venn diagram's blog

Eli Clare’s discussion of the Ellen Stohl magazine spread for playboy and her cover-shoot for New Mobility: a disability community magazine touches on many important questions surrounding disability and sexuality. Clare introduces this subject within part ii: bodies, “reading across the grain.” In this section he critically evaluates a few visual representations of disabled individuals and related advertisements.

Clare acknowledges the importance of the Stohl images as groundbreaking in their representation of a disabled body as a sexual being. Stolh echoes this goal in an interview she conducted with CBS in June 2011, nearly 25 years after the playboy spread debuted (http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/06/21/disabled-woman-looks-back-at-posing-nude-for-playboy-challenging-stigmas/). In the interview she relates that in her proposal letter to Hugh Heffner she explained that “sexuality is the hardest thing for a disabled person to hold on to.”
 
Clare argues that although good intentioned, the playboy spread and the cover-shoot for the disability magazine are more problematic than beneficial. Clare problematizes some of the essential characteristics of the representations including Stohl’s conformation with the industry standards of beauty, and the choice of photos and text.

Hi, my name is Annelise and I am a senior at Haverford. I am majoring in Spanish and minoring in Gender and Sexuality Studies. I am just returning from a semester abroad in Seville, Spain and in the Spring I will be writing my thesis on gay Spanish cinema. My experiences with Gender and Sexuality Studies reflect my academic, personal and professional interests in the subject. I am struck by the use of the word "perspective" in a course entitled Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Gen/Sex. Will we be learning new perspectives? Should we challenge our own? Adopt others? Formulate new ones? I am looking forward to questioning the concept of perspective and its potential shortcomings and advantages.