Some Special Sexual Cultural Phenomena

Vietnamese people. Through this system of body symbols, Ho Xuan Huong frankly and directly addresses sexuality, the essential needs of women in bed. The body in Ho Xuan Huong's poetry is even described in a state of authority, when it makes men reveal all their desires, dethroning the image of the "lofty and superior" gentlemen. Never before in ancient and medieval poetry has there been such a bold image of a young woman sleeping during the day in a "revealing" state, described directly, without any curtains. Ho Xuan Huong also elevates the image of the young woman to the level of a fairy: "The two hills of Bong Dao are still covered with dew/ A stream of Dao Nguyen has not yet flowed". The beauty of the female body in Ho Xuan Huong's poetry is natural, sensual, tangible, capable of evoking deep aesthetic emotions. The image of the "white and round" floating cake is a very intuitive description, an image of the female body in a state of abundance, fullness, and beauty of youth. That beauty must come from the perception of the body, from Ho Xuan Huong's deep awareness of gender. The open mention of the body, delving into the physical aspect, is a voice against the harsh notions of virginity, morality... imposed on women for centuries.

Summary:

Although the trend of sentimentality and humanism was the basic sound of literature in the 18th century - first half of the 19th century, however, that does not mean that from the perspective of gender/sex, women have "leveled" the gap with men both in creative practice and in thought. From the perspective of male authors, women/femininity is still constructed according to the framework of virtue - beauty - speech - conduct in Nom stories, ballads and a part of prose; the attitude of "warning" and avoiding beautiful women as an ominous sign affecting the achievements of men is still very strong, especially in Hoang Le Nhat Thong Chi. The exaltation of women who fully perform their moral duties and gender roles such as lover, wife, mother... is further promoted with the image of heroic women with two typical representatives, Thuy Kieu and Dang Thi Hue. The discourse on femininity as imperfection, deficiency, and defect is expressed through the following aspects: female characters lose their voices, their bodies are imperfect and symbolized, in which the female body is focused on in the following aspects: the inferior, indefinite, dependent body; the alienated body; the female body as an object of sexual enjoyment.

In general, literature of this period still falls within the conventions of ancient literary tradition when writers construct femininity still on the aspects of physical beauty.

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and the adherence to moral standards of female characters. That is on the surface. Deep beneath this adherence to orthodox principles lies the male Confucian authors' response to taboos. The depiction of female characters and the construction of a feminine framework according to orthodox standards, to some extent, keeps the writer at a safe distance, creating a "bulwark" strong enough to conduct exploration and testing of gender codes and non-standard elements in depth. The male Confucian authors' image and conception of women takes place in two inseparable directions: both maintaining traditional moral standards and gradually overcoming and "overthrowing" those standards. Male authors exalt the beauty that surpasses standards, and are attached to the outstanding talents of female characters; For the first time, women were described from a close-up physical perspective, and the body evoked sexual elements, which were attractive to men, not just a threat to men's career path, as shown in the works of Nguyen Gia Thieu, Nguyen Du... The literary works about wives emphasized the role of the wife in the family "husband sings, wife follows", with heartfelt and sincere verses showing that in real social life, the concept of the role of women in the family still has many differences and is not consistent.

The process of self-awareness of one's gender status (or the phenomenon of women under the eyes of female writers) is studied from two aspects: the trend of female autobiography, the description of the female body associated with sexual desire (typically in Ho Xuan Huong's Nom poetry). Although autobiography is not a creative method exclusively for women, the fact that female writers and poets autobiographies about private topics have shown a significant change compared to previous periods, when women's voices were almost submerged in men's grand narratives. Autobiography helps women openly mention their personal needs, the right to live, the right to pursue happiness, and the pursuit of pleasure on an equal footing with men. However, literature in this period did not have a feminine subject, there was no so-called feminine literature, literature of women, but only had signs and linguistic characteristics of a feminine subject, and had begun to show female experiences (although it could be spoken from a male perspective, a male subject).

Chapter 4

SOME SPECIAL SEXUAL CULTURAL PHENOMENA AND SPECIAL GENDER DISCOURSE EXPRESSION METHODS

4.1. Some special sexual cultural phenomena

4.1.1. Soft masculinity, homosexuality and gender transformation

4.1.1.1. Soft masculinity

Each literary work does not have only one value or understanding, but is constantly interpreted and counter-interpreted, placed in an intertextual position with works before and after it, with related cultural and historical phenomena. Only in interpretation do literary works reveal their multivocal nature, their blurred nature: the blurred nature of identity, of writing, of language, of author, text, lyrical self, personal stories... Judith Butler and Eve Kosofy Sedgwick will further develop Foucault's thesis that gender and sexuality are discursive when they agree on the point of view that gender and sexuality are performative discourses: "One is not born a woman, a man or a homosexual: one becomes a woman, a man or a homosexual only in the context of performance, performing or not performing, performing certain acts. Homosexuality does not name a state of being: it denotes a being who performs certain acts, who is identified and classified by social categories rather than by essential attributes. Which gender you belong to, accordingly, is not determined by natures that are assumed to be “given by heaven”, “born that way”, but this depends on what you do, what you represent, what acts you perform and how in specific cultural contexts” [37, p.100].

Literature of this period recorded the “softening” of the masculine structure when characteristics such as sentimentality, vulnerability, sadness, sentimentality… became typical in the works of male authors. And the consequence of reading the negative, anatomized state of the masculine structure is the recognition of the change, the reversal of the discourse of power, when masculinity is gradually transformed/discovered into a more negative, inferior, inferior, and passive state. This process of negative, “softening” of masculinity is an inevitable characteristic of this era. In our opinion, the decline of masculinity, the absorption of femininity into the masculine structure is a spectrum of phenomena that refute traditional discourses on gender as well as propose other ways of reading to find hidden gender codes in the work, which is to see and describe characters with realistic, multi-dimensional eyes.

At the same time, it is impossible not to mention that this is the era of the word "love" and "love" becomes the principle governing human activities and behaviors; it helps to overturn the most accurate interpretations of gender. "Some researchers have pointed out that in the tradition

East Asian tradition has formed a specific masculine model - the "scholar". "Scholar" is a man who pursues the path of learning rather than asserting himself, asserting his masculinity through martial arts and military career, therefore, he is often portrayed in literature and painting in a feminized direction. Researcher Zuyan Zhou wrote a whole treatise on the phenomenon of androgyny in Chinese culture in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and in the beginning of the book, the author noted that the elevation of the category of love (emotion, passion, love...) influenced the idealization of men according to the feminine model: "[...]. The feminine tendency that male culture wanted to incorporate into theater, poetry, calligraphy, costumes and aesthetic tastes may, or at least partly, be due to the „favored position‟ that „femininity enjoyed‟ in the anti-hegemonic „love‟ cult. According to Zhou, in this cultural and historical context, femininity was the closest thing to “truth” (authenticity, sincerity). This tendency also more or less influenced the depiction of male characters in Vietnamese medieval literature during this period, which we can see in the way Nguyen Du described Kim Trong in The Tale of Kieu, for example” [39].

The trend of "love devotion" and "love master" in literature during this period influenced the birth of the type of talented Confucian scholars and the image of talented characters. In the works of talented Confucian scholars, the type of male characters with talented qualities also returned again and again with full ranges of desires, instincts, and urges to understand talent and satisfy worldly needs. Truong Sinh in Tay Suong Ky gave up the imperial examination to pursue Thoi Oanh Oanh, putting love and beauty above the pursuit of fame and the will to establish himself as a gentleman. Luong Sinh of Truyen Hoa Tien , Kim Trong of Truyen Kieu , were also writers whose self-cultivation characteristics were simplified to focus on the path of love with all ranges of new, worldly emotions. Devotion to love and vulnerability to love, once considered effeminate and shameful, now become desirable qualities for men in the novels of talented men and represent a redefinition of masculinity . Song Geng also uses the term ―fragile scholar‖ to refer to talented people/people with talented qualities.

Of the two basic qualities of a talented person, love is increasingly emphasized more than talent because of the traditional nature of talent and the ability to easily achieve it through learning and self-cultivation. However, love , as a complex of diverse emotions belonging to nature, is an innate aspect and difficult to achieve through mechanical means, so it is increasingly emphasized as a characteristic element of talented people when wanting to differentiate them from the surrounding world. From being associated with satisfaction

carnal in the early period, then, love came closer to describing the sentimental nature of the talented person, with a sensitivity (sometimes considered excessive) towards nature and people. Pham Thai became the first male Confucian scholar to write a funeral oration, not for his wife but for his lover, but dared to break with etiquette to call Quynh Nhu "nuong tu", to cry the most sorrowful cries in the history of Vietnamese medieval literature:

My dear wife! What is the cause of this obstacle? What is the cause of this injustice? To the point that spring flowers fade and autumn moon hides!

There is also such a painful thing. There are five or seven families, but she alone has a miserable fate, so the fire may cool down and the water may subside. (…)

I was eager to be a man, but because of waiting for the right time, I delayed my fate. I was a wandering woman, because of anger at fate, I became unruly.

To the point where flowers fall and leaves fall, jade breaks and pearls sink: why is there so much sadness?

Now passing through the green grass, thinking of my unfortunate fate, I shed two lines of tears, and wrote a letter of lamentation, burned it in the grave, to tell my wife!

When in love, the passionate male characters are willing to ignore their studies and careers for love and beauty, day and night thinking about the beauty, even falling ill because of love. Song Tinh when in love: " The young man Sanh returned to the west / He did not think of books and lamps, he was too lazy to look at literature / He was so good at searching that he thought of nothing / He kept horses all day but forgot to ride the eagle. " The student of the Tale of the Flower Fairy became sad and wept because of his love for Dao Tien. Even though he was a man, he had to bow to the maid Van Huong more than once to ask her to help him speak to the person of his dreams: " For so long , I have been thinking about my longing and longing / I have been persistently searching for her / Thinking about how petty and disadvantaged I am / The mirror is a mirror that reflects the traces of duckweed / How many sorrows and pleas / The sad song is entangled , the tears of sorrow are overflowing ", " The shadow of the bridge is longing to be sent to the body of the boat / Who can I rely on with the axe and hammer?", " Seeing the words, it seems like a broken love / The bright color of the paint soothes the edge of the beg / Only the willow is sad and the flower is resentful / I have relied on you, I will never forget". Nguyen Du devoted an entire passage to describe Kim Trong's sad and longing: " The more I shake the measuring cup, the fuller it gets / Three autumns accumulate in one long day / The Qin clouds lock the silk window / The red dust determines the path to the dream / The waning moon, the oil plate wears out / The face dreams, the face feels bored / The writing room is as cold as copper / The bamboo shoots are wrinkled , the silk rabbit's strings are slack / The Tuong curtain flutters in the wind / The scent brings the smell of tea, making the voice hoarse with love."

The male characters are all Confucian scholars, but the works only emphasize their attitudes and actions towards love, omitting aspects of practice and study. Regarding the need to act proactively to achieve results in

In love, the infatuated boys do not hesitate to use all means from probing, waiting, moving to live near the beauty's house, relying on "insiders"... Nguyen Van Xung commented: "But in this very new field for them - the field of love - their first steps cannot avoid surprises. Pham Kim took those surprising first steps in love in So Kinh Tan Trang as well as his contemporary or slightly earlier friends: Phan Tat Chanh in Phan Tran story, Tran Tu Uyen in Mai Dinh Mong Ky and Luong Diec Thuong in Hoa Tien story. People see that Pham Kim is too hasty, loves too quickly and lives wildly; Phan Tat Chanh is infatuated in a pathetic and pitiful way; Tran Tu Uyen is far-fetched and unrealistic; Nguyen Huy Ho is hiding from life to find his dream; Luong Diec Thuong seems like a playboy. All of them are just noisy on the outside but lack subtlety on the inside. It was not until Kim Trong in Nguyen Du's "The Tale of Kieu" that one could see the mature balance of a truly passionate love; passionate, deep and deep inside. The young people of the late Le - early Nguyen generations had to wait until Nguyen Du's "The Tale of Kieu" to become truly familiar with love, to show their natural vitality, to truly mature in love. It can be said that the lyrical tendency that was widespread in Vietnamese literature in the late Le - early Nguyen period was the inevitable consequence of the collapse of Confucian idols in the late 18th century. It had the meaning of a denial of the times, a refusal to participate in social reality, a turning back to inner life, a rejection - out of doubt - of duty to return to feelings" [162, p.77].

And “love” is the thread that runs through all the works, leading the male characters through the events, “love” is the main aspect, the breath of the works. The lovesick young men not only struggle and indulge in the early stages of romantic love, but also in the entire work. The scene where Kim Trong returns to Thuy garden and learns about Kieu having to sell herself to redeem her father is described by Nguyen Du at the level of “heartbreak”: “Wrestling and waving in the wind and pouring rain / Dripping with pearls, the soul of the apricot tree is absent-minded / The pain demands to end, the faint demands to stop / Waking up and crying, crying and then falling asleep again”. Even Thuc Sinh, upon hearing the news that Kieu died in a fire while he was away from home, also “wound himself and cried”, and affirmed the inconsolable pain of losing a soulmate: “It is easy for someone to fan his sorrow to ease it ”.

When Song Tinh returned from defeating the Phien rebels and heard that Nhuy Chau had committed suicide, he was absent-minded and in pain: " The Mandarin did not have time to ask/ His soul had already flown away/ The cuckoo stopped its ooh sound/ The turtle's breath did not move, it pretended to tilt sideways" or "Crying and lamenting, blaming the earth and calling to heaven/ How could he bear to change the yin and yang?" Describing male emotions in such a specific and hyperbolic way has ignored the character's stature or moral characteristics, and only focused on portraying his sad and sentimental nature.

and pushed it to the highest level, somewhat "strange" and a bit extreme. The quantity of masculinity accordingly, not only did not decrease but also increased, because the model of men also changed through the ages. The love of sadness and sentimentality became a "taste" of urban residents and was the source of the birth of soft masculinity and anti -masculinity . Jia Baoyu became a favorite male image not only at the time when Dream of the Red Chamber was born, but also long after, because of the "strange" nature in the character building technique. It was a male character with feminine characteristics ( feminised boy ), with a tendency to get close to women, and with the sentimental nature of women. In addition, Jia Baoyu's regal and "different" lifestyle was also an attractive feature, creating a new "taste" for the target audience of urban residents. Bao Ngoc's feminine beauty has become a classic example of the shaking of the traditional masculine concept, forcing it to turn to the path of fusion to create the concepts of soft masculinity and anti-masculinity - the "specialties" of Ming - Qing literature. In Chinese opera, the phenomenon of cross-dressing/transvestism also shows the level of love for soft masculinity; when many popular female roles are played by men. The phenomena of weak men in Vietnamese medieval literature, although more tragic than in previous periods, are not enough to create a type of soft masculinity. This is due to the difference in historical context, ideology and social life between Vietnam and China. That is also the reason why Vietnam cannot form a homosexual literature or have medieval literary works written specifically on the subject of homosexuality. Traditional Vietnamese agricultural society has been very slow in transforming into an urban structure, and some cities still have rural areas, and cities are at risk of declining back to rural areas; the urban class with new tastes is still slow to form; the team of creators and connoisseurs has not been strongly professionalized... In addition, traditional Vietnamese culture is still very cautious with hybrid phenomena, and cannot accept such a strange "taste". The harmonious and sustainable South Asian tradition will find it difficult to push categories to extremes and maximalism, and will only remain loyal to traditional systems.

In addition, the special feature of this period is the appearance of male characters in which masculinity is no longer the leading factor to describe and "preserve" such as Thuc Sinh, Ma Giam Sinh, Ho Ton Hien and even Kim Trong, Tu Hai also seem to be in an "imperfect" state... These characters are described with a realistic writing style, reducing the frequency of conventions. Each character seems to lack a few qualities to be able to become a perfect, exemplary individual, capable of saving and liberating the whole world.

The whole Kieu was saved from the tragic tragedy. Kim Trong was elegant, gallant, and infatuated but not decisive enough, Thuc Sinh was generous, infatuated but cowardly, Tu Hai was mighty but lacked reason and consideration... It was this lack and imperfection that showed that Nguyen Du was not trying to build perfect, complete male models but letting the realistic writing style do its objective work: pointing out the "instability" of traditional models, showing the struggles of the individual, the rise of desire. The imperfection created a world of multifaceted male characters, at the same time creating space for Kieu to "develop" her own qualities.

The process of feminization and maleness is also shown through the strategy of borrowing voices and playing female roles in the ballads that we will present in the following section. Through borrowing the voices of female characters, male Confucian authors deal with the taboos of etiquette and traditions about gender roles, to express the secret things that society forbids them to say as men; at the same time, helping them have a keyhole look into the sexual world, into their own suppressed and hidden instincts. Borrowing voices is a technique used by authors to avoid weakening masculinity, but in reality it has done the opposite: pointing out the poet's sentimental nature, while showing a certain level of dependence of men when having to "hide" in the shadow of women, speaking in a female voice and female status.

4.1.1.2. The phenomenon of disguise/inversion

Disguise/disguise are phenomena that are very familiar in Western culture and literature, but appear quite sparsely and sporadically in Vietnamese literature.

Regarding transvestism , John Guillory has argued: the setting, the design of clothing, while it conceals anatomical differences of the body, can be seen as creating gender differences. (1990:76). In the Renaissance, clothing became an external sign of class and occupation as well as gender, and it is therefore not surprising that dress became an important system of identity markers. Clothing for men was something of a disguise, a shell around the real self. They could wear clothes without compromising their masculinity. Women, in contrast, tended to identify with their own identity and gender. Feminine clothing, which severely restricted physical activity at the time (medieval), may have had a connotation of constriction and manipulation for the women who wore it. Thus, by wearing a male costume, women can have a different gender perception, making them forget the social restrictions imposed on them and the inconsistent physical attributes that define the male gender. They can use male costume to occupy (originally) male subjects and thus have

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