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Fleshing it out: sex-positive feminism & neo-burlesque part 6

bearded lady

bearded lady

Author's note: If you haven't already done so, please read part 1 - 5 of Fleshing it out: sex-positive feminism & neo-burlesque!

Playing Gender Roles

From its very first incarnation, burlesque has always played around with gender norms.  As Robert C. Allen (1991) explains in the seminal Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture, “taking on the markers of masculinity, the burlesque performer was licensed to act in a very unladylike fashion” (p. 148).  He goes on to explain,

“Burlesque produced not the unproblematic sensual display of the ballet dancer but a monstrosity, a ‘horrible prettiness,’ that provoked desire and at the same time disturbed the ground of that desire by confusing the distinctions on which desire depended” (1991, p. 148).

This tradition can still be found in the burlesque performances of today.  UnAmerika's Sweetheart Karin Webb performs one strip tease in which she enters the stage in character as “Rico,” a mustached, swaggering male who smokes a cigar and directly addresses the audience with condescension.  Rico declares that anyone can do burlesque and decides to show the audience that he can outdo the female performers at the art of striptease.  He begins putting on stockings and high heels, removing his army jacket, tank top and jeans.  At some imperceptible point during the striptease, the lines blur, and by the time he has applied a wig and unwrapped the ace bandage from his chest, he has become an attractive woman.  As the viewer watches this performance, it goes from ridiculous, even grotesque slapstick, to provocative erotic display.  The performance challenges the audience to ponder their own reactions, causes discomfort and encourages questions.

By behaving in ways not traditionally considered feminine, female burlesque performers are “able to transcend the social boundaries of [their] own gender, and therefore to say and do things of which so many other women would not dare to conceive” (Fargo 2008).  For many, this is the exciting potential of resurrecting the art form.

The old-time “‘stars’ and ‘queens’ of burlesque were perhaps the first female performers to realize the influential power of the mass media as a tool for pulling in the crowds and promoting transgressive modes of ‘femininity’ that seduced and tantalized precisely because they broke existing moulds” (Willson, 208, p. 40-41).

In his book Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (2007), anti-porn writer Robert Jensen asserts that the real problem with our society is masculinity itself.  He says that, “traits commonly associated with masculinity – competition, aggression, domination, and repression of emotion” cause them to subjugate women as a response to their own insecurity and fear of inferiority (p. 138).  For Jensen, attempts to reinvent masculinity in more positive terms will not suffice.  He radically asserts that masculinity should be “abolished" (Jensen, 2007, p.138-139).

After all, Jensen asks, doesn’t encouraging positive masculinity actually serve to keep men separate from women? And aren’t all positive masculine traits such as bravery or assertiveness simply positive human traits?  Jensen criticizes a campaign which used the slogan “real men don’t rape” on the basis that it “entrenches a commitment to masculinity” that assumes some moral or psychological difference between men and women, positioning masculinity as a biological trait rather than a social one (Jensen, 2007, p.145).  These campaigns don’t challenge men’s sense of themselves as dominant (Jensen, 2007, p. 146).  Even the seemingly positive masculine quality of protectiveness is steeped in patriarchy and control. As Jensen (2007) puts it, “Women and children don’t need to be protected by men – they need to be protected from men” If men want to help, he says, they should take their place within the feminist movement. (p. 147).

pole dancer

pole dancer

According to Jensen, while we can never rid the world of sex categories in the biological sense, we would do well to eliminate gender: the psychological and social differences commonly associated with one’s sex.  To be more precise, he does not take issue with the existence of femininity, which he doesn't see as causing harm to anyone, only with masculinity; however, he acknowledges that one would hardly exist without the other.

“It’s likely there are other differences rooted in our biology that we don’t yet understand… but making claims about deeper intellectual and/or emotional and/or spiritual differences between males and females based on those physical differences… should be quite controversial” (Jensen, 2007, p. 140).

The fact that our biological differences have allowed patriarchy to be constructed does not speak to our ability to “construct a society that mitigates the effects of such differences” (Jensen, 2007, p. 140).  He says that it is impossible to blame biology for the havoc wrought by men when patriarchy has been in place to explain their behavior the whole time.

Co-opting Masculinity

If traditional masculinity impedes the development of an equitable society, why are modern women trying so hard to be like the guys?  In her book Female Chauvinist Pigs (2005), journalist Ariel Levy explores what she calls “raunch culture,” a climate where “women…make sex objects of other women and of themselves” (p. 4).  The popular Girls Gone Wild soft-core porn films are made by a traveling camera crew who visit college campuses and popular spring break locations.  For nothing but a Girls Gone Wild T-shirt, young women eagerly flash their breasts and engage in sexual acts with each other in the hopes of getting into one of the films.

Why do these everyday women want to be porn stars?  Some might say that in a post-Madonna world they are able to acknowledge their sexual appetites and indulge them.  They are sexually empowered, proud of their bodies, and want to show the world.  However, if the friend they are kissing for the camera was previously just a friend, and not a sexual partner, then it would seem that they are not acting out their own fantasies, but performing for some other reason; the sexual act is a performance, designed to prove their sexual adventurousness, or perhaps to render impotent one of the common weapons of patriarchy – sexual exploitation of women.  In other words, perhaps these young women are trying to convince themselves and men that they enjoy this kind of display in order to save face and avoid looking like they’ve ‘been had.’

Part of the reason for women to embrace what Levy refers to as “raunch” may come from this desire to co-opt patriarchal power and use it ironically, rendering it meaningless.  Metaphorically speaking, we women are invading the gentlemen’s club, putting up our feet, and lighting a cigar.  We have had the one-night-stands, and we can boast about losing the poor guy’s phone number afterward.  Just as Hip-Hop culture appropriated the word “nigger” and made it their own, “nigga,” girls make a joke of calling themselves and their girlfriends “sluts” (Sarracino & Scott, 2008, p. 210).

Unfortunately, these young women may simply be acting out old stereotypes while convincing themselves they have chosen these roles to avoid seeing themselves as the victims of a misogynistic culture.  Levy argues that these “Female Chauvinist Pigs” find it “cooler” to take a one-of-the-guys approach than to appear uptight, or admit to feeling defeated.  “Why try to beat them when you can join them?” Levy (2005) asks (pp. 90-92).  The women on the hit TV series Sex and the City frequently acted out modern women’s attempts to have casual, guilt-free sex ‘like men,’ and the results were often painful for them, because for the most part, they were not just looking for sex, they were looking for relationships.  It is time, Levy (2005) says, to admit that “The emperor has no clothes” (p. 197).  Instead of trying to be more like men, we should just try to be more like ourselves.  The medium of burlesque seems to provide an avenue for this because it does not cater to popular expectations of what is sexy, but allows each performer explore and express an individual statement.

Girls and Girly Girls

Among some of the “Female Chauvinist Pigs” Levy (2005) studied, she found that the concept of the “girly girl,” had an extremely negative connotation, and was regarded with contempt by some women (p. 101).  However, there are many third wave feminists who embrace their femininity.  In the seminal third wave text ManifestA (2000), Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards wrote about what they called the feminist “Girlie movement.”  Although the term “Girlie feminism” has not become widely used, the characteristics they describe are familiar traits of many modern feminists.

As Baumgardner and Richards (2000) put it, “Girlies are girls in their twenties or thirties who are reacting to an anti-feminine, anti-joy emphasis that they perceive as the legacy of Second Wave seriousness. Girlies have reclaimed girl culture, which is made up of such formerly disparaged girl things as knitting, the color pink, nail polish, and fun” (p. 80).

This embracing of the “girlie” is only possible because of earlier feminist movements.  Women today have benefited greatly from the efforts of feminism’s First and Second Waves.  We can vote, we have access to birth control, legal abortion, and crisis centers, for starters.  Because of this, “Girl Culture assumes that women are free agents in the world, that they start out strong and that the odds are in their favor” (Ann Powers, as cited in Baumgardner & Richards, 2000, p. 134).

While Girlies are not ashamed of their femininity, they also want in on the territories of men such as rock and roll and yes, porn (Baumgardner, Richards, 2000 p. 80).  Richards and Baumgardner (2000) note that feminist publication Bust magazine, at the time only a “zine” in 1993, was printing “buxom images from vintage soft-core porn, images now in the control of women.  In Bust, porn was demystified, claimed for women, debated” (p.133).

They go on to state that “Girlie culture is a rebellion against the false impression that since women don’t want to be sexually exploited, they don’t want to be sexual…against the anachronistic belief that because women could be dehumanized by porn…they must be” (p. 137). The problem with Girlie culture, according to Baumgardner and Richards (2000), is that it is just a culture, not a political movement (p. 141).  There are still women’s issues worth fighting for, and not enough young feminists are organizing to promote the changes that are still needed.

burlesque troupe

burlesque troupe

Conclusion

Because sex has been so literally perverted by those in our culture who would use it as a tool to oppress, it is easy to write off public displays of sexuality altogether, but then we risk reinforcing the stereotype of the anti-sex, anti-fun, anti-male feminist.  We also miss out on a valuable opportunity to teach people that women are sexual beings and we are more sexually empowered than ever, and that it is not a certain low, ‘other’ woman who possesses sexual desires.

In the past, feminists were vocal about their positions on topics they felt passionate about, such as sexual objectification.  The feminist movement needs more sex-positive feminists to have an intellectual voice, to speak not only with passion but with rational debate. We need thoughtful analysis on the issues surrounding sexuality.

We must not simply react, turning away from feminism because we disagree with the views of our mothers’ generation.  We need to create a space where like-minded people of this generation can feel included in feminism too.

Puritan attitudes which make sex a shameful thing are dangerous to women.  We need to be willing to be seen as whole women, and that includes publicly acknowledging our passion for sex as well as our passion for feminist politics.

Collectively, feminists need to look at terms like ‘sexually empowered,’ and figure out what they mean.  One of the most important things that can happen is that we shift toward a concept of sexuality that recognizes the whole woman, her feelings, passions, and identity, rather than allowing women to be mute sexual objects.

Burlesque provides a venue where sexuality can be performed without shame in a woman-centered, non-exploitative environment.

Not every burlesque performance seizes on this opportunity.  Nor can every performance, no matter how well-intended, be guaranteed to deliver the experience to the audience that the performer envisioned.  No performer can know how each audience member will experience their art.  Modern feminism is based in individual choices and preferences, and new burlesque is just one of many ways we can make our voices heard.

Thank you for reading Fleshing it out: sex-positive feminism and neo-burlesque.

References

Allen, R., (1991). Horrible prettiness. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Baldwin, M., & Evans, D. (2004). Burlesque and the new bump-n-grind. Denver: Speck Press.

Baumgardner, J., & Richards, A. (2000). Manifesta. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Bergner, Daniel (2009, January 22). What do women want?. The New York Times, Retrieved May 14, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25desire-t.html?_r=2

Brumberg, J. (1998). Thebody project, an intimate history of American girls.  New York: Vintage Books.

Buszek, Maria. Pin-up grrrls. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006.

Celizik, M. (2009) Her teen committed suicide over ‘sexting.’ Todayshow.com http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29546030/

Clements, A. Power to the penis or viva la vulva? The Feminist Stripper, Retrieved May 14, 2009, from http://www.geocities.com/alysabethc/feministstripper.html

Comella L. & Queen, C. (2008). The necessary revolution: Sex-positive feminism in the post-Barnard era. The Communication Review, 11.

D'Amato, A. (2008). Porn up, rape down. Northwestern University school of Law, Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series, Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=913013

Dworkin, A., (2006). Intercourse. New York: BasicBooks.

Ensler, E. (2004). The good body. New York: Random House, Inc.

Etcoff, N. (1999). Survival of the prettiest. The science of beauty. New York: Random House, Inc.

Fargo, E.L., (2008). The fantasy of real women. Master’s thesis, Ohio State University.

Goldwyn, L., & Augustyn, J. (2006). Pretty things. New York: Regan Books.

Hartley, N. (1997). In the flesh. Whores and other feminists. Nagle, J. New York: Routledge.

Jensen, R., (2007). Getting off. Boston: South End Press.

Levy, A., (2006). Female Chauvinist Pigs. New York: Free Press.

Lykins, A.D., Meana, M., Strauss, G.P. (2008). Sex Differences in Visual Attention to Erotic and non-erotic stimuli. Archives of Sexual Behavior 37(219-228).

Meana, M. (2009). Elucidating women’s (hetero)sexual desire. Manuscript in preparation.

Merriam Webster Online. Definitions retrieved March 17, 2009. Web site: http://www.merriam-webster.com/

Nagle, J. (1997). Introduction. Whores and other feminists. Nagle, J. New York: Routledge.

Nevid, J., a., S., & Greene, B. (2007). Abnormal Psychology in a Changing World. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.

Rand, A. (1961). Pride. The Objectivist Ethics. Retrieved March 17, 2009, from Ayn Rand Lexicon Web site: http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/pride.html

Sarracino, C., & Scott, K. (2008). The Porning of America. Boston: Beacon Press.

Siegel, D., (2007). Sisterhood Interrupted. New York: Palgrave MacMillan

Timmons, D. (Director). (2009). A wink and a smile [Documentary]. USA: First Run Features.

Tyler, C. (2009). Personal interview. See Appendix C of this document.

Urish, B. (2004).  Narrative striptease in the nightclub era. (Received via personal communication December 2, 2009.)

Willson, J., (2008). The Happy Stripper. London: I.B. Tauris.

Wolf, N. (1996). Thebeauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. New York: Doubleday

Fleshing it out: sex-positive feminism & neo-burlesque part 5

Author's note: If you haven't already done so, please read part 1 - 4 of Fleshing it out: sex-positive feminism & neo-burlesque!

honey suckle duvet

honey suckle duvet

Politics in Performance

Michelle Baldwin (2004) aptly defines burlesque as “the divine mixture of the sexy and the satirical” (p. 38.)  One of the things I wanted to find out in my interviews was whether my assumptions were correct:

Were the people performing burlesque the feminist intellectuals I had imagined them to be, and did gender and social politics play an important role in their performances?

I found that yes, in fact this was often the case, but not always.  Many in the burlesque community, such as UnAmerika's Sweetheart Karin Webb, feel it is imperative that burlesque performance make a statement, staying true to the old tradition of burlesque as social commentary even in its modern reincarnation.  Fargo (2008) points out that, “In our sex-saturated modern society, public display of the body can no longer be counted as inherently transgressive, so performers have to seek more extreme means in their quest to question mainstream social norms and gender roles."  Honey Suckle Duvet (2009) explained:

For me doing a dance in front of people who don’t look anything like me or… people who have not necessarily historically appreciated me… that’s making a statement.  And I think that a woman who’s coming from a place of needing to overcome things or having a back-story that’s... ingrained in really deep issues when she gets up there and she’s doing something that’s 'just cutesy...' for her that’s a statement and there’s power in that.”

Still many others are not troubled by whether or not there is a message to burlesque and are content with what Jacki Willson (2008) calls “politically naïve” performance (p. 2).

During the second wave of feminism, “the personal became political” (Siegel, 2007, p.2).  This concept meant that the private issues with which women struggled actually tied in to the larger social structure in which they lived.

Today, “for many women in their twenties and thirties, ‘politics’ refers to elections or politicians – not necessarily the underlying currents that shape their personal lives… Individualism seems to have trumped collective action – not just among women, but throughout American culture more generally throughout the past thirty years” (Siegel, 2007, p. 5).  During the seventies there was backlash against protestors and people began to lose faith in political structures.  They ‘went internal,’ seeking out new age religions, meditation and fitness, and self-help (Siegel, 2007, p. 27) (Baumgardner and Richards, p. 62).

Three of the five burlesque performers I interviewed, when asked if their personal politics played a role in their performances, did not connect this question with ‘feminism’ until further prompted.  Only two had ever heard of pro-sex or sex-positive feminism.  One, Honey Suckle Duvet (2009), who runs workshops entitled “Burlesque for Better Body Image,” surprised me by answering that she did not consider herself a feminist, stating, “I don’t want to be a part of any group...  I don’t want a label because there’s a weight to that, and there’s an expectation with that.”

When pressed to elaborate on why many modern women might choose not to self-identify a feminists, she stated,

I think that something that turns people off from feminism and something that I’ve found, not with feminism on paper but the way that I’ve seen it in my life is a pressure for me to redefine myself and not accept or respect things that I’ve grown up with as a part of my culture that I choose to still have.  And there’s a pressure for me to… be offended more than I feel I am, and to fit a mold because the old mold was bad so the answer is to find a new one (Duvet, 2009).

As Siegel (2007) points out, there has never been a time when all feminists universally agreed on everything, including labels.  However the one point that has been particularly sticky is the topic of sexuality.

Mary Dolan

Mary Dolan

Jill Gibson, a comedic burlesque performer and female-to-male drag actor who does not perform striptease, spoke of the significance of her character, burlesque emcee “Mary Dolan,” an eighty-six-year-old woman whose character is loosely based on Gibson’s late grandmother, who had been a vaudeville performer.  Gibson (2009) pointed out that she can say things to an audience through Mary Dolan that Jill Gibson could never say, that people responded better to Dolan’s maternal presence than they would a “raging dyke waving a rainbow flag.”

When asked what role burlesque is currently fulfilling in American society, Gibson (2009) responded,

“I hope its role will be to inject some sex into modern culture, because right now our culture is afraid of sex.”

While anti-pornography feminism has sought to protect women from sexual abuse, it has served to reinforce the lack of openness about women’s sexuality.  Jill Nagle (1997) writes that it is “time to stop reproducing the whore stigma common to the larger culture.  These practices dilute much of feminism’s radical potential” (p. 2).

As long as women continue to be fearful of expressing their sexuality, the few who do will continue to appear to be the exception, rather than the rule, exposing them to stigma and abuse. Our culture could use more sexuality.

The media and popular culture have an incredible influence over American culture, but what we need is more authentic expression of women’s sexuality, not a continued dependence on the stereotypical, voiceless images of women we have traditionally been served.

Subversive Voices

Our feminist foremothers might have taught us to “downplay [our] sexuality in order to be taken seriously” (Goldwyn, 2006, p. xiv).  However, many intelligent, independent women choose to do just the opposite.  As Maria Elena Buszek points out in her book, Pin up Grrrls (2006)“although feminist thinkers have consistently drawn upon women’s sexuality as a site of oppression, so too have they posited the nurturance of women’s sexual freedom and pleasure as an antidote to the same” (p. 4).  Burlesque serves as a platform for “opening up a dialogue between the private and public sphere,” honoring the feminist tradition of seeing the personal as political (Willson, 2008, p. 161).

 A burlesque dancer is able to breathe life into the stereotypical sex-object image, to animate her and allow her to be seen as a whole sexual being.

The intelligent burlesque sex symbol asserts that, contrary to what Dworkin says, sex does not erode us, we are self-posessed, “not broken, and our desires aren’t simply booby traps set by the patriarchy” (Baumgardner and Richards, 2000, p. 137).

Perhaps the most famous queen of the old burlesque, Gypsy Rose Lee, marketed herself as the “literary stripper” or “striptease intellectual,” and engaged in witty repartee and intellectual commentary as she disrobed (Fargo, 2008). During the last two decades of old burlesque (1945–1966), there emerged a tradition called “narrative striptease” (Urish, 2004).  Narrative striptease does not necessarily refer to performances like those of Gypsy Rose Lee using spoken word, rather it refers to dancers finding their ‘voice’ by telling a story with the performance.

With stages often set like plays, narrative striptease was striptease with a plot worked in – the performer would undress because she was getting ready for a date, because a mouse had run up her leg, and so forth.  The narratives were often about heterosexual relationships and used a surrogate male to assert the performer’s authority over the male, and by extension, her audience.  Sometimes the male figure was a puppet, sometimes an empty chair, or an imagined person on the other end of a telephone.  As these women performed, they “became paradoxical entities, ‘active objects’ in the process of undercutting their objectification as that very objectification was performed. They may have been forced to play the patriarchal game, but they were finding ways to subvert the game as it was played” (Urish, 2004, p. 160).  Emily Layne Fargo (2008) talks about the subversive power of the burlesque performer:

A scantily-clad, or even unclad, female was socially acceptable on a public stage so long as she remained still, functioning as a static piece of art to be contemplated. But the moment she began to exercise physical mobility and vocal subjectivity in addition to her physical charms (as burlesque performers did), she became a serious threat that had to be stopped and silenced. The female burlesque performer thus brought together two controversial components – an eroticized body and an outspoken voice.

The tradition of narrative striptease is quite popular in today’s burlesque as well, and it is one of the elements that truly distinguishes burlesque from strip club performance.

Please stay tuned to this blog for the conclusion of Fleshing it out: sex-positive feminism and neo-burlesque. As always, thank you for reading!

References

Allen, R., (1991). Horrible prettiness. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Baldwin, M., & Evans, D. (2004). Burlesque and the new bump-n-grind. Denver: Speck Press.

Baumgardner, J., & Richards, A. (2000). Manifesta. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Bergner, Daniel (2009, January 22). What do women want?. The New York Times, Retrieved May 14, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25desire-t.html?_r=2

Brumberg, J. (1998). Thebody project, an intimate history of American girls.  New York: Vintage Books.

Buszek, Maria. Pin-up grrrls. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006.

Celizik, M. (2009) Her teen committed suicide over ‘sexting.’ Todayshow.com http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29546030/

Clements, A. Power to the penis or viva la vulva? The Feminist Stripper, Retrieved May 14, 2009, from http://www.geocities.com/alysabethc/feministstripper.html

Comella L. & Queen, C. (2008). The necessary revolution: Sex-positive feminism in the post-Barnard era. The Communication Review, 11.

D'Amato, A. (2008). Porn up, rape down. Northwestern University school of Law, Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series, Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=913013

Dworkin, A., (2006). Intercourse. New York: BasicBooks.

Ensler, E. (2004). The good body. New York: Random House, Inc.

Etcoff, N. (1999). Survival of the prettiest. The science of beauty. New York: Random House, Inc.

Fargo, E.L., (2008). The fantasy of real women. Master’s thesis, Ohio State University.

Goldwyn, L., & Augustyn, J. (2006). Pretty things. New York: Regan Books.

Hartley, N. (1997). In the flesh. Whores and other feminists. Nagle, J. New York: Routledge.

Jensen, R., (2007). Getting off. Boston: South End Press.

Levy, A., (2006). Female Chauvinist Pigs. New York: Free Press.

Lykins, A.D., Meana, M., Strauss, G.P. (2008). Sex Differences in Visual Attention to Erotic and non-erotic stimuli. Archives of Sexual Behavior 37(219-228).

Meana, M. (2009). Elucidating women’s (hetero)sexual desire. Manuscript in preparation.

Merriam Webster Online. Definitions retrieved March 17, 2009. Web site: http://www.merriam-webster.com/

Nagle, J. (1997). Introduction. Whores and other feminists. Nagle, J. New York: Routledge.

Nevid, J., a., S., & Greene, B. (2007). Abnormal Psychology in a Changing World. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.

Rand, A. (1961). Pride. The Objectivist Ethics. Retrieved March 17, 2009, from Ayn Rand Lexicon Web site: http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/pride.html

Sarracino, C., & Scott, K. (2008). The Porning of America. Boston: Beacon Press.

Siegel, D., (2007). Sisterhood Interrupted. New York: Palgrave MacMillan

Timmons, D. (Director). (2009). A wink and a smile [Documentary]. USA: First Run Features.

Tyler, C. (2009). Personal interview. See Appendix C of this document.

Urish, B. (2004).  Narrative striptease in the nightclub era. (Received via personal communication December 2, 2009.)

Willson, J., (2008). The Happy Stripper. London: I.B. Tauris.

Wolf, N. (1996). Thebeauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. New York: Doubleday

Fleshing it out: sex-positive feminism & neo-burlesque part 4

Author's note: If you haven't already done so, please read part 1 - 3 of Fleshing it out: sex-positive feminism & neo-burlesque!

[photo: new york times article - what do women want?]

Female Desire

Sexologist Marta Meana’s work was featured in a January 2009 New York Times article which probed the mystery of female desire, and specifically why women and men are both attracted to the female form.

Dr. Meana and her colleagues had found that when hetero-sexual male and female participants are shown pictures of a man and a woman engaging in foreplay, the male participants stare longer at the women in the pictures, but the female participants stare equally at the man and the woman in the images.
Men looked at opposite sex figures significantly longer than did women, and women looked at same sex figures significantly longer than did men… men had a strong visual attention preference for opposite sex figures as compared to same sex figures, whereas women appeared to disperse their attention evenly between opposite and same sex figures (Lykins, et al, 2008, p. 219).

This was true for both erotic and non-erotic images.  Results were interpreted as potentially supportive of recent studies showing a greater non-specificity of sexual arousal in women.  Meana(as cited in Bergner, 2009) has various theories about her findings, such as one that proposes that women are more arousing to both sexes because their bodies hold the promise of sex at all times while men’s bodies only look provocative when aroused.  The authors of this study note that “Sexuality remains one of a number of areas in which significant and persistent sex differences…abound” (Lykins, et al, 2008, p. 219).

These observations may explain, to some degree, the reason for the large proportion of burlesque fans who are female.

Dr. Meana recently completed an article on women’s sexual desire and pointed out some interesting findings.  It had not yet been published by the time of my research, but she was kind enough to send me a manuscript when I informed her that I was anxious to read her latest work.  Dr. Meana (2010) asks, “What if being desired and desiring are turn-ons for women, in and of themselves?” (p.4)  Of course, anyone well-versed in feminist theory will quickly point out that one's cultural upbringing could have fostered this preference.  Andrea Dworkin might say that because we know no other way, we believe we enjoy this.  Jacki Willson (2008) reminds us that, “The truth of the matter is that our culture and childhood are littered with references to who is the fairest of them all – the fairest being the one who gets to marry the Prince or win the coveted prize” (p. 115).  However, Meana (2010) also points out that, while “appetitive behaviors” usually precede “consummatory behaviors,” there is animal research that suggests that evoking desire may have its own rewards (p. 4).  Meana refers to a study in which female rats caused their male partners to pursue them, apparently enjoying the attention and response they were able to elicit, even though sexual reward was not being achieved.  Furthermore, Meana states that pacing the “intromissions” can increase the chances of conception, which would provide a biological explanation for this behavior.

She writes that it is “speculative but not unreasonable” to say that women perhaps “enhance their ability to select a partner and pace the course of relationships through the enactment of parallel behaviors.  That they would find these behaviors to be rewarding and arousing would logically follow…the role of sexual object has its own important version of agency and control” (Meana, 2010, p.4).  She has been careful to identify herself as a feminist, and acknowledges the uncomfortable and often politically incorrect implications of her work (Bergner, 2009).  Meana’s point might be better received if she used the term “object of desire” rather than “sexual object” to keep the meaning of this statement from being lost on some readers.

Sexologist Meredith Chivers also notes that “there is something really powerful for women’s sexuality about being desired” (as cited in Bergner, 2009, p. 4).

Also supporting this notion is the statistic that 47% of women in a 1998 study “reported the fantasy of ‘seeing themselves as a striptease dancer, harem girl, or other performer,’ and 50% had fantasized about ‘delighting many men’ and being an ‘irresistibly sexy female’” (Meana, 2009, p.9).

Interestingly, this study also found that men too are very aroused by being desired.  “Stranger fantasies” are equally prevalent in both male and female subjects, suggesting that external validation of desirability may be an important part of desire for men and women, and such validation may carry extra weight when it emanates from individuals who are not institutionally bound to them (as in marriage).” (Meana, 2009, p.8)

Meana’s manuscript also brings up the interesting theory that women may become aroused by their own sexiness.  Given what many feminists already know about the prevalence of body image insecurity, it is not surprising to learn that “in one study, approximately one-third of female college students indicated that they experienced body image self-consciousness during physical intimacy with a man…” which was a predictor for sexual avoidance, nor should we be shocked to find out that “women reported more appearance-based distraction during sex than did men” (Meana, 2009, p.10).

What is interesting is that when self-perception is positive, “self-consciousness can be a boost to desire” (Meana, 2009 p. 10).
seeing self

seeing self

One small study recently revealed that almost half of the female participants  “reported arousal to contemplating themselves nude, wearing sexy lingerie or clothes, [engaging in] grooming activities, imagining that others find them irresistible, and so on” (Meana, 2009 p. 10).

“Women… who were asked to adopt a positive self-schema prior to viewing erotic stimuli demonstrated significantly greater subjective arousal and vaginal response than women in a negative schema condition” (Meana, 2009, p. 11).

Even men have reported that a woman’s self-perception is an important factor in male arousal (Meana 2009, p. 10). We can interpret Dr. Meana’s findings to say that women (and men) enjoy being desired.  We needn’t misconstrue this to mean that they enjoy being objectified.  

Exhibitionists

It should also be noted that although the burlesque performer may enjoy baring her body, this does not fit the clinical definition of exhibitionism in the pathological sense.  Consider these words from an abnormal psychology textbook:

Exhibitionists are motivated by the wish to shock and dismay unsuspecting observers, not to show off the attractiveness of their bodies.  Therefore, wearing skimpy bathing suits or other revealing clothing is not a form of exhibitionism in the clinical sense of the term.  Nor do professional strippers typically meet the clinical criteria for exhibitionism.  They are generally not motivated by the desire to expose themselves to unsuspecting strangers in order to arouse them or shock them.  The chief motive of the exotic dancer is usually to earn a living (Philaretou, as cited in Nevid, 2008, p. 378).

With this said, it is incorrect to assume that there are no underlying psychological reasons to choose stripping.  In my interview with burlesque and drag performer UnAmerika's Sweetheart Karin Webb, she recounted a story of how she asked her mother once as a child, how did one get to be a stripper?  Her mother responded that no one wanted to be a stripper or chose it freely.  Webb knew this couldn’t be true, because to her it seemed like a thrilling prospect; she regularly invented pretend performances even from a young age.

IMG_3173

IMG_3173

Webb’s attraction to non-clinical exhibitionism is not uncommon.  Jacki Willson (2008) comments, “It appears acceptable, commendable or even commonplace for many young women to want to feel the empowerment, excitement and danger that comes from openly going to see a risqué female performance or the sexual dominating sense of power, control and desire that comes from revealing their bodies as objects” (p. 5).

Perhaps this desire to display one’s body is both a product of and a reaction against the ‘porn culture’ in which we are immersed, according to authors like Ariel Levy and Sarracino and Scott.   Sexualized images surround us, and the idols females grow up seeing in the media and popular culture are often stereotypically sexy.

We search for a balance between sexiness and feminism.  Amid this tension, some burlesque troupes wish to distinguish themselves completely from conventional stripping.  One Boston troupe, in an advertisement for new dancers, made clear that they were looking for professional dancers willing to learn how to strip, not strippers wishing to learn how to dance.  (I spoke with a few of their members and brought up this point.  They back-pedaled, saying that they were not necessarily looking for trained dancers, they were looking for dancers with a professional attitude, willing to attend twice-weekly rehearsal and put in thirty minutes a day at home practicing.)  It is possible that some of the women of burlesque are resentful toward the conventional stripper image because they feel excluded by the narrow range of body types represented in strip clubs and the media.

Burlesque and Body Image

Although there is sometimes discrimination against women who have had cosmetic surgery by troupes such as L.A.’s Velvet Hammer with its policy excluding professional strippers, “fake” breasts, and porn stars, and Minneapolis’ Le Cirque Rouge de Gus who hang a sign outside their venue which reads, “No Fake Boobs, No Stripper Moves”, new burlesque is characterized by its greater diversity of body types (Baldwin 2004, p. 51).

angelic1

angelic1

The sight of confident, natural-looking women of various shapes and sizes, and the audience’s positive reactions to them is enough to provoke “a radical mind shift” for some women in attendance when they see women with ‘imperfect’ bodies being cheered on by the audience, causing them to feel empowered about their own bodies (Baldwin, 2004, p. 133.)

“Big Moves” is one troupe, with chapters in Boston, Montreal, San Francisco and New York City devoted to featuring plus-sized women whose sex appeal may not have been traditionally respected and celebrated by main-stream culture.

At the 2009 Great Boston Burlesque Expo, Honey Suckle Duvet performed a burlesque piece before an imaginary mirror, which spoke to the topic of self-acceptance.  The number ended with the audience on its feet cheering, and Ms. Duvet took away the “Most Beautiful” prize at the evening’s conclusion.

IMG_2340

IMG_2340

During our interview, when I asked how she felt about winning the award, she expressed indifference. “It doesn’t imply that there’s any talent, it just implies that somebody thinks you look good, and I think that pinpointing it to ‘best earrings’ would make more sense to me, but I appreciate that something was recognized in my dance, that there was a message behind it about beauty and that that was rewarded made me feel good” (Duvet, 2009).

The ‘Good’ Feminist

Issues like body image and beauty are often at the heart of feminist debate as well.

Feminist icons like Mary Wollstonecraft and Simone de Beauvoir warned women not to get caught up in their physical appearance, for it would take up time and energy that could be better spent.

In her feminist rant “The Beauty Myth,” Naomi Wolf (1996) notes that “many are ashamed to admit that such trivial concerns – to do with physical appearance, bodies, faces, hair, clothes – matter so much” (p. 9).

These matters are not trivial.  Beauty is as natural to humanity as eating, sleeping, love, and sex.  It is time for feminists to get comfortable with their love and desire for beauty.

The brilliant feminist playwright Eve Ensler (2004) opens The Good Body with a shame-filled introduction explaining why she would choose to write a play about her fixation on the size and shape of her stomach:  “…Whatever the cultural influences and pressures, my preoccupation with my flab, my constant dieting, exercising, worrying, is self-imposed. I pick up the magazines. I buy into the ideal. I believe that blond, flat girls have the secret.” (p. xii ).   What is most troubling about Ensler’s statement is her guilty self-indictment for experiencing concern about her physical appearance.  Wolf and Ensler both express a shame and guilt over perceived vanity and “narcissism” (Ensler, p. xii)  Ensler (2004) sees her desire for the beauty ideal not as natural, but as personal baggage, a pursuit for “goodness” programmed somewhere in childhood.

However, she does not realize that the shame she experiences because of this desire has been programmed, not only by the starched, sanctimonious culture of the 1950s and the lingering Pilgrim effect, but by second wave feminist culture as well, a kind of dogma that makes caring about one’s appearance a ‘sin’ against feminism.

The desire to put one’s body on display is seen as a betrayal of feminism.  Women who choose to do so are seen by old-school feminists as brainwashed, identifying with their oppressor.

The notion of ‘vanity’ as a source of guilt smacks of religious shame.  Vanity is defined as “inflated pride in oneself or one's appearance” (Merriam-Webster, 2009).  Is pride antithetical to feminism?  Not according to this definition:

Pride  1: the quality or state of being proud: as

a: inordinate self-esteem

b: a reasonable or justifiable self-respect

c: delight or elation arising from some act, possession, or relationship (Merriam-Webster, 2009)

Esteem, respect, or elation with oneself would seem to be things feminists would encourage and celebrate.  Like many other so-called vices, pride in oneself is actually an essential part of our nature. The controversial philosopher Ayn Rand (1961) wrote,“The virtue of pride…above all means one’s rejection of the role of a sacrificial animal, the rejection of any doctrine that preaches self-immolation as a moral virtue or duty”.

Feminism strives to free women from the bondage of patriarchal social structures, but when it comes to celebrating our bodies and our sexuality, women are not free.

Beauty in Popular Media

One important and deeply troubling consideration for women is our portrayal in the media.  In advertisements and ‘entertainment’ we can find women reduced to essentially headless sex objects, and worse, due to the prevalence of violent films and television shows, women as expendable victims.

Desire_II

Desire_II

These images hurt everyone, though many of us are so accustomed to this poison, we may fail to notice it, or to notice what we have internalized as a result.  Girls learn that the most important thing is to be sexy, and they also see that it can be sexy to be a victim.  Boys learn from these images too, and they are certainly not lessons about mutual respect or partnership.

In addition, the bodies of models and actors represent an increasingly small fraction of the population.  Their looks are unlike those generally found in nature, but when a person grows up on these images they begin to imagine this is how everyone should look, believing their own bodies to be unacceptably flawed.
vs

vs

One of the most harmful trends in the media is the glamorization of extreme thinness, an ideal constructed to keep the gold standard just out of reach.  Historically, in cultures where only the rich could afford to eat to excess, plumpness was in vogue.  In our culture, poor people are more likely to be overweight due to the high cost of many healthy foods and fewer resources to devote to physical fitness, while the very rich have access to special diets, personal trainers, liposuction, and more time to spend honing their bodies.

Because thinness is currently idealized in our culture, and reinforced on an exaggerated scale by stick-celebrities, many girls and women at healthy weights feel compelled to lose weight.  In fact, even girls who are already underweight often seek to lose more.  Poor body image and low self-esteem are bad enough, but even worse problems such as disordered eating can result from this unhealthy ideal.  Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are life-threatening, life-long ordeals many women and girls have to face in pursuit of thinness.

As Nancy Etcoff (1999) points out, fashion models are genetically in the minority, because although they are very thin they still have roughly .7 waist-to-hip ratios, a curviness impossible for someone who is anorexic and starving.

The fashion and film industries have a vested interest in protecting their preternatural beauty ideals.  They are selling not just products but an image, an ideal of almost god-like proportions to many women.

In order for this mojo to work, they must give women something to covet and pursue.  While the desire for attractiveness is a natural, even defensible drive, there is no room in an evolved society for predatory and deadly fashion trends.  There are now “pro-ana” websites dedicated to defending anorexia as a lifestyle choice based on personal aesthetic preferences.  This environment is toxic.

Cultural Nostalgia and the Return of the Pinup Girl

pinup

pinup

Part of the appeal of burlesque may be the prevalence of an old-fashioned beauty aesthetic and its comforting sense of innocence and nostalgia.  By borrowing the easily recognizable sex symbol image of the pinup girl, the burlesque dancer brings the voiceless, two-dimensional image into real life.  She shows us that there are no erotic bodies without whole people inside, makes clear that no matter how familiar the image, each person owns a unique voice to be heard.

When I interviewed various neo-burlesque performers about their opinion as to why the 1940s and 50s pin-up look dominates the burlesque scene, their answers varied.  Honey Suckle Duvet (2009) expressed that “the romanticized aspect of burlesque is from those eras, and so when people think of [burlesque] and want to recapture it, that’s what they want to recapture.” Carrie Tyler’s (2009) opinion was that in those days women were less empowered than women today, but that these historical periods were “a time of great beauty… where women really did take the time to put themselves together and there was a certain sense of show… It’s very attractive for us to reach back to that time and then say, ‘Okay let’s do that again, but let’s do it in a more empowered way.’” Crissy Trayner (2009) said the forties and fifties were a time when women began to be sexually empowered.  Others cited the pin-up look as the reclaiming of curves.  Jacki Willson (2008) posits that “pre-feminist” aesthetics might serve as a foil and give an ironic edge to the sexually empowered women embodying them (p. 121)  Maria-Elena Buszek has written an entire doctoral dissertation, which was later turned into a book, Pinup Grrrls, on the mysterious allure of pinup images.

It seems likely that the reclaiming of the pinup image may stem from a rejection of the now-popular centerfold image featured in men’s magazines and beer commercials.  This stereotypical image looks a lot like the Barbie dolls many of us played with as children: long blond hair, thin noses, tiny waists, curvy, but not too curvy, hips and breasts.  The unattainability of this ideal for most women may have prompted a rebellion against it and a desire for a different aesthetic interpretation of sexiness.

Before the sexual revolution, women used external supports like corsets and girdles to make their bodies look more attractive in clothes, but as women became sexually empowered, by the 1960s and 1970s they were comfortable wearing more revealing styles; fashion got closer to the body, and fewer undergarments were worn (Brumberg, 1998).  As Jacki Willson (2008) notes, “The length of a woman’s skirt has slowly risen with each feminist battle won” (p. 133).  Eventually women began to change the body itself to look better in clothes (or, perhaps, to look better naked).  Rather than wearing a girdle, women dieted, toned their abdominal muscles, and now sometimes they have surgery.  This process continues to unfold.  Until recently, when a woman was in the nude, the only ‘accessory’ she wore was her hairstyle.  Now she might be ‘wearing’ breast implants, carefully sculpted muscles, tattoos, body piercings and even the way she chooses to groom her body hair.

Because of the now widespread availability of cosmetic surgery, and the lack of ‘flawed’ bodies in the media, some of the cultural nostalgia present in neo-burlesque may be a reminder of a time when all a woman needed to look glamorous were well-made undergarments and lipstick.

Please stay tuned to this blog for parts 5&6 of Fleshing it out: sex-positive feminism and neo-burlesque. As always, thank you for reading!

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