August 9, 2012
Transgressive fiction is a genre of literature that focuses on characters who feel confined by the norms and expectations of society and who break free of those confines in unusual and/or illicit ways. Because they are rebelling against the basic norms of society, protagonists of transgressional fiction may seem mentally ill, anti-social, or nihilistic. The genre deals extensively with taboo subject matters such as drugs, sex, violence, incest, pedophilia, and crime.
The term ‘transgressive fiction’ was coined by Los Angeles Times literary critic Michael Silverblatt. Rene Chun, a journalist for ‘The New York Times,’ described is as, ‘A literary genre that graphically explores such topics as incest and other aberrant sexual practices, mutilation, the sprouting of sexual organs in various places on the human body, urban violence and violence against women, drug use, and highly dysfunctional family relationships, and that is based on the premise that knowledge is to be found at the edge of experience and that the body is the site for gaining knowledge.’
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August 9, 2012
Feminazi is a term popularized by radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh to describe ‘an extreme or militant feminist.’ In 2004, Limbaugh named feminist activists Gloria Steinem, Susan Sarandon, Christine Lahti, and Camryn Manheim as ‘famous feminazis.’
Feminazi is a portmanteau of the nouns feminist and Nazi. The term is used pejoratively by some U.S. conservatives to criticize feminists that they perceive as extreme.
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August 9, 2012
The Manipulated Man (German: ‘Der Dressierte Mann’) is a 1971 book by author Argentinian-German writer Esther Vilar, which argues that, contrary to common feminist and women’s rights rhetoric, women in industrialized cultures are not oppressed, but rather exploit a well-established system of manipulating men.
A third edition of the book was released in 2009. Vilar writes, ‘Men have been trained and conditioned by women, not unlike the way Pavlov conditioned his dogs, into becoming their slaves. As compensation for their labors men are given periodic use of a woman’s vagina.’ The book contends that young boys are encouraged to associate their masculinity with their ability to be sexually intimate with a woman, and that a woman can control a man by socially empowering herself to be the gate-keeper to his sense of masculinity.
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August 6, 2012
Girls’ games and toys are a large yet difficult market for the children’s toy industry. Nancy Zwiers, an industry consultant and former head of worldwide marketing for Mattel’s Barbie doll line, has pointed out the male-centred bias that makes development of girls’ toys difficult: ‘When I tour different company showrooms and look at what they’re doing, many times it’s a bunch of guys making decisions about what girls would like, and they miss the mark.’
‘Age compression’ is a toy industry term that describes the modern trend of children moving through play stages faster than they did in the past. Children have a desire to progress to more complex toys at a faster pace, girls in particular. Barbie dolls, for example, were once marketed to girls around 8 years old, but have been found to be more popular in recent years with girls around 3 years old. The packaging for the dolls labels them appropriate for ages 3 and up.
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July 19, 2012
Women in Refrigerators (or WiR) is a website that was created in 1999 by a group of comic book fans. The website features a list of female comic book characters that had been injured, killed, or depowered as a plot device within various superhero comic books. Also, the site seeks to analyze why these plot devices are used disproportionately on female characters.
The term was coined by comic book writer Gail Simone as a name for the website in early 1999 during on-line discussions about comic books with friends. It refers to an incident in ‘Green Lantern’ in 1994, written by Ron Marz, in which Kyle Rayner, the titular hero, comes home to his apartment to find that his girlfriend, Alex DeWitt, had been killed by the villain Major Force and stuffed in a refrigerator.
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July 19, 2012
Parataxic [par-uh-tak-sik] distortion is term coined by american psychiatrist Harry S. Sullivan to explain the inclination to skew perceptions of others based on fantasy. The ‘distortion’ is in the perception of others, based not on actual experience with the individual but from a projected fantasy personality. For example: when one falls in love they can create an image of the person as the ‘perfect match’ or ‘soul mate’ only to find out later the person did not match the original perception.
The fantasy personality is created in part from experience and from emotional stress. The stress of forming a new relationship or finding a life mate, where one contemplates reproduction, can be seen as stress, although it is perceived as pleasurable. ‘Falling in love’ can create the atmosphere where parataxic distortion is primarily involved in the perception of the object of affection. It is possible in these situations for chemical influences to play a role in the process.
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July 16, 2012
Different studies show animal prostitution exists among species such as Adélie Penguins, chimpanzees, and crab-eating macaque. Penguins use stones for building their nests. A shortage of stones led female Adélie Penguins to trade sex for stones. The female penguins, even when in a committed relationship, will exchange sexual favors with strange males for the pebbles they need to build their nests. Prostitution is also observed among chimpanzees, who trade food for sex.
The first documented case of prostitution in animals was reported in 1998 by Fiona Hunter and Lloyd Davis, who had spent five years observing the mating behavior of penguins. The study was conducted as part of an Antarctica New Zealand program on the Ross Island, approximately 800 miles from the South Pole. The female penguins observed under the study were coupled with males. The females will go outside alone to collect pebbles, but the males did not suspect their female partners. According to the observations and analysis made by Hunter, the prostitute penguins targeted single males, because if instead they picked a male penguin with a partner, the male penguin’s current partner will come in conflict with the prostitute female.
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June 26, 2012
The Kama Sutra is an ancient Hindu text widely considered to be the standard work on human sexual behavior in Sanskrit. A portion of the work consists of practical advice on sexual intercourse.
‘Kāma’ which is one of the three goals of Hindu life, means sensual or sexual pleasure, and ‘sūtra’ literally means a thread or line that holds things together, and more metaphorically refers to an aphorism (or line, rule, formula), or a collection of such aphorisms in the form of a manual. Contrary to popular perception, especially in the western world, Kama sutra is not just an exclusive sex manual; it presents itself as a guide to a virtuous and gracious living that discusses the nature of love, family life and other aspects pertaining to pleasure oriented faculties of human life.
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June 26, 2012
The mudflap girl is an iconic silhouette of a woman with an hourglass body shape, sitting, leaning back on her hands, with her hair being blown in the wind. The icon is typically found on mudflaps, clothing, and other items associated with trucking in the United States. The image is sometimes also known as trucker girl, trucker lady or seated lady. This famous design was created in the 1970s by Bill Zinda of Wiz Enterprises in Long Beach, California, to promote his line of truck and auto accessories. It is variously claimed to be modeled on Leta Laroe, a famous exotic dancer at the time, or on Rachel Ann Allen, a friend’s wife, and mother of Ed Allen, the trademark’s owner.
As a parody, Wyoming Libraries use a mudflap girl holding a book, in an effort to attract readers. In another parody the feminist blog Feministing uses a version depicting the mudflap girl holding up her middle finger as an ironic logo. Optimus Prime has been portrayed as having a mudflap with the silhouette of Elita One (leader of the female autobots). At McMurdo Station, Antarctica, the mudflap girl is depicted on a utility vehicle, but wearing more appropriate attire for Antarctic environment.
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June 21, 2012
A supernormal stimulus is an exaggerated version of a stimulus to which there is an existing response tendency, or any stimulus that elicits a response more strongly than the stimulus for which it evolved. The idea is that the elicited behaviors evolved for the ‘normal’ stimuli of the ancestor’s natural environment, but the behaviors are now hijacked by the supernormal stimulus.
British art scholar Nigel Spivey demonstrates the effect in a 2005 BBC documentary series ‘How Art Made the World’ to illustrate neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran’s speculation that this might be the reason for the grossly exaggerated body image demonstrated in works of art from the Venus of Willendorf right up to the present day.
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May 17, 2012
Social desirability bias is the tendency of respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others. It can take the form of over-reporting good behavior or under-reporting bad behavior. The tendency poses a serious problem with conducting research with self-reports, especially questionnaires. Topics of special concern are self-reports of abilities, personality, sexual behavior, and drug use.
When confronted with the question ‘How often do you masturbate?,’ for example, respondents may be pressured by the societal taboo against masturbation, and either under-report the frequency or avoid answering the question. Therefore the mean rates of masturbation derived from self-report surveys are likely to be severe underestimates.
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May 10, 2012
Mireille Suzanne Francette Porte (b. 1947), better known as ORLAN, is a French artist. She lives and works in Los Angeles, New York, and Paris. She was invited to be a scholar in residence at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, for the 2006-2007 academic year. She sits on the board of administrators for the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and is a professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Cergy (a suburb of Paris).
Although ORLAN is best known for her work with plastic surgery in the early-to-mid 1990s, she has not limited her work to a particular medium.
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