{"id":8390,"date":"2012-02-21T07:00:21","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=8390"},"modified":"2019-12-26T07:19:31","modified_gmt":"2019-12-26T11:19:31","slug":"politics-of-beauty-and-pleasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2012\/02\/21\/politics-of-beauty-and-pleasure\/","title":{"rendered":"Politics of Beauty and Pleasure"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As Langdon Winner aptly points out, artifacts have politics<\/a>. They have politics built into them, are used with political intention, and interpreted through political lenses. Often times, however, the politics of an artifact are hidden from view, disguised, or misleading.\u00a0 As per thecloverbeautyclinic.com<\/a><\/span> ,people often deconstruct the political meanings and implications of different kinds of artifacts. Today, I want to deconstruct two artifacts that operate with the potential for, and under the guise of, technologically facilitated feminist liberation. Specifically, I look at the Fuck Skinny Bitches <\/em>internet memes, and the now vastly present and prevalent female-coded masturbation devices (i.e. vibrators and dildos)[i]<\/a>. I argue that these artifacts, rather than dissolving hierarchical gendered boundaries of bodily control and sexual pleasure, surreptitiously trace over these boundaries with invisible ink, only to be revealed under the light of critical sociological analysis.<\/p>\n

Recently,\u00a0we have\u00a0seen in influx of internet memes that attempt<\/em> to provide a feminist rejection of hegemonic standards of the beautiful body. These memes contrast images of curvaceous women to very slender women and include text that preferences the larger body\/bodies. These are portrayed as the feminist answer to the unrealistic body sizes showcased and revered on runways<\/a>, red carpets<\/a>, and the annually released \u00a0Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition<\/a>. I call these Fuck Skinny Bitches<\/em> memes. A couple of examples are pictured below.<\/p>\n

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Although these memes successfully call into question the valuing and concomitant degradation of two specific body types (i.e. very thin and curvaceous respectively) they in no way move women\u2019s bodies outside of the male gaze. As Heather Cromarty posted over at Sociological images<\/a>, these memes pit women against each other in antagonistic comparison, and reinforce male approval as the pinnacle of female success. Rather than escape the male gaze, these attempts at feminist liberation work only to reformulate the desirable ends towards which women control their bodies. In short, the female body continues to be an apparatus of (heterosexual)male pleasure.<\/p>\n

Like Fuck Skinny Bitches <\/em>memes, we also might begin with feminist liberatory assumptions surrounding the vast availability of female-coded masturbation technologies. These devices\u2014of all varieties\u2014 are openly made, sold, and discussed, as \u201csex toy parties\u201d<\/a> have become as acceptable and common in middle class circles as Tupperware, MaryKay, or Scentsy demonstrations.\u00a0 Moreover, masturbation technologies are made and marketed disproportionately for and towards women (as opposed to men). A quick Google search of \u201csex toys<\/a>\u201d produces a plethora of vibrators\u2014marketed for women\u2014with only the occasional synthetic mouth, vagina, or full RealDoll<\/a> marketed towards (heterosexual) men. In apparent contradiction to the patriarchal subjugation of female desire, we see here a prevalence of devices that not only acknowledge, but grant women control over their own sexual pleasure\u2014no man (or partner) required.<\/p>\n

I argue however, that these technologies, as historically and contemporarily used and marketed, may not be as empowering as they at first seem. Specifically, I argue that they reinforce the polemic dichotomy between male and female sexual desire\u2014the former seen as natural, it\u2019s satisfaction the responsibility of the Other, the latter seen as unnatural, it\u2019s satisfaction the responsibility of the self.<\/p>\n

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Advertisement for “Passion Parties”: The erotic alternative to Tupperware Parties<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Male sexual desire is assumed. It is natural and organic. He needs no electronic device, only his fantasies, the touch of the skilled female pleasure giver, or an inanimate female form to receive him. The satisfaction of male sexual desire falls upon female objects\u2014real or fantasied\u2014 who display and arrange themselves for his visual and physical pleasures. Female desire, however, is inorganic and marginal. It is her own concern, to be achieved not at the hands of a lover, nor even by her own hands, but outsourced to a foreign mechanical object: The Vibrator.<\/p>\n

As delineated in Rachel Maines\u2019 historical sketch of the electromechanical vibrator<\/a>, the device was created in the 1880s as a non-sexual medical tool used to treat women with \u201chysteria.\u201d Doctor\u2019s prescribed and sometimes administered stimulation to orgasm for this illness of an unstable mind. This, of course, was no more than the medicalization of female sexual suppression\/oppression. Foucault<\/a> goes as far as to contend that \u201chysteria\u201d was one of the \u201cfour great strategic unities\u2026 which formed specific mechanisms of knowledge and power centering on sex\u201d (p. 103).\u00a0 It reinforced the status of women as mentally weak and the status of her sexual pleasure as an irrelevant concern for her (presumably hetero-male) sexual partner.\"Pathologizing<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Though we no longer diagnose women with hysteria, we continue to perpetuate her sexual desire as somehow inorganic, of concern only to herself. With the disproportionate <\/em>availability of female-coded self-stimulation devices, female sexual fulfillment takes the form of a task to be completed outside of coupled relations or an event co-opted for male pleasure\u2014as seen in the prominent genre of female performative masturbation pornography.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Just as the Fuck Skinny Bitches<\/em> memes mask continued patriarchal control over female bodies, the vast marketing of female-coded masturbation technologies disguise continued patriarchal control over female sexual pleasure. The image of the contemporary orgasming woman is alone and invisible, quietly armed with the technologies of sexual self-reliance, or she is hot, wet, and screaming out her pleasure for the man who stands above her.<\/p>\n

This is not to say that the feminist movements have made no progress. Open attempts to challenge the male gaze are laudable feats in themselves. Open acknowledgment of female sexual desire and pleasure are a far cry from diagnoses of hysteria. Moreover, both memes and masturbation technologies have strong liberatory potential\u2014some of which has been realized. Indeed some feminist internet memes<\/a> problematize hegemonic body standards without falling prey to the problems of the widely circulated Fuck Skinny Bitches <\/em>memes; and \u00a0masturbation \u00a0devices can and are used to enhance the experience of female (and male and queer) pleasure, often in ways un-depicted in mainstream pornography or marketing.\u00a0 This analysis suggests, however, that the path ahead is longer and rockier than it seems at first glance, and that the layers of liberatory technologies must be pulled apart to reveal the complexity of their political contents.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0[i] I say \u201cfemale-coded\u201d because technologies of sexual pleasure are used by the spectrum of genders. Vibrating and penetrating technologies, however, are marketed towards and commonly seen as devices used for hetero-female pleasure, while synthetic vaginas, mouths, and other enveloping technologies are typically coded for hetero-male use.<\/p>\n

Follow Jenny Davis on Twitter\u00a0@Jup83<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Langdon Winner aptly points out, artifacts have politics. They have politics built into them, are used with political intention, and interpreted through political lenses. Often times, however, the politics of an artifact are hidden from view, disguised, or misleading.\u00a0 As per thecloverbeautyclinic.com ,people often deconstruct the political meanings and implications of different kinds of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1753,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[892],"tags":[216,851,14100,10824,2554,14046,2007,14098,55,13961,12285,1527,14099,14097,120,176,14096],"class_list":["post-8390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essay","tag-beauty","tag-body","tag-body-size","tag-butler","tag-cyborg","tag-fatness-studies","tag-foucault","tag-fuck-skinny-bitches","tag-gender","tag-internet-memes","tag-memes","tag-patriarchy","tag-pleasure","tag-rachel-maines","tag-sex","tag-sexuality","tag-vibrator"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1753"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8390"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24132,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8390\/revisions\/24132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}