Subjectivity and Objectification - A diatribe (Part One)

Recently I've found myself once again feeling frustrated because of the presence of objectification in today's culture. Most specifically my frustration lies in the responses that I have had from friends (mostly male) because of the pictures that I have posted of myself here. Although most of the statements were made in jest, I feel like I cannot ignore the root from which they have come.

First let me stipulate that the picture found on the post "Pieces of me" were taken by myself as a means of artistically exploring how I want to portray my own self. Currently I am looking to work on an artistic project that depicts the "real" and "honest" me. I took these pictures in the simplest terms using one camera and one bedroom lamp. They are SELF PORTRAITS. They are not meant to be provocative or to imply that I am actively seeking voyeurism. Yet, somehow some still consider my pictures to be "risque" or "nudies".

I wonder if these were male self portraits if I would have received the same reaction. Is the female form more more inherently sexual than the male's? And why, in our advanced society are we still finding ourselves part and parcel of the whole realm of sexual objectification?

My "art" has been undermined by the determination of the world to consider the human form as an object, and I have come face to face with the "sexual gaze". It begs the question "When can the female form in art transcend this gaze?"

I realize here that I am coming to the table in the midst of a bias. I am considering this topic from the perspective of a female artist who is working in a traditionally male dominated field. My materialist feminist sensibilities automatically cause me to want to fight to see the mythical subject of "woman" or in Lacanian terms "the other" (the counterpoint to the male) dismantled, so that women too can move towards subjectivity in art.

So yes, this diatribe does stem from the idea that we are still crawling out from a patriarchal society when it comes to the creation of art. The male gender and the sexuality still has a stronghold when it comes to the canonized texts of the theatre and even film. Naturally, the theory that stems from this point of can spill over in to visual art such as photography because they are interrelated. You could even consider photography as snapshots of a moment of live theatre.

This explains why I am referring to the "male gaze" - I am referring to the traditionally held European "ideal" audience of the white, middle-class, heterosexual male. This "ideal" spectator is carved from the likeness of the culture in which he exists and all aspects of performance, or art, can be manipulated so that their meaning is most intelligible to that spectator. Now, I do realize that not all art does stem from this perspective, I mean there have been many developments in art, but every now and then you do have to stop and consider the impact that this sensibility has created to help understand where are is coming from.