And speaking of consuming women...how about a Grade-A prime "slab of flesh"?

You must forgive me for the gratuitous pun I'm about to drop. Here's my [paper thin] rationale; as Bill explained about Fangtasia's silly name in Escape From Dragon House, “You have to remember that most vampires are very old. Puns used to be the highest form of humor.”

So here goes...during my first go 'round with the Sofia Sanchez-Grant piece I referenced in Wednesday's You Smell Like Dinner post, a certain phrase really got its meat hooks into me: slab of flesh.

What comes up for you when you hear this?

Maybe something along the lines of one of the first things that pops up on Google image search using this rough idiom as a search term?

Try to imagine my surprise when, about halfway through the article "The Female Body in Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman and Lady Oracle" it hit me. Those words, staring up at me, right there on page 85 as part of a beauty parlor episode!

OK, OK, maybe they weren't actually staring up at me, glowering at me from the page. But this being such an incongruous stringing together of words for the context in which they were used, it sorta felt like they were.

Sanchez-Grant chose to excerpt this illustration of the character Marian's visit to what she calls "a female space dedicated to the presentation of the female body" (2008, p. 84) quite deliberately. Also on page 84, she wondered if "culturally-ordained female spaces" are less hostile to women than is "masculine terrain" (i.e. sports arenas, etc.) and interpreted the following passage from Atwood's Lady Oracle as a response:

Marian had closed her eyes, leaning back against the operating-table, while her scalp was soaped and scraped and rinsed. She thought it would be a good idea if they would give anaesthetics to the patients, just put them to sleep while all these necessary physical details were taken care of; she didn't enjoy feeling like a slab of flesh, an object. (Sanchez-Grant, 2008, p. 85)

After reading what Sanchez-Grant calls a "surgical, somewhat violent description" of a trip to the salon, I scrawled a dark, etching line below the words I bolded in the excerpt above that almost tore through the paper. I wanted to make sure I'd remember to come back to this passage, because although for Sanchez-Grant this scene's meaning lay in its mirroring of the "incompatibility between patriarchal femininity and women's own feelings" (2008, p. 85) - my mental wheels started spinning in the direction of True Blood.  

Meanwhile…in the Twitterverse…

Just today, I came across this tweet from a female fan: "dear #TrueBlood: Would it kill you to show us a little full frontal nudity? MALE full frontal nudity".

Her emphasis on the male offers the perfect segue for what the phrase slab of flesh brought to my mind. We HAVE already had full frontal nudity on True Blood - FEMALE full frontal nudity.

Let's look at how the nude, frontal female body was presented in Season 3.

In these scenes (both curiously involving Eric), the nude, frontal female body was presented violently.

The naked, unnamed WWII-era female werewolf was pinioned to the wall by nails jabbed through her body as Eric interrogated her. True, she was clearly depicted as the "bad guy" and Eric was painted as the righteous one in disguise. But still, this scene - at least for me - sickeningly called to mind the sexualized torture Jewish, gypsy, and other women were subjected to at the hands of the Nazis as well as the rape and all other manner of indecencies women around the globe have faced in war zones.

If it was a love scene, at last year's Dragon * Con Sam Trammel dubiously characterized Yvetta's dungeon dalliance with Eric as a rough one. A highly aroused and stimulated, nude Yvetta was shackled to the floor and ceiling by her arms and legs in the dank bowels of Fangtasia while Eric thrust into her. Apparently for hours. Vampire stamina. Wow. OK...I'm getting distracted...

Sure, it was consensual, and yes, she certainly seemed to have enjoyed it. Women can - and do - enjoy unconventional sex and I have no quarrel with this whatsoever, as long as it's safe, sane, and its parameters are mutually agreed upon.

But might this scene (and the one above it) be a a comment on the sicker, darker, more twisted views of sexuality and the aesthetics of torture porn?

Are we slabs of meat on a hook? For whose gaze are these images intended? Who might find them titillating and why?

In his piece "How Internet Pornographers Market to Men vs. Women" on the sentinel site NetNanny Mark Kastleman reviews the typical attributes of the potential male online porn consumer in the cold, hard terminology the pornographers use:

Vision is the key perceptual sense in males-they "like to look"...They yearn to see body parts and things being done to those body parts...Males have up to 20 times more testosterone than females coursing through their mindbody. Testosterone fuels sexual drive and aggression. As a result, it's a turn-on for most viewers to see males dominate, be aggressive or even violent in sex with females... powerful imprinting of the images in the cells of the male mindbody.

Interesting.

I think it's also telling that we have not seen the male body depicted in such a way on the show. Even the [absolutely horrifying] story arc centered on Jason's use as a breeding stud in which he's bound to a filthy bed presents him as shirtless - his pants pulled down, but not fully exposed. One of the Hot Shot women even conscientiously drapes his groin with a rag after dismounting, ensuring that we, the audience, see nothing below the belt that we're not supposed to.

There are other connotations for slab of flesh, too...

 ...extending Raquel Rivera's concept of gastronomic sexuality further in a way that certainly isn't appetizing to me as a vegetarian.

   Women's bodies as consumable foodstuffs; commodities.

I struggled in a back-and-forth with myself about whether or not to post the infamous June 1978 Hustler cover with a women's legs sticking out of a meat grinder, captioned with publisher Larry Flynt's quote, "We will no longer hang women up like pieces of meat". My sense of propriety won out; I couldn't bear to muddy our tavern with such a distasteful, offensive image. But you can click on the link above to see it on Sociological Images; I think it drives my point home.

It's also interesting to contrast the way the nude female body has been represented thus far in season 4; we've seen much more artful, demure depictions. Think Luna's voluptuous form reclining in the grass as Sam approaches, one knee bent just so to obscure her lower half from our view.

And good on you Sam, you unwaveringly looked her in the eye!

~ Rachel  

References

Rivera, R. Z. (2003). New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone. New York: Palgrave.

Sanchez-Grant, S. (2008). The Female Body in Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman and Lady Oracle. Journal of International Women's Studies, Vol. 9, #2.

Boy, I wa-wa-want whatchu wa-wa-want...

...give it to me baby like boom, boom, boom...
what I wa-wa-want is what you wa-wa-want na nah...
                                                      ~ Rude Boy by Rihanna

After such a long wait the new season of True Blood is finally under way! But before we launch into our review of its premiere episode, "She's Not There", I'd like to first take a look at a particular piece of Season 4 promo material.

In this poster we see Sookie seated in the center of the frame surrounded by three suitors, each with a hand on her, staking a claim, wanting a piece. Which one will she choose? Which supernatural contender for Sookie's affections will prevail, who will win? Because it's a competition after all, and she's the prize - the object of strong male sexual desire being fought over. She's the spoils, the booty - her booty going to whichever alpha male can assert himself over the others.


That's one way of looking at it.


But this image isn't really about Team Bill, Team Eric, or Team Alcide, is it? It's about Team Sookie.


For me, it's no accident that she's the central figure in this poster. Look at her posture; her body, and indeed, her countenance as she gazes directly into the camera exudes relaxed confidence. An at-easiness with herself and who she has become.


Gone is the virginal innocent we met in Season 1. Swathed in deep red, this Sookie - like our tavern's heraldic pomegranate with its abundant scarlet seeds so evocative of the redness of the fertile womb - is the picture of blooming female sexuality.


Her hair is loose, unconstrained - quite unlike the tight ponytail stretching her facial features that she wore in "Strange Love", when she was so utterly thrown for a loop by the sexual banter of her co-workers at Merlotte's.

In the Show Your True Colors poster above Sookie is shown as being possessed of a healthy, active female-centered sexuality. Kind of like in Rihanna's Rude Boy - is it so shocking to think that women could want what men want...a gratifying sex life...and that our sex drive can be just as strong, just as audacious, and just as pleasure-for-pleasure's-sake seeking as theirs? And that it's normal, natural, and healthy - and doesn't make us deviants, whores, or hypersexualized vixens performing for men's benefit alone?



In the video above, a self-assured Rihanna sits astride a lion. Could it be that women aren't (or aren't just, only, or always) lithe prey animals made for men's hunting pleasure; or as 1970's pioneer of erotica and Imaginative Sex author John Gorman writes, "the smaller, more sleek female who is natural quarry and game" (p. 33)?


Writing as Pat Califia in 1997, the transgender activist now known as Patrick Califia-Rice described Gorman's work as "unrelievedly heterosexual" and as positing "a world in which biology is supposedly allowed to dictate the social and sexual roles which men and women will play - dominant and warlike, submissive and servile, respectively" (p.vi)..."the hero or the dazzling object of his desire" (p. xiii). But even Gorman (whose writing, Califia wholeheartedly admits, is focused on the arousal, excitement, and gratification of the female "slave" much more so than that of her male "Master") allows that women are not passive, that "She, too, has needs. She often provokes the male to her hunt" (p. 33).


OK, maybe sometimes we want to feel that we are being chased, caught, and "ravished in a thoroughly satisfying manner" (Califia, 1997, p. xii) by a determined, energetic, and worthy partner - on our terms. As agents of our own fate, not commodities for male consumption. And for mutual pleasure, not just his. But maybe, just maybe, sometimes we'd like to be the hunter.


Califia writes, "The process of creating a sex life or love life for oneself is at least as much about learning and teaching as it is about discovering one's secret, innate self" (p. xi, italics are mine). What if, as Sookie's secret, innate self - the seat of her sexual self - is bubbling up to the surface, she'd like to be something other than "game, sleek, beautiful and desirable, frightened of him, who could be caught and owned, and tamed, and who, in his snare, would writhe and cry out" (Gorman, 1974, p. 21)?


Hypothetically, why does she even have to choose between Bill, Eric, and Alcide?


Of course, that's a somewhat rhetorical question since we know that in this culture, the industrial family ethic - which was preceded by the colonial family ethic, insists that the proper place for a woman is in a monogamous relationship with one man. I'm not saying that coupling up is wrong, or that women (or men) of any sexual orientation who want to do so are somehow less liberated.


What I am saying is that it's limiting and outright damaging - especially to women - to insist that this is the morally ordained, right, and only way to live.


As Mimi Abramovitz writes in the feminist classic, Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Policy from Colonial Times to the Present (1996) our contemporary social structures are still based upon the patriarchal family ethic that emerged during the early 19th century primarily as a means of controlling and regulating women’s productive and reproductive labor, placing them in their husband’s home and subordinate to him as the male head-of-household.


Seems like the basis for the Defense of Marriage Act - under which marriage = 1 man + 1 woman only - the fangs-out fight over which happily ended in marriage equality in my home state of New York just this past weekend.


In Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula we meet a female character reflective of a new social order - Lucy Westenra.

Sadie Frost as Lucy Westenra in the 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula

Like Sookie, she too had three suitors - and collected marriage proposals from all of them on the same day. As Susan Parlour (2009) writes in her essay, "Vixens and Virgins in the 19th Century Anglo-Irish Novel: Representations of the Feminine in Bram Stoker's Dracula", even though she failed to postulate a new image of feminine roles in the the workplace - as her best friend Mina, who might on the surface appear more of an expression of the New Woman in that regard, did - Lucy nonetheless shook up the strictures of the Victorian patriarchal machine.


According to Parlour, Lucy demonstrated her voracious sexual appetite. She admitted to being a "horrid flirt". These behaviors certainly transgressed the accepted Victorian etiquette demanded of young ladies. But Lucy took it a dangerous step further in her desire to marry Arthur Holmwood, Quincy Morris, AND Dr. John Seward. "Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all the trouble?" (Stoker, 1986, pp. 73, 78) Lucy wistfully wondered, and in doing so, embraced some of the more radical ideals of the New Woman's challenge to prevailing sexual values. In the minds of the Victorian patriarchs, could a destabilized society and accelerated moral decay be far behind?


Would Sookie ever suggest a similar solution to the Team Bill, Team Eric, or Team Alcide quandary? What if she did?


Do you know what became of that little minx Lucy? She fell prey to Count Dracula, was turned vampire, and as such became a "phallic woman", having fangs with the power to penetrate and draw blood; a sexually empowered aggressor. This, of course, could not stand. Lucy was subjected to a particularly brutal "second death" at the hands of four men - including her three suitors and the famed Dr. Van Helsing - during which she was staked in a manner reminiscent of gang-rape.

Vampire Lucy is destroyed in Bram Stoker's Dracula

The violation of her vampiric body yields the restoration of her benign femininity; her threat to the symbolic or social order extinguished (Parlour, 2009).


Is this the fate of the overtly sexually desirous woman? I'd like to think not, but one need only reflect back on René Lenier's Season 1 rampage to be reminded of how our society often treats its fangbangers, sluts, and bad girls (i.e. women whose sexual behavior transgresses the clearly demarcated gender roles mapped out for them).


This is a topic that is deserving of a lot more fleshing out and continued discussion. For now, suffice it to say that although I'm not holding out hope for Sookie to choose not to have to choose between Bill, Eric, Alcide, and whoever else may come her way (I'm not even saying that's the best option for her, anyway) I AM glad to have an image that we can claim as one representative of Team Sookie - where her needs, wants, and desires can be seen as central.

~ Rachel    

References

Abramovitz, M. (1996). Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy from Colonial Times to the Present. Boston, MA: South End Press.

Califia, P. (1997). "No Fantasy, Please, We're Americans: A Foreward by a Feminist". In Gorman, J. Imaginitive Sex. (pp. v-xiv). New York, NY: Masquerade Books.

Gorman, J. (1997).  Imaginitive Sex. New York, NY: Masquerade Books.

Parlour, S. (2009). "Vixens and Virgins in the 19th Century Anglo-Irish Novel: Representations of the Feminine in Bram Stoker's Dracula". Journal of Dracula Studies, Number II.

Stoker, B. (1986). Dracula. Penguin edition.  

     

FIRST TASTE: GUEST BARTENDING AT THE SIREN'S CONFERENCE

Here's your first taste of the GUEST BARTENDING feature that will be on the PPT's menu for season 4's analysis and commentary...


...LORENA FANS TAKE NOTE...


The Pierced Pomegranate Tavern will be setting up shop from October 6–9, 2011, at the Vail Cascade Resort and Spa in Vail, Colorado!


Rachel will be giving a talk at the Sirens conference; a networking retreat and academic conference dedicated to women in fantasy literature, providing perspectives on fantasy books by women, female characters in fantasy works, and how to support women in fantasy literature.


Within its focus on fantastic women, each year Sirens features a fantasy-related theme—and in 2011, the theme is "monsters"! Conference programming will examine and dissect monstrous characters and themes of monstrousness. As the Sirens site points out, women have too often been decried as "monsters," and examples of monsters and questions of monstrousness pervade fantasy literature. Sirens honored guests for 2011 are Justine Larbalestier, Nnedi Okorafor, and Laini Taylor, each of whom has written of female characters who may—or may not—be monsters.


Here's an overview of Rachel's presentation:

Title: Annihilating HER Again: How Eroticized Rage Against True Blood’s Vampire Lorena―Avatar of the Monstrous Feminine―Resurrects the Forgotten History of Goddess Culture's Suppression

 

 300-500 word abstract for 50 minute talk

This visual, multimodal and experiential talk revolves around the now infamous final scene of True Blood Season 3, Episode 3 entitled "It Hurts Me Too" which drew the ire of the National Organization for Women for what NOW called a “messed up depiction of women, men, violence, and sex”, prompting its call for feminists to deliver a “thanks but no thanks” message to HBO. 

When it aired on June 27, 2010 I watched—eyes wide and jaws agape—as during what some call an act of “hate sex,” vampire Bill Compton hurled his maker Lorena to the bed, tore off her clothes, and twisted her neck, turning her face to the floor as he forcefully thrust into her. Despite his contempt and brutality—and with blood dripping from her mouth—Lorena told Bill that she still loves him. This explicit rendering of eroticized rage shocked me at a gut level akin to the way feminist scholar Vicki Noble describes women’s response to the obscene prevalence of rape: “We experience our collective annihilation repeatedly, psychically and physically as a woman is raped every thirteen seconds in North America…”.¹

And yet, I can’t condemn or denounce this deliberately unsettling scene; in my view it raises vital issues that are better addressed through thoughtful dialogue than censure and several questions ripe for discourse spring immediately to mind: 

o    If Lorena is as NOW suggests the classic “bitch” archetype; the monstrous Feminine—a characterization that reduces her to a monolith—how might this comment on our culture which has long fragmented and demonized the Feminine? What kind of cultural context would need to exist for us to think differently?

o    Why does this scene disturb us so? Is it too hard to reconcile the genteel and romantic Bill Compton with his willful despoiling of Lorena; his determination to utterly ruin her—and harder still for us to place such a rapacious mindset not at the margins of dominant culture, but at its center?

o    Could Bill's pillage and defilement of Lorena be seen as a visceral rearticulation for a contemporary audience of mythologies depicting the slaying of the Great Goddess by the warrior god as peaceful, egalitarian society was supplanted by patriarchy some five millennia ago―the collective memory of which still pulses in our modern psyches?

Drawing upon 800,000 years of art, myth, histories and poetry and amplifying leading voices in feminist thought, archaeomythology, women's studies, and Goddess scholarship not often heard in mainstream discourse, we will explore these charged concepts and more. Tracing the intriguing parallels between the difficult-to-digest imagery “It Hurts Me Too” confronts us with and the mythologies of Goddesses dismembered, slain or made subordinate to male gods which represent the rupture from a Goddess-centered world to “dominator” world of today, we will open a discourse on contemporary issues like gender relations, sex and sexuality, attitudes towards autonomous women, and rape as a dominant social and cultural metaphor for behavior. We will identify new models for a “partnership” social structure. 

1.      Vicki Noble, Shakti Woman: Feeling Our Fire, Healing Our World (New York: HarperOne, 1991), p. 3.

Any thoughts?


I hear the host resort, which combines the conveniences of a modern hotel with the laid-back, friendly atmosphere of a mountain retreat, is amazing, and with its great room rates during the beautiful fall season in the Rocky Mountains, as well as a discount on most services at their acclaimed spa, maybe that's enough to lure you to Vail to join us?


~ Rachel