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Well, okay, out of context it does look a little silly.

Caperton
A man poses coyly next to a bicycle like a vintage pin-up
Totally sexy, right?

Sexy images are sexy, right? Okay, bad question–sexy images are subjective. But sexy images are supposed to be sexy. To someone, anyway. It turns out that without that air of objectification, sexy images are… kind of weird, frankly.*

We’ve seen how Batman just isn’t quite the same in bustier and cocked hip. And now photographer Rion Sabean shows us that a gender-bent approach to the classic pin-up girl loses something in translation. Could it be that photographers back in the day–and right now, frankly–portrayed “sexy” with coy, nonthreatening, ultrafeminine poses? No way, right? Discuss. (See the whole “Men-ups” set on Flickr. I like Mr. December, but then I’ve always been partial to the mountain-man beard.)

Next up in the “you know, it seemed to work in the magazine” category is artist Yolanda Dominguez, who “works from what is disquieting”–in this case, the awkward and uncomfortable poses that are apparently meant to be sexy on fashion models in magazines.

Note the passersby helping the “model” up, starting around 2:45, as if any normal person lying down posed like that would probably be in need of medical attention. They just don’t appreciate fashion, y’all. God.

*Which is not to say that none of the above images are sexy to someone. Sexy is subjective. Horses for courses, and all that.

(h/t PetaPixel, twice)

78 thoughts on Well, okay, out of context it does look a little silly.

  3. Well the facial expressions are obviously ridiculous but the poses were clearly structured to show off either the arch of the model’s back (ie. body shape) or his/her legs. In that regard they’re gendered at least – the models would have been picked for those physical characteristics in the first place.

    As a sidebar, there are some really interesting pictures of female bodybuilders/weightlifters – Pudgy Stockton is probably the most famous – from around the same time posing on Muscle Beach, and they’re body language is completely the opposite. Strong, confident and happy. If anything, it makes an even clearer contrast than the Men-ups.

  5. Pingback: Links: Gender Bending Art Projects, Fitness Deserts, and Self-Care. «

  7. I actually didn’t find the film too compelling. A held pose always looks ridiculous in real motion. The one you point out at 2:45 is effective though, since it really does provoke the “are you ok” thing. The others seemed too unreal in the same way a human statue is unreal. I get what she was going for, but I think the Men pin up one is more effective.

  8. I also think the film is a little…empty. I mean, of course if you take the poses out of the context of a fashion shoot and just have people on the street striking them, it’s going to look odd. The same would be true for *any* kind of picture. Think of how you pose for, say, a school picture – back straight, shoulders back, pleasant but vacant smile, looking straight ahead. If you saw someone sitting and smiling like that at a bus stop, wouldn’t that look odd too?

    I don’t know…maybe I’m missing the depth here but…eh.

  9. I think the whole point of the movie is to show how impossible the poses are for a real human body. It also underlines the difference between real women and models in term of bodies.

    Men-ups are so, so cool. I totally want a calendar, way better than naked rugbymen.

  10. Nice try, Stubborn, but the photographer by and large chose good-looking men who have bodies worth showing off, as well. And yet, it’s still ridiculous. Because the submissiveness of the poses is something we’re not used to seeing in men.

    It’s interesting, though—men are hit with images of women acting really abnormal to be sexually arousing. You can’t just unlearn what turns you on. Critiques like this are helpful intellectually, but how do we get to a point where there’s more fairness in the amount of effort expected of men and women to be attractive and sexually arousing?

  11. Yeah, I don’t really get the video. Any pose held at length on a public walkway with no cameras around is going to look weird, even if its a hot model doing it. I’m not entirely clear what the point of it is. I suspect that even in fancy photoshoots, the models don’t stand in one of those weird poses for so long at a time. Don’t they move around while the cameraman takes lots of photos and then choose which pose they like later?

  12. Could it be that photographers back in the day–and right now, frankly–portrayed “sexy” with coy, nonthreatening, ultrafeminine poses? No way, right?”

    Obviously and how would you have done it?

    It doesn’t really matter how you would have done it or how you would like to see it done the end users of this material are men and they will drive the market for this stuff. So you need to change their ideas if you want “sexy” to be portrayed in another way.

    You might think photographs/films like those above are persuasive, but they offer no alternative form for “sexy” to take.

  13. Ok, so once again, pointing out sexism aimed at women is totes *oppressive* to da menz. Colour me shocked.

    NO ONE behaves in this way instinctively. It’s fucking learned behaviour. Maybe there are fem/me men out there who do copy that type of ridiculous posturing because as a society we’re taught that that’s what constitutes Sexy, Desirable Feminine Behaviour. And discussing that is probably a valid topic.

    But just because something is does NOT mean that that that is the way it “should” be. The fact that some fem/me men may behave in this way does not make those poses any less stupid. Maybe we need to find a way of expressing feminine/femme sexiness that doesn’t involve ludicrous contortions and vacuous facial expressions?

  14. I get your point, and the message behind these sorts of projects are always ultimately in the eye of the beholder. To me, the pictures aren’t ultimately saying “look at these men posing like women, how ridiculous and not-at-all sexy”, or trying to shame and ridicule people who do find it sexy, rather i see it as highlighting that these sort poses are a ‘performance’ and very much staged.

    To me they highlight that femininity and mainstream heterosexual ideals of feminine sexuality are not ‘natural’ to women, yet we are so used to seeing women posed that way we almost believe it is natural, so it is jarring to see men posed in the same manner because it flips the ‘sexy’ narrative we’ve been barraged with our whole lives. They demonstrate that men can perform femininity too and that ideas of gender are just that, a performance.

    Anyway, that’s my 2 cents!

  15. ]I don’t think this was done with the aim of ridicule. I thought that the poses may look ridiculous on men because we have such a gendered and essentialist view of sex/sexuality (and leave the objectification in a broad cultural context to the role of women). I thought this was to get us to realize that this is part of our cultural conditioning, and question why we insist on cramming women and men into these roles.

    I mean (huge tangent here, if it derails please feel free to pull it) I refused to learn any traditionally “feminine” things for a long time not because I was brainwashed by feminism like your Titus 2 fundie would have people believe, but because everyone and everything geared my life towards doing that. It pissed me off. Problem was, I didn’t like traditionally “male” things either. So all this essentialist bullshit and fetishization of women did was alienate the everloving fuck out of me.

    When I had my old blog, I was toying with creating a cartoon cat for it. A few guys didn’t like what someone came up with (think snarling feral cat with its hackles up) because it wasn’t sexy. They couldn’t get why I was not going for it and I finally kind of blew up. FFS, I said, can I be free of this bullshit on my own feminist blog? Are you dudes under pressure to be sexy? NO–you’re dudes, you just have to opine and people listen. Kos doesn’t have to do that shit, Atrois doesn’t have to do it. Fuck that noise. But it was almost expected by even my supposedly enlightened guy friends that I would/should present myself as sexy. I wanted the opposite image, because I resented the hell out of the unspoken requirement of women to be attractive.

    So I think projects like this are good–if people open their minds to it, they can see how pushing everyone into these boxes is stifling and alienating, and maybe question the sexism and essentialism of the larger culture that does this.

  16. You know, I actually think the picture of the guy and the bike is kind of sexy. In real life, if I encounter a guy who behaves in ways society labels as “feminine” I usually find this to be a turn on. Why? Because it’s relatively rare. We’re all taught from little onward to conform to the appropriate pink and blue boxes. Being a person who transgresses those boundaries myself, I find those people who actively pushes those boundaries to be interesting… and comforting. This is the same reason why I find androgynous people to be sexy and “masculine” women to be sexy.

    Quite frankly, I’d rather live in a culture that didn’t find images such as the pin-up guys to be all that unusual. I’d love to see the pink and blue boxes dissolve into a many-hued spectrum of being.

    Nevertheless, I do get the message of the both the pin-up guys and the video. They both do a good job of illustrating how gendered images we take for granted seem unnatural when placed into other contexts. I just wish, in the case of the pin-up guys, that such images didn’t seem that odd, just as I wish masculine imagery for women didn’t seem odd.

  17. They demonstrate that men can perform femininity too and that ideas of gender are just that, a performance.

    Bingo. This is about highlighting the forced, practiced PERFORMANCE that is mistaken for female sexuality, femininity, etc.

    When the genders are swapped, it simply highlights this fact better, since they’re not the sex class and we’re not used to seeing them portrayed like this.

    Its not about ridicule, but about pointing out how this is learned behavior being performed.

  18. Nevertheless, I do get the message of the both the pin-up guys and the video. They both do a good job of illustrating how gendered images we take for granted seem unnatural when placed into other contexts. I just wish, in the case of the pin-up guys, that such images didn’t seem that odd, just as I wish masculine imagery for women didn’t seem odd.

    Hear, hear!

  19. Rare Vos: Its not about ridicule, but about pointing out how this is learned behavior being performed.

    But to what effect? Do you think this demonstration is going to change the perception of the average male? They like photos of women performing like this which is not surprising since they have been trained to.

  21. I read the Men Up calendar as critiquing the “performance” aspect, as well. (Which, clearly the film is also doing, I just think it isn’t as effective at it.)

  22. Léna:
    I think the whole point of the movie is to show how impossible the poses are for a real human body. It also underlines the difference between real women and models in term of bodies.

    Men-ups are so, so cool. I totally want a calendar, way better than naked rugbymen.

    Can we stop saying models aren’t “real women”? I don’t disagree with your point but the language of it really bothers me.

  23. More broadly, I think the pin-ups and the video hint at how nearly all gendered behavior is performative in nature. We are inculcated into such performances from such an early age that actions which were once in the range of performance become everyday habits that get incorporated into our very sense of being. However, in children, we don’t think of this as “performance.” We call it “play” and nod our heads in approval as little boys play with trucks and guns and little girls play with dolls and makeup.

    Now, I expect gender essentialists of varied stripes to chime in and say, “Oh, but such behaviors are totally natural and we have the science to prove it.” To this, I say, really? How can you be so sure? Have you taken a tour of the local Toys R Us lately? Have you been to a baby shower lately? The life-script starts so early and permeates our culture in ways that most people don’t even recognize (including scientists)… because that which is performance is not seen as a cultural creation, but rather, is seen to be as natural as the setting sun. Oddly, those who march to their own drum beat and violate these cultural notions of being are the ones who are called out as “unnatural.” Perhaps this is a form of projection?

  24. I originally saw Dominguez’s work as still photos, which I think is more effective in doing a straight-up comparison with the magazine photos while still capturing the response that these poses got in real life. It does show the total unreality of fashion photos, and how what is sexy is not just performative, but totally dependent on context. What is hot in a magazine is just weird on the street–there’s nothing natural or given or universal about these norms.

  25. Alison:
    I also think the film is a little…empty. I mean, of course if you take the poses out of the context of a fashion shoot and just have people on the street striking them, it’s going to look odd. The same would be true for *any* kind of picture. Think of how you pose for, say, a school picture – back straight, shoulders back, pleasant but vacant smile, looking straight ahead. If you saw someone sitting and smiling like that at a bus stop, wouldn’t that look odd too?

    I don’t know…maybe I’m missing the depth here but…eh.

    Well, I live in an area that is constantly used for photo shoots, and I have just walked around the corner and seen women in VERY similar poses in a public area, only to look across the street to see a photographer with some sort of professional looking set up, sometimes a whole crew. However, these women tend to ‘look like models’ i.e. heavily made up, dressed inappropriately for the weather, 6 ft tall, and stick thin, and I never think ‘I wonder why she’s there in that silly pose’ (though I sometimes think ‘I really hope this is an public service ad for anorexia awareness.) Hence, no one ever thinks “oh my god that woman is leaning against a wall in an apparent stupor wearing a wool sweater as a dress in the middle of July, I should find out if she needs medical or mental health attention”
    What I thought was interesting about this piece is that the ‘model’ is what Precious Ramotswe would call ‘traditionally built’, and therefore, people assumed she was ill or mentally ill, rather than just looking around for the camera.

  26. brokenlol: Can we stop saying models aren’t “real women”? I don’t disagree with your point but the language of it really bothers me.

    Models may have unusual bodies, or bodies which are subjected to unhealthy conditions in order to maintain a certain appearance, but they are real women. If you’re referring to photographs, however, I think it’s fair to contrast them with real bodies and real women, because the photographs are almost universally retouched, sometimes quite drastically, such that *models* don’t even have those bodies.

  27. Fat Steve: (though I sometimes think ‘I really hope this is an public service ad for anorexia awareness.)

    Hm. That was unnecessary. FYI not every skinny person is an anorectic.

    Of course, for those of us – yes, “us”, as in “including me” – who are, it sure is fun to feel like a walking warning sign, with people openly gawking at you and pointing and whispering. Because that’s precisely what happens to me nearly every damn time I go outside. So using your wording, I guess my own body is a “public service ad for anorexia awareness”, whether I like it or not. So just as an FYI, making a joke about something that actually happens to people – people who are already extremely stressed and anxiety-ridden and in ill health – isn’t all that funny.

    And before anyone says “thin privilege!!!!” – fucking believe me when I tell you that shit disappears once you get to be what others consider “too thin”.

    Anyway. Derail over.

  28. Alison: Hm. That was unnecessary. FYI not every skinny person is an anorectic.

    Of course, for those of us – yes, “us”, as in “including me” – who are, it sure is fun to feel like a walking warning sign, with people openly gawking at you and pointing and whispering. Because that’s precisely what happens to me nearly every damn time I go outside. So using your wording, I guess my own body is a “public service ad for anorexia awareness”, whether I like it or not. So just as an FYI, making a joke about something that actually happens to people – people who are already extremely stressed and anxiety-ridden and in ill health – isn’t all that funny.

    And before anyone says “thin privilege!!!!” – fucking believe me when I tell you that shit disappears once you get to be what others consider “too thin”.

    Anyway. Derail over.

    Alison, i apologize if i gave the impression I think all skinny women look anorexic. Reading it back I realize that my ‘sometimes’ was a weak qualifier. I was merely talking about the shoots where the model looks as if she’s passed out due to malutrition.

    Anyway: mansplain over

  29. I checked out the whole calendar and I really didn’t get the vibe that the images were ridiculing femme guys. The humour strikes me as playful (see: the guy posed suggestively with a baseball bat and balls) rather than scathing, and there seems to be a sincere attempt at encouraging the viewer to see the models as legit sexy in these feminized poses. In other words, you’re encouraged to chuckle at the trend the set is referencing, not at the men pictured.

    Obviously, response is completely subjective, but that was my reaction.

  30. My reaction to the men wasn’t that they looked ridiculous, but that they looked markedly outside the norm. The poses coded them as both feminine and submissive (in a culture where there is very little space to those two not to overlap). Of course some folks are going to find that hot — basically, folks who like androgynous or gender nonconforming cis men are likely to think those pics are hot, because the poses themselves code the men as gender nonconforming, though their styling and clothing and the props themselves don’t have any hint of that.

    We also rarely see cis men presented as submissive and masculine (Male Submission Art being a notable exception, but as its founder Maymay often says, “when I search for pictures of men being submissive I find pictures of women being dominant). And it’s not all that often we see cis women presented as dominant, and then usually the social impact of that is undercut as far as possible with the tropes of a whore/madonna sexuality, either garishly femme and available or garishly femme and unavailable. We rarely see trans, GQ or IS folks presented at all, unless it’s as fetish objects, pity objects, or ridicule objects.

    So basically, almost all the representations we see of people that focus attention on sexuality reflect the dominant narrative. If we take the poses that are used to do that for one demographic and use it for another, it will look odd. Not, to my mind, ridiculous, but markedly outside the norm.

    The big problem is having a culture where the same ways of presenting people over and over entrench really narrow stories about what “normal” is and leave everything else — every other set of presentations, every other type of bodies, every other way of being — as the abnormal other. I’m not suggesting substituting one set of hegemonic norms for another, but I don’t really know how to take a sponge to the slate and have us all represented as we are.

  31. Bike boy would be cuter if he were clean shaven.
    I love the Man-Ups. I’m a child of 80s androgyny, what can I say.

    But yes, they are all very clearly a performance. But then again, pin ups were all very clearly a form of performance as well. I knew that from the first time I saw one. I got into the position, made the face and cracked my ten-year-old self right up.

    The model movie, meh. Of course model poses are ridiculous. That’s why they’re paid good money to freeze outdoors at 5 AM in summer frocks and hold their purses to their foreheads.

  32. I find this kind of project (when done with the aim of ridicule: “See? See how ridiculous it is when men pose like that?”) really erasing to fem/me men and those who find them attractive.

    Because femme men often strike pinup poses out on the street.

    Part of this whole project is to point out how ridiculous the poses are for human beings, and that the idea of this kind of submissive, contorted pose being sexy is a highly, highly gendered one.

  33. But to what effect? Do you think this demonstration is going to change the perception of the average male? They like photos of women performing like this which is not surprising since they have been trained to.

    Is this a “just accept it” argument?

    Since there’s a great big contingent of “average males” who are hostile to feminism, do you ask “But to what effect?” about feminism?

  34. regarding the ‘men-up- calendar to my eye, only mr may and particularly mr november are posed correctly. the others are not posed correctly, posing is an art, so they look odd. for example mr june’s left foot should be arched and toes pointed to the ceiling. his right leg slightly higher too

    the poses and facial expressions are simply not professional grade – and untrained women would look similarly odd.

  35. Count me as one of the women to whom these photographs are unbelievably sexy.

    When I first saw these, I was with a group of people, and I was hurt by the laughing and joking that took place. The reception of these photographs can indeed close off femme men and people who love femme men.

    Yet I do think there’s a way in which these photographs can be understood to both play with the “unnaturalness” of femininity as it has been written onto the bodies of women and play with the attractiveness of that “unnatural” femininity. (Unnatural isn’t quite the right word, though — maybe de-essentialized?) I’m afraid that might be my ladyboner talking, though.

  36. jameseq:
    regarding the ‘men-up- calendar to my eye, only mr may and particularly mr november are posed correctly. the others are not posed correctly, posing is an art, so they look odd. for example mr june’s left foot should be arched and toes pointed to the ceiling. his right leg slightly higher too

    the poses and facial expressions are simply not professional grade – and untrained women would look similarly odd.

    I totally agree with this comment. I know that we’re supposed to view these images as ridiculous and silly (and I agree that some of them are) but I really think a handful of the men in this shoot look legitimately sexy in their pose – I mean seriously, just look at Mr. November. The ones that do look goofy have over the top facial expressions that wouldn’t look sexy regardless of the gender of the model.

    I get the point they’re trying to make about culturally-learned performance, but these poses don’t necessarily seem so contortionist or odd to me – sitting on your knees with your back arched shows off the shape of your ass, I don’t think it’s such a stretch to see why that would be a sexually alluring pose. I think the men in the calender would look very sexy in that pose if A) they were actually doing the pose well B) they were naked and C) they didn’t have an over-exaggerated facial expression. I guess the point I’m making is that I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with sexual performance and I wish it was more acceptable for men to do it and do it well. The assumption that everyone must find these photos ridiculous totally overlooks the fact that straight women and gay men may actually like to see a man showing off the shape of his body.

  37. After ignoring the use of the word “objectification” in this article, I found the article, particularly the linked picture with Batman in drag, to be rather thought provoking. I now wonder how different things would have turned comic wise if wonder woman and friends dressed more like well, actual superheros.

    However, before ignoring the word “objectification”, I noticed that you were not using that word in the objective sense of the word but a subjective neochristian double speak guilt word sense of the term, where the term really means that if one enjoys sexualized images of the gender they’re attracted to, they’re evil and need to be fixed. I then went bonkers for a bit shouting stuff like “HELL NO! I WILL NOT FEEL BAD FOR BEING ATTRACTED TO WOMEN! NEVER AGAIN, DAMMIT!”

    Just posting my experience viewing this article.

  38. I hear where you’re coming from, and I”ve certainly seen projects that aim to disrupt gender norms and come off with mockery at anyone embodying femme/femininity, and I can see how a project like this *could* be mocking. However, (and I should add the caveat that I’m not a femme man) I also read these photos as both playful, and as pointing out how infrequently men are seen as passive subjects rather than actors. Further, I saw the men as playfully taking on poses that could be seen as emasculating, but exhibiting neither shame or mocking defiance of those poses. I’m not sure, however, why your comment seems to be drawing criticism; I think it’s a concern worth considering.

  39. brokenlol: Can we stop saying models aren’t “real women”? I don’t disagree with your point but the language of it really bothers me.

    Sorry, I should have said “pictures of models”, which is what I really think. (because of all the photoshop disasters). Models have “real bodys” and there thinness doesn’t make them less “real women” then any other women.

  40. I’m with Sophia and jamesesq above, about the flaws in the male models’ performances.

    I took a few moments to work out what exactly seemed “off” compared to the 50s pin-ups I’ve seen, and a lot of it comes down to the facial expression. (Here I differ from Sophia, who criticises the exaggerated expressions: I would argue that the key difference between them and the pin-ups they’re based on is that the men aren’t exaggerated enough in their expressions!)

    The women in those pin-ups always struck me as being (excessively) surprised by something (that was presumed to be of a sexual and/or pleasurable nature) and that “innocence on the verge of becoming sexual” strikes me as one of the key elements of the pin-up fetish. Now, there’s a huge amount of social analysis that could be discussed about exactly why such a fetish would be so big, but that strikes me as a different topic. (I’m thinking virginity/ownership stuff, but that’s just for starters). It could be noted that sometimes the expression in pin-up images appears to be more, “Oops! Naughty me!” – signifying the slut who plays innocent (e.g. the fantasy of a girl who “accidentally” drops her pen while wearing a short skirt, to have an excuse to flash her knickers at the boys).

    The men in the Men-Up images seem to have copied the facial muscle movements, but not the emotional expression. The results don’t look like surprised innocents discovering their first glimpse of sexual pleasure (or “naughty” boys “accidentally” getting themselves into “trouble”); they just look like someone saying “ooh” for no reason.

    With better acting, I think all the images would look very hot.

  41. Batman and Superman may not be able to pull off that look, but I don’t see anything wrong with Dream in a Speedo. Though I don’t think he’s that built in any of the Sandman comics.

  42. the attitude that men posing in traditionally feminine ways are unsexy (and this interpretation of the project, and projects like the superhero one) erases them.

    So you’re not willing to interrogate, at all, why blatantly contorted and submissive poses are considered “traditionally feminine” because you think that erases men who like to perform “traditional feminine” poses like this?

    Oooookay.

  43. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that feminine poses happen to be the ones that are the most passive and the least conducive to balance, action, or physical strength. Femininity just naturally means weakness, submission, and ditzy surprise.

  44. As a queer guy who draws on both femininity and masculinity within my gender, I’ve got to say I don’t experience either of them as particularly natural or unnatural. I mean, maybe it’s the gender studies talking, but it’s just not really that meaningful to say that something is natural or not in regards to gender.

    Look, I totally find a lot of the images above sexy. In part, that’s actually regardless of the femininity being performed, it’s because I enjoy the playfulness and intelligence and even the ridiculousness of them. Not because femininity is ridiculous but because ridiculousness can be a really interesting part of gender play. And I think the images for me decouple femininity and women to an extent, as well (and some people will probs read them very differently on this point) decoupling masculinity from men. In part the second point works for me because I find the images sexy; in part it is because along side the feminine posing there are this set of stereotypically masculine totems (the bike, the shovel, the power tools).

    I don’t think this discussion is going to go in depth on how masculinity is also constructed and performative, because the post is about femininity. Yes, it’s fucked to think that only femininity is performative, but also, discussions about the performative nature of femininity are going to be about the performative nature of femininity and not all gender.

  45. zuzu:

    Reading the interview, I’m uncertain. But that’s how it’s being presented across the internet.

    This seems a really off critique, because I think the internet is heterogenous, and a lot of the audiences and communities I’m part of have definitely been sharing this images on a celebratory basis rather than a femmephobic one (and I encountered them before I saw them here in that spirit). Queer audiences exist as well is what I’m saying? And are part of the internet? And it sucks that people are presenting them in really shitty and problematic ways but that isn’t the totally of either the images or the internet itself.

    igglanova: I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that feminine poses happen to be the ones that are the most passive and the least conducive to balance, action, or physical strength. Femininity just naturally means weakness, submission, and ditzy surprise.

    This isn’t really the case with the Men Ups poses though, several of which require a fairly substantial amount of strength to be maintained. I mean, I think you might have a case that they’re not necessarily designed to show off that strength in the way that the say, guy-pushing-himself-out of-the-pool-while-dripping-wet-pose is, but I think part of the interest of these images for me is the way in which they are in their own way quite athletic.

  46. Well for me the disconcerting and cool thing about the Men-Ups is that the poses are high-femme but the clothing and the facial hair of the men is not traditionally femme at all. I wonder what that kind of juxtaposition would look like witj women as models. And yes, the comments dismissing things associated with being femme as unnatural really do hurt. As a queer femme woman I have had my sexuality questioned, I have had people avoid speaking to me directly, and I have had people question my activism because I was too femme for their confort. I’m not remotely high femme. I have long hair, and I typically wear form- fitting clothing in black or bright colors with earrings, powder foundation, lipstick, and flats, boots, sandals, or running shoes. And yeah, my mannerisms are femme, but that doesn’t make me less of a person or mean that people can assume my opinion is less important or educated. I know being femme is performative, but it is also innate characteristics. I’m really sick of the femme phobia, and yes this hit a nerve, even if that wasn’t intentional.

  47. \All I am saying is that there are men out there whose genders involve happily performing femininity, and there are people who are attracted to them, and the attitude that men posing in traditionally feminine ways are unsexy (and this interpretation of the project, and projects like the superhero one) erases them.

    I don’t agree that these poses are ‘traditionally feminine’. Traditionally pinups were shot and staged by men, so this is more of a retrograde man’s idea of what feminine is, and I think the piece does well to highlight that. However if a man or a woman takes the pictures at face value and fins them sexy/erotic, well that’s great for them too! Why can’t we all have our own take on things and peacefully coexist?

  48. I just believe that ridicule and “analysis” that is really just criticism of femininity as femininity is femmephobia, and that femmephobia is misogyny in disguise.

    Ridicule is sometimes necessary to convey a point clearly. For example, the point that contorted, hyperfeminine pinup poses look pretty damn silly when you put non-femme men in them. And why do you think ridicule isn’t a valid critique?

    I really don’t think it’s valid to try to cut off discussion of the toxicity of compulsory femininity and the kind of distorted, contorted images pushed as “feminine” (and which you’re defending as “traditionally feminine”) by using a “what about the menz” argument.

    Yes, men who perform femininity experience femmephobia. But why are these poses considered “feminine” to begin with? Why are women *expected* to perform this kind of femininity, with contorted backs, wide-eyed surprise, and vulnerable, submissive postures? Why are men who perform femininity choosing *these* types of representations of femininity to perform? Why choose a caricatured, male-driven view of femininity rather than a realistic, female-driven one?

  49. Well yes, these kinds of poses require a lot of strength to hold, but that’s because they’re so unstable that the model is in danger of falling over. The point I’m making is that these poses make one vulnerable, not braced for action or even able to defend oneself.

    That’s not a blanket slam on sexy posing, though. It has its place, although I can’t ever see a decent reason to pull that cheesecake surprised child expression. The point is to question why vulnerability / submissiveness is just accepted as feminine, while strength and prowess are just ‘naturally’ masculine.

  50. zuzu: Why are men who perform femininity choosing *these* types of representations of femininity to perform? Why choose a caricatured, male-driven view of femininity rather than a realistic, female-driven one?

    Wait, what? Didn’t you just get finished saying that femme men didn’t strike pin-up poses on the street? Now they are choosing charicatured femininity?

    Also, guess what? (There’s a clue in the ‘men’ part of ‘femme men’). The femininity of femme men isn’t about trying to be like women, so the “female-driven” and “male-driven” femininity dichotomy? It is not really that appropriate. What does that even mean anyway? Did female people take a vote as to what they decided femininity actually should look like? What is “realistic” femininity? How do you determine realistic gender from charicatured gender? Is it still charicatured if femme women perform it, or is it only charicatured if it’s adopted by femme men? Does this mean that femininity is more realistic when performed by women? I have so many questions!

  51. Also, in what sense are you using “male-driven” and “female-driven”? Are you using these to refer to people’s sex characteristics or as synonyms for men and women?

  52. How nice to know that as a feminine woman, I’m supposed to find this project erasing and terrible, and that I’m somehow part of the problem in saying that the larger misogynist culture that requires sexiness and submission is fucked up. I don’t think that these poses are particularly natural (yes, even as a femme woman), which is part of the point.

    But, you know, whatever. I guess erasure only goes one way.

  54. No, acting like men who act, dress or pose in a feminine fashion are ridiculous is femmephobic. There’s a difference.

    Pointing out that poses that are coded as “feminine” “sexy” and “submissive” are seen as strange when performed by men (but that no one bats an eyelash when they are performed by women, or at the cultural requirement that they be performed by women), and that the cultural imposition of this vision of femininity and requirement of sexiness is fucked up and alienating isn’t saying that femme men are ridiculous.

    You can go around that circle yourself. As a very femme woman, I didn’t find this femmephobic at all.

  55. That bit where people see it as strange? That is femmephobia. There is nothing “strange” about a feminine man.

    Ok, but there’s a difference between saying “Haha feminine men, weird!” and recognizing that broader society finds feminine men strange, right? I mean, feminine men aren’t “strange” in the sense that there’s something wrong with them, but they are at least unusual in the sense that, numbers-wise, there are fewer of them in popular culture than traditionally masculine men. I totally agree that laughing at these images isn’t a good reaction, but I don’t know that it’s femme-phobic to point out that feminine posturing looks strange (as in usual and uncommon and confusing, since it’s not how we’re used to seeing this kind of imagery) when men do it.

  56. I’m not stopping you from disagreeing, I’m disagreeing with you.

    It’s not femmephobia to point out through an art exhibit that the cultural imposition of submissiveness and coyness and coding it as “feminine” is seen as strange is the point. Not that femme men are strange, but that we have fucked up cultural expectations of performance to react to the images that way.

    As a femme woman, I do think that most supposedly sexy poses female models are very dehumanizing, because it does turn into an expectation that we must be sexy and pretty and femme no matter what. An expectation that men do not have to live up to. That’s not femmephobia, that’s me finding it stifiling and more than a bit bullying to have every goddamn magazine and picture of women feature that, to have “feminine” (and in cis het circles, “woman”) to be default representative of sex, and for erswhile allies to wonder why I/other women don’t depict ourselves as sexy or be proud of our sexiness when they don’t have these expectations.

    So I see this exhibit as actually quite useful. Because when people react negatively to those pictures or think they look ridiculous, I ask them why no one sees it as ridiculous or strange when women are posed that way. Why it is that even questioning that gets one scolded for being anti-feminine and not willing to embrace her sexuality (instead of questioning why men aren’t required to do these things). Why it is ridiculous and strange for men to pose that way, and why they think it’s somehow laughable. I mean, if it’s fair game for women to do this and be sexy, why not men?

  57. My first impression of these image wasn’t, “Hey, men posed like stereotypical women poses!” … it was, “Hey, a bunch of femme men in a calendar!”

    I understand there’s a layer of critique in these images, like, “see how these poses are so gendered and normalized for women that it can make you do a double take when a different gender does them.”

    But I also think there’s a layer of, “these men in femme positions look cheeky and sexy too”. Because in my case I don’t think they look weird or silly or whatever, I think they look playful and gorgeous and great.

    I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing a double-take at imagery like this, because it’s so under-represented (and it’s the under-representation that’s wrong). I do the same double-take when I see images of queer people of color in hot poses, because it’s so much less common than seeing white queers represented in sexy imagery…even though I am technically a queer of color.

    But if you (and by “you” I don’t mean anyone in particular) think these photos made you realize how stupid and funny looking femme positions “actually” are, would you start to laugh at femme women then? Would women in conventionally masculine positions make you call them silly? I suspect not…and I suspect it’s because we’re seeing femme as being less valid or serious, or more performed, than conventional masculinity. Which I daresay is just one of many threads that cause some radical communities to fetishize trans men while oppressing trans women.

    I guess my stance is that I think they look awesome and I wouldn’t want to hurt any femme’s feelings, male or female, by suggesting they look silly.

  58. I’m trying to think up a new slogan for the movement.

    Feminism: What about the men?
    Feminism: Never hurting anyone’s feelings. Ever.
    Feminism: Always nice, never challenging.

    I’m struggling a little.

  59. How about a slogan for this discussion specifically?

    Pictures of men: Probably at least a little bit about the men.
    Discussions of femininity: Not always just about the heterosexist and cissexist analyses.

    Look, Florence, I always appreciate a good bit of sarcasm, but in this case, kind of missing the complexity of the issues here. Certainly missing queer feminist and queer theorist perspectives.

  60. We can’t talk about how this series both calls into question femme expectations and punishment on cis, het women and how it also frames femme expression in men without someone having a meltdown and claiming erasure. Both/and. Complexity is cool. Absolutism sucks.

    So yeah, I’m feeling a little sarcastic. I like it when you scold me, too.

  61. Woo! We have agreement. Both/and it is. (and, just as a note, I was being totally sincere about appreciating the sarcasm. apparently mentioning sarcasm doomed that line to be read as sarcastic in some kind of horrific sarcasm paradox [is he being sarcastic about liking sarcasm?].)

    And on that note:

    saurus: I suspect not…and I suspect it’s because we’re seeing femme as being less valid or serious, or more performed, than conventional masculinity.

    So, I kind of see this as being a really important nexus point when looking at feminities. Because the idea that femme is unreal or performative in a way that masculinity is not is strongly attached to the conflation of femininity and womanhood. And we see those conflations really heavily when visibly performative masculinities like ye olde Metrosexuality get coded as feminine only because of their visibly performative nature rather than because the gender being performed is particularly femme, and the kind of immediate criticism that therefore comes out that metrosexuals are womanly and kinda gay (probs not helped by the role of Queer Eye For The Straight Guy in propagating metresexuality? The intersections, they are many).

    And I’m pretty sure everyone here gets what the impact on cis women is of this kind of thing, which is that cis women are viewed as either vapid and shallow for being feminine or not real women (not-that-women-are-real-anyway-because-femininity-is-performative-ha-catch-22-forever) for not being feminine.

    I have more thoughts, but they’re still formulating.

  62. Jill:
    I don’t know that it’s femme-phobic to point out that feminine posturing looks strange (as in usual and uncommon and confusing, since it’s not how we’re used to seeing this kind of imagery) when men do it.

    I’m pretty used to seeing men pose in “feminine” ways. I can’t speak for others on this thread, but it seems likely I’m the only one here. It would make sense that you and I have different experiences in this area, given that I’m a queer man and you’re (afaik) a straight woman; this is intended as an observation, not a call-out or criticism. But perhaps this difference in experiences and perspectives is part of why folks are reading these images differently?

  63. It also feels like we’re hitting the rocks of “norm” vs “normal” vs “normative” in all this, although that may be a misreading on my part.

  64. Yolanda Dominguez’s video reminded me of the Spanish film Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes), in which Penélope Cruz says she’s a “mime.” But instead of the kinetic style of miming familiar in the US, she wore a clown suit and whiteface, and struck a pose in the park, and held it all day. Rain or shine. I guess it’s a Southern European style of mime, because I think it’s done in Italy like that.

    So this video, made in Spain, is perhaps not entirely devoid of a certain cultural context.

  65. suspect class:

    I’m pretty used to seeing men pose in “feminine” ways. I can’t speak for others on this thread, but it seems likely I’m the only one here.

    Nah, you’re not.

  66. Hypatia: So this video, made in Spain, is perhaps not entirely devoid of a certain cultural context.

    Ahh, very possible. I have a friend who does “living statue” and that sounds closer to the other version of “mime”.

  67. I disagree. It’s butch-phobic to point out that it’s “strange” when female people present in a masculine fashion. It’s femme-phobic to say it’s “strange” when male people wear makeup. It’s misogynistic to say it’s “strange” when female people work in male driven industries. All of these things are outside the norm, but calling them “strange” or “weird” is engaging in discriminatory behavior.

    No, no it’s not. It is if I’m coding “strange” as a value judgement, but if I’m merely pointing out my own cognitive dissonance, that is valid. I am permitted to talk about my own lived experiences. And given that these specific poses are poses I make and poses people EXPECT me to make, I think it’s really relevant to my life to have these kind of photos to expose my underlying biases and assumptions.

    And, I mean, sure, SOME people who buck the normative do it because they want to, but others do it specifically to evoke or publicly question the performance of gender and normativity. And the latter WANT to be called strange and looked at because they are protesting.

  68. When I first looked at the photos of the men I initially thought in my mind that they were feminine men, I did not see anything deeper than this. Looking through the pictures of them in suggestive poses made me both laugh and just think that they were happy, feminine men that took a photo shoot. After rereading the description and looking at the photos again I then saw the critical point that these photos were trying to make. While taking a second look at the photos I realized the criticism they were making towards the media and its center around women and sexuality I felt very differently about the photos and felt a much stronger connection to what they were trying to portray. The idea that these men in these poses looked so funny made me question why it is then normal for women to dress this way. The different standards held to women and men in the way the act and the way they are perceived are shown in these photos of these men.
    The video at first confused me and I did not understand why there were so many different looking women and what they were trying to do. When the women is laying on the ground and people go up and help her this shows that they automatically assumed from her appearance and stance as a women that she was alone, helpless, and in need of a hero. The women laying down and all of the women in these strange poses shows how odd it is that women do such outrageous poses for the media and how none them would be found in real life. The fact that the people cannot tell the women are models also shows off the refined image in people’s minds of what a model looks like and how if she does not fit the 18 inch waist and 6 foot tall build she is not a model. This idea along with the idea that a women must be helped if she is on the ground because if a women is on the ground she must be in distress all leads back to the way women are thought of in society.

  69. I disagree. It’s butch-phobic to point out that it’s “strange” when female people present in a masculine fashion. It’s femme-phobic to say it’s “strange” when male people wear makeup. It’s misogynistic to say it’s “strange” when female people work in male driven industries. All of these things are outside the norm, but calling them “strange” or “weird” is engaging in discriminatory behaviour.

    I agree that strange and weird definitely have judgment attached to them, and it’s unfair and societally harmful. In this case, though, judging from the Jezebel interview with Rion Sabean, I think he was going for striking or unexpected, and I do see that–it’s a juxtaposition that many people aren’t used to seeing, and it’s that disconnect that’s meant to shake up those people’s brains up and make them reconsider their view of stereotypical expectations for masculinity and femininity. Of course, that doesn’t make the comments calling the men ridiculous any less hurtful or phobic.

    When I look at those poses, I think unnatural not because “men shouldn’t look like that” but because I’ve never seen anyone–male or female, butch or femme–pause mid-repair job to perch on their toolbox and wave their power drill, or to put down their shovel and do a shoulder stand. Neither of those actions would, by most reckonings, be considered natural, but for some reason when we see pin-up girls in similar poses we don’t question it. In that respect, I think we can see the poses as unnatural, and see the arbitrarily imposed gender standards unnatural, without passing judgment on the men themselves.

  70. I’m still waiting for zuzu to answer this:

    “What is “realistic” femininity? How do you determine realistic gender from charicatured gender? Is it still charicatured if femme women perform it, or is it only charicatured if it’s adopted by femme men? Does this mean that femininity is more realistic when performed by women? I have so many questions!”

    And add one of my own. How would “realistic” femininity differ from “realistic” masculinity? If you, as an artist, could pose a shot, and then have all physical references to biological sex erased or somehow masked, how would a shoot or depiction of “realistic” femininity differ from “realistic” masculinity?

  71. Myshkin: “What is “realistic” femininity? How do you determine realistic gender from charicatured gender? Is it still charicatured if femme women perform it, or is it only charicatured if it’s adopted by femme men? Does this mean that femininity is more realistic when performed by women? I have so many questions!”

    Realistic femininity does not involve doing shoulder stands or looking childishly/cartoonishly surprised while splitting logs or what have you.

    You *do* understand that pin-ups were created by men for the consumption of men and involved a caricatured, contorted, exaggerated, hyperfeminine version of femininity, right?

  72. I think poses takes the whole “play on modeling” a little too far. Of course people are going to think that an average woman standing in the middle of a crowded city is strange. A woman posing in the middle of the sidewalk is out of place and people simply she her as crazy rather than someone trying to make a point. With this being said the video does bring up a good point about how beauty is created by the media through these so called “perfect” women and their creative, body emphasizing poses. An average women standing in the park is not going to turn heads but a photoshopped supermodel sure would.
    The media has created ideals of what a beautiful person is supposed to look like. Magazines, billboards, and many other advertisements are filled with stereotypical people that are supposed to represent beauty. Society has let the media be the decider. The same can be said about the Man-ups. Most people find them funny or strange because a man is being placed in a so called female pose. Stereotypes and social scripts have taught society how to think. A man in tight, revealing clothing is either seen as weird or funny because it is not what people are used to. When we think of a male model we think of a strong guy in loose fitting clothes with a nice body and when we think of a woman model we think of a skinny, large breasted, woman in small, tight clothing. When these ideals are flipped it totally throws people perceptions off. We have become so accustomed to the strong male, beautiful female scripts that when something different is thrown in, people cannot accept it as “normal”. Instead, they laugh at it or think it is strange.

  73. I agree with Zuzu. The image of femininity is something that has been socially constructed mainly by men. The pictures are just basic assumptions of what feminism is.

  74. We, as a people, stick to tradition and the socially constructed views made by previous generations before us. When norms are opposed and are seen in the public light of course its going to be frowned upon.

  75. I think we’re getting needlessly, wankingly stuck on terminology here, but whatever, I am just this bored.

    ‘Realistic’ femininity (as I understood the usage) would be a gender expression that comes from within, rather than one constrained by outside expectation to perform a particular cultural stereotype, or to conform to it. It would definitely not be an expression that was fabricated by sexist men in a bygone shit-tacular era. So, something that actually comes from the person’s distinct femaleness, not a mold that s/he’s expected to fit.

    If you want to get especially wanky on this point, you could argue that the only realistic expression of femininity would be that displayed by femme-identified people when they are alone and unobserved, since the act of looking always changes the behaviour of the observed.

    Of course, we could just sidestep this crap if we’d acknowledge that the gendering of behaviour, period, is regressive and should be undone. If a certain affect gets your rocks off, by all means go ahead and do it. But the act of labelling that affect ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ can only take place if you buy into the culture’s wrong-headed ideas about what a prototypical male or female is. (I personally think the same thing about ‘butch’ and ‘femme’, but those terms have such practical utility at the moment that I can’t bring myself to be particularly bothered by them in casual use.)

    To hammer this point home – I possess no less of the essence of femaleness (what is supposedly being alluded to with the term ‘femininity’) because I don’t bake cookies for the boys, make wide-eyed kissy faces, giggle inanely, wear makeup, shave myself, what have you. What are you implying when you call these behaviours feminine? Am I less female for eschewing them? If not, why accept the loaded terminology of the masculine or feminine in the first place?

    I bet I’ll look at this tomorrow morning and regret getting so rambly, but insomnia is a helluva drug.

  78. zuzu: Realistic femininity does not involve doing shoulder stands or looking childishly/cartoonishly surprised while splitting logs or what have you.

    You *do* understand that pin-ups were created by men for the consumption of men and involved a caricatured, contorted, exaggerated, hyperfeminine version of femininity, right?

    Yeah, I get that. But you’ll notice that I asked what ‘realistic femininity’ is, not what it isn’t. Because that pinups exist at the extreme of a spectrum of performative femininity: I totes accept. But that doesn’t mean that there’s some kind of ‘realistic femininity’ out there that isn’t somewhere on that spectrum, and positing some forms of gender as more real than others is fucked up in the same way that positing some bodies as more real than others is fucked up.

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