March 20, 2004
The male gaze#5: mastery to bondage
I want to dig a little deeper into the male gaze with this post----to peer into the dark pit. Just to make sure there is no misinterpretation of what is being explored here, this is an example of female looking.
Tamara de Lempika, The two friends
It is quite different to the male gaze.
The male gaze is a projection of the ego and is an expression of control and mastery. The target is the female body:
Max Pritt
The mastery is connected to aggression:
Guy Lemaire
This aggressive mastery of the female body is often intertwined with sadism:
Guy Lemaire
This bondage is an expression of aggressive desires of the male subject to win the struggle for power to gain possession and then to punish the female body: through inflicting pain.
Max Pritt
However, I do not think that this kind of male sadistic aggression is a consequence of a condition of imposed passivity; a sort of destructive response. That would response would come from the women as the passive object of sadism; but not the man as the cruel master.
Does the aggression in the male gaze come from paranoia?
Giko
Do you think that the desire to possess and paranoia is on the right track?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at March 20, 2004 03:31 PM | TrackBackHmm. I can see your argument, but I don't think it's assisted by taking BDSM photography as examples. There are plenty of male submissives, and photos thereof. I thought your argument was stronger when you considered Goya, etc.
Posted by: Robert on March 21, 2004 06:36 PMActually, the last image you used is exactly the type of thing I'm referring to. Perhaps if you expanded the argument about paranoia?
Posted by: Robert on March 21, 2004 06:37 PM