(via What Makes a Body Obscene? » Sociological Images)
i’m really tempted to extend my lunch break and write more but i’m at work so just a link and some quotes for now.
Barnes & Noble and Borders “bagged” the magazine, like they do pornographic ones, such that one can see the title of the magazine but the rest of the cover is hidden. Barnes and Noble said that the magazine came that way, representatives for Dossiersay that the bookstore “chains” required them to do it…
…the treatment of the Dossier cover reveals that the social and legislative ban on public breasts rests on a jiggly foundation. It’s not simply that breasts are considered pornographic. It’s that we’re afraid of women and femininity and female bodies and, if a man looks feminine enough, he becomes, by default, obscene.
i’m uncomfortable with the emphasis on this is a Man! named andrej pejic, since, yes, he does use male pronouns but from what i have seen has openly talked about “for now, this is what i’m comfortable with” but sounds interested in fucking with the gender binary/possible trans* identified… but those conversations aren’t always the easiest to have backstage at a runway show. i think the controversy around the censorship of this cover, especially when contrasted with other shirtless covers, is definitely worth unpacking. but, i think we can unpack those questions without being gender essentialist/normative.
(also totally off topic but remove dan savage’s name from the front of that cover and that looks like a damn fine magazine!)
