Sex Acts: Reading the History of Female Sexuality through Art and Drama

In 1913, the literary journal Current Opinion announced that "sex o'clock" had struck in America.¹ Ninety-four years later, the clock keeps striking. Sex is all around us, and watching sex acts, both simulated and real, has become a staple of mainstream American culture. So-called news shows such as Dateline entice audiences with their lurid "caught in the act" exposés of sexual predators. Celebrity sex tapes have become a standard device for attracting publicity and launching careers. And a recent review of Madonna's "Confessions" world tour implied that the postfeminist icon's attempts to provoke audiences by representing herself as a hypersexualized Christ figure seemed almost quaint in comparison to the endless stream of sexually graphic images that greet Western audiences daily.² While it's possible to argue that the proliferation of these "sex acts" has presented new opportunities for self-expression, the long-term political implications remain to be seen. Some might hail Paris Hilton, whose vapid sex doll poses and unapologetic displays of wealth, privilege, and consumption have secured her almost ubiquitous presence on entertainment television, as a new postfeminist role model. Others might cite her popularity as conclusive proof of yet another feminist backlash.

Understanding the multiple meanings that spectators derive from sexual spectacles today is a difficult, complicated task. Understanding the multiple meanings that spectators may have derived from sexual spectacles in decades and centuries past is an even more complicated challenge, one that historians continue to grapple with. Not only must those interested in probing historical manifestations of sexuality proceed with caution when using words such as "heterosexual," "homosexual," "gay," "lesbian," and "straight"—each of which has its own, quite specific, history—they must also avoid using binary models to acknowledge the range of historical subjects' sexual desires and experiences. Most recently, Afsaneh Najmabadi has questioned whether the typical clustering of "gender and sexuality" as categories of historical analysis has led scholars to make presentist, Eurocentric assumptions about the experiences of historical subjects. She urges historians to see sexuality as a historically and culturally contingent category on its own terms, often but not necessarily aligned with gender.³

Art historian Maria Elena Buszek and theater historian Katie N. Johnson contribute to these discussions by demonstrating the advantages (as well as the disadvantages) of using a single aesthetic medium to understand shifting expressions of female sexuality in the United States. Reading sexuality through the respective lenses of the pin-up and the brothel drama, these authors offer detailed, contextually specific analyses of the production, distribution, and consumption of sexual representation. Although their projects vary considerably with respect to scope and subject—Buszek's study of the pin-up moves from the mid-nineteenth to the late-twentieth century, while Johnson's analysis of "brothel drama" focuses specifically on the Progressive Era (1900–1920)—both highlight the social and cultural processes that regulate and contest definitions of female sexuality. These authors also share an interest in moving beyond stale oppression versus liberation debates to develop a more nuanced appreciation of art's ability to simultaneously support and undermine dominant discourses. Their work should therefore appeal to a broad audience interested in exploring the relationships among art, sex, and ideology.

In Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture, Buszek challenges stereotypical readings of the pin-up as simply another example of women's sexual exploitation by identifying the many ways that women have appropriated the pin-up for counterhegemonic purposes. As Buszek explains, while the pin-up genre is typically associated with heterosexual male desire and therefore tends to be read as "a kind of visual shorthand for the desirable female," it also has the capacity for "representing and accepting seemingly contradictory elements—traditional as well as transgressive female sexualities—by...