Sex, Gender, Becoming - PULP

the aspirational aesthetics of ‘gentlemen’s pornography’ 49
visual prototypes established by artworks such as Titian's Venus of
Urbino and Manet's Olympia have been extensively mimicked since
the invention of the camera, and early erotic photography introduced
this genre into humbler, but more far-reaching markets. Today, these
codes persist primarily in pornographic publications that may benefit
from an ennobling association with art. The appropriation employed
by the pornography trade is occasionally tongue-in-cheek, but
‘classical’ poses, gimmicky props and the trope of exoticism are used
to elevate ‘obscene’ representations to the status of ‘erotic art’.
Although complex and varied, such iconographic codes may be
narrowed down to the rudimentary conventions. Firstly, the ‘classical
pose’ of the reclining nude is a recurring compositional motif found in
many erotic artworks, particularly prior to the mid-1900s. The
fetishistic manner in which the trope of exoticism further constructs
woman as other, as hinted at in many of these paintings, is the second
code. The authoritative ‘stare’ of the models in Titian's Venus of
Urbino (1538), Goya's Maya unclothed (1798-1806), Ingres' La grande
Odalisque (1814) and Manet's Olympia (1863), 16 echoing the ‘gaze’ of
the viewer, is the third. Whether consciously or not, GQ appropriates
and pastiches the codes of ‘form’, ‘fetish’ and ‘gaze’ identified above
in numerous variations. In the image of Kristy Hinze (figure 3), the
reclining nude becomes the seated nude, while overtly exotic props
such as the peacock-feather fan in La Grande Odalisque and hibiscus
flower in Olympia are replaced with a more subtle wolf-skin rug,
fingered sensually by Hinze. GQ rarely tampers with the power of the
model’s ‘steamily consensual’ stare, 17 and thus Hinze is photographed
as her gaze confronts that of the viewer’s. In representing
Hinze within the framework of historically authoritative sexualised
display, GQ reflects the power relations implicit in these iconographic
codes. Woman, for instance, is present as the image, but since GQ
positions her within the rhetoric of the ‘reclining’ nude she is
‘passive, available, possessable, powerless’. 18 These affected
iconographic devices (equally present in conventional pornography)
are subdued and revived in GQ to contribute to the general hue of
aestheticised sexual difference that is the brand identity of glossy
men’s magazines.
The ‘artistic’ offers a cloak of acceptability for sexualised representations,
but clearly it is an elusive trait. What invokes an ‘aesthetic
experience’ in the viewer, is furthermore an intangible notion,
compounded by the fact that popular culture frequently mimics
16 It should be noted that these paintings were not necessarily deemed ‘acceptable’
when first exhibited (at the Salon of 1865, Olympia was largely thought of as an
offence to public morality), but have over time gained the general status of
‘acceptable’ (inoffensive, justified) sexualised representation.
17
C Paglia Vamps and tramps: New essays (1995) 65.
18 R Parker & G Pollock Old mistresses: Women, art and ideology (1981) 116.