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

the dead center of the car hood and the photograph. H er head isturned to one side, tied down by rope that is pulled taut across herneck, extended to and wrapped several times around her wrists, tiedaround the rearview mirrors of the Jeep, brought back around herarms, crisscrossed under her breasts and over her thighs, drawndown and wrapped around the bumper of the Jeep, tied around herankles. Between her feet on the car bumper, in orange with blackprint, is a sticker that reads: I brake for Billy Carter. The text underthe photograph reads: “Western sportsmen report beaver huntingwas particularly good throughout the Rocky Mountain regionduring the past season. These two hunters easily bagged their limitin the high country. They told HUSTLER that they stuffed andmounted their trophy as soon as they got her home. ”The men in the photograph are self-possessed; that is, theypossess the power of self. This power radiates from the photograph.They are armed: first, in the sense that they are fully clothed;second, because they carry rifles, which are made more prominent,suggesting erection, by extending outside the frame of the photograph;third, because they are shielded by being inside the vehicle,framed by the windshield; fourth, because only the top parts oftheir bodies are shown. The woman is possessed; that is, she has noself. A captured animal, she is naked, bound, exposed on the hoodof the car outdoors, her features not distinguishable because of theway her head is twisted and tied down. The men sit, supremely stilland confident, displaying the captured prey for the camera. Thestillness of the woman is like the stillness of death, underlined bythe evocation of taxidermy in the caption. He is, he takes; she isnot, she is taken.The photograph celebrates the physical power of men overwomen. They are hunters, use guns. They have captured andbound a woman. They will stuff and mount her. She is a trophy.While one could argue that the victory of two armed men over awoman is no evidence of physical superiority, the argument isimpossible as one experiences (or remembers) the photograph. T hesuperior strength of men is irrefutably established by the fact of thephotograph and the knowledge that one brings to it: that it