Gorgeous and gory...a good combo?

The new Gorgeous and Gory calendar is out. It's cheesecake. But it's deliciously rotten cheesecake!




Source: The Zed Word/Gorgeous and Gory


As with porn, I'm torn...when I direct my male gaze at the female form. These pics are designed for my consumption. Flesh. Brains. Flesh. Flesh. Flesh. Flesh. Flesh. Yummm. And my body is being deliberately manipulated. Oh, I can feel it. And it bugs me to be used this way.

But...the fix is in. For now at least, I'm a male-identified hetero. I may be strange but I still love female bodies. And not just that. I love conventional heteronormative female bodies...

Gorgeous and Gory isn't the worst offender by far. But it definitely caters--despite its' faux transgressiveness--to the heterosexual imperative. These images are the gender performance reiterated again and again and again on the complicit male and female body.

Just look at it! How do you feel? Does the decomposing nature of the body in question change anything? Or does it merely emphasize the meatiness of the female body?




Source: The Zed Word/Gorgeous and Gory



Source: The Zed Word/Gorgeous and Gory

Let's play a little word association...What do you come up with when you look at the pics above?

Juicy blood. Open wet wounds. Sex and violence. Orifice overload. Body breakdown. Abnormal. Aberrant...ok, stop!

Yes, it's arbitrary but...By my little experiment, I came up with some gender conformist and some gender critical images.

The goriness does reinforce the mainstream gorgeousness of sexy heterosexism. But the goriness does also modify the gorgeousness and challenge the female body as a site of male sexuality. The goriness is  repulsive. Flamboyantly so. And that highlights the contingent quality of "sexy" female signs and images. So it does at least briefly interrupt the male gaze. And provoke some second thoughts. Sobering ones? Perhaps...

Stay tuned for more on the transgressive zombie body...