Thesis Chapter: John Howard & Annie Sprinkle - introductory sketch

 Not much blogging has been done of late, mainly because I've been beating the first chapter of the thesis into shape. I know I have a working complete first draft of around 5k words, of which this is the opening/introductory section. The chapter discusses the work of two artists I interviewed recently and their relevance to this study - namely, their recognition of, and interactions with, non-normative bodies and types of people.

1.0 Alternative Legacies: Contextualizing the Careers of Annie Sprinkle PhD. and John Howard

 Since the sexual and other revolutions of the 1960s, there has been a tendency for social mores to oscillate between increasing liberalism and staunch conservatism, and possibly in no genre more explicitly than in the representation of adult sexual material. The 1970s – 1990s saw significant political, socio-cultural schisms develop in what were labelled ‘the Culture Wars’ and the ‘Porn Wars’, splitting feminist, legal and general media opinion throughout the aggressively reactionary Reagan era (1980-1988) in the US and the growing ‘political correctness’ movement. It was against this backdrop of cultural change, of increasing conservatism challenged by resistant libertarianism (exemplified most extremely, perhaps, by the $145million lawsuit brought by Andrea Dworkin against Larry Flynt and Hustler magazine), that the subjects of this chapter would emerge.

 The importance of both Annie Sprinkle and John Howard to the wider scope of this research is not just the radical and anti-normative work they have produced over a number of years, but the similarities between them and their careers:

-          both worked with and celebrated ‘alternative bodies’ at a time when society tended to view such non-normative and marginalized corporealities as offensive, legally obscene[1] and troublesome;

-          both had high-profile careers in the adult entertainment industry, meaning that their work would be seen by many, not a small number in some ‘underground’ scene;

-          both have been able to live within the timeframe of social change, where recognition of trans* and non-binary bodies has become far wider and more accepted, and witness the analogue -> digital revolution;

-          both grew up and worked in areas which were regarded as very liberal with regard to sex and diversity, meaning they did not have to overcome resistance and prejudice from peer groups, religious and other social conservative bodies, but were more easily able to pursue their own interests.

All of the above, including my own practice, may clearly represent the ‘post-porn’ movement, summarized thus by Amy E. Forrest in her unpublished Master’s dissertation:

“Post-porn modernism involves cultural end products (post-porn) such as performances, literature, photographs, videos, montages, installations, films, and interventions in the public sphere (Soto 2013: 22). It has a political dimension that explicitly contests the repression and dismissal of the sexualities of social minorities […] Indeed, it often queers sex by rejecting the validity of hegemonic gender roles […] Furthermore, […] post-porn actively exposes the performance and social construction that is sexual representation. By disconcerting the spectator and attempting to make them self-aware, post-porn can encourage a greater understanding of normalised attitudes and systems of oppression[2].”

This appropriation of a highly problematic medium for personal, subversive and socio-political ends is a cornerstone of my practice-led work. Though it often presents ambiguity in favour of explicitness, it refers to (and subverts) familiar tropes, poses, and performative gestures. Where graphic depictions are presented in physiological terms, they are juxtaposed with other elements (physiognomical, sartorial, etc.) which may result in “disconcerting” incongruity.

Whilst both AS and JH are cisgender creators operating within the mainstream of a male-dominated “profit-driven industry that strives for maximal exploitation of labor, in this case primarily women[3]”, an analysis of their work will discover that as artists, they have often operated outside the cis-het normative aesthetic which tends to celebrate male dominance and female subjection: Howard, by depicting aggressively dominant female and transfemale comic-book characters, Sprinkle by performing with “dwarfs, burn victims, transsexuals, persons with AIDS, and amputees […] as sources of erotic desire and pleasure […][4]” and later, embracing her own form of lesbian-focused ‘ecosexuality’[5].

Of mainstream porn, Laura Kipnis writes (following Thomas Laquer): “[…] it seems like a fantasy of a one-gender world, a world in which male and female sexuality is completely commensurable […] composed of two sexes but one gender…[6]” This notion of the malleability of the gendered pornographic corps (and its potential for liberating non-binary bodies and performers from social and biological straitjackets) will be returned to, but the pornographic realm which is the focus of this study is not the mainstream: it is that which is created by, and/or includes, queer, subversive, trans and/or other radical elements whether in its themes or its subjects, although it does of course have roots in, and intersections with, mainstream adult media. The purpose is to investigate the reclamation and colonization of the pornographic form by historically marginalized types, and their attempts to celebrate Otherness as desirable (as, for example, in the classically-influenced portraiture of Joel-Peter Witkin): “As with transvestite porn and fat porn, pornography can provide a home for those narratives exiled from sanctioned speech and mainstream political discourse, making pornography, in essence, an oppositional political form[7].”

If the non-standard body (and thereby the person in possession of it) is a text, then it is a text which needs to be interpreted; which, as the wide range of terms applied to myself during my webcam activities have shown, provides a whole spectrum of ‘readings’[8]. In the world of queered art and experience, heteronormative constructions soon dissolve.

 

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[1] On trans* pornography’s legality, Laura Kipnis writes: “Why does a fully dressed man – albeit one fully dressed as a woman – fall under the heading of “pornography”? […] In Chicago, there’s a tacit understanding on the part of most local porn businesses that carrying transvestite porn will get them raided by the local vice squad, working under the direction of the state attorney’s office.” (L. Kipnis, ‘Bound & Gagged’, p. 67). In a similar vein, in the UK, ‘Operation Spanner’ targeted members of the gay male BDSM underground in a period of renewed hostility to homosexuality “The year that Operation Spanner was launched, a British Social Attitudes Survey found that 75% of the population believed that homosexual activity was always or mostly wrong. At the Conservative Party Conference the same year, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher warned against children being taught that they had a right to be gay. The following year, Section 28 was introduced which banned local authorities from “promoting” homosexuality. It was in this climate that Operation Spanner operated.” (G. Hollmann, ‘Operation Spanner’, at ‘Herts Memories: Gateway To Hertfordshire's Community Archive Network, https://www.hertsmemories.org.uk/content/herts-history/people/lesbian-gay-bisexual-and-transgender/lgbtq-history-month-2022/protest-and-progress/operation-spanner - last accesses 8/4/22.)

[2] A. Forrest, ‘Leave no Normative Code Intact’: Subverting Socio-cultural Norms in Post-porn’, unpublished, 2013. Online at: https://www.academia.edu/28179836/FORREST_Amy_E._unpublished_MA_dissertation_English_translation_2013_Leave_no_normative_code_intact_Subverting_Socio-cultural_Norms_in_Post-porn - last accessed 30/4/22.

[3] ‘Pornography & Media: Toward a More Critical Analysis’ by G. Dines & R. Jensen, in Sexualities: Identities, Behaviors & Society, eds. M. Kimmel & R. F. Plante, OUP, New York, 2004, p.371.

[4] 'The Erotic Anatomies of Charles Estienne and Annie Sprinkle', Meghan Chandler, Porn Studies, p. 395

[5] Sprinkle’s own ‘Feminist Art Statement’ runs like a mantra: “Because I love and adore women (including trans-women, trans-men, gender queer, intersexed, etc.) I want the very best for them […] Because I love and adore women, I fight to decriminalize and de- stigmatize prostitution and other sex work.” (A. Sprinkle, ‘Brooklyn Museum Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art’, webpage: https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/about/feminist_art_base/annie-sprinkle - last accessed 8/4/22).

[6] L. Kipnis, ‘Bound & Gagged’, p. 200

[7] L. Kipnis, ‘Bound & Gagged’, p. 123

[8] As discussed in my blog: M. Black , ‘Naming Names: Taxonomies of Ownership, or, Why You Need to Call Me That’, posted November 12, 2021, at https://phiz-phys.blogspot.com/2021/11/naming-names-taxonomies-of-ownership-or.html: ”“sexy babe”, “slutty little bitch”, “beauty”, “bitchboi”, “sissy”, “sissy faggot”, “sissy boi”, “my queen”, “man”, “hot bitch”, “mistress”, “adorable princess”, “naughty bedroom girl”, “beautiful princess”, “girlfriend”, “goddess”, “my slut”, “my whore”, “cougar” and “my woman”.” The difficulty of coherently expressing my (or anybody else’s) androgynous gender is well observed by Pacteau: “Discussions of androgyny... come up against a resistance... from language itself.. . Any attempt to define androgyny.. . takes us to the limits of language.. . such definitions ask for their own dépassement” – F. Pacteau, “The Impossible Referent: Representations of the Androgyne,” in Formations of Fantasy, edited by Victor Burgin, James Donald and Cora Kaplan, (London: Metheun, 1986), quoted in A. & M. Kroker, ‘Body Invaders: Panic Sex in America’, p. 161.