https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/sep/20/police-called-to-hay-on-wye-gallery-after-it-puts-painting-of-naked-woman-in-window

We saw that last week when we were in Hay. We both commented that it was really poorly executed and no one seemed to be taking much notice of it. There were two young women in the shop who seemed to be involved in it some way,and it looked like they were hoping for some sort of reaction,as they kept looking at us,almost expectantly.
We'd gone to Hay to look for books and hopefully some artwork,but decided that that particular gallery had nothing that we'd want.

Contemptuous of her woeful lack of talent and disgusted by her pandering to porn-soaked male culture, but scared? The meaning of words is another area where she seems to lack skill.

But she wasn't even talking about a reaction to seeing actual vulvas, she was saying we were scared of her cartoon-like depiction of one.

Artists who draw female models. Nudists. Friends who are relaxed about nudity.

It's like a Monty Python sketch.

'Straight women never see vulvas!'

'Well, apart from those straight women who used a mirror to look at their own or maybe when they were learning to use a tampon...'

'Yes, apart from those'

'...and of course straight disabled women who use catheters...'

'Yes, apart from those'

'...or are nurses or carers...'

'Yes, apart from those'

'...midwives, urologists, gynaecologists and...'

'Yes, apart from those'

'...beauticians...'

'Yes, apart from those'

'...or have female children or for a different reason I haven't thought of.'

'Yes, apart from the striaght women who have used a mirror to look, to use a tampon at first or to self-catheterise, are nurses, carers, midwives, urologists, gynaecologists, beauticians, have female children or for a different reason you haven't thought of - straight women never see vulvas'

Trigger warnings expected absolutely everywhere for the most basic things, but you're supposed to walk your kids past that going gosh how excitingly shocking and transgressive.

Clown world.

Someone put a sticker on it saying 'this is an adult human female', that'll fix it. It'll be triple locked in a dungeon somewhere in seconds, with counselling required for those exposed to it.

I heard an interview with the artist-she's absolutely delighted with outcry due to the publicity it's given her.

It is sexualised. And a very stereotypical sexualised picture it is too.

Why are her legs spread if she's not giving birth?

Pictures of naked adults are made for the male gaze, not for the female's.

Her marketing so far has been lousy if the best she can come up with is women never seeing their own body parts and the objection to the placement of the painting being fear of a little black triangle.

But it she or a publicist has read this thread, she might come up with something better about headless and silenced, displayed like a product. Better not to try the Sheela na gig comparison, its too easy to point out the flaws in the analogy.

It's a terrible painting in an inappropriate place and the "artist" is being very clever getting all this free publicity for her mediocre talent.
Subject matter aside, it's awful. There's no depth, no meaning, just a bit of salacious nudity to get the £££££ rolling in.
Untalented artists HAVE to be talented at marketing. I'd give her an A for marketing, and D for the actual painting. It'll make a nice firelighter.

Wow, just had a google, Sethera. Really interesting, thank you. Much more medical (and therefore challenging) than the artsy photos I was thinking of, but still beautifully informative and alive.

Do you remember 'My beautiful cervix' which was similar?

As for her "het women don't see vulvas" - child, I saw mine decades before you even emerged from your mother's, and I'm hardly unusual.

Agree completely. And also, there have been other artworks about seeing one another's vulvas that are soooo much richer, more, though-provoking, more human. I'm thinking in particular of a wonderful photographic project that I'm sure I saw in the media a few years ago (unless I dreamt it - which would be a weird and wonderful dream).

It was just loads and loads of photos of individual women's vulvas (and the surrounding pubic zone -- for want of a better term) arranged alongside one another. It was beautiful to see how different they were from one another and yet so powerfully the same. So rich. Makes a mockery of that particular justification of the daub in the shop window,

Yes the media are good at switching back and forth depending on the type of shit stirring material they’re presenting

Paintings by the talent-free who identify as artists are ten a penny and have been for a very long time. This is just another misogynistic, porn-saturated hack's attempt to get attention. As for her "het women don't see vulvas" - child, I saw mine decades before you even emerged from your mother's, and I'm hardly unusual.

It's a sexualised image of a woman with her legs wide. And it's not like sheela-na-gigs in 12th century churches, which are not sexualised in the same way this image is - cowboy boots are a 'turn on' and linked to various kinks. This appears to be a female body that's available. I understand, I think, the point the artist is making - that women are made voiceless by pornography - but it is still an inappropriate image in that place and I would find it offensive in a window in a shopping precinct. I would find in not offensive in a art gallery I had chosen to enter. It's not an appropriate image for a high street window. Needs removing.

So clearly a ‘wow I’m so edgy and outre’ artiste trying to drum up business. Probably loving that the police were called. Oblivious to their contribution to further objectifying and degrading women. Probably thinks they’re a feminist.

If that's meant to be a vulva, then I do wonder what the hell I've got between MY legs! <gets mirror>

I like art and I enjoy art when it's a bit provocative, as long as it has an inherent value aside from it being intended to cause outrage/offence/pearl clutching. This piece is pretty shite and mediocre IMO, plus the idea that it offends or scares 'straight women' because there's a visible vulva (WHAT vulva?? I can't see one, just an inverted triangle sort of hanging down, and some pink wool which I assume is ... pubes??) is just daft and insults the intelligence. Rather pathetic attention-grabbing.

"Most straight women haven't seen a vulva and are scared"

1. fuck off

2. Do they think we don't own a mirror? Do they think we don't have a good idea of what our own must look like from having wiped and washed it every day, let alone found pleasure in it, alone and with our oh-so-unfashionable male sexual companions??

3. If the vulva is as badly depicted as the rest of the woman, it's hardly educational, is it. I'd get a fright if I thought my body was as oddly proportioned as the painting, too.

I also have a problem with this painting being displayed in a shop window, it's vile and I'd hate to have been walking past that shop window if a man was standing there staring at it. I'd feel intimidated, scared too if the man was of a nature to say something to me about it. And it's called 'Party Time', yeah right, like you do.

As an aside, this painting reminds me of something I saw here on this forum a while ago. It was a very similar pose of a woman wearing red boots. Someone had thought it a good idea to adorn entrance gates to a park (I'm not sure where the park was but am pretty sure there was a children's play area within the park) with the woman's leg's spread across the two opening gates. So, as you walked through, the legs parted.

Women's bodies are not vile, but this type of depiction and presentation in a shop window is vile.

Oh for goodness sake…

No problem seeing all sorts of incredibly sexualised pornified stuff on channel four, on strictly, on every reality tv show, or objectified nudes by creeps like Freud

i do have a problem with this

To remind you a bloke exposed his actual dick on tv, and channel four are about to put on a show where virgins have sex on live tv

i do have a problem with this

Cant help feeling that at least some of the pursed lips is outrage that the artist is a young woman

i have no idea how old she is

i don’t have a problem with it as a piece of ‘art’ displayed in a gallery for sale or just for a show….i do have a problem with it in a shop window

If this is double standards as RaspberryParade suggests, I am breathless with anticipation to see the Mumsnet feminist threads where full frontal naked men (either real or painted/sculpted images) are lauded for appearing in public / tv / shop windows.

Bound to be loads.... right ?

Thanks v much for this post, @drhf . It articulates so well what I always want to be able to say about "sex positivity", ie that sex positivity is performed again and again by young women in every generation and our male-led society always shapes it into the same thing: it always comes down to the same ethos -- that women should celebrate their sexual autonomy on terms that just happen to suit the shape of men's sexuality.

In the sixties and seventies they called it "the permissive society" and expected women to be on tap for men's needs; in the nineties (as you say in your post) it was the "cool girl" ethic. It always amounted to the same demand: women, love sex, but don't expect the space and the toleration of difference that you need in order to enjoy it on the terms of a female-led agenda. Same old fucking same old.

In between the peaks of permissive society, cool girl and sex positivity, there have been some periods where cool girl values are critiqued a bit more by feminism and the critique gains a bit more traction, but even then feminists are permanently fighting a rearguard action against been slandered (absurdly) as anti-sex.

I'm very confused as why I should be scared of vulvas simply because I am a straight woman who admittedly rarely sees them. It seems as though most that are on display are by manipulative men for men so no, I want no part of that.

I don't see how a standard pornographic pose painting in a shop window is doing anything other than increasing the in-your-face sexualisation of society to the detriment of women.

So sick of this pretend reclaiming sexuality. Perfectly fine in a gallery.

I can’t not see a face in the torso.
. .
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