Femen Stages a ‘Topless Jihad’
Earlier today, members of Ukrainian feminist group Femen staged protests across Europe as they called for a “topless jihad.” The demonstrations were in support of a young Tunisian activist named Amina Tyler. Last month, Tyler posted naked images of herself online, with the words “I own my body; it’s not the source of anyone’s honor” written on her bare chest. The head of Tunisia’s “Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice,” reportedly called for Tyler to be stoned to death for her putatively obscene actions, lest they lead to an epidemic. Tyler has since gone quiet, leading some to fear for her safety. Below are images from Femen’s protests today in Sweden, Italy, Ukraine, Belgium, and France. A warning, nearly every photo depicts nudity, and most contain offensive language.
See more. [Images: AFP/Getty, AP, Reuters]
Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Rape Scene), 1973
This is a colour photograph of a woman stripped from the waist down and bent over a table. Blood is smeared over and drips down her buttocks, thighs and calves and a pool of it is partially visible on the dark floor beside her feet. The scene is dramatically lit, highlighting her legs, the side of her body and the table, and casting strong shadows onto the wall behind her. Her head and her arms, which are tied to the table, are not visible in the darkness; broken crockery and bloodied clothes disappear into the shadows on the floor to her right.
Untitled (Rape Scene) is the documentation of an action that the artist performed in her apartment in Iowa City, while she was a student at the University of Iowa on the innovative Intermedia art course run by the German artist Hans Breder (born 1935). It was created in response to a brutal and highly publicised rape and murder of a nursing student, Sara Ann Otten, by another student in March 1973. The following month Mendieta invited her fellow students to her apartment where, through a door left purposefully ajar, they found her in the position recorded in this photograph, which recreated the scene as reported in the press. Some time later, Mendieta recalled that her audience ‘all sat down, and started talking about it. I didn’t move. I stayed in position about an hour. It really jolted them.’ In 1980, she commented that the rape had ‘moved and frightened’ her, elaborating: ‘I think all my work has been like that – a personal response to a situation … I can’t see being theoretical about an issue like that.’ On another occasion she explained that she had created this work ‘as a reaction against the idea of violence against women.’
a documentary shot by a high schooler in 1996 titled “dirty girls” about a group of 8th grade girls who are outcasts at their school
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Gotta love research.
Deep Inside: A Study of 10,000 Porn Stars and Their Careers
For the first time, a massive data set of 10,000 porn stars has been extracted from the world’s largest database of adult films and performers. I’ve spent the last six months analyzing it to discover the truth about what the average performer looks like, what they do on film, and how their role has evolved over the last forty years.
By Jon Millward
