{"title":"The Bio-moral Politics of Semen","authors":"Sohini Saha","doi":"10.1007/s12115-023-00945-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>The article focuses on the bio-moral politics of semen in India. By engaging with religious, ascetic, scientific, and medical discourses on semen in the context of India, it emphasises that semen and the regimes of its control were shaped by complex discourses on health, immortality, and modern politico-medical notions of immunity. Based on sociohistorical and ethnographic perspectives, the article is an exploration of the <i>modern scientific</i> turn to semen in the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and how the <i>politics</i> of Indian (Hindu) nationalism enmeshed science, morality, and politics into a biopolitics of semen control. Based on my ethnographic fieldwork in the <i>bayam samitis</i> (traditional gymnasiums) and <i>akharas</i> (places of wrestling) of Kolkata, India, at present, I argue that the bio-moral politics of semen continues to remain entangled with the constitution of the <i>virile</i> and <i>potent</i> body of men and their national and community identities, sexuality, masculinity, health, and fitness with the help of <i>songjom</i> (self-restraint) exercised over masturbatory practices, diet, and night emissions. I conclude the article with the possibility to further think about the relation between the concepts of immortality and immunity that constitute masculine health based on the cultivation of a <i>potent</i> body through embodied practices of <i>bayam</i> (exercise), healthy diet, and semen control.</p>","PeriodicalId":47267,"journal":{"name":"Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Society","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-023-00945-7","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The article focuses on the bio-moral politics of semen in India. By engaging with religious, ascetic, scientific, and medical discourses on semen in the context of India, it emphasises that semen and the regimes of its control were shaped by complex discourses on health, immortality, and modern politico-medical notions of immunity. Based on sociohistorical and ethnographic perspectives, the article is an exploration of the modern scientific turn to semen in the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and how the politics of Indian (Hindu) nationalism enmeshed science, morality, and politics into a biopolitics of semen control. Based on my ethnographic fieldwork in the bayam samitis (traditional gymnasiums) and akharas (places of wrestling) of Kolkata, India, at present, I argue that the bio-moral politics of semen continues to remain entangled with the constitution of the virile and potent body of men and their national and community identities, sexuality, masculinity, health, and fitness with the help of songjom (self-restraint) exercised over masturbatory practices, diet, and night emissions. I conclude the article with the possibility to further think about the relation between the concepts of immortality and immunity that constitute masculine health based on the cultivation of a potent body through embodied practices of bayam (exercise), healthy diet, and semen control.
期刊介绍：
Founded in 1962, Society enjoys a wide reputation as a journal that publishes the latest scholarship on the central questions of contemporary society. It produces six issues a year offering new ideas and quality research in the social sciences and humanities in a clear, accessible style.
Society sees itself as occupying the vital center in intellectual and political debate. Put negatively, this means the journal is opposed to all forms of dogmatism, absolutism, ideological uniformity, and facile relativism. More positively, it seeks to champion genuine diversity of opinion and a recognition of the complexity of the world''s issues.
Society includes full-length research articles, commentaries, discussion pieces, and book reviews which critically examine work conducted in the social sciences as well as the humanities. The journal is of interest to scholars and researchers who work in these broadly-based fields of enquiry and those who conduct research in neighboring intellectual domains. Society is also of interest to non-specialists who are keen to understand the latest developments in such subjects as sociology, history, political science, social anthropology, philosophy, economics, and psychology.
The journal’s interdisciplinary approach is reflected in the variety of esteemed thinkers who have contributed to Society since its inception. Contributors have included Simone de Beauvoir, Robert K Merton, James Q. Wilson, Margaret Mead, Abraham Maslow, Richard Hoggart, William Julius Wilson, Arlie Hochschild, Alvin Gouldner, Orlando Patterson, Katherine S. Newman, Patrick Moynihan, Claude Levi-Strauss, Hans Morgenthau, David Riesman, Amitai Etzioni and many other eminent thought leaders.
The success of the journal rests on attracting authors who combine originality of thought and lucidity of expression. In that spirit, Society is keen to publish both established and new authors who have something significant to say about the important issues of our time.
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