Erotica By Helen E. H. Madden

This is a long, disjointed ramble sparked by recent headlines on the human figure, au natural...

Beard goes from swimsuit to birthday suit.

I am of two minds about this one. On the one hand, I think it's entirely up to Amanda Beard what she does with her body. If she wants to pose nude, that's her business. And I mean that literally as well as figuratively because she herself seems to state that this is a business move for her. This is a young female athlete looking to make money and set herself up as a celebrity. She's thinking of her financial future here and how posing in the nude will launch her post-Olypics career. Is Amanda Beard damaging women's sports in the process? I dunno. Am I damaging the whole of women's literature by writing erotica? I don't think so. There are a lot of women writers out there, and I don't think people really are going to judge them based on my stories. They'll just judge me, and that's how it should be.

On the other hand, something about this whole "Amanda Beard naked" issue bothers me. I can't escape the feeling that a) I think Beard is making a mistake and b) I would have more respect for her if she were keeping her swimsuit on. I know, I know. Maybe this is just a case of my inner prude popping up again. After all, this is an Olympian we're talking about, and I've always looked at Olympic athletes as role models for children. Do I want my kids looking up to a woman that strips for Playboy Magazine? No. Yet I have no problem with my kids looking at nude statues in the museum, where I can explain to them that the human body is a beautiful thing.

What's the difference I wonder, between a Venus de Milo and a picture of a naked Amanda Beard? Why is one art and the other just wrong? I keep going over it in my head but can't quite tease out the answer.

I guess part of my problem is that I feel Beard is using her body to get what she wants, but she's playing by men's rules. That is, she's setting herself up as a sex object for men to drool over, but not necessarily to respect. Yeah, she got to choose the photographer, the setting, and which pictures got shown, but she still ends up butt nekkid inside Playboy magazine, getting spattered with jizm while the guys who bought the magazine wank off to her pictures. Although maybe that makes her feel powerful and in control, having all those guys masturbate over her. (Why, I don't know. I never understood this point of view. I like to seize power in more subversive ways, I guess, like by writing a really hot story that provokes the same reaction; again, I wonder what the difference is.)

Maybe what bothers me is that she's setting herself up as a sex object rather than as a sex predicate. Hang with me here, even if you're not that into grammar. In basic English grammar, sentences are composed of subjects (nouns) and predicates (verbs). The subject names the topic, while the predicate tells us about that topic. To put it another way: A verb shows action or state of being. The subject tells who or what about the verb. What about the object though? Well, the object is the thing that gets acted upon. It never takes action itself though. In other words, it's passive. And guess what? It's not even necessary to the sentence. It's just a nice add on that's sitting there waiting for stuff to happen. And I think that's what Amanda Beard is doing with these pics - she's setting herself up as a nice little passive sex object to receive whatever shit people decide to dish out (although she'll be well-paid for it, but does money really buy respect?).

I'd really like to see Amanda Beard do something more active, more original, and more creative to make her mark in this world. Swimming and athletics are active, predicate sorts of things. They're achievements accomplished by hard work, perverance, and sweat. Posing nude for Playboy is passive and only involves the sweat if it adds value to the photoshoot. It's going to get Beard some attention, but is it the kind of attention she really wants? When I want attention, I write a rip-roaring erotica story. Writing is active, it's work, it's predicate. People may jerk off to my story, but they're jerking off to my hard work, my actions, not my passive image.

Amanda Beard wants to establish herself as a celebrity. She needs to keep looking for better ways to do that, ways that still utilize her sexual allure without playing by men's rules (Hey honey, just stand there and look pretty while I point and click and imagine my dick in your mouth). Again, I say that I think the human body is beautiful, but I think exploitation is down right ugly. And Amanda Beard is being exploited here. Not so much by Playboy magazine but by herself. In my heart of hearts, I think she could have done it differently. She could have done it better. At the very least, she could have done it like Madonna did and really shook things up.

I'm getting off my soap box now.

Labels: In The News, My Inner Prude, Sexual Power

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

In The News - Olympian Amanda Beard Poses Nude