"You turn m/e inside out": Body models undone in The Lesbian Body.

Abstract

Anatomical body models possess a seemingly contradictory set of attributes. They can be concrete and pedagogical at the same time that they are gruesome and fantastical; they claim objectivity while rhetorically embracing specific theories of human value. Nowhere is this more evident than in Monique Wittig's 1973 novel The Lesbian Body. Reading the novel alongside Wittig's materialist feminist theory, this article highlights how Wittig's conviction in the political and material agency of cultural signs comes forward most dramatically in her treatment of anatomical representations. In particular, it looks to Wittig's canny manipulation of the unique properties of instrumental and technical images, a class of signs which simultaneously invites and disavows libidinal engagement. The novel provocatively engages the question of whether the visual strategies of hegemonic discourse can ever be successfully deployed against or outside their disciplines. Accordingly, this article argues, The Lesbian Body is a crucial text for contemporary feminist scholars of the visual culture of science, medicine, and pornography.