Durham Keynote: Pleasure and Danger

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03/15/2016 Added

149 Plays

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Meenakshi Gigi Durham, professor and collegiate scholar in the Department of Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies at Iowa State University presents "Pleasure and Danger: Sex, Violence, and Ethics in the Age of Digital Media."

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[00:00:00.000](applause)
[00:00:03.229]Thanks so much.
[00:00:04.888]I really appreciate you all inviting me here
[00:00:06.607]to speak to you tonight.
[00:00:08.867]I'm so intrigued by the name of this conference.
[00:00:11.807]Sexuality and Gender in the Digital Age No Limits.
[00:00:16.085]It's interesting, and perhaps even ironic
[00:00:18.265]that I was asked to keynote this conference
[00:00:20.424]as my work to a large extent,
[00:00:22.484]actually, explores limits
[00:00:24.822]the way societies and cultures
[00:00:27.062]attempt to enforce limits
[00:00:28.582]on those very categories, sexuality and gender.
[00:00:31.962]Even using them in the singular implies a limit.
[00:00:35.282]We should really say gender is sexualities, right?
[00:00:38.922]Plural, wide-ranging, multifarious,
[00:00:42.182]and sort of infinite.
[00:00:45.021]In theory, sex and gender are limitless.
[00:00:48.320]In reality, people,
[00:00:51.185]especially women,
[00:00:52.852]but also other marginalized groups,
[00:00:56.580]sexual minorities, and other people
[00:01:00.272]of color face limits at every turn.
[00:01:03.472]A limit is a marker, it's a boundary,
[00:01:05.832]it's a line in the sand,
[00:01:07.652]but if we play a word association game,
[00:01:09.412]and I say the word limits
[00:01:10.972]what's the first thing that comes to mind?
[00:01:20.350]What?
[00:01:21.750]I said speed limits.
[00:01:24.128]Oh, speed limits, right, right, right, okay.
[00:01:26.228]Other words?
[00:01:28.186]Boundaries.
[00:01:30.306]Boundaries, okay, yeah.
[00:01:35.344]Sorry, what?
[00:01:36.182]Calculus.
[00:01:37.222]Calculus, oh right, right.
[00:01:38.997]Right, of course, you have to believe
[00:01:40.697]in limits to do calculus.
[00:01:43.277]Parameters.
[00:01:45.837]Parameters, okay.
[00:01:48.794]The word that comes to mind
[00:01:49.754]for me is testing, limit testing.
[00:01:53.491]I feel like every limit is to be tested.
[00:01:55.672]Every boundary has to be broken.
[00:01:57.791]Lines in the sand are meant to be crossed.
[00:02:00.951]What's the old bumper sticker quote?
[00:02:02.911]"Well-behaved women seldom make history."
[00:02:06.149]That's the thing that you see all over the place.
[00:02:08.749]Feminists are notorious limit testers,
[00:02:10.589]and good for us, right?
[00:02:12.629]That brings us to the notion of no limits
[00:02:15.529]the enticing subtitle that at this conference
[00:02:18.349]underpins, in particular, the idea of
[00:02:20.649]sexualities and genders in the digital age.
[00:02:23.480]This is not a new idea.
[00:02:25.320]You're all probably familiar with that
[00:02:26.600]old New Yorker cartoon, right?
[00:02:27.957]"On the Internet nobody knows you're a dog,"
[00:02:29.657]and its variations.
[00:02:31.177]The idea here in this cartoon was that
[00:02:33.417]you were free to be whoever
[00:02:34.457]you wanted to be online.
[00:02:36.117]That is, no one needed to know
[00:02:37.436]who you were in real life.
[00:02:39.356]Everything that might have restricted you
[00:02:41.236]in your real life,
[00:02:42.716]your looks, your age, your gender,
[00:02:44.596]your class, your family,
[00:02:46.656]you're presumed sexual orientation,
[00:02:48.836]your religious community,
[00:02:50.156]or as in this dog's case your non-human category
[00:02:53.376]could be freely and totally shed online.
[00:02:56.054]There were apparently no limits,
[00:02:58.574]and, indeed, especially in the early ages
[00:03:00.754]of the Internet of Internet exploration
[00:03:03.490]people wrote about online sexualities,
[00:03:05.490]and genders in exactly this way.
[00:03:07.590]Sherry Turkle, for example,
[00:03:09.650]used the metaphor of
[00:03:14.466]seduction when she wrote about it
[00:03:16.502]in Life on the Screen,
[00:03:18.042]and she mused "Love, passion, infatuation,
[00:03:20.922]"what we feel for another person
[00:03:22.942]"teaches us about ourselves.
[00:03:24.461]"If we explore these feelings,
[00:03:26.001]"we can learn what we are drawn to,
[00:03:27.821]"what we are missing, and what we need.
[00:03:29.761]"The analysis of computational seduction
[00:03:32.101]"offers similar promise.
[00:03:33.781]"Online, people are swept up by experiences
[00:03:36.241]"that enable them to explore
[00:03:37.801]"previously unexamined aspects of their sexuality,
[00:03:40.441]"or that challenge their ideas
[00:03:41.941]"about a unitary self.
[00:03:43.621]"In simulation, identity can be fluid and multiple,
[00:03:46.681]"a signifier no longer clearly points to
[00:03:49.401]"a thing that is signified,
[00:03:50.801]"and understanding is less likely to
[00:03:52.541]"proceed through analysis
[00:03:54.021]"than by navigation through virtual space."
[00:03:58.079]Thus, Cleo Odzer,
[00:04:00.193]in her book Virtual Spaces
[00:04:02.513]confessed "Posing as a man
[00:04:04.833]"I had sex with a woman.
[00:04:06.513]"Posing as a gay man I had sex with a man.
[00:04:09.193]"Posing as a man I had sex with a man
[00:04:11.233]"who was posing as a woman.
[00:04:13.293]"I had all sorts of sex
[00:04:14.433]"in every new way I could think of."
[00:04:16.373]There's glee in Odzer's account of her
[00:04:18.612]sexual morphing online,
[00:04:20.551]and this excitement in cybersex's potential
[00:04:22.751]for modes of experimentation
[00:04:24.691]coupled with anonymity
[00:04:26.511]a lifting of the moral and social constraints
[00:04:28.591]of one's real life
[00:04:30.091]the opportunity to explore fantastic options
[00:04:32.731]accounts for the seductions of the screen.
[00:04:35.751]Online sexual activity or cybersex,
[00:04:38.191]and I'm gonna use those two terms synonymously
[00:04:41.791]even though there's some debate about
[00:04:44.091]the difference between them,
[00:04:45.631]and their exact definitions,
[00:04:46.931]but for now cybersex is online
[00:04:48.570]sexual activity in this talk.
[00:04:50.830]It's motivated by a quest for erotic pleasure,
[00:04:53.087]and it's fueled by accessibility,
[00:04:55.867]affordability, and anonymity sometimes called
[00:04:58.487]the triple A engine of the Internet.
[00:05:00.827]Of course, anonymity can be misleading.
[00:05:05.606]Perhaps it doesn't really matter
[00:05:07.446]if they're both enjoying themselves.
[00:05:10.724]I do want to acknowledge that cybersex
[00:05:12.463]affords intense pleasure to some extent.
[00:05:15.343]We're all seduced by the screen
[00:05:17.063]even if we don't engage in online sexual activity,
[00:05:19.862]but sexuality like every other
[00:05:21.922]aspect of social life is deeply imbricated
[00:05:24.782]by technology and techniques,
[00:05:26.902]and to some extent it always has been.
[00:05:29.782]Technologies fill our life-worlds.
[00:05:31.880]There are factors in virtually
[00:05:33.040]every realm of human existence,
[00:05:34.940]and they're central to the formation
[00:05:36.240]of gender and sexuality,
[00:05:37.580]and contemporary society.
[00:05:39.938]Recent scholarship in the emerging field
[00:05:42.478]of soma techniques calls attention to the fact
[00:05:44.996]that the body and the technology
[00:05:46.656]are always already mutually interdependent
[00:05:50.136]woven through each other.
[00:05:52.116]While a vast array of technology is from
[00:05:54.276]the vibrator to gender reassignment surgeries
[00:05:56.716]are engaged in the production
[00:05:58.616]of genders and sexualities
[00:06:00.376]many are strategically deployed to enforce
[00:06:02.556]dominant meanings about
[00:06:03.895]gender and sexuality
[00:06:05.375]while others have the potential to disrupt them.
[00:06:08.075]Media technologies tend to delineate
[00:06:10.055]ideal bodies for each socially defined
[00:06:12.195]gender category,
[00:06:13.555]and regulate as well as capitalize on
[00:06:15.475]the practices for achieving them.
[00:06:17.895]Certain soma technologies,
[00:06:19.435]breast augmentation, or rhinoplasty for example,
[00:06:22.855]are pointedly designed to help human bodies
[00:06:25.275]mimic technologically generated,
[00:06:27.555]and highly binarized media ideals,
[00:06:30.233]so get the sexiest body ever
[00:06:33.153]commands the magazine cover,
[00:06:34.871]and hard abs, more sex, hotter sex
[00:06:37.811]as they portray women
[00:06:39.511]bursting out of bustiers, and short shorts,
[00:06:42.211]or men with bulging biceps,
[00:06:44.110]and rippling stomach muscles,
[00:06:45.970]and we've all seen them.
[00:06:47.350]They're all like this.
[00:06:48.370]Flat belly, tight tush, lean legs,
[00:06:51.030]and, of course, this leads to mind blowing sex.
[00:06:54.865]Let's go back to that guy.
[00:06:58.344]Or this one, like super hero abs
[00:07:00.524]which gives her the sex of her dreams somehow.
[00:07:07.103]These kinds of bodies as we know
[00:07:08.603]cannot be attained without technologies,
[00:07:11.123]plastic surgeries for breast implants,
[00:07:13.643]or pec implants as in the case of this guy.
[00:07:16.383]Pharmacological technologies, steroids,
[00:07:18.880]hormone treatments, diet aids,
[00:07:20.960]consumer technologies, ellipticals,
[00:07:23.580]weight machines, and so on,
[00:07:25.620]yet, the easy move toward
[00:07:27.780]a technologically determined body
[00:07:29.660]would be simplistic.
[00:07:30.980]Technologies don't spontaneously self-generate.
[00:07:33.600]They are developed and created
[00:07:34.980]by human inventiveness.
[00:07:36.840]As the historian Rosalind Williams points out
[00:07:39.279]"Technological determinism is a non-issue
[00:07:41.559]"because there are no technological forces
[00:07:43.617]"separate from social ones.
[00:07:45.617]"The real question to ask then is not
[00:07:48.177]"is technological determinism true,
[00:07:50.397]"but what are the historical forces
[00:07:52.497]"shaping the construction
[00:07:53.937]"of the technological world?
[00:07:56.037]"Technologies of the body operate
[00:07:58.257]"within dynamic matrices of culture,
[00:08:00.676]"temporality, politics, and economics.
[00:08:03.216]"They can be seen as a consequence
[00:08:05.056]"of the ethos of an era
[00:08:06.556]"as well as a factor in shaping it,
[00:08:08.276]"and they must be understood as historicized
[00:08:13.735]"because body technologies and their utility
[00:08:16.394]"like all technologies change with the times."
[00:08:19.034]I'm just gonna turn this guy off for a second
[00:08:23.113]as much as you might like to look at him.
[00:08:27.053]In other words, they are profoundly
[00:08:28.390]engaged with human evolution.
[00:08:30.130]All technologies have the capacity
[00:08:31.710]to alter our time or space,
[00:08:33.590]perception, location, identity, mobility,
[00:08:35.990]power, possibility, technologies of the body
[00:08:39.110]by interacting with our very flesh,
[00:08:41.530]our cytoplasm, our corpuscles,
[00:08:43.549]our flesh and bones make radical
[00:08:45.849]interventions into our very reality,
[00:08:47.989]our sense of being in the world.
[00:08:50.809]The body self is constituted
[00:08:53.049]in relation to cultural imaginaries.
[00:08:55.868]Those ready made symbols through which
[00:08:57.668]we make sense of social bodies,
[00:08:59.388]and which determine in part their value,
[00:09:01.646]their status, and what will be deemed
[00:09:03.806]their appropriate treatment.
[00:09:05.846]Global circuits of transnational media
[00:09:08.386]are powerful agents of these cultural imaginaries
[00:09:10.866]producing and distributing
[00:09:12.686]millions of images every second
[00:09:14.786]via satellite and wireless networks,
[00:09:17.246]high efficiency video coding,
[00:09:19.246]cable systems, fiber optics,
[00:09:21.446]Cloud computing, and other means,
[00:09:23.726]and sexuality is a vital part of this system.
[00:09:26.886]Increasingly, the interactive,
[00:09:28.626]and "DIY" features of digital technologies
[00:09:31.342]are being used to represent,
[00:09:32.702]and circulate sexual desires.
[00:09:34.962]Teenagers engage in sexting,
[00:09:36.802]sex tapes are uploaded to the Internet.
[00:09:39.362]People engage in chat
[00:09:40.602]that simulates sex online.
[00:09:42.442]Cyber-porn is a multi-million dollar industry,
[00:09:45.201]and sex trafficking flows
[00:09:46.921]via transnational digital networks.
[00:09:49.361]Desire is channeled through technology
[00:09:51.681]in the contemporary era.
[00:09:53.381]Images forge intimate bonds between partners,
[00:09:56.181]but they also go viral
[00:09:58.061]establishing sexual identities,
[00:09:59.841]reputations, and proclivities
[00:10:02.081]thus cellphones, tablets,
[00:10:04.120]and other digital technologies
[00:10:05.720]can be understood as "desiring machines"
[00:10:08.240]to quote Deleuze and Guattari,
[00:10:10.039]"channeling flows of desire and corporeal signs
[00:10:12.757]"through their circuits to reinscribe
[00:10:14.937]"sexual subject positions in line with
[00:10:16.977]"the larger logics of the day."
[00:10:18.897]As the feminist physicist Karen Barad points out
[00:10:21.456]existence is not an individual affair.
[00:10:23.876]Individuals emerge through and part
[00:10:26.136]of their entangled intra-relating.
[00:10:29.013]Mark Hanson argues for a deep correlation
[00:10:31.453]between embodiment and virtuality
[00:10:34.333]pointing out that new media technologies,
[00:10:36.351]especially, those constituting our virtual reality
[00:10:39.171]engage bodily sensations
[00:10:41.289]in ways that give rise to ontological states.
[00:10:44.067]He notes that biological embodiment
[00:10:46.127]within cultural experience is crucial
[00:10:48.547]to the development of body schemas,
[00:10:50.687]our understandings of our bodies,
[00:10:52.527]and also to our subject positions,
[00:10:54.427]our understandings of who we are,
[00:10:55.927]our sense of self.
[00:10:59.106]In this approach he engages
[00:11:00.486]a philosophical tradition that
[00:11:01.806]not only construes the body
[00:11:03.666]as socially and culturally constructed
[00:11:06.066]structured malleable historicized,
[00:11:09.123]but recognizes subjectivity
[00:11:10.801]as constituted through the body.
[00:11:12.820]Subjectivity and corporeality
[00:11:15.060]are thus mutually implicated,
[00:11:16.519]and generated in relation to social formations.
[00:11:18.999]I want to use the word subjectivity.
[00:11:20.799]I mean the sense of self, the subject, the self,
[00:11:23.699]how we think of ourselves,
[00:11:26.139]the "person" behind the eye.
[00:11:31.037]Subjectivity and corporeality
[00:11:33.557]are mutually implicated,
[00:11:35.557]and they're always generated in relation
[00:11:37.397]to larger social formations.
[00:11:39.377]All these cultural images.
[00:11:40.757]All the cultural discourses and narratives
[00:11:43.377]that we hear around us
[00:11:44.537]about what bodies should look like,
[00:11:46.537]how they should operate,
[00:11:47.837]how they should practice,
[00:11:50.377]so these post-structuralist concepts of corporeality
[00:11:53.937]open up ways of considering
[00:11:55.677]the complex and dynamic operations
[00:11:57.477]of power, embodiment, and sexualities
[00:12:00.197]in an era of transnational media.
[00:12:02.476]Feminist science and technology studies,
[00:12:04.455]and the more recent discipline
[00:12:05.815]of soma techniques have explored
[00:12:07.435]technologies constitutive role
[00:12:09.435]in gendered power relations.
[00:12:11.252]As Judy Wajcman argues
[00:12:12.712]understanding technology as
[00:12:14.491]a social apparatus, a culture,
[00:12:16.651]or material semiotic practice
[00:12:18.471]enables us to understand how
[00:12:20.371]our relationship to technology
[00:12:22.111]is integral to the constitution of subjectivity
[00:12:24.431]for both sexes.
[00:12:26.731]Wajcman points out that feminist perspectives
[00:12:29.068]recognize technology and society
[00:12:31.028]as involved in a fluid relationship
[00:12:33.248]of mutual shaping.
[00:12:35.028]On her account gender relations
[00:12:37.028]can be thought of as materialized in technology,
[00:12:39.847]and masculinity and femininity
[00:12:41.827]in turn acquire their meaning,
[00:12:43.587]and character through their enrollment,
[00:12:45.647]and embeddedness in working machines.
[00:12:48.667]Wajcman's analysis is rooted
[00:12:50.246]in a gender binarism,
[00:12:51.846]but drawing on the insides of
[00:12:53.265]soma techniques it's clear that
[00:12:54.825]a whole range of gender, sexualities,
[00:12:57.105]and categories of bodies and identities
[00:12:59.502]are similarly mobilized,
[00:13:01.602]so in the contemporary moment
[00:13:03.302]let's think about working machines,
[00:13:05.822]the working machines that construe our bodies.
[00:13:08.162]I think the ones that we know and use the best
[00:13:10.522]are the various media technologies,
[00:13:12.882]the media communication technologies
[00:13:14.702]that permeate our environments.
[00:13:17.022]In every contemporary society
[00:13:18.702]people interact with the media,
[00:13:20.742]and these interactions are, of course,
[00:13:22.582]shaped and complicated by
[00:13:24.982]the locations in which they occur,
[00:13:26.722]impacted and configured by histories,
[00:13:28.862]geographies, material circumstances,
[00:13:30.842]cultures, and other factors.
[00:13:32.702]Fundamental to media theory
[00:13:34.122]is the recognition that all communication media
[00:13:36.702]are both technological and cultural,
[00:13:38.982]and the very term the media
[00:13:41.602]spans a vast range of forms and functions,
[00:13:44.482]so we can't just sort of lump
[00:13:46.782]the media together as one thing.
[00:13:48.622]We know that cellphones
[00:13:50.002]are very different from television
[00:13:51.601]which is sort of fading away
[00:13:53.081]in terms of its social presence,
[00:13:54.561]very different from cinema,
[00:13:56.121]very different from the Internet,
[00:13:58.481]or Facebook, social media,
[00:14:00.161]so we can't just sort of lump
[00:14:01.661]all the media together,
[00:14:02.561]yet, despite all these specificities and differences
[00:14:05.741]as Roger Silverstone reflects
[00:14:07.721]it's possible to consider the media
[00:14:09.301]as a complex system,
[00:14:11.001]and all these technologies
[00:14:12.221]are sort of interrelated.
[00:14:13.821]He thinks of it as a space that is increasingly
[00:14:16.701]mutually referential,
[00:14:20.139]and reinforcive,
[00:14:21.759]and increasingly integrated into
[00:14:23.299]the fabric of everyday life.
[00:14:25.279]"The media are becoming environmental," he says.
[00:14:28.219]More and more the media
[00:14:29.619]constitute our environments
[00:14:30.999]in ways that are taken for granted,
[00:14:32.719]and pretty much imperceptible,
[00:14:34.399]so from electronic billboards,
[00:14:35.878]to closed-circuit cameras
[00:14:37.338]which I'm sure are in this room.
[00:14:39.718]The video camera that's
[00:14:41.817]recording me at the moment, cellphones.
[00:14:44.896]Media comprise elements of daily life.
[00:14:47.196]We don't even really think about them anymore,
[00:14:49.116]and as electronic media increasingly
[00:14:51.156]saturate our everyday spaces with images
[00:14:53.556]of other places, and other imagined,
[00:14:55.796]or real orders of space
[00:14:57.536]it's evermore difficult to tell
[00:14:59.176]a story of social space
[00:15:00.736]without also telling a story of media,
[00:15:02.896]and vice versa.
[00:15:05.116]Our engagements with the media are
[00:15:07.096]perhaps the most veiled of our relationships.
[00:15:09.716]We dismiss them sometimes as guilty pleasures,
[00:15:12.175]or distractions.
[00:15:13.775]We publicly deny that they have any
[00:15:16.375]import or impact on our lives.
[00:15:18.475]We acknowledge that yeah,
[00:15:19.855]maybe other people are affected by
[00:15:22.175]the seductions of the cellphone,
[00:15:23.973]or the iPad, or whatever,
[00:15:26.693]but we invariably see ourselves as
[00:15:28.753]active and decisive managers
[00:15:30.513]of our media consumption.
[00:15:32.073]We baulk at spending any time,
[00:15:34.413]or serious thought
[00:15:35.692]on our interactions with the media
[00:15:37.792]yet we live in an era where the media
[00:15:40.052]pervade our existences.
[00:15:42.192]This is most true of western societies,
[00:15:44.192]those of the global north,
[00:15:45.672]but it's increasingly becoming typical
[00:15:47.532]in the global south, or the "Third World."
[00:15:51.172]As Hanson has noted,
[00:15:52.852]"Technology affects our experience
[00:15:54.510]"first and foremost through its
[00:15:55.789]"infrastructural role.
[00:15:57.529]"Effectively, technology structure our life-worlds."
[00:16:00.369]If we acknowledge this
[00:16:02.029]then we're faced with two choices.
[00:16:03.789]We can accept and ignore
[00:16:05.029]the media and culture industries
[00:16:06.489]as aspects of a taken for granted environment,
[00:16:08.668]or we can radically rethink their function
[00:16:11.088]as cultural, historical structures
[00:16:13.328]that work along with such power formations
[00:16:15.867]as phallocentrism and heteronormativity
[00:16:18.887]as defining symbolic institutions
[00:16:21.186]that make specific interventions
[00:16:22.886]into the body, sex, gender desire matrix
[00:16:25.605]re-articulating these concepts in ways
[00:16:28.005]that impinge upon our imaginations
[00:16:30.105]of these key vectors of intimacy and identity.
[00:16:33.505]No longer then do we premise our understanding
[00:16:36.645]of personhood or subjectivity
[00:16:38.905]on a Cartesian dualism
[00:16:40.504]between the mind and body.
[00:16:42.244]Instead we recognize the fluid,
[00:16:44.104]and continuous synergies that
[00:16:45.524]constitute the self as well as the social.
[00:16:47.884]In fact, our embrace of body transformations
[00:16:50.744]appear to be predicated in
[00:16:52.624]a rather sophisticated understanding
[00:16:54.104]that bodies are not fixed or stable or natural,
[00:16:58.211]but this recognition stands at an
[00:17:00.101]uneasy tension with a concept of the self
[00:17:02.561]which is a contradictory and paradoxical one
[00:17:05.099]where the self is regarded as
[00:17:06.859]simultaneously split off from,
[00:17:09.299]and also closely aligned with the body,
[00:17:11.679]so, I think, we're still kind of grappling with this idea
[00:17:14.499]that ourselves are separate from our bodies,
[00:17:17.039]but at the same time in some circumstances
[00:17:19.719]we see the self as kind of enmeshed with the body.
[00:17:23.098]So, for example, people engaging in online sex
[00:17:26.158]seem to recognize that
[00:17:27.578]a transformation into a virtual self
[00:17:29.718]is the conduit for physical pleasure,
[00:17:31.958]so even though it's all happening virtually,
[00:17:34.258]and it's kind of through the mind
[00:17:35.818]the body is reacting,
[00:17:37.198]and so there really is no distinction there
[00:17:38.638]between self and body.
[00:17:40.817]On Shannon McCray's interpretation
[00:17:42.657]"When intense erotic union is accomplished
[00:17:45.536]"in a kind of void in which bodies
[00:17:47.756]"are simultaneously, acutely imagined,
[00:17:50.176]"vividly felt, and utterly absent
[00:17:52.476]"the resultant sense of seizure,
[00:17:54.756]"of scattering of self loss can be experienced
[00:17:57.515]"as a violent mingling of pleasure and pain.
[00:18:00.935]"The intensity of pleasure results from
[00:18:03.195]"the kind of sustained dislocation
[00:18:05.275]"required when your body is entirely real,
[00:18:07.815]"and entirely imagined at the same time."
[00:18:10.855]So this juncture or disjuncture of self and body
[00:18:14.195]is also evident in the narratives of people
[00:18:16.435]who undergo actual physical transformations
[00:18:19.455]using biomedical technologies.
[00:18:21.875]"I'm happy about who I am, finally,"
[00:18:24.754]reported Rachel Love-Fraser
[00:18:26.574]after undergoing seven surgical procedures
[00:18:29.114]on the FOX reality TV makeover show, The Swan.
[00:18:32.413]Do you guys remember
[00:18:33.473]The Swan from the 1990's?
[00:18:35.492]"It's made such a difference
[00:18:36.772]"in the way I feel about myself,"
[00:18:38.372]enthused Marnie Rygiewicz,
[00:18:40.252]a contestant on The Swan
[00:18:41.472]after multiple surgeries depicted on air.
[00:18:44.432]"I think I'd have a more fulfilling life
[00:18:46.552]"if I looked better," mused schoolteacher
[00:18:48.692]Mary Ellen Smith at a casting call for the show.
[00:18:51.450]For these women the self
[00:18:53.569]is predicated on the body.
[00:18:55.789]Self and body are mutually dependent variables,
[00:18:58.449]and technological interventions
[00:19:00.189]into the body can release the real me
[00:19:02.627]trapped inside the unwanted,
[00:19:04.547]unattractive corporeal shell,
[00:19:06.687]so there's an existential rift between
[00:19:08.867]the body and the self that's healed
[00:19:10.607]through plastic surgery,
[00:19:12.327]and the women come to understand
[00:19:13.727]their preoperative body is accidental,
[00:19:15.687]and their current, more normative appearance
[00:19:18.067]is a more accurate indicator
[00:19:19.446]of who they really are.
[00:19:21.526]This version of the body is
[00:19:22.786]a representation of the self.
[00:19:24.086]It's also present in some transsexual narratives,
[00:19:26.626]and among people undergoing
[00:19:28.086]sex reassignment surgeries.
[00:19:29.946]In the past this has involved
[00:19:31.286]a feeling of being trapped in the wrong body,
[00:19:33.466]or being somehow out of
[00:19:34.886]alignment with one's body,
[00:19:37.585]although, reconfigured transgender bodies
[00:19:40.745]as Sandy Stone has pointed out
[00:19:42.845]have immeasurable progressive potential
[00:19:45.505]disrupting traditional gender binaries,
[00:19:48.005]and inserting new narratives
[00:19:49.545]of the body's subject with radically
[00:19:51.225]different histories of coming into being
[00:19:53.245]into our social consciousness,
[00:19:55.565]yet, the conventions of the contemporary
[00:19:57.625]makeover culture valorize the notion that
[00:20:00.504]valid selfhood is attained through transformations.
[00:20:04.104]Makeovers intervened with class,
[00:20:06.144]race, and gender inflicted improvements
[00:20:09.004]that gain at legitimacy by speaking
[00:20:11.244]through the idiom of identity
[00:20:12.824]such that successful selfhood is attained
[00:20:15.244]through the manipulation of the body
[00:20:16.763]toward normative ideals.
[00:20:18.983]The makeover phenomenon tells a story
[00:20:21.043]of coherent and stable subject positions
[00:20:23.361]located and expressed through
[00:20:25.401]the made-over body
[00:20:26.961]before our bodies quite often lack valid me-ness,
[00:20:29.736]and after bodies mark the zone
[00:20:32.116]of celebrated selfhood where subjects
[00:20:33.915]rejoice "I'm me now!"
[00:20:36.455]The notion of a mismatch between
[00:20:38.695]body and subjects suggests an
[00:20:40.294]organic or intrinsic misalignment
[00:20:42.794]yet any interrogation of such incongruities
[00:20:45.312]points to culturally constructed logics
[00:20:48.092]as their source and sight.
[00:20:49.951]Without the imposition of a cultural logic
[00:20:52.811]of physical normalcy or even perfection
[00:20:56.211]there would be no sense of a slippage
[00:20:57.730]between self and body.
[00:20:59.169]No need to take corrective action.
[00:21:01.189]As Judith Butler following Foucault
[00:21:03.289]has emphasized "Bodies only appear, only endure,
[00:21:06.469]"only live within the productive constraints
[00:21:09.749]"of certain highly gendered regulatory schemas."
[00:21:13.469]Perhaps you remember the Greek myth
[00:21:15.929]of Pygmalion the sculptor who crafted
[00:21:18.249]the perfect statue of a woman,
[00:21:20.329]and then prayed to the goddess Aphrodite
[00:21:22.488]to bring her to life
[00:21:23.868]which she did to his joy.
[00:21:25.968]The Pygmalion dream is that of the male artist,
[00:21:28.708]a visionary who acquires the power to realize,
[00:21:31.468]indeed to reify his image of a perfect woman,
[00:21:34.768]the embodiment of an ideal sexual partner.
[00:21:38.428]In the myth Pygmalion claims to have
[00:21:41.028]produced through art a beauty superior
[00:21:43.388]to anything created by nature.
[00:21:45.468]The image is purely corporeal.
[00:21:47.328]"He's a sculptor, a plastic artist"
[00:21:49.668]as Bernard Baars puts it,
[00:21:51.704]"so his creation is material carved out of ivory
[00:21:54.043]"an inanimate body without a spirit or soul,
[00:21:56.803]"yet, the latter are projected by the creator
[00:21:59.062]"onto his creation
[00:22:00.602]"the physical determines,
[00:22:02.182]"and defines the spiritual."
[00:22:04.462]No longer working with ivory
[00:22:06.462]modern day Pygmalions apply their artistry,
[00:22:08.862]and vision to create perfect women
[00:22:10.902]through a variety of sophisticated technologies
[00:22:13.462]that are revolutionizing the sexual landscape.
[00:22:17.921]Although, Playboy recently decided
[00:22:20.041]not to show nude women anymore,
[00:22:21.841]I don't know if you guys heard about that,
[00:22:23.221]but just a few years back it actually
[00:22:25.561]featured computer generated images
[00:22:27.341]of women taking representations
[00:22:29.201]of perfect bodies a step beyond
[00:22:31.061]the routinely, digitally manipulated
[00:22:33.499]photoshopped images common to
[00:22:35.778]the contemporary publishing world.
[00:22:38.018]Adult video games starring
[00:22:39.432]nubile computer generated women
[00:22:41.234]in sexual situations
[00:22:42.752]are produced many by male programmers,
[00:22:44.632]and artists for male audiences,
[00:22:47.052]so as I just mentioned there are these
[00:22:49.392]computer generated women
[00:22:51.512]as in Grand Theft Auto that most of
[00:22:54.887]the game designers are men,
[00:22:57.452]and most of the intended audiences
[00:23:00.601]are male, although, of course,
[00:23:01.903]this is changing these days.
[00:23:04.861]I'm gonna hope this link works,
[00:23:06.581]but there was an Italian entrepreneur
[00:23:10.001]named Franz Cerami who hosts
[00:23:11.881]the Miss Digital World beauty pagent
[00:23:15.219]where computer generated women
[00:23:17.659]compete for the title.
[00:23:19.958]The goal of the contest is to create
[00:23:21.378]a contemporary ideal of beauty
[00:23:23.178]through virtual reality.
[00:23:25.218]I'll just show you a few moments of this.
[00:23:35.618]You don't really even need sound for it.
[00:23:37.378]You can see these images,
[00:23:38.938]and they're all completely
[00:23:44.077]computer generated.
[00:23:46.256]Also, perhaps, you're familiar with this woman.
[00:23:49.384]Dr. Frank Ryan was
[00:23:50.756]the svengali like plastic surgeon
[00:23:52.656]behind the transformation of Heidi Montag
[00:23:55.556]whose notorious surgical adaptations
[00:23:57.716]have included several breast augmentations
[00:23:59.816]that reportedly produced triple D cup,
[00:24:02.276]and then G cup sized breasts,
[00:24:04.835]more than one rhinoplasty, liposuctions,
[00:24:06.894]otoplasty or ear pinning,
[00:24:08.614]and a variety of other cosmetic procedures.
[00:24:10.634]She is said to have undergone
[00:24:11.794]as many as 10 surgeries in a single day.
[00:24:14.214]Following these operations
[00:24:15.974]Montag posed for Playboy,
[00:24:18.214]and starred in a sex video that was
[00:24:19.693]widely circulated on the Internet.
[00:24:22.013]Men, of course, are not always
[00:24:24.033]the actual instigators or masterminds
[00:24:26.051]behind such body remodeling
[00:24:27.731]as Sandra Lee Bartky reminds us.
[00:24:29.911]"The technologies of femininity
[00:24:31.589]"are taken up and practiced by women.
[00:24:33.809]"All women have internalized
[00:24:35.369]"patriarchal standards of body acceptability.
[00:24:38.027]"The fact that these female sexual ideals
[00:24:40.607]"are cyborg creations,
[00:24:42.447]"a fiction of technology and biology
[00:24:44.746]"Franken-Babes of the sort,
[00:24:46.866]"is not a hindrance to their appeal.
[00:24:48.946]"In fact, the artifice at work seems to boost
[00:24:51.181]"their desirability as they exemplify
[00:24:53.461]"physical proportions and qualities
[00:24:55.060]"that no unedited human woman could approach.
[00:24:57.740]"The resultant cyborg bodies are then
[00:24:59.920]"circulated via technologies of distribution
[00:25:02.220]"that involve wireless global
[00:25:04.019]"circuits of transmission.
[00:25:05.679]"Technology intersects with the desirable,
[00:25:07.819]"and desiring body at multiple points,
[00:25:09.819]"and these processes are reflected
[00:25:11.899]"in individual lives where people use
[00:25:14.139]"digital imaging technologies
[00:25:15.619]"to alter their own body images,
[00:25:17.379]"and distribute them to friends
[00:25:18.939]"via cellphones, social media, and the web."
[00:25:22.898]Marcia Ochoa's ethnographic studies
[00:25:24.958]in Venezuela reveal the parallel
[00:25:26.838]self-modifications of transformistas,
[00:25:29.338]transgender women and cisgender
[00:25:31.438]beauty pageant contestants
[00:25:33.458]noting the way that both modes of femininity
[00:25:35.538]are achieved through similar practices
[00:25:37.158]of cosmetic surgery, body modification,
[00:25:39.478]makeup, and performativity,
[00:25:41.058]and produced in citational relationship
[00:25:43.397]to the same mediated ideals
[00:25:45.057]of feminine beauty as she writes:
[00:25:47.497]"Transformistas, like other Venezuelan women,"
[00:25:50.597]and this is a transformista woman,
[00:25:53.297]"assemble their notions of femininity
[00:25:55.037]"from their bodies, their environments,
[00:25:56.957]"the expectations placed on them
[00:25:58.575]"by their communities.
[00:25:59.975]"Their own ideas about the currency
[00:26:01.675]"of specific forms of femininity,
[00:26:03.635]"mass media, and the material forms
[00:26:06.015]"of production available for the project
[00:26:07.995]"of accomplishing femininity."
[00:26:10.755]She situates her findings in
[00:26:12.355]the Venezuelan context,
[00:26:13.855]but the reach of global media
[00:26:15.255]impacts and homogenizes ideals
[00:26:17.575]of femininity and sexuality almost everywhere.
[00:26:20.355]Modifying and imaging one's body
[00:26:22.855]is now unremarkable.
[00:26:24.454]Our understanding of our corporeality
[00:26:25.934]is as firmly rooted in the notion
[00:26:27.854]of bodies as cultural plastic,
[00:26:30.154]mutable, and transmissible,
[00:26:32.332]but as Susan Bordo has pointed out
[00:26:34.731]"There are hidden philosophical currents
[00:26:36.531]"lurking behind the notions of
[00:26:38.189]"liberty, renewal, and self-determination
[00:26:41.009]"invoked by this view.
[00:26:42.769]"People are indeed increasingly free
[00:26:44.589]"to physically or virtually sculpt
[00:26:46.449]"their own bodies to fit the ideals,"
[00:26:48.449]yet, as Bordo argues
[00:26:50.287]"It's crucial not to lose sight
[00:26:51.727]"of the normalizing power of cultural images,
[00:26:54.586]"and the continuing social realities
[00:26:56.526]"of dominance and subordination at work
[00:26:58.566]"in these physical transformations."
[00:27:00.606]She draws attention to the social directives
[00:27:02.826]that drive such transformations.
[00:27:04.946]Directives that reinforce hierarchies
[00:27:07.046]of race, ethnicity, class, and gender
[00:27:09.126]under an ingenuous post-modern rhetoric
[00:27:12.946]of diversity and empowerment,
[00:27:14.885]directives that are most often transmitted
[00:27:16.785]via the mass media.
[00:27:18.865]The ideals are not only
[00:27:20.025]distributed via the media
[00:27:21.344]they are media fabrications
[00:27:22.844]partly, if not wholly, constructed by
[00:27:25.044]digital imaging and other technologies.
[00:27:27.404]For women a mediated standard
[00:27:29.104]of the culturally desirable body
[00:27:30.944]inevitably thin, yet voluptuous,
[00:27:33.844]tending toward the Aryan fantasy
[00:27:36.104]of the blue-eyed blonde
[00:27:37.504]underpins and motivates
[00:27:39.484]the creation of both virtual ...
[00:27:44.602]The fantasy of a blue-eyed blonde
[00:27:46.982]underpins and motivates the creation
[00:27:48.701]of both virtual and flesh and blood
[00:27:50.461]female physiques.
[00:27:52.281]Power is thus infused into
[00:27:53.641]our corporeal reshapings.
[00:27:55.401]The technologies of physical transformation
[00:27:57.441]intersect with the technologies
[00:27:58.960]of communication to forge a complex
[00:28:01.097]rack-and-pinion system of body politics.
[00:28:04.227]In the contemporary world body schemas
[00:28:07.057]are made real, reified through
[00:28:08.954]visual representation and popular culture
[00:28:10.974]in the mass media.
[00:28:12.374]Body ideals are displayed, flaunted,
[00:28:14.454]promoted, and iconized via cinematic,
[00:28:17.134]and televisual print and online text
[00:28:19.332]that not only reinscribe gender categories,
[00:28:21.512]but forge symbolic linkages
[00:28:23.312]among bodies, gender, and sexual identities
[00:28:25.772]through a signifying economy of
[00:28:27.632]visual and verbal codes.
[00:28:29.372]In the text of popular media
[00:28:31.192]gender categories are binary,
[00:28:33.031]and sexuality is firmly intertwined
[00:28:35.791]with achieving specific physical ideals.
[00:28:38.271]These physical ideals have racialized
[00:28:41.131]as well as gendered components.
[00:28:43.110]Media sign systems naturalize and normalize
[00:28:45.630]these regulatory schemas
[00:28:47.730]turning them into common sense
[00:28:49.670]while masking the ideological imperatives
[00:28:51.710]at work in their design.
[00:28:53.330]These imperatives are reflected,
[00:28:54.830]and reinscribed in the images
[00:28:56.330]transmitted by individuals
[00:28:57.810]through social media sites and phone networks.
[00:29:02.008]Many people
[00:29:05.266]find pleasure, or seek pleasure through
[00:29:07.726]these technological activities
[00:29:09.386]be they cyber sexual practices,
[00:29:11.046]or body reshaping surgeries.
[00:29:13.185]When teenagers sext, for example,
[00:29:15.365]they do not see the practice as problematic.
[00:29:17.885]They understand sexting to be something
[00:29:19.965]like love letters used to be,
[00:29:21.505]an intimate exchange between lovers.
[00:29:23.584]They even understand sexting as safe sex
[00:29:26.164]in an era where they've been bludgeoned
[00:29:27.984]with abstinence only messages
[00:29:29.764]from the time they were young.
[00:29:31.644]It's true, too, that there are for example
[00:29:33.504]LGBTQ communities online
[00:29:35.884]where people can find support,
[00:29:37.564]and validation for non-normative
[00:29:39.464]sexual orientations
[00:29:40.924]just as there are body positive websites
[00:29:43.304]that seek to challenge restrictive,
[00:29:45.104]mainstream ideals of sexuality,
[00:29:47.723]but we must remember that
[00:29:49.343]Foucault understood sex to take shape
[00:29:51.283]via spirals of power and pleasure.
[00:29:53.483]He writes that the centralization of power,
[00:29:55.923]and the gain of pleasure,
[00:29:57.783]and we cannot only think
[00:29:59.060]about genders and sexualities
[00:30:00.500]in the digital era in relation to pleasure alone.
[00:30:03.358]We must always heed the Foucauldian premise
[00:30:05.718]that pleasure and power are mutually implicated,
[00:30:08.858]the mobility and diffusion of modern power
[00:30:11.518]proliferates and circumscribes pleasures.
[00:30:14.238]As an example I'll refer briefly to
[00:30:16.398]a recent New York Times magazine article
[00:30:18.538]about a child who was the victim of
[00:30:20.418]cyber pornography at the hands of her own father.
[00:30:26.197]It's true that pleasure
[00:30:27.277]was involved in this incident.
[00:30:31.415]The pleasure of the father
[00:30:32.975]who repeatedly recorded himself
[00:30:34.415]raping his 10-year-old child,
[00:30:37.275]making her smile at the camera,
[00:30:39.013]and perform as though
[00:30:40.033]she were enjoying it,
[00:30:41.573]and the pleasure of the viewers
[00:30:42.773]who downloaded and bought his imagery,
[00:30:44.953]but, of course, the child was not
[00:30:46.893]experiencing pleasure.
[00:30:48.593]She was brutalized and exploited,
[00:30:50.653]and as this story explains,
[00:30:52.293]although she is grown,
[00:30:53.432]and no longer in that situation
[00:30:55.252]working to recover her life
[00:30:56.892]the images are still out there.
[00:30:59.952]In the quickest analysis of power and pleasure
[00:31:02.731]she was powerless because of her age,
[00:31:05.151]her situation, her gender,
[00:31:07.271]and her relationship with her father.
[00:31:09.251]She is powerless to control the images.
[00:31:11.451]His power resulted in his pleasure,
[00:31:13.891]and his financial gain,
[00:31:15.591]and he's still at large.
[00:31:23.111]The legal scholar Madeleine Mercedes Plasencia
[00:31:25.727]points out that
[00:31:26.665]"The Internet has in many ways increased
[00:31:28.287]"physical risks to children,
[00:31:29.925]"especially, in non First World settings."
[00:31:32.705]She points out that
[00:31:33.825]"Online networks facilitate the sexual abuse
[00:31:36.285]"of minors internationally,
[00:31:38.125]"and as we know the children of
[00:31:39.545]"the global south are much more vulnerable
[00:31:41.504]"to exploitation via child prostitution,
[00:31:44.024]"sex trafficking, and pornography."
[00:31:46.184]The anthropologist Heather Montgomery
[00:31:48.004]conducted detailed ethnographic work
[00:31:50.204]in a community in Thailand
[00:31:51.643]where most of the children
[00:31:52.683]including very young ones
[00:31:54.403]from four years old and up
[00:31:56.023]were engaged in prostitution
[00:31:57.523]with foreign tourists.
[00:31:59.143]Importantly, she notes that
[00:32:00.602]"The commercial, sexual exploitation of children
[00:32:02.622]"does not exist in a vacuum.
[00:32:04.762]"The material specificities which arise
[00:32:06.982]"from Thailand's position,
[00:32:08.742]"and globalized political and economic relations
[00:32:11.041]"perpetuate the sexual exploitation."
[00:32:14.101]To me this point is crucial.
[00:32:16.541]If we begin to think about pleasure
[00:32:18.341]in relation to power,
[00:32:20.261]and we recognize that sometimes
[00:32:22.521]the pleasures of the more powerful
[00:32:24.821]create tremendous danger
[00:32:26.761]for the less powerful
[00:32:28.261]we need a rubric or a heuristic
[00:32:30.441]to assess the ethics of pleasure and danger
[00:32:33.021]in relation to genders and sexualities
[00:32:34.981]in a digital era.
[00:32:36.661]I believe the heuristic rests on
[00:32:38.881]two related concepts.
[00:32:40.581]Embodied vulnerability,
[00:32:42.681]and the politics of location.
[00:32:45.121]The more seasoned feminist scholars
[00:32:46.841]here today will know that the latter term,
[00:32:48.481]the politics of location
[00:32:50.161]is a term that is not new.
[00:32:51.900]Adrienne Rich introduced
[00:32:53.420]the idea 20 years ago.
[00:32:55.138]We must recognize that cybersex
[00:32:56.877]has material impacts
[00:32:59.177]that virtual sexual practices
[00:33:00.797]are connected with real world bodies
[00:33:03.377]in a form of Machinic suture.
[00:33:05.777]As the film scholar Linda Williams notes,
[00:33:07.677]"Apparatus of sexuality
[00:33:09.557]"wrap around the body,
[00:33:10.637]"and it's sexual organs to produce
[00:33:12.137]"different kinds of pleasure,
[00:33:13.637]"and relations of alliance,
[00:33:15.677]"so we must attend to the material context
[00:33:18.117]"of material bodies when we assess
[00:33:20.357]"the ethical implications of genders,
[00:33:22.357]"and sexualities in the digital era.
[00:33:24.537]"Although it's an accelerating idea
[00:33:26.377]"to contemplate digital media
[00:33:28.095]"as having no limits,
[00:33:29.455]"especially, in relation to pleasure,
[00:33:31.395]"as scholars we must be mindful
[00:33:33.515]"of embodiment and its entailments."
[00:33:36.015]In her book Precarious Life in the Frame of War
[00:33:38.755]Judith Butler argues that
[00:33:40.314]"We need a new bodily anthology,
[00:33:42.813]"one that applies the rethinking of precariousness,
[00:33:45.712]"vulnerability, indurability,
[00:33:48.209]"interdependency, exposure."
[00:33:50.969]Her recognition of life as precarious
[00:33:52.988]is a call for ethics, feminist ethics.
[00:33:56.148]The ethics of care also bring into view
[00:33:58.806]the recognition that vulnerability
[00:34:01.006]precipitates relationships that are
[00:34:03.206]progressive, reparative
[00:34:04.718]in their moral underpinnings.
[00:34:06.618]When we think of digital media
[00:34:08.058]we must understand it to encompass
[00:34:09.638]sex positive connections and communities
[00:34:12.398]as well as the realities of sexual exploitation,
[00:34:16.078]cyber-stalking, revenge porn,
[00:34:18.838]and other gendered and sexed terrors.
[00:34:21.811]So as we've spent the day considering
[00:34:24.588]a variety of aspects of this ever-changing,
[00:34:27.228]still uncharted, and probably
[00:34:29.467]unchartable new media environment
[00:34:31.607]I hope these frameworks offer ways
[00:34:33.707]to work out a position that recognizes
[00:34:35.487]our virtual landscapes as contested terrains
[00:34:38.567]where pleasures and dangers
[00:34:40.467]interact and intersect
[00:34:42.187]and where our understandings of these processes
[00:34:44.545]can lead to real world changes
[00:34:46.325]that ensure social justice and sexual safety.
[00:34:50.085]Thank you so much for your time today.
[00:34:53.864](applause)
[00:35:03.004]I'll be glad to answer questions,
[00:35:04.364]or if you have comments,
[00:35:06.124]or thoughts about any of this.
[00:35:08.822]When you were describing plastic surgery
[00:35:10.281]I couldn't help but think of the culture
[00:35:11.841]of our generation getting tattoos
[00:35:13.681]in order to claim their bodies,
[00:35:15.361]and I was wondering how you felt about that
[00:35:17.161]in this world where we're perfecting our bodies
[00:35:20.237]is that still the same damages
[00:35:22.977]of the biological modification,
[00:35:25.455]or the cyber babe that you were describing,
[00:35:27.655]and how is it different?
[00:35:28.795]That's a really interesting question.
[00:35:31.135]I don't actually see it in quite the same way,
[00:35:33.995]although, certainly tattoos are a certain trend.
[00:35:36.215]I mean, we do have to look at them as being,
[00:35:37.715]you know, sort of they've been fashionable
[00:35:39.555]for the last, I don't know, 10 years or so,
[00:35:41.790]whereas, like previous generations
[00:35:43.706]tattoos were always seen as something
[00:35:45.346]that only sailors and bikers got,
[00:35:48.305]so there was certainly a class aspect to them.
[00:35:51.335]There's a historical moment in which
[00:35:53.785]tattoos have become popular,
[00:35:55.782]and a way to convey a narrative,
[00:35:58.862]but in that spirit I think there's
[00:36:01.542]a lot of agency in tattooing,
[00:36:03.202]and people usually get tattoos
[00:36:04.481]because the symbols are meaningful to them.
[00:36:08.240]I think in that sense there's an
[00:36:10.100]individual level of tattooing,
[00:36:11.840]and there's a personal connection to them
[00:36:13.480]that's not quite the same as
[00:36:15.280]the enforced mode of body modification
[00:36:17.360]that Heidi Montag went through for example.
[00:36:20.059]But would you say that
[00:36:21.179]body modification can have that same effect?
[00:36:23.879]Should you be getting a procedure
[00:36:26.458]that was meaningful to you?
[00:36:28.538]I guess my question is
[00:36:30.078]you can't cancel out all of it,
[00:36:32.237]so where do we draw the line?
[00:36:34.137]That's a really interesting,
[00:36:36.717]and challenging question for me.
[00:36:39.897]When I think about the kinds of
[00:36:41.877]plastic surgeries that I routinely see
[00:36:45.092]they do conform to certain,
[00:36:47.212]especially, racial hierarchies,
[00:36:49.296]and also to a particular type of
[00:36:52.332]"emphasized femininity" to use
[00:36:54.492]Robert Connell's term.
[00:36:56.569]Generally, it's in the direction of larger breasts.
[00:37:00.252]Generally, it's in the direction of liposuction
[00:37:02.469]to make the body thinner.
[00:37:04.089]Generally, it's in the direction of
[00:37:05.809]skin tanning and hair bleaching.
[00:37:07.489]So there's a certain directive that
[00:37:09.589]actually reinforces racial,
[00:37:11.589]and gendered power structures.
[00:37:14.049]I don't think tattoos operate
[00:37:15.909]in quite the same way.
[00:37:17.669]I think examining them in light
[00:37:20.089]of whether they are reinforcing those
[00:37:22.688]same social hierarchies is maybe one way
[00:37:24.788]to think of them differently.
[00:37:27.947]Thank you for the very interesting talk.
[00:37:31.866]I cannot remember what state
[00:37:33.406]this was about, specifically,
[00:37:34.626]but I read an article recently about a state,
[00:37:36.523]I believe, someone introduced legislation.
[00:37:38.883]I don't believe it was passed yet
[00:37:40.143]that would decriminalize
[00:37:42.503]sexting behavior between minors,
[00:37:45.023]and so I'm wondering about your thoughts
[00:37:47.083]on the criminal rules and regulations,
[00:37:50.383]and the state authority
[00:37:53.401]to try and regulate and negotiate,
[00:37:57.021]and how we do that outside of the shoulds,
[00:38:00.176]but, also, the legal side of things.
[00:38:02.236]This is a huge, complicated question.
[00:38:05.126]I'm not a lawyer so, actually, I can't speak
[00:38:07.655]with authority about the legal aspects of it,
[00:38:10.110]but certainly there's a lot of debate about
[00:38:12.230]the use of child pornography statutes
[00:38:14.550]to prosecute kids who are sexting.
[00:38:16.990]Some states have changed it so that
[00:38:19.470]if the children are close in age
[00:38:21.890]then they're not prosecuted
[00:38:24.410]under those same statutes,
[00:38:25.710]but I think we need to think a whole lot more.
[00:38:27.889]These issues are still being debated.
[00:38:30.229]I think one way to do it,
[00:38:32.109]and one reason, actually,
[00:38:33.269]that I'm thinking about this in ethical terms
[00:38:35.249]in relation to embody vulnerability
[00:38:38.329]I think that heuristic is actually one way
[00:38:40.087]we can get at sexting
[00:38:42.506]because sexting when kids do it
[00:38:45.386]among each other between
[00:38:48.084]two minor children
[00:38:51.362]all the research indicates that
[00:38:52.662]they think of it as something intimate,
[00:38:54.542]something that's just happening
[00:38:55.658]between two people,
[00:38:56.778]and because of their developmental stage
[00:38:58.498]they actually don't think about
[00:38:59.818]the implications when it's circulated
[00:39:01.558]more widely than that.
[00:39:05.456]I think one of the ways that
[00:39:06.936]we have to think about it is
[00:39:08.356]what happens when sexting
[00:39:10.516]moves into the broader arena
[00:39:12.956]where it is then accessed by adults and so on.
[00:39:15.596]I think we have to think about it legally
[00:39:18.276]much more carefully,
[00:39:19.336]and with a lot more nuance
[00:39:20.816]than we're doing right now
[00:39:22.116]by simply imposing child ponography
[00:39:25.595]prosecution against these kids.
[00:39:30.515]Okay, so first off, thank you.
[00:39:32.675]I think that your presentation was wonderful,
[00:39:34.715]and I think that especially your presentation
[00:39:38.335]was both interesting, relevant,
[00:39:40.815]and intersectional in a true sense,
[00:39:44.555]in a true genuine sense,
[00:39:46.255]so I appreciate that,
[00:39:48.214]especially, when we talk about
[00:39:49.574]trans issues which is close to my heart.
[00:39:51.773]So you talk about transsexuality,
[00:39:54.033]and, normally, I wouldn't like that word,
[00:39:57.111]but, I think, in this particular instance
[00:39:58.571]when you're talking about
[00:39:59.849]body modification it's appropriate.
[00:40:06.707]Do you think that all body modifications
[00:40:08.947]that are sought by transgender indiviuals
[00:40:12.267]are inherently like
[00:40:16.225]re-inscribed in those ideals or not
[00:40:19.225]because, personally, I don't think so,
[00:40:21.045]but I'm just curious
[00:40:22.145]because you talk about inscribing vulnerability.
[00:40:25.263]I'm, actually, so glad you asked
[00:40:26.744]because I think it would be easy
[00:40:27.702]to make that assumption that I thought that,
[00:40:29.319]but I actually don't.
[00:40:30.579]I'm actually extremely grateful to
[00:40:31.999]the people who undergo
[00:40:34.497]transsexual surgeries
[00:40:37.117]because they're revealing what
[00:40:39.617]a construction those ideals of femininity are,
[00:40:42.277]and so they're bringing to light
[00:40:43.897]the fact that these are completely
[00:40:46.097]sort of artificial social creations
[00:40:48.497]that can be achieved by anyone, really,
[00:40:51.577]so I love that, and I also love what
[00:40:54.015]Sandy Stone said that
[00:40:57.930]the transsexual genders, if I can say that,
[00:41:01.190]are bringing into the world
[00:41:04.589]a completely different notion of gender
[00:41:07.449]with different origins,
[00:41:09.269]and they're really disrupting our binaries,
[00:41:11.029]and our sort of emphasized femininity,
[00:41:13.169]and hegemonic masculinity
[00:41:14.629]in ways that I think are wonderful.
[00:41:16.027]Cool, thank you.
[00:41:17.869]I hoped that in the process of
[00:41:19.907]walking to the mic I would turn
[00:41:21.187]my comment into a question.
[00:41:23.147]I think it's still a comment,
[00:41:25.247]but this is really fascinating to me.
[00:41:29.565]I'm a cultural historian.
[00:41:30.925]I work on the early 19th Century,
[00:41:32.544]and I'm always thinking about
[00:41:33.501]the problems of how you figure out
[00:41:35.321]what are the different cultural texts
[00:41:37.481]that need to be in play
[00:41:39.541]to sort of solve a problem, right?
[00:41:42.041]And so when you talked about
[00:41:43.901]for us today media is really
[00:41:45.961]the environment in which we live
[00:41:48.381]that seems to me that it creates
[00:41:51.061]a host of real methodological problems
[00:41:53.939]for thinking about projects that
[00:41:55.796]involve reading particular cultural texts
[00:41:58.096]because there are always these, like,
[00:42:00.236]Internet battles about is this a feminist,
[00:42:03.271]you know, movie, like is Frozen feminist,
[00:42:05.371]is it not feminist?
[00:42:06.791]We know that there's this kind of barrier
[00:42:10.191]that we always come to in that framing,
[00:42:12.811]but that what you described
[00:42:15.471]is a really interesting way of trying to
[00:42:17.990]create a different angle for starting
[00:42:20.610]to re-frame how we think about those problems.
[00:42:23.807]So, anyway, thank you for that.
[00:42:27.781]I'm glad you said that
[00:42:29.327]because that's exactly
[00:42:30.579]kind of how I was coming to it
[00:42:32.139]because we do reach those impasses, right?
[00:42:34.859]I actually went to a presentation
[00:42:36.878]last night on feminist art,
[00:42:38.638]and that same argument surfaced.
[00:42:40.758]What is feminist art?
[00:42:41.958]How do you define feminist art?
[00:42:43.278]Is it feminist if the artist
[00:42:45.036]identifies herself as a feminist,
[00:42:46.636]and what if she doesn't?
[00:42:47.596]So it went on like that.
[00:42:49.514]It's the same thing like we come into
[00:42:51.034]these sort of pitched battles around sex work,
[00:42:53.334]and issues of consent
[00:42:55.054]which are extremely tricky,
[00:42:56.854]and so what is the feminist position?
[00:42:58.774]There are arguments on both sides
[00:43:00.274]when people are thinking,
[00:43:01.694]so I want to intervene with this idea
[00:43:04.134]of embodied vulnerability.
[00:43:07.284]What is the vulnerability of the people involved?
[00:43:09.852]What are the power of relations at stake?
[00:43:14.089]How can we think about
[00:43:15.409]precarity or precariousness
[00:43:17.629]which also allows us
[00:43:20.487]to think about those politics of location.
[00:43:23.047]The class positions,
[00:43:25.544]the geopolitical positions,
[00:43:28.564]things like that that might put people
[00:43:30.744]in certain circumstances where
[00:43:33.244]certain types of sexual practices,
[00:43:35.824]certain types of sexual exploitation
[00:43:37.964]are almost inevitable,
[00:43:39.304]and they are sometimes read as choices
[00:43:41.943]because there are no alternatives.
[00:43:44.283]It's true that that's a way
[00:43:46.143]to gain resources when there are no others,
[00:43:48.423]but I think if we can introduce that
[00:43:50.743]into the framework of our thinking
[00:43:52.683]maybe making those sorts of changes,
[00:43:54.923]the material changes, the socioeconomic changes
[00:43:57.642]then that would allow for us
[00:44:01.082]to really consider agency in a different way.
[00:44:07.180]Earlier when you were talking about,
[00:44:10.056]I guess, embodied vulnerability,
[00:44:12.116]and child pornography,
[00:44:14.376]and the ways that people can be exploited
[00:44:18.654]via technology,
[00:44:20.909]especially, now since the sex industry is becoming
[00:44:23.269]like so, I guess, globalized in a way,
[00:44:26.765]and it's become really expanded,
[00:44:28.685]especially, since it's way easier
[00:44:30.103]for people to travel back and forth.
[00:44:32.763]Do you think that with technology
[00:44:34.819]there are ways to make the sex industry
[00:44:38.039]safer for the people involved,
[00:44:40.439]or is there a way for the sex industry
[00:44:43.399]to become empowering
[00:44:45.019]as opposed to exploitative?
[00:44:47.536]I think there are empowering aspects
[00:44:49.735]of online sexuality,
[00:44:51.075]and, I think, I mentioned a few of them.
[00:44:52.795]I mean, certainly there are like
[00:44:54.414]LGBTQ communities where people
[00:44:55.854]can find support and validation
[00:44:57.294]for sexual orientations
[00:45:00.291]that might be marginalized,
[00:45:01.491]or persecuted in their real lives,
[00:45:06.389]so there are ways in which,
[00:45:07.829]I think, it is empowering,
[00:45:08.869]and, certainly, as far as truly consensual sex
[00:45:11.708]between adults goes, I mean,
[00:45:13.248]I'm a complete libertarian as far as that goes
[00:45:15.408]if nobody is getting hurt, right?
[00:45:18.943]There are those other circumstances
[00:45:21.363]that we have to consider,
[00:45:22.823]and those are the places in which
[00:45:24.563]there's sexual violence happens,
[00:45:26.703]and we all understand that sex
[00:45:29.463]can be extremely dangerous.
[00:45:30.903]Online sex and real world sex as well,
[00:45:33.423]but cyber stalking, and you know,
[00:45:35.423]sort of revenge pornography,
[00:45:36.943]and the kinds of things that are happening online
[00:45:38.823]are impacting people materially
[00:45:40.903]in very, very terrible ways.
[00:45:44.281]Again, I want to sort of introduce that idea
[00:45:46.381]of thinking about the material vulnerability
[00:45:49.360]of the people engaging in those practices,
[00:45:51.860]and the factors that
[00:45:55.076]lend themselves to, or create those vulnerabilities.
[00:45:57.896]If we can address those factors
[00:45:59.176]then maybe we can find a way
[00:46:00.496]to make online sex empowering and safe.
[00:46:03.450]Thanks again to
[00:46:04.550]Dr. Durham for that talk.
[00:46:05.930]Thank you.
[00:46:07.077](applause)

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Durham Keynote: Pleasure and Danger

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