Sex and Sexuality: 2004 Conference Programme

Session 7: Sexualities and the Visual Arts II
Chair: Britta McEwen

Underneath the Clothes/Transvestites Without Vests: A Consideration in Art
Barbara Wagner
Eppelheim, Germany

Usually uncovered bodies allow identifying the sex directly –as long as the sex is unequivocal. But there are also cases of undressed bodies taking the appearance of the “other” sex. Some artists reflect the performance of gender-identity by playing with natural and cultural assignments:

Vito Acconci – Conversions (1971): Three sequences in a film give an impression of the efforts the artist makes in order to transform his male body into a female appearance.
Lynda Benglis – ad in Artforum (1974): Benglis is presenting a kind of appropriation in the mode of a plastic dildo as a signifier of gender-identity, reduced to an artificial equipment which easily can be replaced.

Yasumasa Morimura – Portrait (Futago) (1988): He is taking the place and the role of a female model, covering with his hand the place where the viewer expects the phallus and copying the gesture directly from Manet’s painting of Olympia

Matthew Barney – Loughton Fairies (1994): In film Cremaster 4 three fairies present a quite androgynous body where the place of the primary sex organ is hidden behind a mask.

These examples confirm Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theses of the phallus as a signifier of the sexed body in the sense that the recipient is forced to find out if there is a signifier or not in order to relate the imaged body to “one of the two possible sexes”. At the same time the subversive character of these artworks is questioning both the importance of the visibility of the phallus as a signifier and the reality of the signified sexed body. Due to this following questions could be asked:

Which sex do the artists represent after manipulating the image of their body?
Which possibilities do we have to determine gender-identity in case the signifier is hidden although the body is undressed?
Why is it important to determine a body’s gender-identity according to its appearance? Are there any alternatives to the construction given by society like Judith Butler is questioning so vehemently?

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Representations of Lesbians in the North American Version of Queer As Folk
Niina Kuorikoski
Women's Studies, University of Oulu, Finland

Queer as Folk is often seen as a groundbreaking television series. All of its main characters are gay and, unlike in other series, are shown as unashamedly sexual. In addition to this, Queer as Folk constructs a homonormative narrative where gay and lesbian sexuality is seen as natural, unremarkable and potentially desirable. As such a narrative, Queer as Folk differs from most other representations of homosexuals thus suggesting a move forward in the way homosexuals are portrayed in television. As Kanner (2003) has noted: “Queer as Folk … has significantly rearranged standards and expectations for the portrayal of explicitly sexual gay male relationships.”
It can be argued that the series is groundbreaking also in relation to representing lesbian women. The series’ representations of lesbians differ from other, earlier representations by showing lesbian women as sexual beings. In addition, the series offers a new sort of a lesbian image through depicting lesbian women in a happy, long-term relationship unlike in many earlier representations. However, this change in how lesbian women are represented is far from complete. The narrative’s emphasis is clearly on the lives and relationships of the gay male characters. The story lines of the two main lesbian characters revolve around family and motherhood and their identities remain firmly in the private sphere. What is more, the role of the characters seems to be to support and further the story lines of the male characters.
In my paper, I will analyse the lesbian characters of the North American version from a lesbian feminist point of view. The discussed themes include the roles of ‘butch’ and ‘femme’, the stereotypical attitudes about lesbians found in the series as well as the lesbian wedding from the second season. The aim is to analyse the image of lesbians and lesbianism the series offers and, through that, show that even though Queer as Folk is groundbreaking in terms of portraying (homo)sexuality, this does not extend to gender.

Frida Khalo's Depiction of Her Life
Melanie Prapopoulos

No abstract is presently available