REPRESENTING SEXUALITY THROUGH FOLKLORE: EROTIC FOLKTALES AND ONLINE JOKES AS ‘MIRRORS’ OF GENDER HIERARCHIES

Abstract

Gender roles, relations, and structures are aspects of human sexuality that are (re)constructed, negotiated, and even contested through a variety of discourses, including folklore. Erotic tales and sexual jokes are folk genres in which human sexuality is most explicitly presented. In this respect, the two key questions this study seeks to answer are: what kind of sexuality (gender roles, relations, and structures) is constructed through these genres and what inferences may be made about the society underpinning the discourse thus produced. To accomplish the ends, the study uses material collected from the Republic of Macedonia, organized in two data corpuses: erotic folktales and online sexual jokes. The content of the data is analyzed in order to identify the most reoccurring themes, gender roles, and relations constructed vis-à-vis the dominant motif in these narratives – the sexual intercourse, and thus to be able to describe the discourse on sexuality constructed by and through these genres, comment upon its social implications, and suggest way(s) of using it as a tool to counteract gender inequalities.