Regendering a Lady? – Robert Mapplethorpe and Lisa Lyon
In 1979, Robert Mapplethorpe collaborated with model Lisa
Lyon, a female bodybuilding champion, in “a book-length photographic essay in
what would become known...as gender-bending[1]”.
This work was first brought to my attention during the writing of my undergrad
dissertation[2], by
Linda Nead’s examination of the female body, in ‘The Female Nude: Art,
Obscenity and Sexuality’ (London, Routledge, 1992). I’ve chosen to revisit and
re-examine this series of works now, as bodybuilding has long been a
distinctive feature of my own illustrative/representational drawing style
(recently seen in new PhD-specific pieces: see Illustration 1), and also for
its cross-gender aesthetic possibilities – where male and female physicality
merge and become almost as one. This unifying process has reference points in
other areas of personal interest to me, especially ancient mythological beings
(hermaphrodites), shamanistic practice, and alchemical transformations.
As a pioneer
of female bodybuilding at a time when such a practice was still marginalized
even for men (before the health and fitness explosion of the 1980s), I was
drawn to her as a symbol of forward-thinking and personal development beyond
the mainstream not just within the obvious feminist context of embodying the
traditionally masculine qualities of strength, action and determination, but
also in the socio-cultural context of how a woman may be expected to
look, and furthermore, redefining the rather elastic terms of ‘beauty’ and
‘femininity’ along the way.
That it took
a gay male to bring out the fascinating duality of Lyon’s physicality and
persona is perhaps not surprising, but Mapplethorpe does not insist upon
viewing Lyon’s form as in anyway aberrant or freakish: in many of the images,
Lyon’s bodily development is not clearly apparent, and otherwise look
entirely like conventional glamour/pin-up material of their time (Illustration
2). Despite the oft-admired ‘hardness’ of her body, it is blunted by the softer
conventional femininity in which Mapplethorpe dresses her up, and only the full
nude shots allow us to consider the notion that Lyon is in some way outwith the
‘norm’. Brian McNair observes that Lyon’s “taut, muscular frame wilfully
blurred the masculine/feminine divide. Mapplethorpe’s photographs highlighted
both elements of her persona [my italics], combining the referents of
femininity (white lace and skimpy bikinis…) with a suggestion of masculine
strength (bulging veins, clenched fists)[3]
.” Mapplethorpe positions Lyon in terms of the power structures inherent in the
body and its place in society: note that he doesn’t always take Lyon ‘out’ of
her social role as a woman, or the poses expected of a woman, in many of the
images – the nude mock-classical posturing notwithstanding, she is often
attired and represented entirely within the boundaries of feminine portraiture.
We don’t see her in a hard hat, a military uniform, or in any sense rendered
un-feminine (i.e., masculine, as in, for example, the fetishized attire adopted
by several of the gay male stereotypical ‘types’ of the late 1970s, most
popularly referenced by Village People).
McNair’s use
of the term ‘persona’ highlights Lyon’ own view of herself as a performance
artist who, like transmale bodybuilders Loren Cameron and Cassils decades
later, developed herself into a “sculptor of her own body[4]“.
The physical body challenges the conceptions and assumptions of what the inner,
biological reality ought to reflect – if gender is a social construct,
then Lyon critiques the wider public expectations of bodily femininity
(for 1979), whilst still maintaining her aesthetic femininity (long
hair, traditional make-up).
Linda Nead
emphasizes the “ordering” of Lyon’s body and puns upon the “framing” of
Mapplethorpe’s subject – in many of the images, Lyon’ physique is not the
focus, but rather her femininity, in all its traditional variety. Thus we see
her variously decked out in lingerie, evening wear, leather motorcycle and
S&M gear, boots, wigs, gloves and expected accessories/phallic replacements
from live pythons (echoing any number of 19th C. fin-de-siecle
depictions of woman-as-seducer, or 20th C. exotic dancing); guns,
and inevitably, gym paraphernalia. None of this is remote from the conventional
efforts of glamour/fetish artists like Helmut Newton and Eric Kroll. Her
traditional bodybuilding poses do, however, present her femininity in a
masculine context – forms previously only seen exhibited by male athletes, and
in this regard, I view Lyon’s aesthetic persona as decidedly cross-gender,
appropriating male/macho postures for her own empowerment – an action in itself
which must still be viewed as radical for the late 1970s, when second-wave
feminism and the fallout from the socio-cultural and political revolutions of
the 1960s were still very much settling upon public consciousness.
Certain of the images do reflect a
somewhat dominant sexuality, which the context of a strong physical body lends itself
to (illustration 3): this idea of muscular women in sexually dominant and
powerful roles is explored both through my own works, and others whom I have
brought into my current research (cf. comic/’shemale’ artist John Howard,
interview in progress – see example illustration 4). In the BDSM/fetish-themed
images of Lyon, Mapplethorpe gives visualization to the sexual dynamic often
referenced in gay male culture and its binary duality (cf. the idea of the
‘femme’ or submissive, and ancient historical constructions of the feminized
male who takes the passive role in sexual encounters, an act often portrayed as
shameful, as distinct from the dominant/master figure: see Foucault’s
exploration of this complex socio-sexual idea in ‘The History of Sexuality, Vol.
2: The Use of Pleasure’). Within certain gay male contexts, the idea of
referring to a male by ‘she/her’ pronouns often defines his place as the
submissive one in the relationship – assuming Mapplethorpe was aware of this
form of code, his renderings of Lyon in dominant attire and poses take on a
very wry and ironic shade, presenting a cisgender female in the role of a ‘top’
or dominant male which I personally find amusing (and furthermore, when taken
in a pornographic context, evidence that not all genres of pornography are
predicated on the degradation of female
actors).
However,
Mapplethorpe’s sexuality notwithstanding, he was still a white male artist
working within the American art establishment, and in this case providing
representations of a cisgender female which conforms to existing gender norms
of fantasy and appreciation for a gaze indoctrinated not only by centuries of
art-historical dogma, but touched by recent popular cultural movements and
forms of representation (the 1950s boom in ‘bondage’ pornography presenting
dominant/strong women tends to favour lesbian, rather than heterosexual,
pairings – for the pleasure, of course, of heterosexual male viewers). Nead may
be correct when she states that Lyon is ‘framed’ - although she is also equally
‘sculpted’, and remains, however statuesque, still identifiably feminine – in
contrast to Nan Goldin’s portraits of transvestites and other culturally queer
individuals who exhibit true ambiguity. Lyon’s form is, however, clearly
defined in terms of hard physical output, and shows no signs of the stresses
and deformities which would soon become commonplace in bodybuilding culture,
inflicted by over-training, excessive use of steroids, and extreme dieting, and
where muscle growth was expanded to freakish extremes. Nor is her face etched
by the hard lines of stress caused by repetitive weight-lifting (constant
grimacing during heavy workouts), a physiognomical feature I have only recently
noted on many individuals of all genders: for all her bodily transformation,
her face retains its traditional feminine qualities, a contrast and
counterpoint which was clearly attractive to Mapplethorpe, suggesting a
negation of ontological dualism and instead embodying integration, unity and
the ‘two-in-one’ themes of my own works and its reference points.
As a gay
man, Mapplethorpe can escape the usual charge of making female nude work
an extension of his libido, however he may instead be forming Lyon’ nude
portraits – mainly of the routine ‘bodybuilding’ type – as parodies of Charles
Atlas-style hypermasculine gestures and body form, and therefore
bordering on his own taste for a masculine aesthetic[5].
Perhaps the concept was too ahead of its time to go all the way to the kind of
consummation that was required to be fully groundbreaking – it would take until
the end of the 20th Century and another pair of
bodybuilder/performance artists to publicly take the female body completely out
of the gender normative: the aforementioned Loren Cameron and Cassils.
As a
performer and photographic subject, however, Lyon clearly illustrates my
current research trajectory – of the ‘phys/phiz’ (physicality/physiognomy)
connection, wherein a certain contrapuntal visual schema is defined by the
pairing of one (commonly-accepted) ‘type’ of face with another opposing ‘type’
of body, to produce a result celebrating not only incongruity (thereby
challenging viewers’ prejudices and assumptions), but also integration: this
last term, perhaps more than any other, being a central concern and aim of my
work to date.
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| Illustration 1 |
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| Illustration 2 |
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| Illustration 3 |
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| Illustration 4 |
[1]
B. McNair, Striptease Culture: Sex, Media, & the Democratisation of Desire,
London, Routledge, 2002. p. 183
[2]
C. Wood, ‘The Non-Binary Body in Western Art & Culture’, Dundee, 2020.
[3]
Ibid.
[4]
B. Chatwin, Lady Lisa Lyon, Munchen, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, 1987.
[5]
I in no way insinuate that Mapplethorpe was drawn to Lyon’ body as a surrogate
man – only that it is one possible reading of the images of her, especially the
nude works. We are told that Mapplethorpe “liked the jumble of black curls that
gave her the look of an Old Testament heroine...it was clear that her body had
to be magnificent: small, lithe, graceful, not a gram of superfluous fat, and
so unlike the hefty apparitions from the women's muscle magazines”. Lyon also
explains “how she imagines the prototype of the woman of the eighties: her idea
of the woman's body ("neither feminine nor masculine, but feline, belonging
to the big cats' family), her idea of bodybuilding as a ritual and of this
Ritual as an art form” (Bruce Chatwin, 'Lady Lisa Lyon'). )
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