/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

JONES: ...Part of the way that this is done by de-sexualizing them. We had a curious bit where Professor Samantha Riches, who does work on the iconography of St. George and the Dragon, she discovered that in the late 15th century and the early 16th century in depictions of St. George and the Dragon, the dragon begins to take on female genitalia.

http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/als/_gendered_dragons_st_george.html

"I noticed that there was something odd about the dragon," Dr. Riches explains to Three Monkeys Online. "It appeared to be a female dragon, as it had an obvious orifice which seemed to equate to female genitalia. My initial thought was that this was the work of a 1960s permissive society restorer, or that it had been done as some kind of joke. I imagined a falling out between the carver and the head of the workshop. Perhaps this was the very last panel that had been carved, and it would have been too late to change it. As far as I knew at the time, it was a unique representation, but after I shared this information with various colleagues one of them came forward with another example that she had just come across, an image of St George and another apparently female dragon from a Dutch manuscript of around the same date. Since then they've come thick and fast, and I now have over fifty representations. I tend to find that when I talk about my research, people suddenly think 'goodness, I've never considered this idea before', then they'll come back to me with examples they've found.

[Anonymous No.]

Other variations on the theme are depictions of dragons with breasts or dragons depicted with dragonlets, though these are much less common than dragons with female genitals. Someone also sent me details of a dragon with male genitals, again linked to St. George. It's been very much happenstance the way it's developed, rather than having set out to selectively research something on monsters, or gendered monsters".

In many of the images of St George and a feminised dragon the gendering is anything but casual, with the eye cleverly being drawn from St. George to the dragon's sex, as Riches explains. "The images are quite carefully constructed. The dragon is always on its back, it’s always facing away from St. George, and it’s in a position of maximum exposure. The idea of subjugation and the use of phallic weaponry are very, very strong. Having a pseudo-phallic pointer, for example a broken lance, highlighting the orifice is very common. In one example there's a femur in place of the lance, giving the idea that the dragon has been eating people but also drawing your eye to the dragon's genitals. Indeed the tail in itself can work in this manner. The images are cleverly constructed and remarkably consistent, with clear potential for reading meaning into the pictures. The dragon is invariably shown the position for having sex in a humanised way, i.e. face-to-face, rather than in the ’bestial’ way, with her back to the male. She's effectively saying to St. George, 'don't kill me, have sex with me', and he's responding 'no'. This seems to underline her sexuality and depravity, and equally highlights his chastity."

[Anonymous No.]

>She's effectively saying to St. George, 'don't kill me, have sex with me', and he's responding 'no'. This seems to underline her sexuality and depravity, and equally highlights his chastity."

I love how people make up their own conclusions to things.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9676961
What else would the general transition from malicious to feminine traits represent?

[Anonymous No.]

>>9676966
It's just a stab wound from the lance, dude.

[Anonymous No.]

>This seems to underline her sexuality and depravity, and equally highlights his chastity
Or maybe St. George does not want to have sex with dragons.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9677043
What the hell is wrong with him?