Monthly Archives: February 2015

No, Mr. Congressman, It Doesn’t Go There

Laurie and Debbie say:

By now, you have probably heard about Idaho Congressman Vito Barbieri, who (apparently seriously) asked during a committee hearing on (yes, still more!) abortion restrictions  if a woman could swallow a small camera to conduct a pregnancy exam. Dr. Julie Madsen, the physician witness politely told him that swallowed pills “don’t end up in the vagina.” Congressman Barbieri later said that his question “was rhetorical and intended to make a point,” although the intended point is, to say the least, unclear.

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If in fact a swallowed camera (or pills) ended up in the vagina, what else would be true?

1) In heterosexual penis-in-vagina orgasms, as women, we could expect semen to come out of our mouths.

2) In heterosexual oral sex orgasms, we women could get pregnant, as the semen slid down through this “tube” from our mouth into our uterus.

3) Maybe there would be some kind of road sign to tell food to go to the stomach, intestines and colon? If not, we would have either food or shit coming out of the vagina, and quite possibly have small cameras intended to examine our uterus going through our colon. (Imagine the confusion of doctors trying to figure out just what they were looking at!)

We might never finish making fun of this level of ignorance, but there’s a more important point to be made.

The main reason for the existence of Body Impolitic is to call attention to body image issues. Mostly that means either how we feel about our bodies or how other people feel about our bodies. But all body image depends on a basic understanding of anatomy, both our own and the anatomy of everyone else. No, not everyone has to understand how ATP feeds cells, or how neural signals get from the brain to the extremities. Not everyone has to understand what the hypothalamus is and does.

Everyone should understand the basic internal and external conformation of the body, not just the organ systems that drive gender and sexuality, but what the spinal cord is and why snapping your neck can result in paralysis, what the pathways are from the mouth to the urethra and asshole, what the difference is between muscles and tendons. Not knowing those things is like not knowing where the light switches are in your house, or where the exits are in the theater.

Knowing your environment starts with knowing your body. And knowing your body should, in a sane world, be an absolute requirement for anyone who sits in judgment over other people’s bodies.

Congressman Barbieri, if you would like a basic human anatomy tutorial, the Internet is full of them. Here’s one place to start.

Swimsuit Issue Makes the News … Twice

Debbie says:

Sports Illustrated is in financial trouble, and the magazine’s famous swimsuit issue is apparently what’s keeping it afloat.

This is almost certainly why they put (no! I know you’re shocked!) a controversial photograph on the cover.

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Tracy Moore at Jezebel reports on the controversy over whether or not model Hannah Davis is “showing too much” here. Moore’s basic point is that Davis is coming in for a lot of criticism and no credit, while the magazine and the industry are getting a free pass.

Our culture is awash in pornographic imagery and Sports Illustrated is just another try-hard trying to keep up. Which isn’t to say that we should all sit back and smile for our facial, but rather, that there are probably better uses of our energy when it comes to critiquing the industries that breathlessly try to out-pornifying each other. We should target them by examining their motives, not the motives of the models in question, who are simply going after the work that exists.

Instead we slobber; we salivate; we ooh, we ahh—then we demand that the women defend doing it—to make it make sense for us. You know what you’re doing right? we seem to ask. You’re…titillating us. Isn’t that the point? Since we’re titillated, isn’t it…naughty? And what does it say about you for being so naughty? Well, what does it say about us? And then the model or actress with the sexy photo or nude scene must say: No, it’s no big deal. It’s totally not. It’s the most normal thing in the world. Nothing scandalous about it.

Moore doesn’t quite get to the difference between semi-nudity as softcore porn and actual nudity as reflective of real bodies, but she’s very close. And I can only stand up and cheer at her defense of Davis, and her analysis of the impossible position of a swimsuit model.

… these sorts of pictures in mainstream, ubiquitous places make us squeamish. That’s pornographic! And it’s not over there with the porn where it’s supposed to be! What’s she doing there, making me uncomfortable?

And this is the weird rock and a low-slung bikini place we put women in when they traffic in their own sexuality as a commodity.

But that’s not the only story about this year’s issue. SI isn’t quite ready to feature a plus-size model, but they’ll take Swimsuits for All‘s money, even if the ad shows Ashley Graham (size 14) in a bikini.

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Size 14 isn’t my idea of plus-size, and I wish it wasn’t even anybody’s idea of midsize, but you can definitely see Graham’s curves and shape. And we are dealing with an industry where size 4 can be considered “too fat.”

According to Liz Dwyer at TakePart, this is part of an apparent trend of greater visibility for plus-size models (some of them truly plus-size) in 2015.  Dwyer cites Tess Holliday’s new contract as a clear example. The magazine agreeing to run the ad may well be another sign of the trend; you’d be surprised how often ads like this are turned down as “offensive,” or “unacceptable to readers” even by publications in financial trouble.

Who knows? Maybe someday there will be a swimsuit issue which shows real women’s bodies and has the models choose their own poses. A girl can dream.