Like Two Fawns, Twins of a Gazelle

Is how the lover describes his beloved's breasts in the Song of Songs, and he later says,

Your stature is like that of the palm,
And your breasts like clusters of fruit.
I said, "I will climb the palm tree;
I will take hold of its fruit."

Suburban Literature

The other day I was watching The Ice Storm, and it reminded me that one of our regular readers is teaching the novel in his upcoming Suburban Literature class. I don't remember what else was in the syllabus, but I remember it sounding like a pretty good list.

But one text that probably escaped consideration was Housewives at Play, which is in its own way a meditation on many of the important themes literature raises about the nature of suburban life: the isolation and loneliness imposed on us by the separateness of the suburban households, our inability to know our neighbors, our inability to know ourselves or even maintain a semblance of a unified self under the stress of the numerous roles we play during the course of our lives, the fragility of the family, and the difficulty of finding true and lasting satisfaction (sexual and otherwise) within the confines of the heteronormative social structure. Of course, it's also a classic of lesbian dominatrix comix. I can't reproduce the cover or frontispiece here w/o violating my own 70s PG standard, so here are the first couple pages of the first issue to give the flavor of the art, etc.



















You can imagine where it goes from here. Yes, there. And there. And there.

In later episodes, the plot spirals ludicrously out of control in the nature of a genre text that explores every inch of its limited territory, but at its core the story is about insuppressable desire and the consequences of following that desire. In later episodes, Catherine seeks therapy for her sexual addiction, tries to dissociate herself from friends who encourage her "abnormal" behavior, and is finally forced to separate from her family. In more recent installments, the comic portrays a whole community of women forced into separation from their families. These women still love their husbands and children, but like refugees or prisoners they can only express this love in letters.

So, is this a serious piece of literature? No, it's a genre text, primarily designed to fulfill its generic obligations, but, like all genre texts, it brushes against real life in sometimes illuminating ways. Here's how the artist & creator, "Rebecca" describes the rationale for the text:

I think it first started for me when my kids were small. I would take them (one toddeling, the other in stroller) down to the playground in the section where we lived at the time for sun, air, and playtime. The 3 year old would busy herself in the sandbox while the baby and I sat and watched the world go by. That world of course, was filled with what I now like to reffer to as "hot mom's". You've seen them. Pretty young girls ranging in age from 20's to 40's with diaper bag and stroller in tow, having absolutely no idea (or do they?) how sexy and desireable they look. They wear shorts and baggy pull overs, and every time they bend or stoop to check the baby an opportunity is given to peek down her blouse (at full, swollen breasts) or at the curve of her hips and ass. Their hair is perfumed, silky, and the latest magazine style which compliments perfectly her wardrobe from JCPenney.
Ahem. Well then. Let's face it though, God definately knew what He was doing when he made women. Any woman who won't admit she admires (or is jealous of) how pretty her neighbor/teacher/sister/hairdresser/etc is is just not being honest. I love girls, and I love drawing them. I love depicting them in all sorts of ways that (most likely) would never happen, except in my neighborhood (the one in my mind). I can (and do) have a sex fantasy everywhere from the grocery store, bank, walking in the park, or the fitting room in Kohl's. I spend most of my days horny and wet. If my children only knew what their mom does at home all day..teeheehee. Kisses to you all, my wonderful fans...Rebecca

What is Cleavage?

Cleavage is one of those words that gets bandied about a lot when talking about breasts. Good breasts have it, and bad ones don't, but what is it? Is all cleavage good, and if not, what is good cleavage?

This post is inspired by my downright outrage that anyone would have the audacity to claim that Audrina Patridge has the "best cleavage," and I think that the image selection shows how loosely (and inappropriately) the term is used.

Cleavage comes from the word cleave, so it implies that it's a break between the breasts. What kind of break? Partly connotatively, I imagine a narrow cleft, but it's not just my imagination that puts the two together. In the past, cleavage was used to describe when a woman was wearing clothes that revealed a lot of decolletage, with the breasts being pushed up and together by supportive undergarments.

Breast-displaying fashion in the 90s was driven by the audacity of hip-hop and pop stars who delighted in showing as much "side-boob" as possible. This was partly a way they sought to make the most of what they had. Relatively small-breasted, but noting that images containing their delightful posteriors made their faces smaller and less recognizeable, they wanted to get maximum attention for their breasts and their faces.

This led to fashions that let breasts hang loose, free, and separate, so the term "cleavage" came to be used to describe the sometimes gaping chasm between these women's smallish breasts, and that's how it's dominantly used today. It no longer describes breasts when they are bro
ught together to mimic the curves of a full, round ass--it just refers to any old space between a woman's breasts.

So what makes good cleavage? In my mind, the traditional cleavage, like that Scarlett Johansson showed in The Spirit promo shot I talked about, is still the best. You want a couple more examples? Why, sure, I'll even give you three, with different body types: Heidi Klum, Salma Hayek, and Mad Men's Christina Hendricks.



Next best, I would say, and preferable in swimsuits and dresses that let breasts hang loose, is a rounded valley, like fertile, rolling hills. Good examples are Salma Hayek in the picture a couple weeks back, Bar Rafaeli, and Kelly Brook.









Worst of all is what Audrina Patridge has in the picture above: a bony hollow between two sagging sacks--unfortunately similar to what Lindsay Lohan is also showing to the right after losing a great deal of weight. Lindsay used to be more attractive, but now, eh. Of course Patridge has it worse, because the pose shows one of the perils of subglandular placement of breast implants: they can look like "oranges in socks" if not properly done.

Anyway, them's my thoughts on cleavage.

Harem Girls

Teaching at the University, I cautioned my students against using Wikipedia. This was in the days before studies showed that Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica contain about the same amount of errors (something the EB disputes). Nowadays, the nature of my job forces me to rely heavily on Wikipedia, although I generally check the cited sources as well. The thing that makes Wackypedia so interesting is that the sources are so variable. One day, it takes you to a meta-study confirming that there's no evidence to support an NSAID "class effect" related to heart attacks and ischemic stroke, and the next it takes you to the Harem Girl and Slave Girl blog.

Oddly, harem girls have never been much of a fantasy of mine. They ought to be: all those women in one place, luxuriant fabrics, the smell of incense or rich spices in the air--cinnamon, nutmeg, clove. But for some reason, I'm not generally interested. Not to say that I haven't found myself pleasantly distracted by this side product of Wikipedia research.