To Have and Have Not: Penises, Faces, and Other Bodily Bits

 Is the phallus still the single, most stable, identifiable gender definer: by its presence, or by its absence? In this world view (which I have seen personally expressed in many ways online - here's a screenshot of one single forum thread on the art and community website DeviantArt, posted in May 2022), wherein presence of a penis = male. Absence = female. The end.

Even taking into account the feasibility of mere trolling in the above (note the deliberate nazi references in the OP), the point is inescapable that these views are pervasive, and cross multiple territories (a number of DA forum regulars are not Anglo-American and do not have English as a first language). An advocate who believes that transwomen with penises can be classified as women is unlikely to argue the opposite "for lolz". We are returned to the nasty old-fashioned Freudian binary: that those who have, have the privilege of masculinity and maleness (whether they want it or not), and those who don't, don't. Again, the end. Only full GRS can remove this stigma, assuming it also comes with full legal and social acceptance of the newly-assigned gender.

One text (thanks to Dr. Angela Jones for recommending it) which has become fundamental to my background reading is 'Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach' by Kessler & McKenna. Thus:

            "Penises and vaginas are the criteria by which gender is assigned at birth. Penis means ‘‘male” and labia and vagina means “ female,” and that, except in the most ambiguous cases, is all that is necessary to determine the neonate’s gender. There is some question as to whether the formula is really labia and vagina = fem ale, or whether it is instead no penis = female, since at birth there is no search (i.e., internal examination) for a vagina or clitoris." - Kessler & McKenna, p. 58.

The privileging of the masculine by patriarchal surgical, medical and surrounding discourse (which is also discussed at length by Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling ('Sexing the Body', passim)) - is again iterated:

            "[...] in a case where a mother amputated the penis of her 15-month-old son, the medical team made the decision to keep him “ male,” despite the fact that he no longer had a penis (Westman and Zarwell, 1975). The medical basis of this decision seems to have been that reassigning him as female, and perform ing the necessary surgery, would have necessitated castration and thus rendered this individual sterile. A fertile male without a penis was seen as preferable to a sterile female with a vagina." (ibid.)

In which case, we are reminded of the sociological purpose of women as 'child bearers', and the recent Irish political designation of spinsters as "redundant women".

But this blog deals with more than genitalia, and Kessler and McKenna note the external details which are used, at first glance, to gender individuals: 

            "Our purpose in soliciting reasons was not to catalog them, detailing stages in cognitive development. Ample evidence has already been collected (e.g., Kohlberg, 1966; Katcher, 1955; Thompson and Bentler, 1971) which shows that young children cite hair length and clothing as gender cues and that adults use biological signs. The reasons that the youngest children gave suggest that they have not yet learned that any reason is not enough; it must be a “ good reason.” That is, it must be placed within a gender “ appropriate” context. For example, both preschool and adult participants frequently gave body parts as reasons. While pre-schoolers, for the most part, merely named the body part (“ Why is this a picture of a boy?” "His hands” or “ His face” ), the adults characterized the features in a particular way ("Because of the aggressive expression on his face ” or “Because his arms are in an athletic pose” )." - P.105

This feeds handily into recent research I've been doing on the physiognomy of gender, about which I've so far been unable to find many general studies. There are, however, a couple of interesting papers on the relations between gender, social power and dominance. 

            "Traits associated with physical maturity and strength may have acquired a signaling function for dominance among humans as they have, in an analogous fashion, among other species. For example, individuals with prominent, square jaws may appear "dominant" because jaw growth indicates maturing dentition and fully developed teeth are used for intimidation among many primates (Guthrie, 1970). " (Caroline F. Keating, Social Psychology Quarterly 985, Vol. 48, NO. 1, 61-70, Gender and the Physiognomy of Dominance and Attractiveness, p. 62.)

Given the historical place of women in traditionally submissive or non-dominant roles, this has some bearing on the modern stereotype of lesbians as commonly having 'butch' or 'masculine' facial attributes. Whether the mere possession of such attributes contributes to making one eventually become gay (due to repeated rejection by stereotypically-minded members of the opposing sex) is another matter, and one that's well beyond my scope of research.

Keating goes on:

            "Morphological cues of nondominance [...] have received more attention than those of dominance, perhaps because of the Lorenzian notion of the "cute response" (see Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1975:400). Lorenz (1943) postulated that certain infantile features evolved their appealing nature because they operated as cues for caretaking responses. Consistent with Lorenz's notion, several investigators found that the babyishness of cephalic shape determined perceived cuteness for schematic drawings (Alley, 1981; Brooks and Haebberg, 1960; Hildebrandt and Fitzged, 1979). Preferences for photographs of infant rather than adult faces of both human and non-human species were reported for post-pubescent human males and females (Fullard and Re-, 1976). Sternglanz et al. (1977) collected "attractiveness" ratings from college students who viewed schematized baby faces with systematically varied features (e.g., chin size, eye shape, iris size, etc.). Feature variations which produced the highest attractiveness ratings were consistent with Lorenz's proposals (Sternglanz et al., 1977). " (p.62)

            "From a sociobiological perspective, likely dominance cues are traits associated with physiognomic characteristics, such as jaw prominence, that promote successful intraspecific competition. Identi-Kit faces with prominent, square jaws were therefore hypothesized to appear more dominant than those with more rounded ones. Dominance cues are also likely to involve traits that accompany status differentiators such as age. The amount of facial hair increases following puberty (especially in males), and so faces with bushy or thick eyebrows were expected to appear dominant relative to those with thin eyebrows (Guthrie, 1970). Large eyes, another juvenile trait, were predicted to look nondominant relative to small eyes (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1975: Guthrie, 1790; Lorenz, 1943: Sternglanz et a]., 1977). Thick or pudgy lips are also characteristic of babies and were expected to diminish dominance ratings for adult faces (Keating et a]., 1981 b). Dominance cues were expected to be associated with attractiveness for male faces but not for females. Nondominance cues were predicted to correspond with perceived attractiveness for female faces and make male faces less attractive. 

            "For both male and female faces, the combination of brows, eyes, lips and jaw designed to look adultlike rather than childlike boosted dominance ratings, as predicted. Furthermore, variations in eye size or lip thickness alone were reliable dominance cues. These findings are consistent with the sociobiological arguments guiding the selection of trait manipulations. Dominance was conveyed by the relatively small eyes and thin lips associated with adult development. Nondominance was signalled by the large eyes and thick lips associated with the prepubescent young of our species. 

            "In general, traits that served as dominance cues for male faces made female faces look less attractive and male faces look more attractive. Female faces were perceived as attractive when displaying traits that made male faces appear submissive (a "Tootsie Effect") and unattractive (Keating, forthcoming). Perhaps the neotenous traits displayed by females of nonhuman species are analogous to the human situation. The notion that perceptions of dominance and attractiveness are differently related for males and females implies that the basis of attraction may rest. in part, on perceptions of dominance. When a woman looks too "masculine" or a man too "feminine" perhaps what is violated is not only a gender distinction but a dominance or status distinction as well. "Feminine" or nondominant characteristics may make males look weak but make females look appealing." (p. 69)

Keating sums up the pervasiveness of all of this in our culture:

            "These arguments are supported by common observations of feminine beauty techniques. The typical prescription for "beauty" in Western culture includes making eyes look larger and brows thinner and arched. These techniques could be viewed as a sort of culturally prescribed neoteny (Guthrie. 1970). The present study suggests that such interpersonal perceptions are not arbitrary, cultural inventions but are patterned by primate evolution." (ibid.)

We can see, then, that industries such as the beauty and glamour worlds, and popular media such as men's magazines, comics, video games, etc., all strictly adhere to, rather than deviate from, these repetitive social/evolutionary cues in which strong, aggressive and dominant men, and non-aggressive, non-dominant women, are the norm (even in media in which women are portrayed as "tough" or aggressive, they also must typically still be rendered "sexy" - a tough female character who is also aggressive and rendered physically unattractive (by the conventional means described above) will very likely be a lesbian, trans*, a villain, or some combination thereof. The action/aggression aspects of characters such as Lara Croft, then, are in no way incompatible with the physical representation of the character for the target demographic: eye candy for the male gamer, while they carry on with the traditional male, aggressive, dominant behaviour of fighting/exploring/winning/kicking ass in general. The character does not, physically (oversized tits, hourglass physique) or physiognomically (big eyes and lips, small chin), present herself as inherently aggressive or dominant. That feature is only accessible via the actual gameplay, which, of course, the male gamer has full control of (more of this kind of discussion in my previous blog post, here).

Of similar interest is another paper authored by Eva G. Krumhuber, Xijing Wang and Ana Guinote, 'The powerful self: How social power and gender infuence face perception' (Current Psychology https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-02798. Accepted: 26 January 2022):

            "Of particular importance is facial dominance, associated with characteristics such as a prominent jawline, pronounced eyebrows, and thin lips (Van-Vugt & Grabo, 2015). Those who look strong and dominant are favored as leaders and attain higher ranks in organizational settings. For example, people with dominant facial features are more likely to reach higher military rankings, achieve business success, and receive more votes in political campaigns (e.g., Alrajih & Ward, 2014; Little et al., 2007; Mueller & Mazur, 1996)." (p.2)

            "Whilst social power is something desirable for men, it may create a backlash against women who risk negative social reactions (Eagly & Karau, 2002). In line with this argument, female power holders are often described as ‘iron maiden’ and ‘ice-queens’ (Heilman et al., 2004), with the effect that they are judged as more hostile (e.g., devious, bitter; Heilman et al., 1995). They experience criticism and penalization from both men and women (Rudman, 1998), and are viewed as less socially skilled and feminine than their male counterparts (Rudman & Glick, 1999; Wang et al., 2018). Also, dominant behavior and appearance fail to increase the perceived attractiveness of women, whereas they do so in men (Brescoll & Uhlmann, 2008; Sadalla et al., 1987). In fact, female faces are rated as attractive the more submissive/immature features they contain such as a round face, large eyes, and a small chin (Keating, 1985). (p. 3)

            "Traits that serve as dominance cues for men (i.e., masculine facial features) may therefore not be appealing to women (Sutherland et al., 2015) because they violate conventions of appropriate female behavior (Eagly & Karau, 2002). Instead, socially shared expectations that link women with submissiveness may constitute the preferred point of view (Bailey & Kelly, 2015). This could lead to the visual representation of own faces in which the self is predominantly aligned with perceptions of low power/dominance. As women come to internalize gender-stereotypic roles, submissive traits and appearances related to the self may appear more typical and desirable. As such, women’s submissive self-face schemas as shown in this research could have a self-perpetuating function that may prevent them from taking on power-related roles*. In contrast, dominant self-face schemas held by men may be automatically activated when opportunities arise to acquire or maintain power (Wellington et al., 2003). These self-selection processes then complement environmental pressures and social discrimination (Meyerson & Fletcher, 2000)." (p. 11)

*My italics. A relevant point in relation to the perpetuation of male-to-female trans* stereotypes and the need for, f'rexample, facial feminization surgery and such.

Of interest within this paper is the use of computer-generated facial images, tending along a spectrum of most dominant -> most submissive (for male and female - although, only Caucasian - subjects), which is similar in line to the proposed work I'm undertaking (via the https://metahuman.unrealengine.com/ digital face generator) for preparing a spectrum of gendered physiognomies, in an attempt to locate the point - for a general consensus of viewers - at which clear and explicit gender breaks down, and ambiguity is introduced:

The character is based on 'Frankie', the non-binary lead and narrator of my graphic novel series 'Sinister Rouge' (2019-20), and its development in this virtual environment has direct links to my own personal aesthetics of physiognomy, as well as the feedback I have received over the years in that regard. As it stands, the project is to define a female character that is universally declared to "look female", and then tweak her features increasingly until questions, confusion and - ultimately - accusations of "maleness" or "trans-ness" creep into the responses. How I will enable this research to be conducted is for further down the line however, and something that will need to be discussed at length.

Moving back to the issues of 'reading' a person's characteristics from their facial structure (shades of the phrenology pseudo-science, and the recent Stanford University 'gay face' study), I wonder if the perceived femininity (and, ultimately, the attractiveness thereof) of a face is determined by that face's apparent submissiveness. If big eyes on a girl or woman are deemed attractive - because big eyes look innocent, childlike, and (relatively) non-aggressive, non-threatening - then clearly, in opposition, narrow eyes on a woman ought to indicate the reverse? Japanese culture, via manga and anime, explicitly refers to these tropes (the characteristic large, often very detailed, eyes of anime characters are derived from 1960s Disney creatures) with 'boy eyes' and 'girl eyes'. 

Power and dominance over an individual seems to be a driving force behind what is perceived as attractiveness. Narrow eyes and a stern chin will make some viewers uncomfortable if they are juxtaposed with a stereotypically 'sexy' physiology (a major part of my own drawing practice) and therefore the normative/cis-het dominant male viewer would reject such a representation. This, I suspect, is part of the driving force behind a lot of male-to-female transphobia - that the attractive, submissive elements of traditional womanhood are offset by too manly a facial structure (in some cases) which then perturbs, disrupts, the initial lust response once a closer, second look has been taken, and the viewer wonders if the person they liked the look of at first sight, may turn out to be just as dominant or aggressive as they themselves? A case of hitting too close to home, perhaps?

“All Your Women Look Like Trannies”…Or, Why I'm Here Right Now, Writing This

I've drawn comics (and 'comix') for over forty years. Comic-book art was a large part of my original art school submission folio in 2016, though my distaste for the more obvious elements of the mainstream comics world has only deepened in recent times.

The image of the powerful, ass-kicking (super)heroine in mainstream comic-book art may, at first sight, suggest to laypersons viewing such material that strong, independent, feisty females are a staple of such material, and therefore encouraging signs of gender equality in popular media. Whether they truly do or not is largely due to the writers, since the artists (whether individuals or penciller/inker teams) will likely be the same. However, the aesthetic ‘phiz/phys’ code, when examined, suggests nothing more than skimpiest lip-service to the Women's Movement, and nothing less than patriarchy-as-usual. Shall we break down the aesthetic attributes of all the so-called 'powerful' female characters in mega-selling, mainstream comics (not, please note, 'comix' – which by their very nature tend to be radical, subversive, and challenging)?

  l) Age (apparent): young. Late teens to early, mid-20s at most. Anything older is a mother, a granny, or a bitchy, probably sexually-frustrated boss-type. Superheroes, aliens etc. may in reality be much older, but they still don’t look a day over 24 ½ .

 2) Vitalstatistics: Barbie, or one of her numerous sisters, daughters or grand-daughters. Hip:waist ratio and bust size are vital considerations. Bared or exposed flesh is virtually a must, whether it's cleavage, thigh, abdomen, or all of the above (or more besides) as evidenced in, say, Lara Croft. (Speaking of which, I recently came across this BBC broadcast on the subject: Evil Genius with Russell Kane - Lara Croft, Tomb Raider - BBC Sounds )

 3) Physiognomy: eyes, nose and mouth set according to standard principles in line with l) above – small nose, small babyish chin, big eyes. Individuality, quirkiness, character and age-lines are deficient/non-existent, unless the bitchy bad boss or granny-type needs emphasizing just how utterly unattractive she is, and how redundant to the male viewer's fantasy world as a result.

4) Height: variable. Can be small and petite or tall and leggy in killer heels without damaging the viewer's feelings: the former more likely to be the 'cute/good girl' type, the latter the deadly/femme fatale assassin/hooker-with-a-switchblade/villainess variety.

5) Dress: Skimpy, exposing skin, or if all over, then spray-on skin-tight (nudity by proxy). Boots and high heels of at least 4” often in evidence, no matter the circumstances, terrain, weather or location.

Okay, so the above list is neither entirely serious, or free from stereotypical generalization either. But, as most mainstream comic book artists are male, they not only draw what they like to see, but what is demanded to be seen: the scopophilia of their majority readership ensures few variations on the above coded formulae and sometimes the styles can be almost interchangeable. Some artists do indeed seem to have a single, specific, female type (or personal archetype). Here are examples of completely different characters drawn by Brazilian artist Al Rio, all of whom look not only identical facially, but are carbon copies down to the very hairstyle and expressions:

We can turn now to an industry manual, written by a leading professional, for budding comic artists on how to draw awesome women characters, a title named “Incredible Comic Book Women with Tom Nguyen: TheKick-Ass Guide to Drawing Hot Babes!”

Herein I cite a secondary source rather than the book itself, as I consider the reviewer’s enthusiastic comments to be as worthy of discussion as the book under review. Thus

“Lets face it, if you’re going to become a comic book artist, learning how to draw a hot leggy blond is a must!”

Really? There’s no point then in asking if the blond in question may be black or Asian – they (well, obviously she) will be white. From the samples of Nguyen’s art provided, I saw immediate comparisons with the figure drawing manuals of Andrew Loomis, an artist so influential now that his name is still spoken of reverently in illustration circles, and who is frequently cited as a major inspiration for many of today’s leading professionals. That Loomis had a ‘type’ of woman as much as Rio cited above is evident – they are all young, beautiful, slim, naked (possibly the same model) and often drawn in high heels, with the fetishistic undertones now expected of an artist who understands his intended audience (as does Nguyen, evidenced later). Studying texts like this in my early illustration career (early 2000s) left me conflicted – here was a revered expert, giving sage advice to new artists, yet thoroughly entrenched in its time. In later years, I found Linda Neade’s survey of traditional artists’ drawing manuals to be very reminiscent of Loomis (‘The Female Nude’, pp. 46-55), and things have not changed in the 2l^st century when we consider Nguyen’s ‘how-to’ bible, with his bikini-clad babes guaranteed to maintain the youthful (psychologically, if not physically) male reader’s attention as much as Loomis’ flexible, and utterly traditional, nudes:

Curiously, Al Rio actually includes a re-draw of one of Loomis' costumed models in what purports to be a 'how to draw' class booklet of is own - though it's unclear if Loomis receives credit, it's very easy to see the influence:

Later in the review, the writer of the review of Nguyen’s book does cite diversification:

 “One of the cooler sections I enjoyed reading about was how to capture a specific woman’s likeness for a character, and how to draw ethnic groups that aren’t your own. His number one rule? Avoid stereotypes! It should go without saying, but it seems harder to do than it sounds.”

Yet for all that, non-racial stereotypes remain a continual presence, as is evidenced in a further reviewer comment “on how to draw younger women and older women, pointing out key attributes for each. For instance, it’s important to not make your older women look too agile, and contrarily to not make your younger women look too sexy. Both typically aren’t good things.”

Sexualising young females is certainly a short-cut to serious trouble. But seemingly older women must not be allowed to maintain their youth, whether through intensive tai-chi, dance, aerobics or athletics? Pina Bausch may have disagreed as, for that matter, may Tina Turner or Madonna. The “avoid stereotypes” advice is therefore immediately contradicted for the sake of enforcing cultural expectations,  that grannies must be stiff and useless, and also appear to be so. (From a personal recollection of a family holiday in l98l, when I was 8, I met my father’s grandmother – a lady named Margaret Ashby who was born during the reign of Queen Victoria, and was over 90 at the time. Out on a country walk, she continually succeeded in outpacing both my parents, then in their late 30s, admonishing them both to “keep pace!” - a story frequently retold in family conversations for years afterwards).

A reader, enmeyer_r, may have summed up the entire article (and the book) with his brief comment:

We may wonder why we might expect great diversification, and encouragement to go beyond socio-cultural norms, in a text devoted to producing comic art. I would argue that were any so-called “SJW” to accuse the mainstream industry of peddling outdated and degrading characterisations, there would be many fans who would angrily respond with examples of black, queer and other diversifications in recent Marvel and DC titles, as evidence that such accusations are unfair, unfounded and outdated. But the operative word here is recent, and the overwhelming mass of material carries on regardless, suggesting that the diversity is as much an exercise in tokenistic box-ticking to appease (or encourage) the non cisgender/het/white/males out there to buy into their products. We may also recall that the CEO of Marvel comics gave funds to Trump’s 20l6 presidential election campaign and that comics publishers are corporations like any other. While some may choose to dismiss all comic-book material as ‘harmless fun’ and nothing to worry too much about (assuming that comics are only read by kids, who quickly mature and move on to more serious literature – nothing could be further from the truth, if one chooses to peruse for even five minutes some of the comics fandom forums online), the internalization of such material and the coded forms and representations within are what have led directly to me pursuing this PhD research course, writing these words, on this very subject – the publicly-held belief that my drawings were unsuitable for the general audience (the majority) of comics readers, that my characters did not fit their stereotyped rules of where the boundaries between ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are supposed to lie, and what features and details of human anatomy are classifiable as specifically gendered (in my case, it was my female characters’ jawlines and chins which were problematic for many – being deemed "too masculine" (?), assumptions which reach far beyond comics aesthetics to the realm of ‘facial feminisation’ treatments for transwomen, or why certain men may be accused of having a “gay face” - both issues I've posted about previously). The result of these comments and criticisms soon transferred themselves to my own sense of being, of genderfluidity, and I saw a correlation between how things are perceived, how people are pigeonholed, and the outgrowths of a monstrously, Lovecraftian rhizomatic entity dedicated to enforcing its binary definitions of the world in every and any area of society, and suppressing or denigrating any attempts to the contrary.

The artist (and viewer) therefore has no interest in an individual, as a woman or a distinct person, but as a type: a basic form which ticks the boxes of how much he would like to have sex with her. Before my readers laugh aloud at this ultra-Freudian blanket assumption, there are reasons why comic-book heroines continue to look as they do (differing fashions and styles through the decades notwithstanding) - they are made to appear to the male cis/het gaze which demands desirability, non-troubling glamour and can be 'read' as a female that the viewer can fantasize about, have sex with in their minds, or even project upon themselves (why do so many male gamers play female characters? - can the realm of 'forced feminization' pornography shed some sinister light on this area?). The male viewer desires a woman they control (or occasionally – desires to become a woman who is controlled, the ultra-submissive D/s fantasy of forced-fem. To elaborate somewhat on Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze as an immutable, monolithic tool of repression – not all men share the same desires and hang-ups; poor gay black men will not respond to a scene the same as a rich, privileged straight white guy, or even a Latin or Asian man – but each will bring his own form of masculinity, whether it is queer, straight, or confused, to bear on the semiotics inherent in any scene or representation, and encode them and interpret them accordingly:

 "Whatever happened to Fay Wray

That delicate satin draped frame
As it clung to her thigh
How I started to cry
Cause I wanted to be dressed just the same..."
        -R. O'Brien, 'Fay Wray', 'Rocky Horror Show'

 But wait, some will object - aren't there violent, aggressive, ass-kicking female characters out there? Surely they would intimidate all but the strongest barbarian bloke, no matter how seductive they might appear? I would argue that the 'ass-kicking' aspect of such characters is virtually irrelevant, when compared to the importance of the aesthetic appeal. Lara Croft gets to be smart, tough and hard because she obligingly exposes the expected assets to her viewers: bulging breastlines, cleavage, strong thighs and of course ultra-kissable lips. Her gun, sword, whip or whatever is just another fetishistic phallic adornment, to draw attention away from her implicit biology and gratify the male viewer by proudly presenting her phallic response to his innermost concerns: she's hot, busty, tough and has a dick - hey, she's perfect! Nguyen’s cover art to his book on drawing ‘hot babes’ shows, ostensibly, a gendered role-reversal scene of heroic, brave female rescuing an embarrassed, topless and underwear-clad male from certain doom at the tentacles of an entity of Lovecraftian proportions, parodying the exploitative lowbrow ‘men’s Adventure’ magazine covers of the l950s and 60s, and more B-movie posters and pulp fiction titles than my poor mind can even calculate. But the cis/het/male viewer isn’t interested in the re-gendering of a classic power fantasy trope – he’ll be too busy gawking at her metric metre of cleavage and exposed skin beneath the spray-on costume (conveniently angled towards the reader for the most revealing viewpoint). To me , the underlying message – and the appeal – of the cover is that once rescued, things will return to business-as-usual – the rescuer/rescued inevitably engage in some form of physical romance, and any traditional comic-book nerd would happily endure the cover character’s peril and humiliation if he got to get it on with such an awesome babe. After all, the cover man is a bulky, square-jawed, muscled-up dude of impressive stature – if not a self-parody of Nguyen himself – and still enforces the power-fantasy macho appeal of traditional comic males, with whom the reader identifies. To truly reverse the scene, he ought to have been depicted as a weedy nerd, clearly as incapable of extricating himself from his predicament as all those helpless stiletto-wearing glamour queens in their strategically-shredded evening dresses – at least, until the tough, bruising hero showed up to whisk her away from the clutches of the bloodthirsty aliens, villainous foreigners (likely one and the same), or savage wild animals. Robert Crumb was drawing himself into such fem-dom sexual fantasies five decades ago, playing upon his own geeky, bespectacled real-life persona, but we are a long way away from that here.

Again and again the reviewer of Nguyen’s book emphasises the ‘sexy’ aspect, as Nguyen himself does – he clearly appreciates young women in bikinis, and his ‘rules’ on what is right/wrong or ‘unattractive’ only help to enforce stereotypical attitudes which extend into other areas of art and representation, and ultimately into other areas of life. As this sort of advice is standard for the industry, I now understand why I was subjected to the sort of negative feedback that I received in my past – from other artists who digested and reproduced such fantasy idealisations of ‘how it needs to be’, as well as ‘how we want it to be’ - the latter which summarises the Comicsgate backlash against non-cis/het/white/male characters and creators.

Comicsgate was a reactionary and recent phenomenon, but the underlying mindset is not. I spent over 9 years as a user of Deviantart.com (2207 – 20l6) and saw many hundreds of comments posted on images of female characters, both original (to the creators) and otherwise (fan-art after copyrighted characters). The strength of emotion behind some of the comments and discussions on even some quite 'PG-rated' works were obvious - the scent of sweat and passion almost palpable. Patriarchy-as-usual polices these representations. The ass-kicking ability, as I've said, is irrelevant - it is a mere sidearm to the bruising gatekeeper of visual attraction, and the pleasure encoded in that representation. I know this because I deliberately fashioned my own drawing style over the years I was on DevArt. The images from Al Rio above are contained in an anthology of that artist's work which I purchased in 2000, when I began my comic book drawing career in earnest, and have referred to his images for specifics (line work specifically in the drawing of eyes) so many times that the book is literally falling apart. This was in my early, naive days when I sought popularity and praise, and felt I had to conform – to a point – to what was “out there”. While I admire his draughtsmanship in specific details I dislike very much his vapid, interchangeable production-line mannequins which bring to mind the fetishistic sculptural female objects of Allen Jones, and the sad, grimy nudes of the later Renoir, utterly devoid of character, personality, or a thinking brain behind the bovine stare. One can enjoy and admire the details of a work or an artistic style without being in any way a fan of that artist or that style (in the same way that one can argue for the right for pornography, as a form of representation, to exist, without in any way condoning the actual extremities, attitudes and degradations to which it most usually stoops).

I refused to change my own ways of phiz/phys representation, and certainly refused to buy into anyone else's. My female characters were tough, ass-kicking, and frequently carried lethal weaponry, too. Sometimes they, too, were busty, sometimes not so - it depended on whether that would suit the character and her background. They were often tall, leggy, and invariably muscular. The costume may or may not be tight or revealing, or not (the former the better to show off that hard muscle tone whilst maintaining dignity - the latter, the better to foster ambiguity). So far, so typical, more or less. They were also evidently older than High School age, and had the lines to prove it. The result?

"All your women look like trannies".

So, we come to the pivot point of this writing: the misreading of my characters by a viewership expecting apples, and complaining when they were being fed bananas (for those who missed it, this metaphor is a cheeky nod to a l972 work by Linda Nochlin. I'm not going to spell it out further.) While I had never any intention of depicting transwomen at the outset - I simply drew women as I saw them, with character, occasional wrinkles, strong or stern facial bone structure after the l9th C. and especially the PRB tendency. The broad frames and heavy musculature came later - when I had become annoyed enough, by late 20l5, to start having fun with my characterizations and drawings, and in line with my own developing and radically evolving notions of gender, both personal, and general – and the fact that I have never enjoyed ‘traditional femininity’ in any form, anyway.  I didn't care by then that people saw them as ugly, as rough, as old. Get over it, I thought: have you ever walked down the street and actually looked at the faces of real women (or, have you only looked at the teenaged ones in the tight skirts)? Do you really expect 50% of the world’s population to confirm to your infantile notions of what you deem your “type” for your sexual and aesthetic satisfaction? Are you seriously trying to tell me that a female character with a defined jawline is inherently therefore, by virtue of that single arbitrary physiognomical feature, a biological man?

These questions are anything but rhetorical – they resonate in me now, because they are the questions I ought to have demanded back in the 20l0s when I received those comments on my artworks. Nobody told me I couldn’t draw. Nobody told me I was rubbish, or should give up art. They did, however, warn me that I needed to learn how to draw women “better” (i.e., more stereotypical, more passive, more curvaceous, more bland, less demanding, less troubling, less biologically indeterminate...more desirable).

I quit DevArt before I gained the socio-political and aesthetic armoury to be able to shove it back at the critics, in spades:

After creating the deliberate mainstream trans superhero spoof 'Super TransFixItGurl' (with a trans friend of mine), I developed my first serious transfemale character, Sonya Smirnova, for the epic Russian-based crime series 'Bloodstains'. (To enhance the pointlessness and arbitrary nature of the negativity I'd encountered, she is in fact - facially at least - referenced from a cisgender female model, while many of the body references are from myself. The character is, therefore, a prototype of the definition of this very blog and research project: the sense of incongruity produced by welding one set of gendered attributes to another):

The logic was simple: she looks like a 'tranny' because she is, and is that a problem, by the way? The question was coded into the character. She wasn't young, nor beautiful, nor especially busty. She was a 6'3 ex-athletics champion, and former police officer in contemporary Russia, who had been kicked out of the force due to her transitioning and forced into sex work to remain alive. She was blonde and white, though, which was nonetheless a small chip off a very large chopping block of social unacceptability (herein I, I later realised, I found myself falling for a much-maligned trope in popular media, the transwoman-as-hooker: but to me the logic was clear. Russia's anti-LGBTQIA+ laws are utterly reprehensible, and my work was informed by much reading of contemporary articles on hate crime in Russia. That such a character would only be able to survive on the underbelly of society was taken as read. It remains a difficult work to categorize, and very recent events have left me wondering if I can even continue it at all):

I refused to present Sonya as too much of a victim, though she is of course a helpless nobody against a brutal and authoritarian state government, and a society hostile to people like her - and her bodyguard and benefactor, the main hero of the piece, who is an ethnic Uzbek; a non-practicing Muslim and hence the other half of a completely anti-mainstream comic book partnership, with whom the traditional cis/het/white power fantasists are not expected to identify in any way. Nor did they, and nor did I want them to, though I gave the series one big final push in 20l8 – just as the Comicsgate and Howard Chaykin ‘Divided States of Hysteria’ débacles burst over the internet. I retired 'Bloodstains' and occasionally returned to it, trying to retool the work to suit my ever-evolving views of intersectionality, trans rights and such. While the series remains unpublished (and now runs to over 70 pages of finished work), Sonya found her way into a spin-off for Russian trans rights, a samizdat which came out as part of my MFAAH in 2020:

 

We’ve seen these socio-cultural eruptions in the past – cf. the angry white male burnings of disco records in the US in the 70s. How dare those queers/blacks/Latinos have their own music, and make it popular! It ain’t what we call rock ‘n roll, dammit! (because rock ‘n roll was – of course – invented by blacks, including at least one black queer – Little Richard – who directly inspired the architect of the noisiest, dirtiest rock and roll ever recorded: Lemmy, of Motorhead).

Of Ducks and Differences: Ambiguity and Resemblance

 Ambiguity has been a recurring keyword for me throughout this research so far, and when viewed in practical terms - how far can we go before it is assumed a truth of either x or not x in a form or persona? Before a form stops being ambiguous and can be accepted for what it purports to be, at least on the surface?

For the sake of neutrality and to avoid getting mired in gender identity matters, I'll frame this discussion in terms of the old saying regarding that which looks like, and walks like, a duck. The duck metaphor or stand-in reduces things to a less ambiguous level and helps us to see at which level taxonomies and definitions apply, or cease to apply, and why this may be.

Logically, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks, why should we not allow it to be described as a duck? Must we insist upon analyzing it inside-out with regard to its 'apparent' versus its 'actual'/underlying duckness (or lack thereof - usually defined in taxonomical terms of reduction, or its consistent similarity to other entities which have all been previously rubber-stamped with a 'genuine duck' seal of approval, by the hand of someone who is not a duck themselves, but who defines for others whether or not they may be allowed to be perceived as ducks - as opposed to swans, emus, or archaeopteryxes?).

In reality, we accept the following image as being splendidly representative of duckhood:

We also, from a very young age (that is, pre-adult judgement) have no problem whatsoever with identifying the following as a duck, either:

Or even the following - a thing made by hand, with only superficial resemblances to duckhood (can't walk or fly, lay eggs, quack, etc.), yet which is convincing enough to attract real members of that same species:

To then waddle on from the duck metaphor, why can we universally assume that the following image represents an entity we unthinkingly define as "she":

and, paradoxically, also this:

yet are unwilling or unable to do so with regard to this:

It follows, therefore, that a few hundred thousand tonnes of metal or wood is perceived by many as more inherently female than a living, breathing person (who may or may not have the exact same outward biology as an assigned-at-birth female). The connection (or disconnection) is, I perceive, more than semantic or visual - it operates on a gut, instinctive, and emotional level, wherein emotional attachment is more easily transferred to an object/piece of machinery under one's control than a human being capable of the same emotional responses and sensations as the one who does the naming. Perhaps that is the keyword in all this: control, and the implied power/jurisdiction which is invested in the (usually male) owner or commander of a vessel over that technological/mechanical interface, but which is denied in the case of an actual person which is too *similar* to the protagonist, too much like himself, too incapable of yielding to commands on account of shared biology (in the sense, of course, that what is popularly described as "feminine" tends to be identified also, variously, as "soft", "yielding", "submissive", etc. - as witness the recurring tropes of hyper-femininity inherent in the "forced feminization/sissy" area of pornography and role-playing - something for which I have no stomach, and am aware of only for its intersection with the trans* spectrum on the level of cross-dressing and female embodiment fantasy theory. (NB: Despite its appearances, I view this more as a subset of extreme masochism rather than any clear or defined actual gender identification, as it is predicated on the idea of "feminization" representing submission, passivity, and at the extreme end, sexual and other forms of abuse. Thus the debates of how far down the spectrum we may go before we start accommodating fetishism as a form of gender diversity at such public events as Manchester Sparkle - which is a discussion for another post perhaps, but one I have seen argued repeatedly in the past.)

What I'm evidently pushing towards with all of this (but still circumnavigating somewhat) is a code of semiotics and signifiers: whether of the "C'est ne pas un pipe" art-historical variety, or the visualization of Sign-Signifier-Signified - something along these lines, as I see it:

The argument is far more complex than simply that of a person exhibiting the outward signs (costume, behaviours, overall appearance) of an other, but in how far - intrinsically - that exhibition can be said to make them analogous, or identical, to that other - a situation dependent upon not just the quality of the performance, but also how well that performance constructs the essence of of the other in the minds of observers. Putting on a police officer's uniform doesn't make anybody a police officer, even if they have knowledge of laws and have sworn (personally) to uphold them, and spend their time going around protecting the innocent. What constitutes a genuine police officer in a society is a far more complex set of relationships, histories, connections and requirements, of course. But in the minds of many citizens, the would-be officer could be just as much - if not more so - a police officer as the 'real thing', especially if they had only positive, personal experiences from an encounter with such a person, who could even come across as friendlier, more approachable and more helpful than some genuine representatives of law enforcement. In such a case, the impersonator may be said to be modelling the 'ideal' of a police officer, presenting the positive side and downplaying the negative associations which have become increasingly public in recent years - in which case, and if everybody involved benefits from the encounter or the experience, where's the harm? (Leaving aside, of course, the realities of accountability, legal obligations, public trust, etc.). 

Let's leave the ducks in the pond and cut to the gender case now.

“Men, contrary to the fantasy of the transsexual, can never, even with surgical intervention, feel or experience what it is like to be, to live, as women. At best the transsexual can live out his fantasy of femininity—a fantasy that in itself is usually disappointed with the rather crude transformations effected by surgical and chemical intervention. The transsexual may look like a woman but can never feel like or be a woman. The one sex, whether male or female or some other term, can only experience, live, according to (and hopefully in excess of) the cultural significations of the sexually specific body… This gulf, this irremediable distance, is what remains intolerable to masculinist regimes bent on the disavowal of difference."

    (Elizabeth Grosz, 'Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. (1994). p207-208, quoted in Cix Shrimpton, 'The pornographic ontology of the shemale: Transwoman as radical feminism’s metaphysical victim'. )

Herein we hit the dilemma that may be the crux of all this research: how much of identity - and gender - is merely appearance, whether biological (natural or otherwise), facial, sartorial, etc.? I appreciate completely the often-used argument against the transwoman-as-woman, that one who has not been born a woman, experienced the growing up stages of puberty, menstruation, social and cultural and conditioning etc. throughout their entire life on a daily basis that define one's place as a woman in the world, cannot be said to be truly - in any rounded, socio-cultural way - a woman as one who has (and one of the reasons why I spend most of my time discussing in-betweenness, non-binary being, and third-gender, rather than pushing the transwoman-as-woman line which, to me, can have potential problems with relation to furthering the strict gender binary, and allowing the continued encoding of persons as either/or). That does not mean such a person has no claim to womanhood whatsoever, for upon gender reassignment, it is expected that they will then experience the responses and interactions common to one of that gender and in that position, with all the positive (and negative) attributes that such status brings.

A lot of this seems to echo Jean-Paul Sartre's ideas of essence, true nature (and its construction in the minds of others), and the very famous example of the waiter who, in trying too hard to project publicly his waiterly credentials, is seen to be merely 'playing' at being a waiter, rather than working hard on the true fundamentals of waiting on tables. Yet can we say that Sartre's waiter is less of a waiter, than Daffy is a duck? After all, the waiter is employed in that role, receives a wage suitable to that position, and will be referred to as a waiter by his employer, colleagues and the public. Daffy is not an egg-laying creation of nature, but a series of squiggles and dots on acetate sheets drawn by talented cartoonists. And while he may talk like a duck, he doesn't really walk like one - his legs aren't short enough.

That's all for now, as I think I need to push my nose back into semiotic theory again and figure out where I take it from here. The question there, however, remains: Structuralist, or Post-Structuralist? I've spent time in both camps in the past, but now it might be time to choose a side.

Evolving Gendered Selfhood and Current Art Practice

 Sometimes, simply reading an essay or text can provoke an entire essay of thoughts and observations in response - and during the weekend's Storm Malik power outage, I had little else to do but read (and keep warm). A detailed browsing of Julie Serano's critique of Blanchard's 'autogynephilia' theory opened my eyes (Autogynephilia: A scientific review, feminist analysis, and alternative ‘embodiment fantasies’ model, The Sociological Review Monographs: 2020, Vol. 68(4) 763–778, DOI: 10.1177/0038026120934690).

I had occasionally pondered myself as being something of an apostate for not necessarily denying that theory, as I have known various people who say they have it, or have had it, and I certainly felt I had something very like it through the earlier stages of my own history (most strongly when I still felt very 'part-time', and the whole thing felt like a fun escape into another body, another world - a kind of embodied virtual reality experience). However, as Serano points out, cisgender women have recently been reported to see themselves in the same manner as described by the original Blanchard research - which focuses only on the paraphilic nature of transwomen's attraction to themselves (without considering that other genders also exhibit such behaviours - or why). Serano's alternative model of 'FEF' (female embodiment fantasy) holds more water in the light of other genders' views of themselves - and just over a year go, my attention was drawn by a close friend to this public story:

KOURTNEY KARDASHIAN SHARES ARTICLE ABOUT BEING AUTOSEXUAL ON POOSH LIFESTYLE WEBSITE

and a short quote which suddenly made a lot of personal sense:

"27 Dec 2020 ... “It could mean dancing in the mirror in a cute outfit. If feeling sexy independent of someone else has ever turned you on, that's autosexuality..."

Another term to add to my vocabulary, and one which managed to tick another box for me - specifically my deep interest in erotic performance (doing, as much as viewing). On a further note, the first rock artist I ever 'got into' was Iggy Pop, c. 1986, and the second was Queen, maybe 6 months later - both featuring performers who exhibited ambiguous behaviours on stage, and as it turned out, both who were not unaccustomed to stripping off clothes in front of their audiences either (Fred Mercury invariably going topless through the course of a show, Iggy notoriously going full-frontal). I would argue that these performance traits in those I grew up admiring can be classed on some level as autosexual, and are performed with or without any audience expectation or approval - the performer simply does their thing, saying "here I am, this is me" - an attitude I embodied myself during the webcam porn work of 2020, and which was almost always backed with suitable music, as well - Iggy & the Stooges' 'Search & Destroy' and 'Raw Power' being special favourites.

'Selfie after Iggy c. 1986', 2020

My own earlier experiences of this kind of behaviour was always complex, because until the personal revelations of the past few years I always viewed myself (internally, and visually) in very strict binary terms: 'him', or 'her'. I knew I wasn't trans because I had no interest in transitioning, yet I had known that from an early age I had always been able to view myself (at least in socially-constructed terms) as 'Otherly',  a point Serano addresses in some detail when remarking upon the generational difference in manifestations of what is classed as 'cross-dressing': 

"In the 30-plus years since Blanchard conducted his original research, there have been massive shifts in transgender awareness, visibility, legal recognition and access to healthcare and resources. Today, ‘late-onset’ trans women are not necessarily forced into a crossdresser stage, as they can readily access information about transgender lives via the Internet or trans peers. Instead of engaging in secretive crossdressing and fantasy, many of these individuals come out as nonbinary, genderfluid, trans dykes, or queer women, and they often begin presenting femininely and/or socially transitioning as teenagers or young adults. And this lack of a secretive ‘crossdresser stage’ largely explains why these younger trans women experience far fewer FEFs than their counterparts from previous generations (Nuttbrock et al., 2011a, 2011b)."  (Serano, p. 773)

Whilst I often write and speak out against the inherent dangers of 'putting people into boxes' via invented taxonomies, the recent cultural expansion of LGBTQIA+ selfhoods finally helped me make sense of myself, and allowed me to see myself comfortably as 'in between' the gender poles, predominately in a physical, biological manner (also influenced by Ian Hacking's notion of "making up people" - not in the sense of jumping on a trendy buzzword bandwagon to associate oneself with a newly-identified and publicized 'disorder', 'condition' or state of being, but rather in the freedom and understanding engendered by such, providing new ways of understanding people that was not possible before). The currency of terms like 'genderfluid' and 'nonbinary' allowed me to embrace and rationalize all the various aspects of myself, revelations which I spent several years exploring in artworks through my DJCAD art school career from 2017 onwards. My early attempts at 'pinup' or glamour self portraiture from the early 2000s always obscured the genitalia, as I saw this as being contrary to my expression of femaleness at that time. The effect of this was to render any full-frontal imagery as something of a lie - an exposure which doesn't expose, and which I'm now re-exploring in work for this very course, playing specifically with the ambiguity of what is hidden and inviting the viewer to fill in the gaps in their own mind. 

Typical 'arty' self-portrait from 2004, loosely after Irena Ionescu - note extensive body hair,
which I didn't always consider to be specifically 'masculine' (or at least 'unfeminine') - and still don't

Very rare early full-body shave from 2004

In many of the new works to date, I have been trying to define the space between the erotic and the pornographic - to consider where one ends, and another begins, at least for my own personal practice. The question has been addressed countless times and will continue to be argued no dobut for as long as these genres exist, but my specific point here is to create something that for me at least exists in the realm of the erotic, being that which is deliberately poised to elicit a certain type of response, but by ambiguity, hiddenness or the reluctance to exhibit complete revelation or explicitness, stop short of that which can truly be said to be pornographic. As an art historical example: Picasso's 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' may be rightfully termed erotic, but I fail to see how 'pornographic' can be a justifiable description, unless a viewer finds irresistible attraction to female figures shaped like shoeboxes. For me, the erotic may or may not be explicit but one requirement is essential: that the viewer utilise their imagination to some extent. Whether it is to consider what lies beneath a flimsy wrap, what the other side of a figure might look like, or the story behind a specific scene or pose. The erotic must embody more than a mere presentation of skin or flesh, and may be ambiguous, playful, teasing, coy or quite blatant - but this, I'd say, is necessarily tempered by 'something else', some element of hiddenness. Pornography tends to rely upon total openness, literally "leaving nothing to the imagination", both in the specificity of sex as well as gender - and by blurring this line by simply being myself, my aim is to mystify that aspect, cast it into shade, and focus upon a 'semblance' of being that is both of itself and hinting at something else. In a sense, I may even be creating a kind of visual mythology, perhaps influenced by the often Classically-inspired photographic works of Joel-Peter Witkin, and my own studies of alchemy, Gnostic and pagan systems. My habit of hiding from view the genitalia both of myself as performer ('Untitled Sculptural Objects', 'Endura' and 'Lateralus'), and characters I draw (cf. 'Nip n Tuck', 'Ambiguous Content'), is not borne out of coyness but as a further means to this end of presenting the ambiguous, the possibly-this-but-also-possibly-that, a gendered form that is one or the other, or both, or neither, or many. 

Removing the area of the breast from any zone of visual interest - illustration from 'Sinister Rouge' (2020)

In the same way that my comic-book feminine characters often wear black T-shirts which flatten and obscure any form, detail or outline of the breasts beneath (a traditionally hyper-sexed element of mainstream comic-book art - and even lots of subversive, underground and radical art too), I believe that the current art-practice trajectory is an exploration of this 'blurred line' between concrete things, hard-and-fast either/ors and this-or-thats - a notion I now recall playing briefly with over a year ago, with a small work made early in my MFAAH (2020) entitled 'The Blurred Line', and which may indeed have been the early foundation for current art practice:

The purpose here was to literally blur the lines between genders, and the perception of gender  - what makes a gendered photograph? Is there such a thing as a gendered pose? The presence of the guitar signifies the posed nature of performance, after Bruce McLean's “Nice Style” (his 1970s “World’s first pose band”) and the accordingly striking, yet empty, gestures employed by those in the public eye. The blurred image is rendered as the indefinable, the ambiguous - echoing the self of the artist who exists in a 'blurry' position between gender poles. The binaries of black and white are deliberately manipulated to create a 'middle ground' of actuality, a 'grey area' of subdued polarity – in which the artist exists as an ambivalent individual who oscillates between, yet is composed of aspects of both, these poles. These images grew out of Gerhard Richter's painterly blur technique used, e.g, in “October 18 1977”.

Gathering the Threads: Revisiting Myth as Reference

Last week's storm of Wagnerian proportions, appropriatyely enough for me, was reaching its peak as I delivered my first public paper (on the Old English interpretation of the Valkyries) to the 'Doing Things with Old Norse Myth: A Research & Cultural Symposium on Mythological Processes', Aarhus Old Norse Mythology conference series, Reykjavík, on 26 November. Whilst seemingly not directly related in any way to this current line of research (the paper is a very abbreviated form of my MFAAH Humanities essay for Old English texts class), I wanted to use this big step into the academic realm as a means to rethink how my many and varied influences and interests cross-pollinate the work I do. Whilst the paper dealt with literary, linguistic and mythological concerns, at its heart still lies my interest in 'non-standard' beings, forms and entities: in this case, a class of female spirits who 'de-sex' themselves to operate in a masculine environment, to the point of 'cross-dressing' into male war-gear, with shields, helms and armour. This radical breaching of social and gendered boundaries is hardly alien to my recent studies of trans, non-binary and queer aesthetics andpersonhood. Several of the other talks, too, intersected my own interests and work (whether in their approach to archaeological human remains, artefact relics or literary/mythological body forms), and I was able to make some very interesting contacts in the field. As a result I'm already thinking about a new paper for next year's Aarhus event: on the topic of the female voice in myth and literature, its sonic use in certain contemporary genres of music (e.g. Viking metal, folk metal), and its tendency to be dissolved negatively into 'noise' by misogynistic concerns with reference to Gnaomi Siemens' notions of the ancient female voice as queer.

All this also gives me the chance to revisit one of my original research proposal questions: why certain non-standard forms, such as the hermaphrodite, the androgyne, the 'queer' or otherwise subversive influence (cf. Loki, in the Lokasenna) persist in mythological, legendary and poetic narratives (existing happily in theory) and yet are marginalized and oppressed in practice.

This is all early-career stuff at the moment, but the most exciting aspect of delivering the paper was how it has managed to re-unite the multiple threads of my source materials and reinvigorate my reference points.

Thoughts on Online Corporeality, and Erogenous Fragmentation

 

The body is of course objectified in webcam porn (as in any other form of that medium), but it is also fragmented, and can be mirrored in a bio-sexual feedback loop upon the viewer’s own corporeality. Following my experiences in online sex work throughout 2020, I have begun to reflect upon how I have been perceived - 'read' - by viewers over that time.
    Emphasis on the ass is frequent which, when shown, ideally in a rear view, bent over, tends to solicit very positive responses, usually quite generic, of how deep, rough or otherwise the viewer would like to penetrate it. (This is the one area I usually had to fake, having medical conditions in that specific location, and therefore any real anal activity is anathema to me). As discussed previously in the post on taxonomies and naming, a protean morphing/splicing of the anus and vagina tended to be revealed in perceptions of that specific site: á la ‘Deep Throat’ (wherein the clitoris is relocated to throat*), we find the vagina/pussy relocated to (and assimilated within) the anus – the more familiar, less troubling/complicated orifice that is, again, familiar to the male viewer, and can be discussed and fantasised upon without fear or confusion, allowing the ‘phallic female’ performer to present the fantasy of femininity without possessing the biological femaleness:

    The tits are occasionally commented upon; rarely as secondary feminine signifiers, but more in terms of the erogenous potential beneath the bra (the nipples), which viewers often request to see being played with, exposed, etc. When I inform viewers that the “tits ain't real”, most don't care whether pectorals or mammaries lie beneath. The plasticity of the body is enhanced as the user’s desires seek to be made manifest in a willing performer. I've had even a few viewers who actually encouraged me to play with the ‘breasts’ (weighted bags inside a pocket bra, giving a very realistic ‘bounce’) in the way cisfemale performers often do, though this was not common: the erogenous zone of the nipples being of much more interest, though I rarely showed these (for two reasons: I almost never shave around them, expecting them always to be covered by the bra – and also because removal of the bra, I feel, renders me more vulnerable, less feminine, and therefore closer to gendered masculinity rather than the ambiguous, but feminized, figure I prefer to project). It was not surprising to learn that not even the presence of the chest hair could diminish the enthusiasm of those who asked, suggesting that either certain aspects of masculinity can be easily ‘tuned out’ with sufficient accompanying stimulus, or else many viewers who claim ‘straight’ status are somewhat more bisexual than they may admit. If the former, then the fragmentation/reduction of the body into a number of component zones of interest becomes self-evident: while in online adult dating, shaved/smooth pubic areas are often flagged as essential (often for all genders), it seems that the presence of pubic hair in the merely visual medium is less problematic, having no tangible/physical concern for the viewer. Though my own is never shaved, I received very little negative feedback in this regard online, despite the clear preferences of many for the hairless equivalent.
    More generally the body is reduced to the one part which is shared by both performer (in my case) and male viewer -  namely the phallus, whether mine, or theirs (what they're doing with it, how I make theirs feel, inviting me to watch them showing off theirs, and what they would like to do with theirs in terms of my body, if they had the chance). Or requesting that I do this or that specific action with mine – whether simply showing it (up close to the camera was a common desire) and often displaying great interest in its size (or perhaps how it compared to their own). In this way the phallus becomes the shared axis by which performer and viewer relate directly to each other's experience and sensation.
    Yet I also found this somewhat alienating, given that I rarely started a video chat session in any state approaching sexual excitement – a fact which often led to disappointment when I explained I wasn’t able to trigger an instant response upon demand. Conversation and the building of a scene/relationship/interest, two-way sharing of mutual interests, are what tended to get me more readily aroused, when I could sense that there would be some form of ‘audience feedback’ for what I was doing, a discussion which, I hoped, would signal approval and encouragement to continue. Simply being on show in front of any number, of mute voyeurs is of no interest to me whatsoever. Consider the cliché of the bored stripper wandering around her pole, glaring sulkily out at the bunch of equally bored men in the club or bar around her: in a live, unscripted arena, audience participation and feedback is essential. Of course, dollar bills (in the live version) or tokens (in the online environment) is the greatest form of feedback, though with it usually comes the understanding of some reciprocation – to take the current performativity to the next level, lose some clothing, or otherwise show appreciation to the tipper. My hard limit was always “No tip, no strip”, an attitude which wasn’t always appreciated – but certainly helped to kick out the timewasters.

*As an aside, feminist writer and artist Laura Kipnis discusses corporeal fantasy in an entertaining review of 'Inside Deep Throat' here. Her discussion of straight porn being a medium which "creates a fantastical world composed of two sexes but one gender...a world in which men and women were sexually alike" (L. Kipnis, 'Bound & Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America', Durham NC., Duke UP, 1999, p. 200) is a cornerstone of my own investigations and experience to date, and will be revisited in future.