The Vagina: A Literary and Cultural History
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
From South Park to Kathy Acker, and from Lars Von Trier to Sex and the City, women's sexual organs are demonized. Rees traces the fascinating evolution of this demonization, considering how calling the 'c-word' obscene both legitimates and perpetuates the fractured identities of women globally. Rees demonstrates how writers, artists, and filmmakers contend with the dilemma of the vagina's puzzlingly 'covert visibility'.
In our postmodern, porn-obsessed culture, vaginas appear to be everywhere, literally or symbolically but, crucially, they are as silenced as they are objectified. The Vagina: A Literary and Cultural History examines the paradox of female genitalia through five fields of artistic expression: literature, film, TV, visual, and performance art.
There is a peculiar paradox – unlike any other – regarding female genitalia. Rees focuses on this paradox of what is termed the 'covert visibility' of the vagina and on its monstrous manifestations. That is, what happens when the female body refuses to be pathologized, eroticized, or rendered subordinate to the will or intention of another? Common, and often offensive, slang terms for the vagina can be seen as an attempt to divert attention away from the reality of women's lived sexual experiences such that we don't 'look' at the vagina itself – slang offers a convenient distraction to something so taboo. The Vagina: A Literary and Cultural History is an important contribution to the ongoing debate in understanding the feminine identity
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Analyses of representations of the vagina in art and culture couple with feminist politics in this impassioned tract by University of Chester lecturer Rees. At her most academic, Rees coins the phrases "covert visibility" and "autonomous anatomy," and applies this perspective to four historical motifs, as well as case studies discussed within a loose framework of genre. Examples from literature, film, television, visual and performance art draw from the U.K. and U.S., a range of historical periods, highbrow, experimental, and pop culture alike. South Park and the 70s sexploitation film Chatterbox are discussed alongside Diderot and Kathy Acker. Rees argues that the vagina is "seen and unseen," leading to a fragmented sense of self that perpetuates human rights violations such as female genital mutilation or labiaplasty. The solution to "covert visibility" and its political repercussions lies in artistic representations that make the vagina visible, among other strategies. While occasionally insightful, the book has limited usefulness as an academic survey and agent for change. Rees's political prescriptions, digressions, and lack of rigorous methodology instead render the book an exercise in deductive reasoning. 14 color illus.
