Science or art? Fetish or fantasy? Instructive or Erotic? How does this fit into imaging and imagining the female body.
READ HUNTER FIRST!
19 thoughts on “The Female Body as a Scientific Model”
I think this particular piece is a mix of instructional and erotic. This piece is more of a scientific model of female anatomy, but there is something that makes it fall closer to the erotic side. In the Hunter reading the author mentions that there is no need for pubic hair on these wax figures, that it is the preference of the doctor who ordered it. This figure does include pubic hair, so I do not think this piece was made solely for instructional purposes. This figure fits into imaging and imagining the female body because it shows that even when women’s’ bodies are supposed to be learned about or treated by a doctor there is still an opportunity for it to be sexualized.
While this particular wax figure focuses more on the organs and thus medical practice than some of the examples in the Hunter reading, this figure still holds an element of female sexuality that lends itself to eroticism. Hunter speaks at length about the idea of a wax figure reflecting the preferences of the medical practitioner who commissioned the moulages; the genital area and its craftsmanship suggests that the doctor who worked on this piece had more interest than simply medical knowledge, as Hunter notes. The inherent eroticism that exists in these wax figures is a testament to the desire placed on the image of the female nude, even when it is diseased.
At first glance, I thought this piece seemed strictly instructional and scientific. After reading Hunter’s article, however, I realized that the wax figure was more erotic than first meets the eye. What threw me off after further searching was the incredible life-like depiction of the genitalia. It seemed out of place to me as the supposed center of this figurine is the inner workings of the female anatomy, yet the vagina pictured is a depiction of the surface and even went as far as to convey pubic hair.
The wax figures of the female anatomy and internal organs created a weird boundary between what was purely educational and what also lent itself to pleasure and eroticism. Hunter talked about how many of these doctors ordered the pieces added hyper realistic detailing such as pubic hair, or designed the outside of the vagina to be more suggestive than educational. “The public feared that experts could combine the libidinal delights of looking and touching naked female bodies with the authoritative power and social legitimacy of medicine; under the guise of medical experimentation, doctors could satisfy their every need,” (Hunter, page 8). The female body has been objectified through most of history, and even though this figure focuses on the internal organs, the detail on the vagina and the over sexualization from male doctors in the history of wax figurines and in medicine in general shows just how the female body is always viewed as something to bring others pleasure and fulfill desire.
This model presents a seemingly unbiased representation of the internal organs of the female body, but contextualizes the interior view in highly gendered and problematic ways. Hunter mentions the frequent inclusion of a fetus in the uterus, as is the case here, which posits pregnancy as the default status of the female body. Additionally, the details mentioned in previous comments like the pubic hair and detailed genitals, as well as the very pale skin and spread legs, contribute in part to the realism of the model, but additionally to the sexually charged nature of the representation.
I can’t help but see distinctions between the way the internal anatomy is rendered with quite solid colors that make it easily read as a diagram made for instructional purposes, yet the inclusion of the woman’s vagina in the first place was a choice that someone made and I don’t fully believe it is necessary to this particular object. While the vagina is important to pregnancy, the way it is presented includes elements that aren’t necessary to the anatomical knowledge it is meant to convey. The pale skin, pubic hair, and spread legs that leave the vagina open are all things that might attract attention that is more erotic than educational.
I’ve seen models kind of similar to this one in doctors offices so at first glance I didn’t think much of it. However after reading the Hunter reading and reexamining the image the way the body is positioned and the attention to detail in the legs and genital area seem unnecessary and geared toward something more erotic. I understand the need to document things for medical purposes but this piece as well as the others in the article seem incredibly invasive and too detailed to be strictly for educational purposes.
Originally, like many above, I believed this piece was also strictly for educational purposes, I was even a little on the fence about the public hair addition… in the Hunter reading it is stated that the hair was unneeded, but I wondered if having the hair included was less because of fetishism, and more to indicate this model was an adult and fully-developed, showing medical students “This is what the inside of an adult woman looks like” since I assume the proportions and innards of a child are slightly different than an adult. But the inclusion of the fetus in the womb (relating back to sex), the fact that there’s public hair but not leg hair, the spread legs despite legs being unneeded for this model…it’s uncomfortable to say the least. The reading going on to describe the weird sense of leering and power play the doctors had when it came to the sexualization of their models made me incredibly uneasy–I wonder how they treated their actual female patients.
After the Hunter reading, I can better understand the underlying sexualization and invasive nature of this scientific model become more noticeable. There is a distinct anatomical structure that defines this figure as a scientific model, but not enough to distract from the idealization of this female body. One aspect that I noticed here was the set of this model, apart from the unnecessary addition of pubic hair. The legs are open, and there’s no indication of pelvic bones. As this is a model that focuses on internal organs, it’s understandable that they are the focus. But when I look further into this model, it seems almost a display of the contents of these women. Even like a trophy.
One quote from Hunter that stood out to me was the waxes showed how the doctor & molder “wished to construct the reality of female sexuality.” The details of the vulva & pubic mound go beyond medical necessity, making this particular model straddle the line between instruction & perversion.
Artists often use varying levels of detail to emphasis different areas of their work. In the case of this wax model, it looks as though the artist wanted to emphasize the outer pubic region of the model a little too much to be purely educational. You can see this in the attention to detail with the hair and the posing. It seems to distract from the original purpose of this model, which is to inform the viewer of the internal female anatomy. My guess after reading Hunter is that the artist’s intentions became perverted as they were working on this piece.
I can definitely see how at first glance this could be looked at as nothing other than a model of organs. However it does call to other things, raising questions about its overall portrayal. It is for one extremely detailed which makes it more sexualized when looking towards the vaginal area, the vulva, and the obvious and strange inclusion of little pubic hair. There is also an emphasis on bodily flesh, and by that I don’t mean the organs but the way it is polished up especially around areas of skin. It is also like a prize in a way with the fetus and the baby, clearly focusing on the organs of fertility, even though in this case it appears to be way smaller than the actual image of pregnancy.
After the Hunter reading I can understand how this piece is not only unnecessarily sexual but even fetishizes the woman. The pubic hair and spread open legs are a bit too much for a medical model. It’s eroticism overtakes its instructional value. This fits into imaging and imagining the female body as it shows how the female body is objectified in scientific art.
When I first looked the picture before reading the article, I thought that the model was purely edcuational, but once I read Hunter’s reading, I began to see how the model was erotic. One of the most prominent details that makes this picture erotic is the use of pubic hair. In the reading, it states how the decision to use pubic hair is completely up to the doctors preference and does not serve any real medical use. Also the decision to use blonde pubic hair is for erotic purposes only and is a sexually charged choice to reflect that the woman has blonde hair. I don’t think that the model is completely erotic, being that it does serve some educational purpose for studying the inside of the female body, but the model does include erotic aspets to the body.
As most people have said, at first glance this feels educational. However, the inclusion of the very detailed vagina feels a bit strange. Rather than including the same style to the internal diagram, the vagina is very realistic. I think it would feel less strange if the vagina and its’ anatomy had been included as well. What I mean by that is if they had included the vaginal opening, the urinary open, the labia, the cervix, etc in the same structure and style as they did the rest of the organs as opposed to a realistic vagina that doesn’t serve much educational or functional purpose.
Without any context, the model appears informative, but it is unavoidably sexual by design. Of course, it is the viewer’s decision to look at something and allow arousal or deny it, assuming that the viewer can access self-control over desires. Obviously some desires lead people to do cruel things, which cannot be rationalized—so who can decide what the intentions of the artists/patrons/viewers/surgeons of the work that Hunter includes in the reading are? Sexual arousal can be masked. There are subtleties to specific models, however, that propose a fetishist intent. The image above is rich with anatomical information, yet this information could easily be presented without an acutely detailed vagina. An artist should be free to make what they want, though, even if it is considered crude or explicit content. Perhaps if genitalia were displayed together as a means to compare/contrast vaginal health and promote an understanding of body diversity, then the sculpture would serve the purpose of both educational prestige AND a sensitivity to realism. This anatomical model seems, rather, to showcase information while keeping people engaged by adding a vagina to it like it’s an intricate bow on a present. The invitation to learn is deceptive and tainted because it fails to teach about the object that intrigued a closer look from its audience by means of arousal, it shows the viewer more information on organs unrelated to the vagina. The baby, however, does push the viewer’s attention to think about the female body and that which is associated with getting pregnant and giving birth—the vagina! Perhaps this reveals what really was at the forefront of the artist’s mind, but, on the other hand, they could have just made an honest attempt at representing this model accurately, showing off their attention to detail.
The Hunter reading suggests that a wax figurine has implied erotic intentions when the preferences of the doctor are shown through the public hair. While this model is technically scientific and instructional, there is an erotic undertone that is inherent when a man has full control over the depiction of the genitals. There seems to be no focus on the mechanics of the vagina, the components or “parts” of the vagina are not shown. It is there for aesthetic purposes, making the wax mold feel more sexual than is necessary for education.
Based on Hunter’s article, this sculpture can be seen as both a fetish item and an educational tool. It would help to know in what context this model was displayed. If it was on display, the pubic hair adds no educational value to the model. While the organs are very detailed, the genitals seem too detailed to just be educational.
I think this particular piece is a mix of instructional and erotic. This piece is more of a scientific model of female anatomy, but there is something that makes it fall closer to the erotic side. In the Hunter reading the author mentions that there is no need for pubic hair on these wax figures, that it is the preference of the doctor who ordered it. This figure does include pubic hair, so I do not think this piece was made solely for instructional purposes. This figure fits into imaging and imagining the female body because it shows that even when women’s’ bodies are supposed to be learned about or treated by a doctor there is still an opportunity for it to be sexualized.
While this particular wax figure focuses more on the organs and thus medical practice than some of the examples in the Hunter reading, this figure still holds an element of female sexuality that lends itself to eroticism. Hunter speaks at length about the idea of a wax figure reflecting the preferences of the medical practitioner who commissioned the moulages; the genital area and its craftsmanship suggests that the doctor who worked on this piece had more interest than simply medical knowledge, as Hunter notes. The inherent eroticism that exists in these wax figures is a testament to the desire placed on the image of the female nude, even when it is diseased.
At first glance, I thought this piece seemed strictly instructional and scientific. After reading Hunter’s article, however, I realized that the wax figure was more erotic than first meets the eye. What threw me off after further searching was the incredible life-like depiction of the genitalia. It seemed out of place to me as the supposed center of this figurine is the inner workings of the female anatomy, yet the vagina pictured is a depiction of the surface and even went as far as to convey pubic hair.
The wax figures of the female anatomy and internal organs created a weird boundary between what was purely educational and what also lent itself to pleasure and eroticism. Hunter talked about how many of these doctors ordered the pieces added hyper realistic detailing such as pubic hair, or designed the outside of the vagina to be more suggestive than educational. “The public feared that experts could combine the libidinal delights of looking and touching naked female bodies with the authoritative power and social legitimacy of medicine; under the guise of medical experimentation, doctors could satisfy their every need,” (Hunter, page 8). The female body has been objectified through most of history, and even though this figure focuses on the internal organs, the detail on the vagina and the over sexualization from male doctors in the history of wax figurines and in medicine in general shows just how the female body is always viewed as something to bring others pleasure and fulfill desire.
This model presents a seemingly unbiased representation of the internal organs of the female body, but contextualizes the interior view in highly gendered and problematic ways. Hunter mentions the frequent inclusion of a fetus in the uterus, as is the case here, which posits pregnancy as the default status of the female body. Additionally, the details mentioned in previous comments like the pubic hair and detailed genitals, as well as the very pale skin and spread legs, contribute in part to the realism of the model, but additionally to the sexually charged nature of the representation.
I can’t help but see distinctions between the way the internal anatomy is rendered with quite solid colors that make it easily read as a diagram made for instructional purposes, yet the inclusion of the woman’s vagina in the first place was a choice that someone made and I don’t fully believe it is necessary to this particular object. While the vagina is important to pregnancy, the way it is presented includes elements that aren’t necessary to the anatomical knowledge it is meant to convey. The pale skin, pubic hair, and spread legs that leave the vagina open are all things that might attract attention that is more erotic than educational.
I’ve seen models kind of similar to this one in doctors offices so at first glance I didn’t think much of it. However after reading the Hunter reading and reexamining the image the way the body is positioned and the attention to detail in the legs and genital area seem unnecessary and geared toward something more erotic. I understand the need to document things for medical purposes but this piece as well as the others in the article seem incredibly invasive and too detailed to be strictly for educational purposes.
Originally, like many above, I believed this piece was also strictly for educational purposes, I was even a little on the fence about the public hair addition… in the Hunter reading it is stated that the hair was unneeded, but I wondered if having the hair included was less because of fetishism, and more to indicate this model was an adult and fully-developed, showing medical students “This is what the inside of an adult woman looks like” since I assume the proportions and innards of a child are slightly different than an adult. But the inclusion of the fetus in the womb (relating back to sex), the fact that there’s public hair but not leg hair, the spread legs despite legs being unneeded for this model…it’s uncomfortable to say the least. The reading going on to describe the weird sense of leering and power play the doctors had when it came to the sexualization of their models made me incredibly uneasy–I wonder how they treated their actual female patients.
After the Hunter reading, I can better understand the underlying sexualization and invasive nature of this scientific model become more noticeable. There is a distinct anatomical structure that defines this figure as a scientific model, but not enough to distract from the idealization of this female body. One aspect that I noticed here was the set of this model, apart from the unnecessary addition of pubic hair. The legs are open, and there’s no indication of pelvic bones. As this is a model that focuses on internal organs, it’s understandable that they are the focus. But when I look further into this model, it seems almost a display of the contents of these women. Even like a trophy.
Trophy…that is creepy!
One quote from Hunter that stood out to me was the waxes showed how the doctor & molder “wished to construct the reality of female sexuality.” The details of the vulva & pubic mound go beyond medical necessity, making this particular model straddle the line between instruction & perversion.
Artists often use varying levels of detail to emphasis different areas of their work. In the case of this wax model, it looks as though the artist wanted to emphasize the outer pubic region of the model a little too much to be purely educational. You can see this in the attention to detail with the hair and the posing. It seems to distract from the original purpose of this model, which is to inform the viewer of the internal female anatomy. My guess after reading Hunter is that the artist’s intentions became perverted as they were working on this piece.
I can definitely see how at first glance this could be looked at as nothing other than a model of organs. However it does call to other things, raising questions about its overall portrayal. It is for one extremely detailed which makes it more sexualized when looking towards the vaginal area, the vulva, and the obvious and strange inclusion of little pubic hair. There is also an emphasis on bodily flesh, and by that I don’t mean the organs but the way it is polished up especially around areas of skin. It is also like a prize in a way with the fetus and the baby, clearly focusing on the organs of fertility, even though in this case it appears to be way smaller than the actual image of pregnancy.
After the Hunter reading I can understand how this piece is not only unnecessarily sexual but even fetishizes the woman. The pubic hair and spread open legs are a bit too much for a medical model. It’s eroticism overtakes its instructional value. This fits into imaging and imagining the female body as it shows how the female body is objectified in scientific art.
When I first looked the picture before reading the article, I thought that the model was purely edcuational, but once I read Hunter’s reading, I began to see how the model was erotic. One of the most prominent details that makes this picture erotic is the use of pubic hair. In the reading, it states how the decision to use pubic hair is completely up to the doctors preference and does not serve any real medical use. Also the decision to use blonde pubic hair is for erotic purposes only and is a sexually charged choice to reflect that the woman has blonde hair. I don’t think that the model is completely erotic, being that it does serve some educational purpose for studying the inside of the female body, but the model does include erotic aspets to the body.
As most people have said, at first glance this feels educational. However, the inclusion of the very detailed vagina feels a bit strange. Rather than including the same style to the internal diagram, the vagina is very realistic. I think it would feel less strange if the vagina and its’ anatomy had been included as well. What I mean by that is if they had included the vaginal opening, the urinary open, the labia, the cervix, etc in the same structure and style as they did the rest of the organs as opposed to a realistic vagina that doesn’t serve much educational or functional purpose.
Without any context, the model appears informative, but it is unavoidably sexual by design. Of course, it is the viewer’s decision to look at something and allow arousal or deny it, assuming that the viewer can access self-control over desires. Obviously some desires lead people to do cruel things, which cannot be rationalized—so who can decide what the intentions of the artists/patrons/viewers/surgeons of the work that Hunter includes in the reading are? Sexual arousal can be masked. There are subtleties to specific models, however, that propose a fetishist intent. The image above is rich with anatomical information, yet this information could easily be presented without an acutely detailed vagina. An artist should be free to make what they want, though, even if it is considered crude or explicit content. Perhaps if genitalia were displayed together as a means to compare/contrast vaginal health and promote an understanding of body diversity, then the sculpture would serve the purpose of both educational prestige AND a sensitivity to realism. This anatomical model seems, rather, to showcase information while keeping people engaged by adding a vagina to it like it’s an intricate bow on a present. The invitation to learn is deceptive and tainted because it fails to teach about the object that intrigued a closer look from its audience by means of arousal, it shows the viewer more information on organs unrelated to the vagina. The baby, however, does push the viewer’s attention to think about the female body and that which is associated with getting pregnant and giving birth—the vagina! Perhaps this reveals what really was at the forefront of the artist’s mind, but, on the other hand, they could have just made an honest attempt at representing this model accurately, showing off their attention to detail.
The Hunter reading suggests that a wax figurine has implied erotic intentions when the preferences of the doctor are shown through the public hair. While this model is technically scientific and instructional, there is an erotic undertone that is inherent when a man has full control over the depiction of the genitals. There seems to be no focus on the mechanics of the vagina, the components or “parts” of the vagina are not shown. It is there for aesthetic purposes, making the wax mold feel more sexual than is necessary for education.
Based on Hunter’s article, this sculpture can be seen as both a fetish item and an educational tool. It would help to know in what context this model was displayed. If it was on display, the pubic hair adds no educational value to the model. While the organs are very detailed, the genitals seem too detailed to just be educational.