FEMALE VOLUPY:

TRANSGRESSION IN OVÍDIO AND GILKA MACHADO

Abstract

Female pleasure has always been a controversial topic, sometimes repressed throughout history. The Church condemned sexual pleasure, considering it only for procreation, and saw women as cunning beings who needed control (Knibiehler, 2016). Scientists such as John Harvey Kellogg and Isaac Baker-Brown have proposed extreme treatments to prevent female pleasure, such as applying carbolic acid to the clitoris and radical clitoridectomy, respectively (Strömquist, 2018). These practices reflect women's difficulty in seeking and talking about their pleasure. Ovid, in ancient Rome, challenged the moral norms of his time by arguing that women should take pleasure in their sexual relationships and pursue their own romantic interests, even when married. In a similar way, brazilian poet, Gilka Machado faced a conservative society that avoided discussing the body and female pleasure. This work performs a comparative reading of the poem Volupy, by Gilka Machado and the work  Art of Love, by Ovídio, using a qualitative approach (Mesquita Neto, 2020) and having as theoretical foundations Carson (2023), Knibiehler ( 2016), Lerner (2019), Perrot (2019) and Cixous (2022). The aim is to analyze the similarities in writing about female voluptuousness and the legacy of these poets in the fight for women's rights.