body

Fast Feminism

mandy — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 02:00:00 +0000

Autonomedia has just published Fast Feminism, the latest book by the performance philosopher and associate professor in Political Science at York University, Shannon Bell. The book contains 198 pages, including thirty-one plates taken of Bell's genitalia during masturbation/ejaculation performances. It may appear unusual that an academic is involved in public displays with highly charged, erotic content; however, Bell has been conducting workshops on the female phallus and instructing women on the art of female ejaculation for the past two decades.

Bell’s oeuvre follows a long tradition in performance art that includes Vito Acconci's "Seedbed," in which he masturbated underneath a ramp at the Sonnabend Gallery, New York as people walked by above him; Valie Export's film Mann & Frau & Animal (1973) that shows her pleasuring herself in a bathtub; Annie Sprinkles' ritual magic masturbation performances; Elke Krystufek's 1994 masturbation performance at Vienna Kunsthalle; and a public performance in the mid-nineties by transgendered academic and performance artist Allucquere Rosanne Stone, who stimulated the palm of her hand to produce an organism. Moreover, Bell’s performance is "embedded in praxis," and "The 'I' of the text is a post-identity recognized by gait, movement and speed." Fast Feminism is a confessional and articulate text that straddles academic writing and colloquial language; it draws heavily on sexual expletives to stress the subcultural activity in which Bell's performance praxis operates.

Fast Feminism's text is definitely Deleuzian. One idea begins and is shattered, only to be taken up in the next already somewhere else, free-floating and circulating. Rather than "buggering" the texts and producing a bastard offspring, an activity Bell states as her intention throughout the book, Fast Feminism appears at least on the surface as homage to masculine writers. Texts by George Bataille and the Marquis de Sade collide and intersect with Emmanuel Levinas ethics of the other; the latter used in her chapter on the perverse aesthetics of the homosexual, pedophile, child pornographer, and writer, John Robin Sharpe. I must say that although I accept Sharpe's erotic writings are situated within an established and honored literary genre, I was uncomfortable with this section because I have raised a child and believe that children should be protected from those who may hurt or abuse them.

I was less interested in the practice of female ejaculation and Bell’s manual of how to achieve it (which forms much of the basis of chapter two), than the writing itself and the various references to philosophical theory, performance art, and politics of the body. When Fast Feminism is meditating at a wake for Horsey—a dog that died because he could not digest a bone, Bell asked one of the participants at the wake to reach inside her vagina and remove the package of money she'd placed there as a donation. This action evoked Carolee Schneemann's 1975 performance, "Interior Scroll," in which she slowly extracted rolled up paper from inside her vagina, whilst reading from a text that reflected the subject positions of both genders. Moreover, Fast Feminism draws attention to the relationship between currency, the female body, and the way is has been abused by others throughout human history. By branding her body Bell has created a living, breathing commodity.

It is clear from her photographs that Fast Feminism is not an everyday example of an aging female body. Having never borne a child, Bell does not posses drooping breasts, excess fat deposits, stretch marks, scars, sagging stomach muscles, or the like. But she does underscore the fact that in our youth obsessed society, bodies that are old, diseased, or less than "perfect" are generally encouraged to remain hidden from public view. Indeed, a strategy against the aging body and diseased organs is the development within biomedicine of tissue engineered replacement body parts. Riding on the intrigue and possibility for experimentation as well as the resulting rarefied aesthetic that tissue-engineering offer, a number of artists have been motivated to move into the realm of creating bio-artificial artifacts. Bell’s tissue-engineered phallus invites us to think about human evolution in relation to the construction of sexuality and the immense impact that various technologies do and will have on the way we perceive ourselves and others in real and imaginary domains.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Fast Feminism and would recommend it to anyone interested in performance art, philosophy and sexuality.

Excerpted from Anything But Human

Written by: Julie Clarke, September 4th 2010

When Marina Abramović Dies

admin — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By James Westcott

MIT Press

As someone with only one semester of art history under my belt, I find myself both interested and intimidated by the politics and practice of performance art. After reading this exhaustive biography of performing art legend Marina Abramović (who just wrapped up a stunning retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York), my intimidation has been replaced by a strong desire to see Abramović’s work.

When reading about an iconic figure such as Abramović, the private aspects of her otherwise very public life are the most interesting artifacts to glean. Through complete cooperation from Abramović and many of her friends and family members, James Westcott produces a marvelously comprehensive history of the artist's childhood in Yugoslavia and the beginning of the career that would revolutionize the use of the body as an artistic vehicle in the 1970s. The downside of writing about such an icon is that, while there is no shortage of fascinating material, one must organize it in such a way as to not overwhelm the reader. Westcott does just that, dividing Abramović’s life into three distinct parts: her early years, her work with fellow performance artist and former romantic partner Ulay, and her recent foray into solo performances.

For readers familiar with Abramović’s body of work, the book will most likely open your eyes to some of her earliest projects, and will offer interesting insight into her more famous pieces. One such example is her 1975 performance of Rhythm 0, where she laid out seventy-two items for museum patrons to use on her however they wished. These items included a loaded gun, which a man put in her hand and pointed at her neck. The author seamlessly weaves together interviews, archival photo footage, and factual information to make Abramović’s life as vibrant on the page as it is in reality.

Above all, Westcott proves to be an incredibly detailed biographer. Near the end of the book, readers understand where some of this attention to detail stems from; he recently served as a transcriptionist for some of Abramović’s marathon performances, writing hundreds of pages at her insistence to describe her hours of sitting or standing during certain pieces. The result of Westcott’s well-researched writing style and Abramović’s openness and commitment to storytelling and making art, When Marina Abramović Dies becomes an enthralling look at the world of performance art, a strong-willed and endlessly creative woman, and what happens when those two things collide for over forty years.

Written by: Alyssa Vincent, July 31st 2010

Theology of the Body

admin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 07:31:00 +0000

By Donora Hillard

Gold Wake Press

In Theology of the Body, Donora Hillard employs a variety of styles and structures to present a complicated picture of the body, desire, and heterosexual relationships. She makes use of the language of theology and an unrelenting physicality in order to create a sense of faith not beyond the body, but through it of a human divinity that is also at once diabolic. It is no accident that the opening epigraph comes from William Blake.

Within this sequence, Hillard manages to portray women with threatening sexualities as well as women who have been made victims. In portraying women’s surprising and, to some, disturbing strength, she does not erase the brutality. With the lines "You can see muscles/ in my legs from running/ after men like you," “Pursuit” is followed by “Remedy,” which concludes with a literal punch that the tight lines and simple imagery of the first two stanzas allow to have a particularly strong impact on the reader. Reading the last verse for the first time, I jerked back a little as if I had been punched. (This isn’t the only place where I reacted so strongly: take that as a trigger warning.)

The only thing that separates these two poems is a line from Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, taken out of context in order to be made into an opportunity for poetic production and imagination. “Remedy” and the other poems interspersed with lines from this same source do more than dramatize or respond to the line which precedes each: poems and statements interact, forming machines that produce new possibilities for the spirituality of the body. The possibilities, no doubt, would have been heinous to the Pope from whom Hillard so skillfully appropriates. The spirituality of the body, after all, is really just the body and living in it. No need for robes, psalms, or Churches: "Every woman, by virtue of the nuptial meaning of her body, is called in some way to be both a wife and a mother."

This quote from the old Pope is followed by a poem that changes the meaning of the final two terms beyond anything he would have recognized. “Wife” opens, "My husband was a shotgun made of candy./ I wanted to kill his former lovers, especially/ the Strawberry Shortcake-looking one." The only allusion to motherhood made comes a few lines later, "On our anniversary,/ we made love in a kiddie pool full of sugar/ and afterbirth."

This strange and joyful sweetness, interrupted by scars and knives with uncertain intents goes beyond the bounds of traditional and restrictive theologies. In doing so, it represents (particularly since it blends sweetness and at least potential pain) the peculiar strength of Hillard’s theology, whether you take it as a theology or not.

Cross-posted with Gender Across Borders

Written by: Elizabeth Switaj, June 29th 2010

Natural Shielding Lotion

admin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By 21st Century Formulations

Finding hand lotion that works is probably not high on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It actually seems frivolous in light of the images of suffering and destruction we’ve recently seen from Haiti and Chile. While I recognize that earthquakes aren’t caused by global warming, lately I find myself balancing my own petty concerns against scientists’ gloomy predictions of climate refugees becoming a real problem if this issue isn’t addressed. In the meantime, I reassure myself with the thought that I still have to function in my day-to-day world; if finding a hand lotion that actually does what it claims to do is a more immediate and manageable goal, I will not castigate myself for that quest.

Living in the Chicago area, we’ve experienced particularly brutal winters the last few years and dry hands seems to be another symptom of this endless winter we’ve had this year, along with snow days and subfreezing temperatures. So when I came across Skin MD Natural Shielding Lotion, I was curious to see if it could live up to its claims. I tend to be skeptical about such claims, but I was curious to try this lotion.

According to the brochure, the Shielding Lotion not only keeps your skin moisturized, but cures the problem of dry skin because its unique formula restores moisture while also enabling your skin to replenish its own moisture. Although the pamphlet included a number of testimonials from happy customers who saw immediate results from using the product on various body parts, I decided to test it primarily as a hand lotion. At $13.00 for a 4 oz. bottle, would I see an improvement over other less expensive hand lotions?

Comparatively, the lotion has a light and non-greasy quality—just a few squirts are all one needs for an application. The Shielding Lotion feels good on your skin and leaves it temporarily moisturized, but as with other lotions, the moisturized feeling didn’t last very long. I did try the product once on my face, but immediately broke out the following day. I have extremely oily and sensitive skin, so I do not consider that a reflection on the product itself as much as its blending with my own unique skin type. I continue to use the lotion, but would probably not shell out the requisite dough for another bottle.

Written by: Gita Tewari, March 25th 2010

The Body Scoop for Girls: A Straight-Talk Guide to a Healthy, Beautiful You

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:06:00 +0000

By Jennifer Ashton Avery

Avery Trade

I am skeptical of books that aim to educate teens about all things related to one’s adolescent body, but The Body Scoop for Girls exceeded my expectations. Jennifer Ashton is a gynecologist and CBS medical correspondent who has written a user-friendly manual for young girls I wish I had read when I was entering the tricky terrain we call puberty. As she points out, what passes for sex education in schools still leaves a lot to be desired—no pun intended—when it comes to teenagers having the kind of comprehensive information necessary to make choices that could change the trajectory of their lives forever.

Yes, I know there has been a lot of debate on the value of preaching abstinence to teens versus providing them with information about and access to contraceptives. Ashton seems to lean toward the school of thought that ‘more is better’ when it comes to sex ed. She also believes that teens shouldn’t wait until they’re sexually active to see a gynecologist, but acknowledges that, for many parents, this is akin to giving your daughter a green light to have sex.

Ashton acknowledges the tremendous pressures that teens are under—from popular culture as well as their peers—when it comes to expressing their sexuality. She advocates teens waiting until they are eighteen to have sex, and even gives readers a list of excuses they can give to a pressuring partner before they are ready. For women who are sexually active, Ashton has good pointers as well, like always use a condom even if you are taking hormonal birth control because neither method is foolproof and the latter doesn’t keep you safe from HIV. She lists the different types of contraceptives, their pros and cons, and commonly held misconceptions about each one.

I consider myself relatively well educated and informed about need-to-know health and wellness topics, but I learned a lot from reading this book, even things that will impact my own health choices as a forty-something female. Ashton has the ability to explain complex information in an engaging and accessible manner. She comes across like a cool older sister when discussing subject matter that is often embarrassing for teen women. (It doesn’t hurt that Ashton, whose picture is featured on the book cover, is young, blonde, and attractive—just what many teenage girls aspire to be.)

Ashton covers everything about the female body in The Body Scoop for Girls—from breast health to safe waxing tips to protecting yourself from sexually transmitted infections. In one interesting section, she talks about the risks of breast implants, which is classified as a major surgery, and advises girls to wait until they’re older than twenty, the age the female body ceases to mature, before considering breast implants. Ashton also dispels myths about the causes of breast cancer, such as using certain deodorants increases the risk, and imparts a few lesser known facts. (Did you know that the more alcohol you consume, the higher your risk of getting breast cancer?)

As I was reading The Body Scoop for Girls, I thought more than once that we’re given more information about how to change the oil in our car or balance a checkbook than we are about how to respect and care for our bodies. The choices teenagers make can have lifelong implications. If you’re a parent of a teenage daughter, buy a copy of this book for her and read it when she’s done. You won’t regret it, and you might even learn something in the process.

Written by: Gita Tewari, February 22nd 2010

Love Your Body, Love Your Life: 5 Steps to End Negative Body Obsession and Start Living Happily and Confidently

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:01:00 +0000

By Sarah Maria

Adams Media

I have not had a good relationship with my body over the years. I was underweight during adolescence and early adulthood, then freaked out when I started to gain weight during my senior year of college. I also could not understand why my friends were telling me I looked fine when I felt I was overweight. After reading Sarah Maria's book, Love Your Body, Love Your Life: 5 Steps to End Negative Body Obsession and Start Living Happily and Confidently, I realize I had been living with Negative Body Obsession (NBO). According to Maria, “NBO is a condition marked by a near-constant critical rumination on one's appearance.”

Maria does an excellent job with this self-help book, taking the reader through all the steps to help her realize how she is viewing her body, and what she can do to stop NBO from taking over her life. The book follows a five step program: the first step is to step up a powerful intention, where the reader identifies what she wants regarding her body and food. The second step is for the reader to identify her negative thoughts and replacing them with positive body thoughts; instead of thinking “I am so fat,” the negative body reaction is changed to “I am inherently beautiful.” The third step involves finding the true person on the inside. The fourth step has the reader befriending her body through meditation, laughter, music, and other “healing” methods. This culminates in the fifth step where the reader lives for a purpose by focusing on the things she is good at , setting goals, and helping other people. Maria goes into great detail with each of the steps, with exercises and inspirational stories.

The tone of the entire book is uplifting, and Maria writes in a warm, inviting tone that helps the reader in this self-help journey. What was appealing to me was Maria's reference to different scientific research, such as psychology and physics : if she was referring to a particular method, such as how intentions can change an outlook on life, she backed everything up with multiple studies. All of the studies she refers to are listed in the resource section.

The steps that Maria uses to help readers to overcome body issues are helpful for other problems. I found myself tackling abuse issues from my past, which were also tied into some of the issues with my body. Love Your Body, Love Your Life definitely puts a new perspective on body image, and can be a helpful tool for anyone who has been struggling with self-image, food, and weight.

Written by: Elizabeth Stannard Gromisch, February 15th 2010

Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness and Liberation

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:03:00 +0000

By Eli Clare

South End Press

The best resistance literature describes a specific moment in history and is written within the context of an organized movement. As the disability movement gains more exposure and support, Eli Clare’s Exile and Pride will join the list of classics among resistance literature. Clare’s bold yet gentle narration of his experience as a disabled American gives readers an inside look at the consciousness of the movement.

Exile and Pride seeks to discover and explore how the disabled community can create pride, what words or symbols demonstrate this pride, and which collective or personal histories should be celebrated rather than simply witnessed. As a transgender individual with cerebral palsy, the activist also explores the various ways his body has been stolen and abused, and how such abuses can be avoided in the future by a revolution in the way mainstream society views and treats disabled individuals.

My favorite part of the book is the chapter titled “Freaks and Queers,” in which Clare provides readers with a history of the American “freak shows” that toured the country through the beginning of the twentieth century. Clare explores the lives of those who were exploited and who made a living off being known as a “freak.” Clare speaks about, and sometimes to, such people with a touching, yet bold, sensitivity that he has come to be known for. He also introduces his audience to a time and place that few who do not read Exile and Pride will ever ponder.

Clare uses the exploration of the freak show as a backdrop for exploring the larger issue of language, labels, and the process of “reclaiming” that so many oppressed communities undertake. The disabled community is of course no different. While embracing the terms cripple and queer, Clare pushes back on the use of the word freak and uses his unique brand of storytelling and personal narrative to explain the reasons why. It is Clare’s contention that freak not only implies self-hatred, but also reinforces historical lies and abuse of the disabled, such as those perpetrated by the freak shows.

I think one of the defining characteristics of resistance art is that it effectively raises the awareness of those in the mainstream. From the history of the freak show to Clare’s personal experiences and lyrical narratives, the book does just that.

For instance, although I have never watched it, I also never realized the annual Jerry Lewis marathon was a source of such anger and irritation for so many disabled individuals. I am also thankful to know about the “medical model of disability,” one that paints disabled people as being sick, and waiting for a cure, one that forces many to obtain non-medical, adaptive equipment from a doctor instead of a website. It is awareness of such issues that will bring the cure to ableism that Clare and millions of other disabled individuals and allies seek.

As a severely disabled individual who also has advanced degrees and has authored two books, Clare may be seen as “transcending” his disability. However Clare adamantly rejects such notions and instead envisions a world where people such as him as seen as full participants in mainstream society. Such a vision requires inclusion, not celebration, of those with “special needs” who live full lives. Clare turns his nose up at the insistence of mainstream culture to find “supercrips” who have “overcome” their disabilities.

Of particular interest to Feminist Review readers is Clare’s analysis of the line between being “a sexual object and a sexual subject” in the chapter “Reading Across the Grain.” I have never read such a poignant analysis of the subject that so few, even in feminist academia, fail to recognize. Clare gracefully describes how the media and the pornography industry have led women to believe that being objectified is a manifestation of their own sexuality. The confusion between self as object and self as subject has created a culture where violence and degradation are accepted forms of sexual expression. Unfortunately, as Clare points out, feminist debate over the topic of pornography and sexual expression remains polarized.

As an individual with disabled family members, I read Exile and Pride in a quest typical of those in the mainstream that Clare expresses frustration over. I read the book in an attempt to come to some understanding of the world in which those different from me live in. What I was reminded of and what I now seek to make a part of my own deeply ingrained consciousness is that those different from me don’t live in a different world. We all live together in the same world, but with vastly different realities. As feminists our role is to remember and expose these realities.

Written by: Janice Formichella, January 11th 2010

The Ravenous Audience

admin — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

By Kate Durbin

Akashic Books

I’ve always thought that at its best, art in some way disturbs us: out of complacency, ignorance, or innocence that has become a liability. The Ravenous Audience by Kate Durbin is a deliciously disturbing collection of poems that delivers a sensory-emotional feast ripe with smells, sounds, and flavors of the sacred and the profane. I was enchanted by the visual and visceral quality of the collection and was thoroughly engaged by Durbin’s command of language.

The book is divided into four Scenes (sections), and many of the poems are inspired by the works of other artists, including films, paintings, photographs, and sculptures. One section contains a thirty-page poem originally published as a chapbook. The poems vary greatly in form and include orderly stanzaed quatrains and couplets among other, less obviously ordered free verse. Deliberate spacing and line structure provide emphasis and cadence, while some poems span several pages, making effective use of white space and the pause as the reader turns the page.

One of my favorite poems in the collection is "36 Fillette." Taking its title from Catherine Breillat’s 1988 film, the poem's lines are taken from the film's dialogue. As the page-long poem progresses, repetition increases, lines lose their punctuation and merge, and by its end the poem has picked up such speed that I was completely drawn into the cyclone of experience it creates.

The Ravenous Audience also brings to life several mythic and iconic women of the early twentieth century (Amelia Earhart, Clara Bow, and Marilyn Monroe), and Durbin gives a fresh voice to these women of troubled lives and tragic destinies. Exhaustive research informs an imagined interview with Marilyn, a listing of the worldly possessions she left behind, and a final-days journal of the wrecked, stranded, and menstruating Amelia Earhart.

Focusing on the shock factor of much of the thematic material in The Ravenous Audience would be to overlook how well this collection reflects the overall experience of being a woman and boldly embracing the messiness of corporeal life. The raw descriptions of bodily juices, incest, transgressive sex, and violent objectification punctuate a collection of poems that bears unflinching witness and plays with and annihilates boundaries. The carnality and grossness of life are not ignored, but included simply as part of the whole.

Written by: Matsya Siosal, December 16th 2009

Bodies

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 10:29:00 +0000

By Susie Orbach

Picador

In Bodies, Susie Orbach, best known for her continuous thread of psychoanalytic discussion of the body particularly as rooted in eating disorders and feminism, offers up a broader discussion of bodies in our time. For Orbach, that time is the age of late capitalism where bodies no longer perform work or produce, but are the element of production themselves: “The body is turning from being the means of production to the production itself.”

Addressing not only the psychologists’ terrain of investigating eating disorders and bodily control, but also the wave of body modification standards in contemporary culture that range from surgeries and tattoos to the mediated (re)production of such bodies (she disturbingly references a children’s portrait studio that remakes and retouches even small babies’ photographs, taking the “airbrushed model” to a whole new level), Orbach delves into territory Elizabeth Grosz, Kathleen LeBesco, and even Laura Kipnis have tread.

Orbach offers, however, a turn to question Freud and moves to incorporate this newly produced (rather than producing) body as the entre to a discussion of development theory. Although her insights are thoughtful and do carefully characterize the turn to reconsider the body as not merely a canvas, but also as an active player in the construction of culture, they are not entirely new.

Orbach has long been an originating voice in the theoretical discussion of the body, and she adeptly uses her expertise to stretch the conversation to more contemporary questions of the body. She dips carefully into surgery, her own field of eating disorders, and even the contemporary attention to avatars and bodies that aren’t bodies at all, yet function in cyberspace (touching boundaries with Donna Haraway). Orbach’s conclusions also revive a conversation on the body and sex that Kipnis tried to enliven just a few years ago.

Bodies is useful and careful in its framing of these issues on the body. The book serves as a summary of much of the work that already exists on the subject and neatly brings many threads together under a broader conversation of the power the body has—moving away from a far more simplistic “mind-body” analysis. It is a useful survey, but not necessarily a set of innovative theorizing.

Written by: Dr. Julie E. Ferris, April 15th 2009