The Female Body: Language, Consent, and Degradation

 

"The female body thirsts for words. The words of a man."
 

I recently came across the above quote (thank you Jess) in relation to a rather debasing television show called "Blachman," named after its "star," in which young women are objectified by two older men as if they were statues, erotic mannequins that only exist to be judged. These women are naked; the two men are clothed, seated, like ageing connoisseurs clucking over a vulnerable muse, no longer able to produce their own aesthetic response to the natural beauty of the world, instead judging it from a privileged position: clothed, seated, and on television. This show resonates with a “casting couch” mentality.

This image is, effectively, the show:

 

 

This show has already come in for some deserved criticism by Elizabeth Plank. (the above image was taken from Plank's post.) What I want to focus on is the above quote, which was deployed as a part of the defence of the show by its “star.” This quote encapsulates the show: two comfortable men commenting on the body of a vulnerable woman. But it also encapsulates the broader issue of the complicated relationship between sexual politics and language. The quote represents a corruption of the meaning-making process that flows from the human body.

 

The female body does not “thirst for […] [t]he words of a man” any more than it thirsts for the words of a woman. The human body “thirsts” for meaning in general. There is more to meaning than just words, but words are perhaps the most obvious representation of meaning. The human body doesn’t simply thirst for meaning, it produces meaning. It produces meaning through its shape, its processes, its location, and, perhaps most importantly in the context, its proximity to other bodies that produce meaning in the same way.

 

Language is a carriage-service by which we share meaning, from body to body; it is not shared, importantly, from body to mind, or vice-versa. The body and the mind are the same organism. We are our own "body-mind," as John Dewey would say (I am fond of the term, however perfunctory it is). What I mean is that the production of meaning is not spectatorial; it does not travel from its origin to its target in one direction. The production of meaning is reciprocal. We need each other’s bodies for the production of meaning, but we use language to lever that production of meaning for our own gain. To argue that women thirst for the words of men is an expression of the leverage of language used to subjugate what should be a reciprocal process of meaning-making.

 

Perhaps the most important reciprocal process or act is the act of consent. Sex is a meaning-making process;  it may seem odd to speak of it like that but it’s entirely true. We “make love,” for instance, wherein sex is an expression of a deep emotional rapport between sexual partners. Or, we might have a “one-night stand”; however “meaningless” a one-night stand might be, it remains an expression of physical desire. It may also be a conquest or the fulfilment of a night out. Consent is, nevertheless, the most important component of any sexual encounter. Without consent the meaning of sex is violence: not meaning, but the destruction of meaning.

 

Consent, however, is not reserved only for the sexual act. A kiss or a caress requires consent, nudity too. The young woman who is the object of the ageing connoisseurs' gaze during their sleazy conversation consents to being seen naked, ostensibly. I say "ostensibly" because the nature of the experience indicates that consent is not reciprocal. The men are seated, clothed, comfortable; the young woman, standing naked in an unwelcoming studio stands before them, responding to directions from the older men. What the young woman gains from being subjugated in this way is not clear, but what the men gain is obvious. Perhaps she earns an appearance fee - after all, who would do it for free?

 

Consent, like any other act of meaning-making, is also leveraged through language. If you believe that your body “thirsts for […] [t]he words of a man” then you are more likely to accept the words of a man; you are more likely to go in search of the words of a man. At the very least, you are less likely to be sceptical of a man’s words; when a man says something inappropriate, the un-sceptical response might be: "that's just men," a variant of the "boys will be boys" tautology. More on this shortly. The place of compliments, pick-up lines, even bad romantic poetry within sexual discourse is predicated on the apparent superiority of “the words of a man.” Women are supposed to swoon at the lovely words of men because this swooning is reinforced in art, particularly popular culture. What is more, it is reinforced through language: you, as a woman, are told the words of men matter, and you know it must be true because I, with my man-words, am telling you so.

 

Of course, there are deep, historical structures of inequality that are the root-cause of the power imbalance between men and women, but it is through language that such an imbalance persists. We live in a liberal, secular, pluralist democracy (in Australia at least, and one or two of these may be debatable), where language matters, even its gross rhetorical form we’ve become used to from our politicians. Those deep, historical inequalities persist through language, even in a democracy. Words matter in a democracy; words are empowered in a democracy. Failure or refusal to be critical of words and to employ them judiciously is unconscionable under the circumstances.

 

Consent, or perhaps “consent,” is garnered through the self-enforcing mechanism of masculine language. What makes this vicious cycle worse is that many women are co-opted into reinforcing this masculine paradigm. It could certainly be argued that the women who appear on the show, for whatever reason, are co-opted in this way. By appearing on the show they are proving that “the words of a man” are important; so important and powerful, in fact, that they can conjure up a naked woman. Conversely, to be naked is to conjure up the words of a man.

 

There is a promise in this transaction, but a promise that is predicated on a false valuation of both the nude female form (under-valued) and the male word (over-valued). “I promise to reveal myself,” the woman says, “if you promise your words.” The words of a man are a revelation, but not of the same sort of revelation as is female nudity. Words should conjure words in response; we usually call this “conversation” or more broadly “discourse.” We might extend this point and argue that nudity, then, should conjure nudity in response. Perhaps if the two older men were also standing naked in front of the younger woman for her to judge their commentary might be different.

 

This can’t be assumed of course. Men are also inculcated with the belief that “a woman’s body thirsts for words. The words of a man.” This is not an apology; men are no more innocent in this than are the women who apologise for their behaviour. Another apologetic cliche springs to mind: "he's just a man." No man is just a man, he is a human being. This kind of language simply reinforces the kind spectatorial engagement, the one-sided transaction, that this show represents. The language we use in the discourse of sexual politics has to change; even the most innocuous use of the "boys will be boys" cliche reinforces the inequality.

 

A less galling example  of such apologetic behaviour (but offensive enough to illustrative of my point), compared to Blachman's quote, occurred in the wake of the Australian Olympic swimming team debacle, and the misbehaviour of some of Australia's high-profile male competitors. Most Australians know the story already, but here is a link. In defence of her colleagues, Cate Campbell exclaimed: "This is what normal boys do for fun, it's how they bond." I am sure the woman at the centre of the Cronulla Sharks sex scandal would beg to differ about the validity of the defence of "boys will be boys" in relation to male bonding routines and behaviour that involve humiliation, violence, or other forms of degradation.

 

But I digress. The point is that language matters; it matters how we use it and how we let others use it. Yes, I said "let," because language is a site of conflict, and in a liberal, secular, pluralistic democracy (or any society that aspires to be one) what we let others get away with, in both word and deed, determines the direction of society. Language is a form of imposition, but it is also a form of resistance, counter-imposition. Sexual autonomy and equality (that is, the equality of autonomous sexual agents) must be expressed through language, because language frames perception and promotes certain behaviours at the expense of others.