bodies

A clothing-optional resort, Paradise Lakes in Land O’Lakes, is sponsoring a “g-string pageant.” It is advertising its event with the following ad:

In response, the American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR) has suspended the resort’s membership. They claim that the contest “sexualized the nudist experience.” Instead, the AANR promotes “social, family nude recreation” (story here, via).

What a fantastic example of the different ways in which we can interpret nudity.

See also this post and the thoughtful commentary it inspired.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

We posted earlier about the biology behind the controversy over Caster Semenya’s sex.  Germán I. R.-E. and Philip Cohen (who has his own post on the topic) asked that we comment on her recent makeover.

Some sociologists argue that gender (as opposed to sex) is really more about performance than it is about our bodies.  That is, we do gender and, when we do it in ways that other people recognize, everyone feels satisfied.  This is, perhaps, what Caster Semenya’s handlers were hoping for when she submitted to a makeover for South Africa’s YOU Magazine:

Notice that Semenya carries the same body into this photoshoot, but she is properly adorned with make up, feminine clothing, jewelry, a passive pose, and a pleasant and inviting facial expression (because to be feminine is to be accommodating).

Perhaps more importantly, the copy and the interview tells the reader that Semenya likes dressing up and looking pretty, another important indicator of both femininity and non-masculinity.  The cover says:

WE TURN SA’S POWER GIRL INTO A GLAMOUR GIRL – AND SHE LOVES IT!

(Notice, too, the implication that power and glamour are opposed.)

This insistence that Semenya feels (or wants to feel) feminine, as well as looks it, is mirrored in the text (as summarized by the Guardian):

It carries an interview with the 18-year-old student. “I’d like to dress up more often and wear dresses but I never get the chance,” she says. “I’d also like to learn to do my own makeup.”

The lifestyle magazine quotes Semenya’s university friends saying that she wants to buy stilettos and have a manicure and pedicure. Semenya adds: “I’ve never bought my own clothes – my mum buys them for me. But now that I know what I can look like, I’d like to dress like this more often.”

You magazine says that, after the photoshoot, Semenya told her manager that she would like to buy all the outfits she had modelled.

So, in the face of the leaked and unconfirmed finding that Semenya has undescended testicles and higher levels of testosterone than the “average” woman (see note at end*), there is an assertion here that what matters (i.e., the measure of sex that we should attend to) is her gender identity (feeling feminine) and her gender performance (doing femininity).

Anna N. at Jezebel points to how the public interest in Semenya’s sex may have pressured her, and those around her, to play this gender game. She writes:

…up until now, Semenya and her family have been unapologetic about the way she looks and dresses. Her father said that she had always preferred pants, but that she was still a woman — and the idea that she has to put on a dress and lipstick to prove her femaleness to people is pretty depressing.

It is also something that almost all women in Western countries do everyday.  We perform gender, in part out of habit and in part consciously, all the time.  Semenya hasn’t cared about this performance and that is at least in part why the controversy over her sex is taking the form that it is.

* Note:  The release of male-related hormones, androgens, isn’t the whole story here.  Cells must also have the relevant receptors for the presence of the hormones to matter.  Semenya likely is lacking some of those receptors, either in her whole body on in parts of her body, because her body obviously didn’t respond to the hormones (otherwise she would have a penis and scrotum).  My point here is dual: (1) the presence of testicles and testosterone doesn’t tell the whole story and (2) even if we knew the whole story, it doesn’t tell us if she is female or male.  What if her body doesn’t detect the presence of those androgens?  What if it reads the presence of some of them, but not others?  What if she is chimera or mosaic?  All these are interesting questions biologically, but the answers will not tell us whether she is male or female because sex, like gender, is a social construction.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

We often present a single example of a cultural pattern.  If you’re a member of the relevant culture, that single example might ring true.  That is, you might recognize it as one manifestation of something you see “out there” all the time.

But it’s still just one example and it’s not very convincing to someone who is skeptical that the cultural pattern exists, especially if it’s subtle.

But one advantage of this blog is that it’s cumulative.  We can put up single manifestations of a cultural pattern and, even if it’s not very convincing at the time, the other evidence on the blog (and the evidence yet to come) may sway some skeptics.

In that spirit, I offer you this screen shot of the front page of the Gap website (borrowed from stuff white people do).

Notice that there is only one black woman included and she is wearing the “curvy” jean.  This could be random, but I am going to suggest that it’s not.  For more examples of black women’s butts and thighs being fetishized in U.S. culture (that may or may not convince you that this is a pattern) see here, here, here, and here.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Etan B. sent in this ad (found Etan’s blog) that the CDU, a conservative German political party, is using to compare its candidate, Vera Lengsefeld, to Angela Merkel. The ad shows a photo of Merkel on the left and Lengsfeld on the right. Both women are in dresses that reveal cleavage (the photo of Merkel generated a lot of discussion when it first appeared about whether she was dressed too sexily):

The text on the left, across the image of Merkel, says “We have more to offer,” the implication being, of course, that the conservative party has more to rely on than cleavage. Lengsfeld explained the ad this way:

If only a tenth of them also look at the content of my policies, I will have reached many more people than I could have done with classic street canvassing.

UPDATE: Now I’m confused. Elena says,

Merkel is the chairwoman of the CDU. Both women belong to the same party, and according to the ad both have “[more] to offer”.

I apologize for the confusion about Merkel’s party–I read in two different places the account I gave above. So I guess the CDU is basically saying you should vote for it because it has candidates that are sexy? I kinda think that’s actually worse than what I originally thought it was. Elena, thanks so much for the clarification!

You can also read an article about the controversial ad at NPR.

As Etan points out, it’s reminiscent of the scrutiny Hillary Clinton received after she wore this outfit on the Senate floor:

As far as men go, in 2000 Rolling Stone was accused of airbrushing this cover photo of Al Gore to make his crotch bulge bigger (via):

So there are lots of examples of efforts to delegitimize political candidates by focusing on their looks or sexuality, but the Lengsfeld one is the most blatant I’ve seen recently.

Chrissy Y., Stacey S., and a former student of mine, Kenjus Watson, have all suggested that we post about the controversy over Olympic athlete Caster Semenya’s sex.

A lot of people are talking about whether or not it’s appropriate to be asking about her sex and why we would be so obsessed with knowing the answer. Those are fine questions (and I address them secondarily).  But first I would like to suggest that, even if we were to decide that it is appropriate to want to determine her sex (that we are obsessed with it for a good reason), it would be impossible to actually determine her sex definitively. Let me explain:

If you were to try to decide what qualifies a person as male or female, what quality would you choose?

I can think of eight candidates:

1. Identity (whatever the person says they are, they are)
2. Sexual orientation (boys dig girls, vice versa)
3. Secondary sex characteristics (e.g., boobs/no boobs, pubic hair patterns, distribution of fat on the body)
4. External genitalia (e.g., clitoris, labia, vaginal opening/penis and scrotum)
5. Internal genitalia (e.g., vagina, uterus, and fallopian tubes/epididymis, vas deferens, seminal vesicles, prostate, etc)
6. Hormones (preponderance of estrogens/androgens)
7. Gonads (ovaries/testes)
8. Chromosomes (XX/XY, the SRY gene)

Most of us assume that these criteria all line up. That is, that people with XY chromosomes have testes that make androgens which creates a penis, epididymis, vas deferens etc… all the way up to a male-identified person who wants to have sex with women.  We also assume that these things are binary (e.g., boobs/no boobs), when in reality most of them are on a spectrum (e.g., hormones, also boobs, likely sexual orientation).

But these criteria don’t always line up and sex-linked charactertics aren’t binary.  Examples of “syndromes” that disrupt these trajectories abound (e.g., Klinefelter’s syndrome).  And all kinds of practices, including surgeries, are sometimes used to force a binary when there isn’t one (e.g., intersex surgery to fix the “micropenis” and “obtrustive” clitoris and breast reduction surgery for men).

If these criteria don’t always line up, then we have to pick one as THE determinant of sex.  But any choice would ultimately be arbitrary.  The truth is that none of these criteria could ever actually definitively qualify a person as male or female.

The alternative would be to require that a person qualify as male or female according to ALL of the criteria.  And you might be surprised, then, how many people are neither male or female.

I think the debate over whether we should test Semenya’s sex is getting ahead of itself, given that there is no such test.

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Yet, while we won’t be learning anything definitive about Semenya’s sex, the controversy does teach us something about our obsession with sex difference.  On MSNBC, Dave Zirin explains what the controversy over is really about:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK-w6lDOZ5Q[/youtube]

To me, one of the most interesting things that Zirin says is that sex isn’t actually a good indicator of athletic ability.  He may be a guy, he says, but having a penis doesn’t translate into outrunning anyone.

He is implying that sex segregation in athletics, as a rule, is more about an obsession with sex categories and their affirmation than it is about sports. Remember, Semenya’s sex is being questioned not just because she appears masculine to some (she always has), but because she kicked major ass on the track.

Kenjus, my former student, writes:

…why didn’t they test Usain Bolt?  He did amazingly well… Yet, his otherworldly accomplishments are considered the result of his never-before-seen body structure… Usain, however, is a big, strong, fast Black man. The fact that his times are just as mind-boggling as Caster’s gets lost in the widely accepted narrative that big, strong, fast Black men accomplish amazing athletic feats. It’s what they’re built for.

But this woman has apparently baffled the athletic and scientific experts because her body is not doing what a woman’s body is supposed to do. More specifically, her shape is too muscular, her voice is too deep, and her time is too fast. Essentially, “Semenya-the-woman” CANNOT exist in an exclusively two-gendered (i.e. men and women) society in which men are innately bigger, stronger, more deeply-voiced, and particularly FASTER than women…

Semenya is getting far more media attention than the recent cheating scandals of higher profile athletes. This is precisely because there’s something that separates Caster from an A-Rod, a Marion, a Sosa… The world is captivated by Caster because something that should be certain; unquestionable; medical; pre-ordained, is in flux.  It is regrettable that some athletes take illegal drugs to gain an edge over the competition. It’s entirely unethical, unnatural, and ungodly for an athlete to not fit into our narrow specifications of what constitutes gender or sex.

Indeed.  Our obsession with Semenya’s sex, in addition to being hurtful and invasive, says a great deal more about us, than it does about her.  And perhaps the reason we are so obsessed with proving Semenya’s sex, to bring this post back to its beginnings, is because binary sex doesn’t actually exist.  Me thinks we protest too much.

(Thanks to Mimi Schippers, via the Sociologists for Women in Society listserve, for alerting me to the video. Images found here and here.)

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Larry Harnisch of the L.A. Times blog The Daily Mirror sent in some old images from the Times archives that show how photos of stars were touched up to show less skin. Here’s one of Frances Farmer (from Larry’s post about her):

The image comes from the 1940 movie “Flowing Gold.” Apparently it was considered too revealing and the Times had someone draw in a dress above her wrap…with what appears to be a black magic marker.

Charlton Heston was also retroactively covered up. Both of the following images come from The Daily Mirror. This is a still from a 1957 episode of “Shlitz Playhouse.” Someone very obviously, and badly, drew a shirt on him:

Though the photo was touched up by the L.A. Times staff, it’s not clear whether it actually appeared in the paper. This photo most definitely did, however; it accompanied a review of “The Omega Man” from August 27, 1971. They did an even better job with the shirt this time:

It provides some perspective on how ideas of how much uncovered skin is appropriate to run in a mainstream media outlet have changed over the years. It’s also interesting that both men’s and women’s chests were covered. But mostly they just crack me up. The last one is my favorite.

Also check out the post about Sacha Baron Cohen naked on the cover of GQ and spoofing magazine covers that have naked people on them.

Tara C., fds, Dimitriy T.M., Wendy C., and Breck C. all sent in images of the Bebé Glotón, a doll that comes with a sort of bra that lets a child pretend to breastfeed (found at Thingamababy):

According to Thingamababy,

Bebé Glotón is a infant doll made by Berjuan, a toy maker in Spain, for the express purpose of promoting breastfeeding. The idea is to impress upon kids that breastfeeding is natural.

Here’s a demonstration video:

The doll has sparked quite a bit of controversy. From a story in the Mail Online:

Posting a comment after watching a demonstration video online, one user wrote: ‘This toy would never work in the U.S. because the public would sexualize the act of breastfeeding, thereby deeming it inappropriate for little girl to engage in.’

Another wrote: ‘ Honestly, I think this is awful. Now let me just be clear, I think breastfeeding is wonderful and wholeheartedly encourage it, however, it is completely inappropriate to allow a young girl to mimic it.’

And from Fox News:

Dr. Manny Alvarez, managing health editor of FOXNews.com, said although he supports the idea of breast-feeding, he sees how his own daughter plays with dolls and wonders if Bebe Gloton might speed up maternal urges in the little girls who play it.

Um…okay. Why this would “speed up maternal urges” any more than bottle-feeding a doll, I don’t really know.

While my first reaction was that the doll is creepy and weird, on second thought I couldn’t see that it’s stranger than the doll one of my cousins got a few years ago that “pooped” and “peed” some bright yellow and green substances that I did not ask any details about. I dunno. Is this really “sexualizing” girls? That implies that breastfeeding, real or simulated (through layers of clothing), is a sexual activity. I think it’s kind of fascinating that so many people, including myself, have had such an immediately negative reaction to the doll.

The more I think about it, the more it seems that my, and others’, negative reaction is based on a premise that anything involving breasts is sexual…a premise that many breastfeeding advocacy groups such as La Leche League have fought as they try to expand the ability of parents to breastfeed in public (or to have access to clean spaces to breastfeed in places such as malls, religious and government buildings, and so on).

Is our problem with the doll really more about the social construction of breasts as sexual? What is the primary problem with this doll? What’s driving our disgust?

Thoughts?

We’re written before about how the male gaze shapes how “sexy” is marketed and sold. Specifically, when sex is used to sell, we usually see (presumably straight) men’s sexual subjectivity and the sexual objectification of women.   That is, we are all encouraged to see with a straight male gaze and thus, we are presented with a female object of desire. Three choice posts on the topic can be found here, here, and here.

While in New Orleans (again) in July, I attended some of the festivities associated with Tale of the Cocktail. One of them was a cocktail expo with the theme “Seven Deadly Sins.” Sponsored by Cabana Cachaca rum, Lust was personified this way:

Presumably lust is not a feeling exclusive to straight men, yet the Lust booth featured only women dancing.  Because of the primacy of the male gaze, what is believed to be sexy to straight men gets defined as “sexy” for everyone.  The print ad they had displayed features a woman from the waist down, naked:

Thought Experiment:  If nearly naked men had been dancing in those columns, do you think the audience would have thought “hot men for the women!” or “how gay!”?   I think many, if not most, would have thought “how gay!”   A female gaze that validates women’s sexual subjectivity and the sexual objectification of men is simply less accessible for both women and men.   I think if men were dancing in the columns, an objectifying male gaze would still be at play, except this time the gaze would have been aimed at men.

Gay men are often stereotyped as obsessed with fashion, physical fitness, and their overall appearance (i.e., feminine).  The idea that both gay men and women are subject to the male gaze explains a lot about why.

NEW! Amanda C. sent in this ad for a sex party in Chicago.  Like the instance above, “sex” is represented by a woman.  Amanda writes:

If a man’s legs were portrayed, would that mean that the party isn’t “sexy” or that it’s about gay sex? Just another example of how the heterosexual male gaze is universalized.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.