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Mandy Martin, Puritjarra 2, 2005. For further information on MANDY MARTIN, refer here: http://www.mandy-martin.com/
If there are diverse kinds of knowledge and ways of knowing place, then we need to learn to value the different ways each of us sees a single place that is significant, but differently so, for each perspective.
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The male gaze#5: mastery to bondage « Previous | |Next »
March 20, 2004

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.
femalegazelempicka1.jpg
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:
Bondage1.jpg
Max Pritt

The mastery is connected to aggression:
Bondage2.jpg
Guy Lemaire

This aggressive mastery of the female body is often intertwined with sadism:
Bondage3.jpg
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.
Bondage5.jpg
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?
Bondage6.jpg
Giko

Do you think that the desire to possess and paranoia is on the right track?

previous start

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 3:31 PM | | Comments (2)
Comments

Comments

Hmm. 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.

Actually, the last image you used is exactly the type of thing I'm referring to. Perhaps if you expanded the argument about paranoia?