Pornography: Men Possessing Women, by: Andrea ... - Feminish

weapon in her hand. Still, the older woman serves. The one sheactually serves is not pictured.These are two women together, within the male framework alesbian scenario. No male figure as such is present. The scissors arethe explicit phallic presence (vagina means sheath). The scissors arepoised near the entrance to the vagina, as the comb, also a phallicobject, is poised above it. Pressed against the skin, the scissors cutthe hair so close to the skin that the skin is left bruised or cut. Theteeth of the comb suggest vagina dentata. The ivory tooth hangingfrom the neck of the older woman suggests the same, removed fromthe genitals and generalized to the whole personality.The two photographs posit an all-female sadism. The lesbianmotif is supposed to mean that the values in the photographs reallyhave to do with women, not men. The threat of the scissors givestestimony to the fact that in the male mind two women cannot betogether without a phallic third, but despite this reassuringexpression of phallic faith, two women without a man purposefullyunderlines the femaleness of the sexuality pictured. The olderwoman’s cruelty is conveyed especially by the scissors but theyounger woman is also cruel, hard, tough. These are the samewoman, one younger, one older, one white, one of color. They arethe shameless women of sex, the whores whose carnality isassaultive in its arrogance. They are lesbian—purely female—bitches. They are lesbian—purely masculine—bitches. The scissorssuggest or promise phallic penetration but they also suggest orpromise castration, women with scissors aimed at the genitals.Female genital mutilation (practiced widely, mother to daughter, insections of the Third World) and the castrating phallic woman(fantasized so energetically in this world) are conjured up simultaneously.The V shape of the hair that is left suggests vulva,vagina, and also victory. The victory of the vagina over the male is acastrating victory. These are the cruel women.The absence of men from the photographs encourages the beliefthat men are seeing women as they really are, in private, with eachother—a pure female sexuality, a basic carnality usually hidden bythe dull conventions of civilization, that tamer of the female. T he