South Sea Maidens: Western Fantasy and Sexual Politics in the South Pacific

by Michael Sturma

From the first European contact with Tahiti in 1767, the myth of the South Sea maiden has endured through many incarnations. Although the maiden frequently provided an idealized antidote to Western women's self-assertion, the South Pacific also afforded a space where boundaries between the sexes could be relaxed and transgressed. From James Cook and Captain Bligh to James Michener and Margaret Mead, the Island girl has occupied a special place in the erotic imagination of the West. In a sweeping study that embraces history, literature, visual arts, anthropology and film, this study gives fresh insight into the myths and reality of a Western icon.

While women from far off lands have always been presented as exotic and alluring, the South Sea maiden has come to symbolize feminine sexuality, as an integral part of the adventure, sensuality, and romance of the South Pacific. Everyone from early explorers to 19th century writers and artists to latter day anthropologists, film makers, and tourism promoters have extolled their virtues and their bodies. Sturma looks behind the popular clich^D'es to reveal how the myth-making process reflected not only Western desires, but the cut and thrust of changing sexual politics. The result is an intriguing look at both South Sea image-makers and the women whom they found so seductive.

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Joshua Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very concise overview of the history of the 'South Sea Maiden' archetype conjured from European contact and interaction with the South Pacific. Sturma examines how this archetype arose from the voyages of Enlightenment-era navigators and was cultivated and nourished through 19th century fictional literature, 20th century cinema and this archetype continues to be subverted or reinvented by indigenous artists. While Sturma, extensively covers European aesthetic and sexual impressions of indigenous women in an array of places in Oceania encompassing Australia, New Zealand, the Marquesan Islands, Tahiti, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Hawaii and Vanuatu, it would be have added greater depth to his work to invoke the indigenous accounts of European sexual interactions. He for examples mentions the accounts of Georg Forster and Bounty mutineer James Morrison who confirmed the practice of what we now term 'pedophilia' by European sailors. Whether sex with pubescent or post-pubescent teenagers was practiced in certain Polynesians is a rather ambiguous detail that Sturma doesn't touch upon. Generally speaking, this book is a great overview of European fascination and exoticization of the indigenous women of Oceania. Sturma does a reasonably good job of evaluating shifting gender roles in European society and how the cultures of the Pacific functioned as an outlet for subversion or aversion of these gender roles in cross-cultural relationships between Europeans and indigenous peoples. The bibiography Sturma supplies is very abundant and I look forward to further reading up on his cited sources.