Thinking Sex: Representing Desire and Difference
A Feminist and Gender Studies Course
Bryn Mawr College, Fall, 2002

Let's start in thinking together by telling one another what we think of the range of images we saw in class today. What did you think of when you saw them? Try making up, or sketching, a story about one or both of them.

The sculpture is...interesting. I know that's a vague term, but it's really the only thing I can think of for it. I see these figures as mother and child, which then makes it more diffucult for me to think of them as sexual. Perhaps the mother is trying to heal the damaged caused to a son by trying to compensate for an inadaquate father and husband. Or perhaps the pain comes from rejection by the father? The fact that the figures are naked places no overt sexual tone on it for me...perhaps because I think of sculpture as being routinely nude. The female figure definately seems older to me, though I can't honestly back that with anything other than my own impressions. In a sexual way, it would remind me of the relationship between Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon (or any similar situation)...as she aged more quickly and failed to produce a son, I wonder if this could be a typical scene- her conjoling, asking for patience, or begging Henry not to despair and to keep trying. He at first still loving, not yet willing to cast her aside out of loyalty, but frustrated and frightened, like a child. Ok, those are my thoughts- looking forward to reading others!

Chelsea

The first time I looked at the Vigeland Sculpture Garden I became very tense because it strikes me as a depiction of a love not reciprocated. At first I saw the two figures as lovers but upon closer inspection I decided they must be a mother and her son. This made me uncomfortable as I began to think about Oedipal theories whatnot. After steering myself away from these thoughts, I started to look closely at their positioning--at how the woman leans into the man and extends herself towards him and on him--at how he turns from her and seems to ignore her. Take him away and her positioning makes no sense. Take her away and he could be3 sitting underneath a tree musing. There seems to me nothing sexual in this picture perhaps because I associate sex with positive feelings and there seem to be only negative/sad/solitary ones in this. Their expressions seem much too serious and her look too all-around quaint for anything sexual. What I see is more of a conversation where son seems distant yet refuses to talk and mother expresses her wish to be there for him and for him to tell her how he is feeling. So I'm coming away with alot of feeling in this one but very little sexual feeling.

The second image gives me a stiff feeling. Maybe it is because it reminds me of one of those solid greek statues. Actually, it reminds me of the remains of Mount Vesuvius. As the volcano erupted and the people of the city tried to flee the place, some residents of the area decided to stay in their homes and die. In this image, I see an old lady leaning on a man who looks confused because he does not know whether he is going to live or die and at the same time, he has no expression because he is overwhelmed with the situation. It seems like the old lady and man are not acquainted with each other but they happened to be at the same place and time during the eruption of the volcano so they had no one but each other to hold on to.

When looking at the sculpture, I get feelings of frustration and sadness. I see the pair as mother and son. The woman is trying to console her son. She is trying to help/fix a problem over which she has no control. I also get a sense of desperation from her. It looks like, though he's a grown man, she is having a hard time 'cutting the apron strings.' However, her son appears very dissatisfied with her efforts. Judging by his body language, it seems as though he's wishing she would stop trying. This sculpture conveys a sort of alienation. It's as though he refuses to open up to her, to share his fears or concerns. The mother looks to be trying earnestly comfort him, though he blatantly ignores her while looking very tense. I get much more feeling from the mother than the son. He looks very cold, very removed from the situation (or wishing he was).

I think that part of the reason I feel that Fred is powerless stems from his lack of a direct gaze. He is the object being gazed upon, which is a role traditionally associated with women. Wilma, instead, utilizes the power of the gaze and takes on the traditional masculine role.

The scene reminds me of an attempted sexual encounter wherein the man finds himself unable to perform. In this situation, the woman becomes the power figure and the man inadequate. In order to maintain the normal "routine", women in this situation generally give up their power. They work to remain feminine so that the men can continue to be powerful and masculine. (This is not a practice that I feel is the right thing to do, but I do think that it is common.)

The watercolor painting does not speak to me as much as the sculpture. In it, I see a flow of shared energy, like two people's auras comingling. There is a give-and-take situation, with shared middle ground. The painting represents what I think should happen in an ideal relationship--the power is equal and both members have their own identity but also shared ground. This is very unlike what I see in the sculpture; almost the exact opposite, in fact.

The sculpture however, is a prime example of communication gone wrong. The piece to me is obvisouly gendered--- the figure on the left being an older woman, while the one on the right is that of a young male. I echo what my classmates have written already in saying that the pair seems to be that of a mother and son (what marks that for me is the emphasis placed on her stomach which appears to be sagging from having given birth to children). He is about to grow up--- leave the house, become a "man." But he does not want to leave the comforts of home. He ignores her; furthermore, he is frustrated by his mother's attempt to console him. The more she tries to communicate, the more he is distant. There is no joy or pleasure shared between these two.

Once juxtaposed and treated as complimentary, these images offer a broad range of possible interpretations, from widely explored in folk wisdom "once together – now apart" to something of more complex aesthetic bent, like Euripides' Fedra, where the woman is filled with sexual desire and it is through this desire that she makes sense of the world, while for the man sexuality is not instrumental in his sense-making process, for him it is a moment of self-denial, of giving-in to some foreign force; that is why the inter-sexual dialogue is never complete and both sides remain at a loss.

Vigeland sculpture: I see...
Two lovers battling against their own internal safety mechanisms that tell them to be careful, not to share too much of themselves to the other for fear of loosing their own identity. One man ponders how to explain these feelings to his partner, while his partner patiently encourages him to open him to open himself.

I am definitely more intrigued by the picture of the statues. The man looks frustrated, annoyed, bored, sad, angry.. I am not sure which one but he's definitely feeling something and it isn't pleasant. And the woman is attemting to get his attention and he just isn't being receptive. He doesn't seem to want her around. I really feel they are romantically involved in some way. Others spoke in their postings about how they seem to be mother and son, but I wasn't feeling that. I do think the woman is being maternal but I don't think its in the same way we think of a mother/son relationship. It seems like women automatically "mother" those who appear to be in need of mothering, but those people don't necessarily have to be children.

Melting

I sit and gaze at your face, my arm gently cradling your shoulder, remembering the last moment before we became "stone", before our emotions hardened forcing us to remain stiff and marbled without soft flesh. Sympathetic and patient, I hold my jaw steady as I note your stiff awkward position with one arm heavy and rigid, positioned awkwardly against your body, the other arm visibly pressed against your mouth to physically trap words inside.

I remember the moment when your lust faded, when my intimacy became more than you could handle and your adoration for me ceased. You used to tell me that my soft, pink touch felt like sunlight filtrating through your body as you caressed my lips. You always liked the way my hair fell across my face, but then something changed; maybe it was the loving way I looked at you that scared you away, stopped you from pursuing true intimacy. Questioning me with shifting eyes, looking anxiously out of one corner, you pretend to look into the distance. I imagine my own face the way you used to describe it: lit by an angelic glow, seductive and mysterious. Now I watch your shifting eyes and imagine your mouth hanging open in pure terror, and your face is blue, frozen and blurred around the edges, so cold and distant that it's worse than stone. Your face is like ice frozen over in that horrifically terrified expression. In my mind, my own face is how you described it, but the angelic glow is deeper, almost orange in color, and I wish my passionate warmth could gently penetrate that frozen exterior and melt your fears away.

The second image does not seem to be as sexual to me. The man with his hand over his mouth seems to be grieving. The women who is leaning over him slightly appears to be trying to comfort him. I recieve the impression that she is older than him. I feel as if I'm looking on as a mother comforts her sons grief.