Screen - Dark Matter Archives

104... rhe question ofmale sexualpleasure ... 6 BrewerSr, March 1980.the orgasm; woman is given that orgasm and hence that phallusby men. Both security and abolition of separation from therepresentation are provided for the spectator by this arrangement.The male's phallus is the condition for female sexual pleasure,the condition fo r ~he always-expected, never-found fulfilment ofdesire. The phallus for the woman in the representation is providedby the male in the audience: it is a 'gift' from a man or men thatprovides woman's orgasm.Angela Carter cal ls this process 'a gap left in the text of justthe right size for the reader to insert his prick into' (op cit. p 16) :the representation of female pleasure is addressed to an audienceconstructed as masculine, as possessing a phall us (usually but notexdusively a biological male), because it erects the pballus of theindividual in the audience as the condition of female pleasure.Female pleasute is the result, ultimately. of tbe gift of the pballusfrom members of the audience. Hence the current regime ofpornographic representation retains its security for a (male)audience: it completes the fetishistic regime by providing theviewer wi th a direct relation to the representa tion through thegift of the phallus as the ultimate condition of female pleasure.This rcgime is unquestionably an advance upon previous modesof representation o( women in association with sexuality: thepin.up, the star system, much advertising rhetoric. It is equally anadvance upon many forms of construction of 'woman' within otherregimes of representation. The question of female sexual pleasurehas remained unasked within public discourses for many decadesin our culture: in pornography it is now receivi ng attention on amassive scale. The availability of vaginal imagery can be said tohave a directly educative effect for both men and women. as weHas tending to dispel the aura of strangeness produced by thecenruries of concealment of the \'3gin3 in Western representations.>3:m~~~z~ozIt is therefore an important shift in the representation of the 105female, a shift that is still the subject of a series of bard-foughtbattles. wbether in Jegislation or in the streets. For it is aprofoundly equivocal shift : all is not sweetness and Ugbt in thisfield, tbe shift cannot be counted as a simple advance, let alonea victory for feminism. The educative effects, the effects of dis·pelling a particular and deep-rooted form of disgust at parr ofanother's body, these are little more than sid e-effffi~speciallygiven the current and probable future institutional connotationsgiven to the forms of circulation of these images. For the fetishisticregime is maintained by the reasserrion of the phalJus as thepossession of the male, and the fe male as dependent upon thephallus as access to pleasure. The male spectator is sutured intothe representation as the possessor of this pre-requisite; and thusconfirmed in 3 particular psycho-social construction of self.However, this regime of representation is profoundly unstable.It has asked the question 'whar is fema le pleasure? ', a questionthat cannot find its answer in representations. The tawdry Britishsex comedies (still produced by the likes of George HarrisonMarks) at least were based upon a question which could receivean answer: 'What does a nude woman look like?' Currenr pornographicfilms have gone further and asked the question tbat liesbehind that of nudity; the question of tbe nature of pleasure.Bli t all that can be sbown in a film or a pbotograph is the conditionsof pleasure. its circumscances and outward manifestations.These are never enougb: all tbar the viewer finds as the reply rothe question are the outward displays, what is ex pected. What/IQPP'" S, 'the fading of the subject', eludes the representation ifthe representation seeks to discover the elusive nature of theexperience of sexual pleasure. The pornographic film rext respondsby multiplying instances of possible pleasure by multiplying itslitue stories of sexual incidents. Either rhat, or, in its morehard core manifestations. it turns upon the object of the enquiry.the woman, and \'ents its (and the audience's) frustrations at theimpossibility of gaining an answer to the question by degradingand humiliating woman, by attacking her for her obstinate refusalro yield this impossible secret. Tbis aggression reaffirms the powerof the pballus in response to a terror at the possibilities of thewoman's escape from that power.The formulation of this question in terms of a fetishistic regimehas one further consequence: it leaves the question of malepleasure unasked. Attention is directed towa rds women and throughthem, to woman; male figurcs are attenuated in the sense rhartheir sexuaJjty is never really in question. The closesr that questioningcomes is in the often portrayed incidence of impotence ortimidi ty, always cured. Male pJeasure is assumed rather than