Giorgone's "Sleeping Venus"
Looking through Kierkegaard’s THE CONCEPT OF DREAD, I found some interesting ideas. He says that INNOCENCE IS IGNORANCE, and that ignorance produces DREAD. He also states that WOMAN HAS MORE DREAD, being that she is MORE SENSUOUS than man. Says S.K: “Noting the fact that [beauty] is her ideal aspect is precisely the proof that she is more sensuous than man.” He adds,” where beauty claims the right to rule it brings about a synthesis from which spirit is excluded.” (By spirit he means a sort of thoughtfulness, humanity, individuality, mental development which separates man from the beasts). He then cites the example of Venus, saying that she is more beautiful sleeping than waking, because “the sleeping state is precisely the expression for absence of spirit. Hence it comes that the more spiritual and developed an individuality is, the less beautiful is such a person in sleep...The impression now must be of a totality which has no history. Therefore silence is not only woman’s highest wisdom, but also her highest beauty.”
Kierkegaard’ statement that INNOCENCE IS IGNORANCE makes me think of women’s attachment to their own innocence, and men’s attachment to female innocence. The stigma of the experienced woman, or the woman with a past, is great in culture to this very day. But what is interesting is that this ignorance in Kierkegaard’s language is not confined to sexual matters, but to knowledge as whole. This seems somehow allied with the male need to keep women erotic - that is, ignorant, silent, without spirit. So what is really taboo is for women to have thoughts (especially in conjunction with the sexual).
Kierkegaard’s statements, which today seem quaintly sexist in a 19th century sort of way, are not really as outdated as they may seem, especially as we have not escaped such concepts (at least as an emotional undercurrent) as much as we might think we have. I think of the exasperation of second-wave feminists, who were fed up with men’s inability to combine spirit with beauty, and so decided to take away their beauty so men could see the spirit, the individuality, of the woman. This strategy, of course, failed, because it failed to take into consideration the fact that the erotic drive is not going to go away, no matter how inconvenient it is. The problem leaped out at me when I was reading Kierkegaard’s statements, that women feeling “objectified” has to do not with their displeasure in being regarded as visual objects of pleasure, but in the gaze being emptied of all other meaning besides this, or of its insistence upon taking away what Kierkegaard would call “spirit.” Since she experiences herself as having spirit, she cannot experience pleasure in a man’s pleasure of her as a spiritless being except in role-playing or masochism. I read in a recent study that women instinctively fall silent when a man’s gaze falls upon them, I think because in some part of themselves they know, as Kierkegaard stated, that their silence and lack of spirit is what will make them liked and desirable at such a moment (even if they don’t know the man and don’t really care what he thinks of them).
That women live with such glances and their effects on a daily basis is a fact, and that an unruffled, spiritless countenance is what a man wants is no mystery. We have only to peruse the pages of men’s magazines to know what sort of expression and affect men respond to, that the face which seems emptied of thought is the most desirable. In rare instances when women have combined spirit with sexuality in performance, reactions have been mixed. Mae West claims to have single-handedly brought on the Hays Code with her predatory sexuality, and Angie Dickinson’s effortless sexuality combined with street-smart cop toughness and feminine compassion in POLICE WOMAN caused many negative reactions (some from misguided feminists, who regarded ANY display of sexuality in a woman as a sort of victimhood or going over to the enemy’s camp. Apparently, Dickinson’s character was “toned down” after the first season, and never again had the punch of the first few episodes). Reviewing that series recently, I was astonished by the way her character “Pepper” was allowed to have it all. Pepper bows to no one, and does not have to pretend to be a guy to be a good cop. In fact, she preys on men’s stupidity, on their assumptions that she is a dumb broad, to trap them time and again, showing genuine compassion at times, and precisely calculated and savage violence at other times. But there is never any doubt as to her femininity - she is all woman. (Compare this to later female cop shows, such as CHARLIE’S ANGELS, in which the intelligence comes from an invisible man who transmits intelligence to the “angels” as a voice, or CAGNEY & LACEY, in which the women veer precariously between self-deprecating weepy female talk and having to act like guys to get respect. The writing on that show, as in many shows today, seems calculated to placate spectators who might be intimidated by strong, sexy, feminine women, or who are embarrassed by the feminine as a lower form of identity). Pepper Anderson, unlike her imitators in later shows, was not less than the other cops because of being a woman - she was MORE.
Pepper Anderson: Beauty and Spirit Combined
On this note, a few years ago I was watching a miss Universe contest in which Miss Italy was a runner-up for the crown, and was asked what she had to say about people who disparage beauty contests. She smiled with effortless sex appeal and said in a thick Italian accent: “Now we can be totally woman!” What she meant of course is that women today can have it all, or that being admired for your beauty does not diminish you as a person, but the judges’ faces fell and I sensed that they were unanimously embarrassed by her statement, and found its sentiment backward and ignorant. I could just hear them saying under their breaths, "Poor stupid girl!" Miss India, who won the crown, conveyed little sexuality, was androgynous in manner, and spoke passionately and with perfect diction about world peace, and I feel that it was this more than anything else that made the judges rule in her favor. If so, the judges made a mistake, which was to overvalue spirit out of a sense of guilt at judging women for their beauty, but it was a beauty contest in fact, and not a spirit contest (nor in fact an English language contest).
But the reason I bring it up is that this is just another example of how a feminine woman who enjoys being a feminine woman is looked on as some sort of an idiot. Which of course lowers all things feminine to a level beneath that of things that are masculine, a real problem in general for female identity. This contempt for the feminine comes from a sensibility that agrees with Kierkegaard that beauty lacks spirit, and therefore, is inferior and even immoral. (Glamour today is seen as similarly immoral, as is anything visually pleasurable, and thus outside of spirit. But I wonder whether in a world of fifty years ago in which men and women both wore beautiful clothes whenever possible, and the air was fragranced with a thousand blooms in corsages and buttonholes, and decorated with every shade of flower rustling in silk gowns on undulating bodies, and enchanted by the romantic nuances of dance orchestras and singers, spirit was excluded more completely than it is today)?
Betty Grable enchanting and undulating in "Moon Over Miami"
Having made a study of female sexuality in culture, I’ve found that the combination of female spirit with female desire has been a greatly feared thing in all times and in all contexts. It’s behind many characterizations of the “witch” (in fact, one of the main aspects of the witch in culture and history is that she contains sexual agency, which makes her greatly feared). Mainstream depictions of female sexuality usually feature whiny, self-deprecating women who are desperate for a man, ostensibly to deflect jealousy from the female audience who have nothing to fear from these ultra-ordinary gals. (This is also part of the recent more general Cult of the Mediocre, an epidemic which is by definition anti-sexy). But it’s the same problem as before: the women may have spirit, but the erotic is gone. It’s as if the writers of these shows cannot imagine any more than Kierkegaard could that women can have spirit and Eros together. But for women to be the equals of men, they need to have the same rights. And not being able to enjoy your beauty or sexuality for fear of displeasing others is very much a lack of rights. Did feminism destroy those rights, or was it men who were afraid of women having too much power? When we laugh at femmes fatales from the ‘40s on the screen, what are we really laughing at? Do we really think that Eros belongs only to men, and that a sexy woman is always a man’s pawn and doormat? Where is female agency located? Why is it a threat to so many? Or does it merely make a woman unsexy to have desire so that it ruins it for men?
Tura Satana, One Confident Sexy Mama
One thing that fascinates me about the culture of the sexual revolution of the ‘60s and ‘70s is that it was a time when female sexuality was explored with a magnifying glass. Erotic literature and movies could not help but involve the personalities of the women involved, if for no other reason than that there were actresses with personalities who were playing the roles (such as Tura Satana, whose confidence and screen presence were sometimes mistaken for parallel feminist qualities in Russ Meyer). Also, to vary the plots of thousands of sex pulp novels, female desire and motivation were often thrown in for variety. (Not to mention the efforts of serious writers and directors who were genuinely interested in female sexuality). There are things the sexual revolution accomplished that were good for women: it took away the dread and guilt from FEMALE sexuality, at least for a time, and to some extent the double standard that required men to be experienced and women innocent. Sexual liberty being sold as a basic human right created a rich and varied cultural discussion involving people from many walks of life and included many points of view, before all roads began to eventually lead to a generic porn industry with little or no cultural value, that generated almost no discussion and was made for one purpose only.
Today, partly because of the embarrassment of that history, we are in a deadlock regarding gender and sexuality. Our strategy has been to take away ALL sexuality, and to pretend that there is no such thing as a man or a woman, there is only a person (a “spirit,” a bodiless ether floating in space). But for many, especially those who enjoy beauty, pleasure, or the erotic, this solution is an ill fit. I can see why women would want to do away with gender difference, especially in light of how much they stand to lose in playing a man’s game (to be beauty and silence without spirit), but there is much to be gained in facing the game and trying to take some pleasure from it, if we can indeed decide what our pleasure consists in. As a woman, I want to have it all, like Angie Dickinson. I personally like the idea of being, like that greatly misunderstood Italian beauty contestant, “Totally Woman.”
Angie Dickinson, Totally Woman
2 comments:
This is one of the most logical and thorough discussions of certain dilemmas concerning the nature of what it is to be male and female. The desire to have it all also means pluralism, which is the idea that people must be free to choose, which in turn is predicated on rights, the foundation of feminism. But how can people choose when one view dominates? That Italian contestant seems to me to have some innate qualities of intelligence that take into account gender: this I believe is the power of Aphrodite and the end result is a great beauty (imho), It would be odd indeed for the very nature of the contest to be denied in the interests of political or social fashion. The trouble is that beauty is stigmatized by those that don't or can't appreciate beauty and brains are also stigmatized in other quarters as being "impractical" or "boring". The prospect of putting them together in a single person must surely be difficult for many people. I have often considered though that this fear or denial of the body and craving of pure spirit stretches beyond biology or gender: it is in the internet, in our architecture and in our theology. Thanks for writing such a careful expression of the dilemma and well chosen examples as always. (Angie Dickinson is special too!)....
Added to delicious and my blog. Thanks for the info.
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