Yes / It is often assumed that exposure to nude stimuli in advertising influences consumer behavior positively. However, the empirical evidence concerning the effects of nudity on consumer reactions is inconclusive. The goal of this study is to disentangle the effects of opposite-gender and same-gender nudity on female and male consumers' reactions. This study, thereby, offers a framework for the appropriate choice of seminude or fully clothed human stimuli based on advertisers' objectives and consumer–model gender interactions. The empirical data were derived from a large-scale market research initiative from Germany with 61,399 consumer evaluations of 147 real ads from 16 product categories. Female consumers show positive same-gender results for both seminude and fully clothed female models, indicating strong homophily, but nonsignificant opposite-gender effects on information search, positive attitude change, integration of brand into consideration set, and purchase intentions. In contrast, male consumers demonstrate a significantly positive and equally strong influence of opposite-gender and same-gender seminude stimuli on all of the four variables.

Despite its chequered interpretational history, the book of Shîr ha-Shîrîm (Song of Songs) in the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament has still not come to its fullest religious potential. The reason is that it has mainly served relatively closed religious traditions defined by the exclusion of those that have reacted against it. As the text of Song of Songs itself does not explicitly testify to any religiosity, these communities have understood it religiously by projecting their own predetermined needs and beliefs onto it. The text does, however, suggest several layers in the history of its formation, representing different levels of consciousness and stages of religiosity. In the postmodern globalising context where the importance of interfaith understanding is increasingly realised and the nature of human religiosity is constantly redefined in terms of ever-broadening horizons, the religiosity of the book has been stretched as wide as possible by also taking into consideration the ancient contextual influences which could have left their traces on the unconscious mind of its author(s) and redactor(s). To this end, the transpersonal psychological theory of Kenneth Wilber as interpreted by Michael Washburn has been used. Wilber’s inclusive view of religiosity respects all its forms as developmentally appropriate expressions of experiences of the divine which should all be taken seriously. The explicit “absence” of the divine in Song of Songs has been so conspicuous that it has ironically made it more present and led to a greater search for the Ineffable whose whispering and footprints are discernible in relation to the level of consciousness. Exploring the religiosity of Song of Songs in this way then becomes an exercise in being more sensitive to the presence of the divine in all other areas of life as well. Traditional polarities such as sexuality and religiosity are dissolved at the same time and proven to coincide as two aspects of the same experience. Not only does erotic love open one’s eyes to the divine in nature as the body of God, but one also encounters the divine in the body. / Old Testament & Ancient Near Eastern Studies / D. Th. (Old Testament)

This thesis discusses the relationship between classic comic books and BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism.) Will Eisner's The Spirit is used to discuss sexuality and power in comics, with special attention paid to Eisner's "The Kissing Caper." The Eisner chapter explores the relationship between sadomasochism, film noir, gender dynamics and comics. Using Judith Butler, Fredric Wertham and Theodor Reik, the gender politics of The Spirit are discussed. Women's changing roles in the post-World War II American workplace are linked to Eisner's BDSM themes in The Spirit from the character's origin story to the 1950s. In examining Alan Moore's Watchmen, the paper focuses on transactional power dynamics and how BDSM rituals are enacted in modern American comics. American power relationships in politics are used as a comparison and contrast to BDSM dynamics in Watchmen. Samuel R. Delany, William Moulton Marston and Pat Califia are used as theorists within the discussion of power exchanges in Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore's graphic novel. The consensual fantasy element to this power relationship is demonstrated as the underlying dynamic of the act, and not as actual punishment or nonconsensual sadism. / by Michael Furlong. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Despite its chequered interpretational history, the book of Shîr ha-Shîrîm (Song of Songs) in the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament has still not come to its fullest religious potential. The reason is that it has mainly served relatively closed religious traditions defined by the exclusion of those that have reacted against it. As the text of Song of Songs itself does not explicitly testify to any religiosity, these communities have understood it religiously by projecting their own predetermined needs and beliefs onto it. The text does, however, suggest several layers in the history of its formation, representing different levels of consciousness and stages of religiosity. In the postmodern globalising context where the importance of interfaith understanding is increasingly realised and the nature of human religiosity is constantly redefined in terms of ever-broadening horizons, the religiosity of the book has been stretched as wide as possible by also taking into consideration the ancient contextual influences which could have left their traces on the unconscious mind of its author(s) and redactor(s). To this end, the transpersonal psychological theory of Kenneth Wilber as interpreted by Michael Washburn has been used. Wilber’s inclusive view of religiosity respects all its forms as developmentally appropriate expressions of experiences of the divine which should all be taken seriously. The explicit “absence” of the divine in Song of Songs has been so conspicuous that it has ironically made it more present and led to a greater search for the Ineffable whose whispering and footprints are discernible in relation to the level of consciousness. Exploring the religiosity of Song of Songs in this way then becomes an exercise in being more sensitive to the presence of the divine in all other areas of life as well. Traditional polarities such as sexuality and religiosity are dissolved at the same time and proven to coincide as two aspects of the same experience. Not only does erotic love open one’s eyes to the divine in nature as the body of God, but one also encounters the divine in the body. / Biblical and Ancient Studies / D. Th. (Old Testament)

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Le rapport à l'autre a lieu dans la concrétude de l'éthique et de l'érotique ; par ailleurs, il se réalise à travers des dispositifs techniques. Nous voudrons ici confronter la phénoménologie/éthique lévinassienne à une pensée de la technique comme constitutive et constituante. En particulier, nous chercherons à faire entrer en dialogue les descriptions de la révélation du visage, d'une part, et, d'autre part, une description fonctionnelle de la corporéité allant jusqu'à prendre en considération son déploiement dans l'outil saisi. L'augmentation technique des corps éthiques sera décrite comme l'affirmation d'un écart entre l'appel et les possibilités de la réponse, écart dans la responsabilité même. Finalement, c'est dans une lecture croisée de Lévinas avec l'analytique existentiale heideggerienne, que nous dégagerons une description de la subjectivité comme la réalisation du pour-l'autre par un être-au-monde. / The relation to the Other takes place in the concreteness of ethics and erotic relations ; in addition, this relation is quite generally mediated through technological devices. Here, we will confront the phenomenology and ethics of Levinas with a vision of technology as anthropologically constitutive and constituting. In particular, we will seek to set up a dialogue between the revelation of the face, on the one hand, and on the other hand a functional description of embodiment that takes into account its technological augmentation through the use of tools. The technological augmentation of ethical bodies will be described as involving an irreducible gap between the appeal from the other and the possibility of responding, a gap within the very domain of responsibility itself. Finally, by means of a comparative reading of Levinas with the existential analytics of Heidegger, we will arrive at a description of subjectivity as consisting in the accomplishment by a being-in-the-world of existing for-the-other.

A presente pesquisa destina-se a compreender o lugar da autoria e da experiência feminina na linguagem cinematográfica dentro de um recorte temporal conturbado da história brasileira: a ditadura militar (1964-1989). O ponto de partida para tal objetivo é a análise de dois filmes brasileiros realizados por duas diretoras: Os Homens que Eu Tive (1973), de Teresa Trautman, e Mar de Rosas (1977), de Ana Carolina. Levando-se em consideração a recepção das obras, a análise dos discursos, as mudanças sociais e culturais que ocorriam no período - concomitantemente à intensificação do autoritarismo político e econômico -, o gênero emana como uma categoria de análise para se pensar nas intersecções, contradições e rupturas experienciadas por mulheres que desestabilizam as hierarquias de gênero a partir da criação artística. Apesar de trabalharem dentro de gêneros fílmicos distintos - Teresa Trautman com a \"comédia erótica séria\" e Ana Carolina com a narrativa ficcional -, ambos os filmes permitem uma reflexão não convencional sobre as relações de poder ao incentivar leituras que trazem para o centro do debate estratégias de resistência cultural. / The present research aims to understand the place of female authorship and experience in cinematographic language within a troubled temporal cut of Brazilian history: the military dictatorship (1964-1989). The starting point for this goal is the analysis of two Brazilian films made by two women directors: Os Homens que Eu Tive (1973) by Teresa Trautman and Mar de Rosas (1977) by Ana Carolina. Taking into account the reception of the movies, the analysis of the discourses, the social and cultural changes that have been occurring during the period - concomitantly with the intensification of political and economic authoritarianism, the genre emanates as a category of analysis to think about the intersections, contradictions and ruptures experienced by women that destabilize the hierarchies of gender with their artistic creation. Although they work within distinct film genres - Teresa Trautman with erotic comedy and Ana Carolina with the fictional narrative - both films allow an unconventional reflection on power relations by encouraging understandings that center around cultural resistance strategies.

O objetivo desta tese é um estudo comparativo dos romances Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1748-1749), do inglês John Cleland, e Margot La Ravaudeuse (1750), do francês Jean-Charles Fougeret de Monbron. Os dois romances fazem parte do conjunto de narrativas eróticas libertinas que inundaram o emergente mercado livreiro europeu durante o Iluminismo e contam as memórias de duas jovens prostitutas respectivamente em Londres e Paris em meados do século. Partindo do pressuposto segundo o qual as duas narrativas se organizam num contínuo que oscila entre a sociabilidade e a individualidade, o objetivo desta análise comparativa é compreender como estes dois temas, fundamentais na experiência setecentista e no processo de formação do romance moderno, são formalizados nas memórias de Margot e Fanny Hill através de procedimentos estruturais recorrentes na literatura da libertinagem. / The aim of this dissertation is a comparative study of the novels Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1748-1749), by John Cleland, and Margot la Ravaudeuse (1750), by Jean-Charles Fougeret de Monbron. Both novels are part of the body of erotic libertine narratives that flooded the emerging European book market during the Enlightenment and tell the memoirs of two young prostitutes respectively in London and Paris during the mid-18th-century. Assuming that the two narratives are organized according to a continuum which oscillates between sociability and individuality, the objective of this comparative analysis is to understand how these fundamental themes in 18th-century life as well as in the rise of the modern novel are formalized in the memoirs of Margot and Fanny through reccurring structural procedures found in libertine literature.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-10T11:07:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gracina de Jesus Cardoso Soares.pdf: 489631 bytes, checksum: 50dc00126b807a670d5fdc3c6b65b511 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-03-29 / This paper proposes a critical reading of selected texts from the general work of Gilberto Mendonça Teles, considering the body of his erotic poetry, as well as the critical dimension that appears in his poems, knowing be he a writer who is toned between creating poetry and literary criticism. Despite acknowledging the extent and significance of the entire gilbertian work, we chosen as the central object in this paper, the following titles: Plural de Nuvens & Cone de Sombras, who pool their poems written in the 80s, an age in which literary production in Brazil, an erotic theme surfaced most erotic and more distant from that which was recognized as pornography. Thus, these two items will be taken on a joint analysis in an attempt to reveal the quintessence of the author which is the word, slave and free into exile within each text. It is this word in Gilberto Mendonça Teles wins senses and acquires corporeality in its lyrical reveries, discover their condition of transience, while it installs the dialogue between the various strata of language and sits on its universal and eternal. / Este trabalho propõe uma leitura crítica de textos selecionados da obra de Gilberto Mendonça Teles, considerando o corpo erótico de sua poesia, como também a dimensão crítica que presente em seus poemas, lembrando, de antemão, ser ele um escritor que se divide entre a criação poética e a crítica literária. Não obstante reconhecermos a extensão e o significado de toda a obra gilbertiana, escolhemos como objeto central neste trabalho os títulos: Plural de nuvens como & Cone de sombras, que reúnem os seus poemas escritos na década de 80, época em que, na produção literária no Brasil, aflorava uma temática erótica mais despojada e mais distanciada do que se reconhecia como pornografia. Dessa forma, estas duas obras serão tomadas numa análise conjunta, numa tentativa de desvelar a quintessência do autor que é a palavra, escrava e livre a se exilar por dentro de cada texto. É essa palavra que em Gilberto Mendonça Teles ganha sentidos e adquire corporeidade em seus devaneios líricos; descobre sua condição de transitoriedade, ao mesmo tempo em que instala o diálogo entre os vários estratos da linguagem e se assenta em sua dimensão universal e eterna.

O Livro das Mil e Uma Noites, na forma como se encontra em seu grupo de manuscritos mais antigo, o chamado ramo sírio, configura-se como um grande compêndio de narrativas árabes de cunho erótico, em sua maioria. As cenas encontradas nessas narrativas, quase sempre explícitas, revelam mulheres sensualíssimas, donas de corpos desejados, e homens desejosos desses corpos e, na maioria das vezes, traídos por suas mulheres. Porém, uma narrativa em especial se destaca fortemente nesse universo carnal das Noites: a história de \"Nūruddīn ͨ Alī Bin Bakkār e Šamsunnahār\". O amor que tem lugar nessa narrativa beira o divino e inefável, e suas descrições, sempre imprecisas, revelam a dificuldade em se descrever um amor tão distante da carne e de seus desejos. Mas não é só no livro em questão que tal narrativa se destaca: dentro de toda a tradição amorosa da época a que pertence (entre os séculos IX e XI, no apogeu do Califado Abássida), tal como a conhecemos hoje, essa história de amor se mostra como única. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo analisar justamente esse destaque da narrativa de \"Nūruddīn ͨ Alī Bin Bakkār e Šamsunnahār\" dentro de seus contextos: primeiramente dentro do Livro das Mil e Uma Noites e, posteriormente, dentro da literatura amorosa abássida. Busca-se comparar a narrativa dos dois amantes com todas as outras narrativas erótico-amorosas das Mil e Uma Noites, demonstrando suas diferenças substanciais. Além disso, busca-se mapear a tradição literária amorosa abássida, demonstrando como Nūruddīn e Šamsunnahār nada têm que ver com os amantes das narrativas de amor da época. Ao final do trabalho, enumerando-se e analisando-se pormenorizadamente essas características de destaque, aproximamos a narrativa dos dois amantes a outras obras, contemporâneas a ela, que se declaram platonizantes. Assim, situamos a história de Nūruddīn e Šamsunnahār num pequeno e pouco estudado grupo de obras árabes medievais: o grupo que compartilha características que se assemelham às das obras platônicas e neoplatônicas. / The Book of the Thousand and One Nights, in the way it is written in its oldest group of manuscripts, the Syrian branch, is composed as a big compendium of erotic Arabic stories, in its majority. The scenes found in those stories, which are almost always explicit, reveal very sensual women, owners of desired bodies, and men who desire those bodies, and who are, almost always, betrayed by those women. However, one story in special contrasts from the others in this carnal universe of the Nights: the story of \"Nūruddīn ͨ Alī Bin Bakkār and Šamsunnahār\". The love described in this narrative approaches the divine and ineffable love, and its descriptions, always imprecise, reveal the difficulty of describing a love, which is so distant from the body and its desires. But, the narrative of the two lovers is not a highlight only in this book: in the whole erotic tradition to which it belongs (the Abbasid love, between the IX and X centuries), this story shows itself as a unique one. The present dissertation aims to analyse these highlights of the narrative of \"Nūruddīn ͨ Alī Bin Bakkār and Šamsunnahār\" in its contexts: first, inside the Book of the Thousand and One Nights and, after that, inside the erotic Abbasid literature. We do it by comparing the story of the two lovers to all the other erotic narratives of the Nights, demonstrating all the substantial differences among them. Besides that, we draw a map of the whole erotic Abbasid literary tradition, demonstrating how Nūruddīn and Šamsunnahār have nothing in common with the other Abbasid lovers, described in the erotic stories of that time. At the end of the dissertation, by enumerating and analysing carefully those characteristics of highlight, we approach the narrative of the two lovers to other works, contemporary to it, which declare themselves to be platonic. By doing that, we situate the story of Nūruddīn and Šamsunnahār in a very small and not studied group of Arabic medieval works: the group, which shares similar characteristics with the platonic and neoplatonic works.