[-empyre-] cultural genitals

[Michele White <mwhite@michelewhite.org>]

I found Susana's discussion of the ways viewers
engaged with images of veiled bodies quite
interesting. I think we could push their readings and
incorrect attributions even further. Such cultural
presumptions about sex suggest the general belief in a
set of coherent attributes for male/masculinity that
is different than the attributes for
female/femininity. While gender and sex are supposed
to be different, we often "see" real sex below the
constructued aspects of gender. Nevertheless, gender
and sex identifications are usually based on readings
and assumptions rather than proof?and what would this
proof be? Emily Martin, Anne Fausto-Sterling, and
other science studies scholars indicate how the
biological and fleshy aspects of sex are also
constructed and medically produced. This makes the
distinctions between gender and sex messy and perhaps
counter-productive. People rarely see the genitals of
other individuals that they have accepted as
"biological" men or women. They also rarely considered
the possibility that there is an array of genital
variations.

Alisa Solomon indicates that butch performances can be
the "most dangerous queer image" because they
challenge normative gender and sexuality. Women
performing many of the aspects of "man" indicate and
provide a critique of how the role is produced. The
confusion of identification is visceral when the eBay
seller photoguyred describes an image as "Lesbian
Antique Real Photograph Kissing" but then notes
"Lesbian (?) two girls (?) kissing!  On a boat with
Teens type bathing suits.  The more colorfully dressed
person on left is of indeterminate gender as far as I
can judge.  Returnable if you can prove other than my
title" (2006). These moments of failed identification,
with the need for constant contextualizing question
and exclamation marks, suggest that clothes make the
man and the woman but that the genitals and shapes
beneath these clothes can be complicated. At such
instances and when Susana's viewers get sex
identification wrong, the functioning of cultural
genitals and the ways we read rather than know bodies
is difficult to ignore.

Thanks!