2014) When “perverts” were religious: the Protestant sexualisation of asceticism in nineteenth-century Britain, India and Ireland. Cultural and Social History 11 (3), pp. 425-439. ISSN 1478-0038.

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Abstract

Anti-Catholic polemics from the mid-nineteenth century made frequent comparison between religious practices in Britain, Ireland and India. The supposed atrocities taking place at locations such as Lough Dearg in Country Donegal and at ‘Juggernaut’ (Jagganath) at Puri were denounced in terms which hinted strongly at a striking combination of extreme asceticism and perverse sexual enjoyment. In the same period the word ‘perversion’, which had hitherto referred to apostasy, started to develop connotations of sexual deviance. Protestant sexualised readings of Catholic and Hindu asceticism appear to have been an important site for the development of conceptions of deviant sexuality in general and masochism in particular.

Metadata

Item Type: Article
Keyword(s) / Subject(s): Asceticism, masochism, religion, sexuality
School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies
Research Centres and Institutes: Gender and Sexuality, Birkbeck (BiGS), Social Research, Birkbeck Institute for (BISR)
Depositing User: Dominic Janes
Date Deposited: 18 Sep 2014 10:57
Last Modified: 13 Apr 2025 18:46
URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/9523

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