Fluent Essays

My course is Homosexuality and Visual Culture. The course is about the history of sexuality and queers, alongside artwork in all forms (drag shows, paintings, sculptures, etc (ASSIGNMENT IS DUE MAY 9TH at 10AM so i need it before then) ASSIGNMENT: You are now the curator at a museum organizing an exhibition of work by and/or about gay, lesbian, bisexual, intersexed, transgender and/or queer artists and issues. You will want to look back at some of the essays from this course, which addressed exhibitions such as Hide/Seek, Difference and Desire in American Portraiture; Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose: Gender Performance in Photography and Robert Atkins essay which addressed In A Different Light. Your exhibition must include art, which was discussed in at least three of the units from this course and must include at least 5 artists (you may also include artists we did not discussed in this course). The exhibition should have a theme or idea that ties it together. FORMAT: Please write a 500-750 words introduction to your exhibition. Discuss the themes the exhibition addresses, which historical period or periods it covers and which artists are included. Please be sure to draw on the reading and discussions from at least three units of this course. You must include an image of at least one artwork to represent each artist, which is included in your exhibition. You must also include the title of your exhibition and at least a 2 to 3 sentence biography of each artist. You may want to look at various museum websites and press releases for their exhibits to get an idea of how to approach this assignment. I will upload some readings from the class and thought maybe the topic could be themed around lesbians and women? Up to you. Thank you SO much!!! heres another reading: https://books.google.com/books?id=hWRYkPGsL1YC&pg=PA1&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false Running head: THE PRINCE 1 PRINCE 7 “The Prince” and the Florentine Republic Name Date “The Prince” and the Florentine Republic In the book The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli addresses the two types of government that exist concerning leadership. These include the principalities like the hereditary in which the leadership flows through the family tree as the family has been established for long. In this case, it is the leadership through kings(Machiavelli, 2008). The second type of government is with regard to republics, whereby people get to choose the leaders they want. Machiavelli focuses more on hereditary, but he addresses the various aspects of the principalities and republics by addressing the various historical events with regard to leadership. This paper will take a look at the topic of The Florentine Republic and how it relates to The Prince, how the issue gets addressed by Machiavelli, and the contribution of the text in shaping the views of Machiavelli about government. The Prince and the Florentine Republic The Prince is a book that entails the various types of leadership, which enables one to understand the different government forms. The government forms that Machiavelli addresses include the two principalities, which are either new that have just been created or the hereditary ones that have been established over time and the republics (Machiavelli, 2008). In addressing the concept of innate leadership and how it works, Machiavelli explains the various factors that make it challenging and almost impossible for countries that have a republic to be conquered. This is relevant to this topic because it addresses the aspects of how Florence, as a kingdom, became a republic and later became a defeated as their princes fled (Clarke, 2018). This is in agreement with Machiavelli’s sentiments in his book that provides that it is much easier for a state that gets ruled under the hereditary principality to be conquered rather than a country that is a republic. The book and the topic relate to each other in the sense that they both address the various forms of government and their specific aspects in terms of their characteristics concerning how they operate and how the people subject to them respond in case of invasion. How people respond to the country that has invaded them is highly dependent on the current type of government they have. In a republic, people tend to be loyal because they used to live freely, and for this reason, it will be challenging for a country that invaded them to acquire their loyalty as they will remain true to their republic government and they will also devise ways to fight for their republic. On the other hand, it tends to be much easier for a state that has a hereditary government to be conquered by democracy because the people will enjoy a kind of freedom that lets them choose their leaders rather than a hierarchy that is dominated by dictatorial like leadership in the sense that the people have to do what the Prince directs. These topics, therefore, relate as while Machiavelli talks about how the different government function, the topic on the Florentine Republic discusses how the republic of Florence came to become a republic. How the topic gets addressed by Machiavelli The primary theme of the topic is Florence as a republic. Machiavelli, therefore, addresses the various aspects as to how the country became a republic and the multiple elements that may have influenced that. Machiavelli addresses the elements regarding the Florentine democracy by providing advice and his views on how the problems Florence faces should have been handled. For instance, he states that the Florence would have stood at the discretion of Giovanni Auto’s discretion if he had decided to conquer Naples for the purpose of proving his fidelity. If the man that had been appointed as captain, Paolo Vitelli by the Florentines and had defeated Pisa, the Florentines would have been right in keeping him, and they would have to obey him if he had become their enemies’ soldier. This is a clear indication that the views from the book get shaped by the actual events that took place in Florence. Machiavelli views his writings regarding the Florentine Histories, as a theme, as a party division that is remarkable in the city that kept Florence city corrupt and weak (Maher, 2017). He further adds that the most democratic government and also the most short-lived government of the city got formed as a result of the rebellion of the lower classes. The discussion and provisions from the history of Florentine clearly indicate that despite having become a republic, Florentine did not manage to maintain its democracy as it gets conquered later by the barbarians. The weak state of the country made it possible for it to be invaded easily. While working with Florence's Great council, Machiavelli was of the opinion that it was necessary for Florence to establish a militia for citizens, and get rid of the mercenaries. Machiavelli’s main focus of attention was the condition in which Italy was in, in which it had been taken over by Barbarians. He went further to challenge the various princes like Medici to be more aggressive in fighting for the liberation of Italy. His opinion about the republic of Florence was that it had a weak system with the princes not being able to stand up against the barbarians that had invaded the country is what contributed to the ease of the barbarians to invade them. Further arguments that Machiavelli presents in his work regarding the Florentine republic was the argument that a prince’s influence, even if he is a virtuous prince could not be able to last long and as such, he was of the opinion that the most superior government form was the one in which all people were born free. He further added that such a good republic would be comprised of a religion that is strong, laws that are good, a citizen army, and punishments that are severe for criminals. Machiavelli was an Italian Patriot whose writing was aimed at sparking Italy’s liberation from occupation by foreigners. In his book, Machiavelli provides advice to the leaders on the specific qualities they are supposed to have, and it becomes evident that his message was directed towards the princes who, instead of defending their people against the enemy, they decide to flee and leave the people alone. This is clearly not the character of a good leader as their fleeing made it easier for the barbarians to take over the country as there was no one to oppose them. The topic and Machiavelli’s views regarding government The topic, Florentine republic helps shape the views by Machiavelli about government in several ways, some of which have been touched on in the discussion. First, the topic is a reflection of Machiavelli's efforts in fighting for the restoration of Italy from the hands of the barbarians. By being a republic, it meant that the citizens could exercise free will, and they would get born free. The liberty of the people would be realized by making Florence a republic; the freedom of people would be restored. The writings by Machiavelli mainly themed with the concepts of a republic state in which power gets given to the people who get to make a decision and choose the kind of leader that they want. A democratic republic, according to Machiavelli, is one in which the people get to live freely and influence the elements of decision making in the republic country. The Florentine republic topic helped shape the views by Machiavelli regarding government in the sense that it provided a platform through which the people could be able to choose leaders that had the specific virtues that the people desired. The people had the liberty to take a given length of time, observe the leaders that they wanted, and get them into holding the leadership positions in which they got elected by the representatives of the people. This shaped the views by Machiavelli because, in The Prince, he held the opinion that the Prince should be a virtuous man (Menaldo, 2018). He describes this as the message from history that is the most important. His description of such men was that men who are worthy of leadership are those who are able to stand on their own, and place reliance on their armies rather than fortune or mercenaries. Cesare Borgia was the one man Machiavelli saw to have come close to being a virtuous man, and his fight for power became a significant inspiration for Machiavelli in writing his book, The Prince. Therefore, the Florentine republic through Borgia played an essential role in shaping the government views Machiavelli had. The events that took place in the Florentine republic in terms of being taken over by barbarians shaped the views of Machiavelli in the sense that he was able to address the issue of the Princes who failed to fight for their country and fled wars. This inspired him to write about the aspects of good leadership, and thus, he referred to The Prince as the book of advice to leaders (Goodman, 2017). The book did not dwell on the ideals that were Christian, like most books of that time. His view was based on the idea that a prince needs to learn to be good first for him to be able to hold and take power. The reason for this was that most of the other people are not good, and as such, it was necessary that a true leader be better than the other people. This view was influenced by the need for Machiavelli to provide advice for those princes who had fled the country at the sign of war, leaving their people when they should have been the ones fighting for them. The relationship between the topic, The Florentine Republic, and the book by Machiavelli, The Prince, is so close in the sense that the various aspects of leadership get discussed in each text. For instance, while the topic addresses the type of leadership that was in Italy from the principalities to the republic and later being conquered by the barbarians, Machiavelli, in his book explains the different kinds of government and writes his book with inspiration from some of the events that took place in Florence. Machiavelli addresses the topic by establishing possible solutions and advice through the book. References Clarke, M. T. (2018). Machiavelli's Florentine Republic. Cambridge University Press. Goodman, R. (2017). The Advisor: Counsel, Concealment, and Machiavelli's Voice. Redescriptions: Political Thought, Conceptual History, and Feminist Theory, 20(2), 200-223. Machiavelli, N. (2008). The prince. Hackett Publishing. Maher, A. (2017). The power of “wealth, nobility and men:” Inequality and corruption in Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories. European Journal of Political Theory, 1474885117730673. Menaldo, M. A. (2018). Leadership and the virtue of deception in Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince. In Leadership and the Unmasking of Authenticity. Edward Elgar Publishing. Homoeroticism in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods - Sheela-na-gig Sheela-na-gig Sheela-na-gig is a woman who is in a squatting position displaying her vulva - a figure found on the walls, and towers (as well as in museums) in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England, similar to grotesques throughout Europe, to Baubo in the Middle East, and to Kali and other goddess figures in India and Southeast Asia.  Most commonly Sheela-na-gig is represented as an old, bald woman without breasts and is located on a church. This may seem to be an odd image to find on a church, but very common, nonetheless. Shella na gig on Kilpeck Church, near Hereford England, 12th century The form is both overtly sexual and somewhat comical – a kind of trickster figure. Like the “Venus of Willendorf,” it is unclear exactly what the figure represents.  Some believe she is the vestige of a female goddess from pagan times who was then translated into Christian iconography. It is also suggested that she may symbolize a warning against the sin of lust. Often the figure was found above a window, so she was also considered a possible protection against the entry of evil. While most surviving sheelas are medieval, Irish legend and older carvings suggest connections to pagan crone goddesses. According to lore and scholarship, sheelas may also have served as fertility, birthing, or erotic figures.   In recent years there has been more writing about Sheela-na-gig, as she has been of great interest to the Great Goddess Movement and to Feminist Artists and Theologians. Contemporary feminist artists such as Mary Beth Edelson, frequently incorporates the form of “Sheela” into their work. Mary Beth Edelson, Sheela makes no apologies, silkscreen and collage on jute tag, 1978 Early Irish Churches Blatantly Show Female Genitalia The Christian men in Ireland who were in authority over their flocks had churches built in order to perform the liturgies and rituals associated with their sacred duties. And what did the church authorities place at the entrances to many of their churches just before and after the time of the Crusades? In full view of the congregations that attended the various Catholic Churches then in Ireland, the priests and monks placed a statue carved out of stone (usually) showing a squatting woman with her legs apart and the genitalia of the woman held open with her hands. Such images were widespread in Ireland and each one was known as a Shiela-Na-Gig (probably meaning, the "Woman of the Vulva"). This naked woman was prominently displayed for all the churchgoers at the keystone spot of an arched doorway leading into the church (or sometimes over a pointed arch of a window that was also apart of the church). It may be difficult for us of modern times to believe that such things happened in a Catholic Christian environment, but the fact is, they did indeed take place. In the prestigious "Encyclopedia of Religion," edited by Mercia Eliade and published by Macmillian Publishing Company for the University of Chicago, there are references to these Sheila-Na-Gigs (sometimes spelled Sheelagh-na-gig). Notice what the encyclopedia tells us about them. "Aside from the transformative religious mysteries of sacrifice and initiation, the obvious life-giving and growth-promoting powers of the vulva and its secretions have given rise to a widespread use of representations of the female genitalia as apotropaic devices. The custom of plowing a furrow for magical protection around a town was practiced all over Europe by peasants. It was still observed in the twentieth century in Russia, where villages were thus annually 'purified.' The practice was exclusively carried out by women, who, while plowing, called on the moon goddess. A similar apotropaic function seems to have prompted the placing of squatting female figures prominently exposing their open vulvas on the key of arches at church entrances in Ireland, Great Britain, and German Switzerland. In Ireland these figures are called Sheelagh-na-gigs. Some of these figures represent emaciated old women. These images are illustrations of myths concerning the territorial Celtic goddess who was the granter of royalty. When the goddess wished to test the king-elect, she came to him in the form of an old hag, soliciting sexual intercourse. If the king-elect accepted, she transformed herself into a radiantly beautiful young woman and conferred on him royalty and blessed his reign. Most such figures were removed from churches in the nineteenth century. And a little farther down in the same article: "A remarkable parallel to the Celtic Sheelagh-na-gig is found in the Palauan archipelago. The wooden figure of a nude woman, prominently exposing her vulva by sitting with legs wide apart and extended to either side of the body, is placed on the eastern gable of each village's chiefly meeting house. Such figures are called dilugai. Interestingly, the yoni [the female genitalia] is in the shape of a cleft downward-pointing triangle. These female figures protect the villagers' health and ward off all evil spirits as well. They are constructed by ritual specialists according to strict rules, which if broken would result in the specialist's as well as the chiefs death. It is not coincidental that each example of signs representing the female genitalia used as apotropaic devices are found on gates. The vulva is the primordial gate, the mysterious divide between nonlife and life" (Encyclopedia of Religion, article YONI, Vol.15, p.534). There is a great deal of information about these Sheila-Na-Gigs that were found in many places in Ireland (until the Protestant Reformation when many of them were destroyed by the reformers) and in various places of Northern Europe within Christian times (indeed, these images were found in the most prominent places carved on Catholic Christian churches). They were even found on Cathedrals (the seat of a bishopric). The highest authorities in the Christian Church allowed them to exist at the time. In the famous "Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics," edited by James Hastings, we read the following. "Nor are such female effigies confined to the pagan natives of tropical wilds. They were frequently carved on churches in the Middle Ages. Many have been preserved until recently in Ireland, as, e.g. on a doorway of Cloyne Cathedral, Co. Cork. The Royal Irish Academy in Dublin possesses a very good specimen removed from a church. They are known to Irish antiquaries by the name Sheila-Na-Gig. Most of them, however, have now been destroyed" (vol. IX, p.8~7). Barbara Walker in her book "The Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects," states under the subject Sheila-Na-Gig: "Female figures prominently displaying the yoni [female genitalia] as a vesica piscus [Mandorla] were once common ornaments of Irish churches built before the sixteenth century. As a rule the sheila-na-gig was carved into the keystone of a window or doorway arch. Undoubtedly it was a protective sign left over from pre-Christian Goddess worship. Figures of the same type were found throughout Europe as cathedral decorations, on the capitals of columns, at the ends of ceiling beams, and so forth. Squatting Goddess figures almost identical to the Sheila-Na-Gig guarded the doors of temples in India" (p.104). It should be recalled that the depiction of these women blatantly showing their genitalia in the most prominent places of a Cathedral or church were sanctioned and ordained by the Christian ecclesiastical authorities with the approval and approbation of the papacy in Rome (after all, some of them were found on churches as late as the nineteenth century). A few of these images approved by the priests and monks are shown below. These few represent the hundreds that must have existed on other churches. PLATE VI (Shelah-Na-Gig Monuments) PLATE VII (VENUS OF THE VANDALS, BRONZE AND LEAD IMAGES, AND CAPITAL OF A COLUMN) Many symbols and signs on churches and cathedrals in Europe were not as blatant as the Sheila-Na-Gigs, but the so-called benign symbols that the female and male genitalia represented only the initiated into the "church mysteries" would know what they meant. Many windows were given various designs that to the uninitiated looked like pretty decorations to make the church appear attractive to the eye. Yes, it did that, but the architects ofTen had much more in mind when they painted (or constructed) their rose windows or carvings in walls, on columns, at the top of columns, or at the end of beams. As a point in fact, at the Church of San Fedele in France there were discovered some medals dating from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries that had on one side the "benign" symbol in the form of a cross with other decorations with what the symbol actually entailed on the reverse side (which was a phallic symbol). Some signs were "male" and others were "female" and were identified by the respective genitalia found on the reverse side. The Plate IX below was taken from the book "A History of Phallic Worship," by Thomas Wright and published as a reprint by Dorset Press, 1992. PLATE IX (ORNAMENTS FROM THE CHURCH OF SAN FEDELE So, the next time you want to admire the decorations that are found in many of our modern churches (who often copied from early Gothic progenitors), look closely at the various designs of the crosses in the quatrefoils in the tracery windows. You will see that some of them are very similar in design (if not identical) with the medals from the Church of San Fedele shown above. And too, many churches today have lancet shaped windows (with their pointed arches) as their basic window designs. When you know what they actually mean to the initiated (without the outward ambiguity), you may be shocked at what you find displayed within those "beautiful ornaments of sacred art, that adorn even the quaint little "churches in the vale." Notice the medals shown above that depict on the obverse the female genitalia. The artists idealize the shape of the external genitalia by making what is called an "almond shaped" design that is called in symbolic language a Mandorla (which means "like an almond"). The same shape of genitalia (the Mandorla) was found in the majority of the Sheila-Na-Gigs that were carved on the top of doorways (usually at the pinnacle of a pointed or lancet arch) in the early churches and on some Cathedrals. This symbol of the Mandorla is a very much used in Christian art. Most of us have seen it at one time or another, but most people have not the slightest idea what it signifies. It is a woman's vulva. The illustration below shows how Barbara G. Walker in her excellent book "The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets" describes this well known symbol called the Mandorla. Vesica piscis Mandorla "Almond," the pointed-oval sign of the yoni, used in Oriental art to signify the divine female genital; also called vesic~ piscis, the Vessel of the Fish. Almonds were holy symbols because of their female, yonic connotations. Almonds had the power of virgin motherhood, as shown by the myth of Nana, who conceived the god Attis with her own almond.' The candlestick of the Jews' tabernacle of the Ark was decorated with almonds for their fertility magic (Exodus 25:33-34). Christian art similarly used the mandorla as a flame for figures of God, Jesus, and saints, because the artists forgot what it formerly meant. I. Frazer, G.B., 403, You will often see Mary and/or the supposed "Jesus" within a glorified Mandorla symbol. Note the following examples Now note this. If you will cut the Mandorla in half; you will see that the two sections (if turned upward) resemble the famous pointed arch that we see in profusion in all of Gothic architecture. It is also the most used form for windows (such as lancet windows) that we see in churches today. In fact, it is common for us, when we see windows or doorways that have the pointed arch (which is the top part of the Mandorla sign) to say that is ecclesiastical or church-type of architecture. Even the little "church in the dale" is most often shown with doorways and windows with the pointed type of arch. As said before, this is simply a modified Mandorla symbol and it represents the external female genitalia. This fact can be shown in a most remarkable way once we understand the medieval attitude toward rendering the Christian Church into the shape of a stone, wooden and metal building. This especially applies to that architectural frame of mind which used Gothic motifs to enshroud the clear meanings of their parts of a church with symbolic teachings that only the initiated would understand. We can see how the female genitalia (as well as the male) were used extensively in various ways to show that the "Church" was indeed a reckoned as a woman that would bear children for God and Christ who were in heaven. And though in some areas (and even on some Cathedrals) the Sheila-Na-Gigs were placed in full and blatant display of the female genitalia (to remind people they were going "inside" the Woman, the Church, in order to find "life" and regeneration), in most cases the architects used the esoteric motifs with ambiguous themes or displays that the uninitiated would not understand. - Excerpts from Anatomy of an Early Christian Church by Ernest L. Martin, Ph.D., 1998 College Art Association http://www.jstor.org/stable/777658 . Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] . College Art Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Art Journal. http://www.jstor.org http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=caa http://www.jstor.org/stable/777658?origin=JSTOR-pdf http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp Notes on lesbian Laura Cottingham n attempt to construct a lesbian history, whether it be sociological or art historical, involves con- fronting silence, erasure, misrepresentation, and prejudice-all of which present formidable obstacles to historical research and writing. How is it possible to recon- struct a story from evidence that is partial, absent, hidden, denied, obfuscated, trivialized, and otherwise suppressed? The traditional methodology of historical research, and by extension the value system used to evaluate the quality of texts written in the name of history, is necessarily overde- termined by a prioritization of primary sources. But what if these primary sources do not exist because governments have not counted or otherwise documented the historical subject(s); or because the social and political persecution of said subject(s) has encouraged them to silence them- selves; or because prejudice has enabled families and biographers to destroy documents such as letters and diaries that contain the crucial content that might consti- tute testimony or evidence? Some lesbian historians understandably believe that more information about les- bians in the past exists than we now know of or have access to and that, therefore, more primary sources and more tra- ditional history is forthcoming. But it might also just as easily be assumed that the availability of written proof of lesbians and lesbianism is significantly less present and existent than lesbians and lesbianism in nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and American history have in fact been. Although the traditional historical practices of exca- vation and recontextualization have yielded valuable con- tributions to the understanding and construction of European and American lesbian history by scholars such as Lillian Faderman and Barbara Smith in the United States, Ilse Kokula in Germany, and the Lesbian History Group in the United Kingdom, published texts by these and others invariably begin with an enunciation of the par- ticular problems raised in rendering lesbians visible given how deliberately and successfully patriarchy has made us invisible. Even more often, patriarchal societies have dis- allowed women the possibility of being lesbian at all, in which case it is extremely difficult to produce and leave behind lesbian documents. The introduction to a recent work by the London- based Lesbian History Group, Not a Passing Phase: Reclaiming Lesbians in History, 1840-1985, outlines some of the distinct problems lesbian historians face: Writing the history of women is difficult because in a patri- archal society (i.e., one organized in the interests of men) fewer sources concerning women exist and those that do have often been ignored as "unimportant," or have been altered. The task of the feminist historian is first to rescue women from oblivion, and then to interpret women's experi- ence within the context of the society of the time. This is also true for the lesbian historian. In her case, however, the problem of sources is magnified a thousand- fold. First, there is relatively little explicit information about lesbian lives in the past, though probably much more than we know about at the moment. Second, much important material has been suppressed as irrelevant, or its signifi- cance overlooked by scholars pursuing a different theory. Material may have been omitted as "private" or likely to embarrass the family or alienate the reader. Much of the evi- dence we do have has been distorted by historians who will- fully or through ignorance have turned lesbian lives into "normal" heterosexual ones. Women can be ignored, but les- bians must be expunged. Lesbians do not usually leave records of their lives. Those who do may not include any details which would identify them as unmistakably lesbians.' WINTER 1996 72 It is, after all, one of the central political problems of histo- ry, as both a philosophical construct and an academic dis- cipline, that it can only be written-that is, it can only exist-from what has both already existed and still now exists. Additionally, history not only depends on the preex- istence of a material world of (already) lived experience, it also depends on both the existence and the accuracy of documents for and of the already-lived, as well as the interpretation of those documents. Given that what history we do know is a narrative of male supremacy no matter how subversively or productively we choose to interpret or uti- lize it, how is it theoretically possible to expect that the documentary evidence left behind could yield lesbian information that is in any way commensurate to or reflec- tive of lesbian experience? Lesbian history invariably confronts the most pro- found conundrum of the basic premise of history, for it must address not only what has or has not been left behind by way of documentary remains (and how to decode them through the distorted lens of the present), but must in addi- tion confront the successful assimilation of women into heterosexuality and ask why this has occurred. For to understand lesbians, past and present, we must acknowl- edge that the lesbian functions within historical parame- ters that constitute a hard-earned escape from the politically enforced narrative of heterosexuality. The per- sistence of such neutralized misnomers as sexual prefer- ence mask the coercive function of heterosexuality by setting up a false premise that equates same-gender and cross-gender affections (although "sexual preference" is usually only called in to label gays or lesbians). Sexual preference also deliberately disables any full understanding of lesbians and lesbianism by relegating both our histories and our bodies to the limited realm of sexual activity. Even when lesbianism is consciously and obviously 73 Lesbian Art Project, Lesbian Fashion Show, ca. 1977-79, unidentified model, staged at the Los Angeles Woman's Building. enunciated in textual and visual representation, readers and viewers and critics often remain determined to ignore it. An example given in Barbara Smith's introduction to Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology should be familiar to most American readers of this essay, as it concerns the 1982 winner of both the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and the American Book Award for what became a 1985 Hollywood feature that garnered Academy Award nominations across the board: Alice Walker's The Color Purple. In her exami- nation of the forces that keep lesbianism, and most espe- cially black lesbianism, unmentionable, Smith writes: Alice Walker's novel, The Color Purple, is a marvel because it so clearly depicts the origins of contemporary Black femi- nism in the lives of our mothers, in this case of poor women living in the rural South. It also represents a breakthrough in both the context of trade publishing and Black literature, because of its original and positive portrayal of a Black les- bian relationship. Not surprisingly, in the unanimously pos- itive reviews of The Color Purple, Black and white critics have steadfastly refused even to mention the true subject of the book.2 ART JOURNAL 74 Lesbian Art Project, Lesbian Fashion Show, ca. 1977-79, unidentified model, staged at the Los Angeles Woman's Building. Similar and more recent examples of not-seeing and not-naming the lesbian could be listed ad infinitum. In a book of Berenice Abbott photographs, recently repub- lished in 1990, the foreword by Muriel Rukeyser takes pains to call the reader's attention to Abbott's portraits of James Joyce, Andre Gide, and Jacques Cocteau but fails to reveal the fact that Abbott photographed high culture's Left Bank lesbian set of the 1920s, and that Abbott's charmed lesbian circle is featured one-by-one in the portraits of Jane Heap, Sylvia Beach, Princess Eugene Murat, Janet Flanner, Djuna Barnes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and- from their countenances and appearances-many of the other women featured in the book.3 Not to acknowledge Abbott's lesbianism is not to understand her art or her sub- jects. Such disacknowledgment also functions to deny les- bians access to our cultural history, thus allowing the heterosexual regime to claim it falsely for themselves. Likewise, the lesbian life and art of the French photogra- pher Claude Cahun, a contemporary of Abbott's, was exhibited for the first time in a large retrospective at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1995. Cahun's work, which consists mostly of defiant, ironic, and direct- gaze self-portraits produced during the 1930s and 1940s, is hardly helped or sufficiently explained by the heterosex- ist writings included in the recent catalogues of her work.4 Some understanding of the lesbian subculture of Paris before World War II should be as necessary an art histori- cal tool to comprehending Cahun (or Abbott!) as is some knowledge of French-especially considering that Cahun collaborated with her lover Suzanne Malherbe on many of their photomontages. The particularities of lesbian life, as historicized and grounded in social experience, are still not accepted as even appropriate, much less necessary, art historical tools. How often have I been asked, by hetero- sexual art historians and critics after a few glasses of wine, whether it really matters at all whether an artist is lesbian or gay? Let me say that for many of us it matters a great deal-and it is obviously of significant importance to gov- ernments past and present that have enacted, and continue to enact, laws and other prohibitions against us. Perhaps, though, as with the silence around The Color Purple, the problem of not naming the lesbianism in the art of Abbott, Cahun, and others is related to hetero- sexuality's ideological imperative that lesbianism cannot be mentioned or shown if this is done with approval. It appears that lauding lesbianism-not just describing it- is the most unmentionable deed. For Abbott's photograph- ic portraits of friends and lovers, Cahun's self-portraits, and Walker's fictional narrative render lesbianism and the women who live it with dignity and approval. The disacknowledgment of artists and writers who are lesbians, and of art and literary productions that are lesbian, colludes with the disapproval that lesbianism meets in social and political life. And in academic life. As Marilyn Frye has observed in "A Lesbian's Perspective on Women's Studies," women's studies departments across the United States are locked into an understanding of women that aggressively accepts the heterosexualization of women as normal and the marginalization of lesbians as natural or inevitable. Frye suggests a reconsideration of what sexual politics in the university might be if it weren't heterosexist politics: Imagine a real reversal of the heterosexualist teaching our program provides. Imagine thirty faculty members at a large university engaged routinely and seriously in the vig- orous and aggressive encouragement of women to be Les- bians, helping them learn skills and ideas for living as Lesbians, teaching the connections between Lesbianism and WINTER 1996 feminism and between heterosexism and sexism, building understanding of the agency of individual men in keeping individual women in line for the patriarchy. Imagine us openly and actively advising women not to marry, not to fuck, not to become bonded with any man. Imagine us teaching lots of Lesbian literature, poetry, history and art in women's studies courses, and teaching out of a politics deter- mined by Lesbian perception and sensibility.5 Writing about lesbians and lesbian art from a lesbian position that affirms and approves of lesbian existence is itself an act of advocacy, just as the number of dissertations and monographs and the amount of money Europe and the United States heap on white male artists is a form of politi- cal as well as cultural approval. Unless more lesbians are willing to accept the necessity of advocating our right to exist and our right to our cultural heritage, our history as well as our present and future will continue to be lost, denied, trivialized, and otherwise damaged. For it is impossible for lesbian history to come into a recognizable cultural space until lesbians are themselves more visible in their/our own time. Unless we insist on our lesbian selves, unless we articulate ourselves visibly as such in the present, history will no doubt continue to erase us, and the lesbian historians of the future will be left with fragments and puzzles not much better than the ones we possess of the past today. Freeing ourselves from the self- censorship imposed on us is perhaps one of the most vital concerns contemporary lesbians face. One need only encounter cultural materials as otherwise dissimilar as the memoirs of French novelist and writer Marguerite Yourcenar or the New York Daily News interview with the comedian Ellen DeGeneres to witness how pervasive the necessity of lesbian self-erasure still is.6 And I have yet to enter any academic institution or situation in the United States that is free of a hiding, self-silenced, fearful lesbian: women who are unwilling to live heterosexualized, but still unable to publicly enunciate themselves as lesbians. A significant historical turning point for lesbian his- tory in the United States is the period during the 1970s when lesbianism was chosen, celebrated, and culturally enunciated within the women's liberationist organizing of second wave feminism. Although individual lesbians had declared themselves as such before 1970, it was within the public discourse of the women's liberation movement that lesbianism was verbalized, aestheticized, collectivized, .-.. ^. i A : BaLw,pooelgfoLebaAtPoet198ofelihgah Bia Lowe, proposed logo for Lesbian Art Project, 1978, offset lithography. Bia Lowe, proposed logo for Lesbian Art Project, 1978, offset lithography. and otherwise actively demonstrated outside the confines of the personal, the private, the salon, and the bar. It was during the women's liberation movement, and despite the efforts of mainstream feminism's self-defined heterosexual- ists, that lesbianism became, quite simply, an issue, and sought to escape from the taxonomies of personal idiosyn- crasy, scandal, gossip, or cause for recantation within which lesbianism had previously dis-functioned. It is not surprising then, that lesbian history has emerged in academic scholarship only after 1970, after the moment when lesbians, seemingly for the first time in his- tory, announced themselves as a self-recognized group-as a people who could, therefore, have a history. Given that the very idea of history relies on the acceptance of a cate- gorical imperative, of an understanding of a sense of conti- nuity through a formal arrangement of things or people-whether it be the concept of a nation (the United States of America), a culture (the Japanese), a religion (Christianity), or an ongoing production of related objects or forms (abstract painting)-there could be no history of lesbians if lesbians did not first declare themselves deci- sively as an entity, as a people who exist across time and space (and, relevant to the paradigm of lesbian identity, across nationalized and cultural boundaries), and as a peo- ple for whom a collective identity is accepted as apt despite the invariable differences that exist between any members of an acknowledged group. The personal and col- lective energies lesbians exerted on behalf of lesbianism during and within the 1970s women's liberation movement also helped produce an increase in the number of women willing and able to live as lesbians.7 ART JOURNAL 75 At the same time, it would appear that the general cultural declaration made by lesbians in the United States during the 1970s is still not considered by many to be enough to warrant our inclusion in either history or popular consciousness. Or perhaps it was precisely because les- bianism was so loudly enunciated during the 1970s that subsequent historical accounts have sought and continue to seek to diminish it. I base this assertion on the erasure and minimalization of lesbians and lesbianism from historical accounts of the 1970s; in particular I am concerned here with the heterosexualization of the feminist art movement. The feminist art movement that emerged in the Unit- ed States during the 1970s has yet to be historicized or oth- erwise recognized with any degree of scholarship or other forms of cultural attention equivalent to the actual impact the movement has had on subsequent developments in American artistic practice. Rather than expand this argu- ment, I would like to address a few instances of cultural attention that have been paid to the feminist art of the sev- enties in order to situate the problem of lesbian erasure within the context of contemporary art history, as articulat- ed through a few recent productions. As of 1996, there have been only two museum exhi- bitions organized in the United States that distinctly fea- tured (and named as such) works produced from the feminist art movement of the 1970s: Division of Labor: "Women's Work" in Contemporary Art (1995), which was organized by the Bronx Museum and traveled to the Muse- um of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago's "Dinner Party" in Feminist Art History (1996), organized by the Armand Hammer Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles. Both of these exhibi- tions refrained from demarcating the artistic energy of the 1970s as an art movement and included art from the 1980s and 1990s, a curatorial decision that minimizes the gener- ative position of the seventies. Stretching the influence of feminism across three decades avoids announcing the first decade as the movement it was and therefore reduces fem- inist art to a mere tendency. At the same time, however, the exhibitions inadvertently acknowledged the formative position of the seventies on subsequent visual products by the simple fact that the earliest dates on the exhibition checklists were of works from the late 1960s and the 1970s. The Sexual Politics exhibition charted a more com- plicated and hotly contested art historical trajectory by sit- uating dozens of women artists from the seventies, eighties, and nineties around one late-seventies feminist center- piece: Chicago's Dinner Party (1979). The curatorial and physical centrality allotted Chicago forced more than a few seventies feminists to refuse to participate in the exhibition.8 Both Division of Labor and Sexual Politics overly het- erosexualized the feminist art movement of the 1970s through the omission and miscontextualization of art made by and about lesbians. The eclipse of lesbianism appears in each of the exhibition titles. "Division of Labor" imme- diately suggests the heterosexualized division under which women are cast as men's domestic servants, housekeepers, and wives-a connotation corroborated by a curatorial emphasis on art that interacts with the tradition of domes- tic crafts. By including 1980s and 1990s craft-inspired art by men, Division of Labor struck a curatorial position pro- pounding a male-female dialogue, while making no acknowledgment of either the dialogue or the argument between lesbian and nonlesbian women. Harmony Ham- mond was the only lesbian included in Division of Labor. Despite Hammond's public work promoting lesbian visibil- ity as an artist, a writer, and an educator,9 her exhibited Floorpieces were discussed in the curator's exhibition essay exclusively in the context of Minimalism; specifically, as references to Carl Andre!0l Indeed, as long as historians and critics insist on examining every artwork in relation- ship to the art of (more) famous (white) male artists, the possibilities for understanding lesbian art, indeed all art, will continue to be greatly curtailed. For the Sexual Poli- tics exhibition, the heterosexualization of the title is itself a form of cultural colonization-as Sexual Politics takes its title from Kate Millett's most famous book, a work that is itself an indictment of heterosexuality. Abetted by the gen- eral reclamation of the phrase sexual politics into a gener- ally neutral ("it means something about gender, right?") rather than heterosexual-critical term, the exhibition dis- acknowleges both the lesbian authorship and lesbian implications of the eponymous book. Indeed, both exhibitions relegate lesbianism and les- bians to marginal consideration. Although Sexual Politics includes more lesbian artists (including Tee Corrine, Nicole Eisenman, and Cheryl Gaulke), the works are left unelucidated within the exhibition's installation, stranded in the opaque confines of an idea of so-called difference. Perhaps most significantly, both exhibitions refuse to address the critique that seventies lesbian feminism and its art practitioners posed to both patriarchy and heterosex- ualized women. The practice of offering just illustration or description-that is, including usually marginalized art- works but dropping their context-appears to be one of the most popular devices to preclude the real implications of all identity politics. Thus, people make a nod to lesbianism without acknowledging its persecution, use the word gen- WINTER 1996 der but forgo discussing sexism, or write the word race when the real issue is racism. The only general art historical text on seventies fem- inist art currently in print, The Power of Feminist Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994), edited by Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, refers to lesbians by name on just 11 of its 318 pages. All of the direct, but nonetheless fleeting, references to lesbians are made by the four lesbians (including myself) included among the eighteen contribu- tors, as well as by one of the book's editors. One of the book's seventeen essays could and should have been devoted to lesbianism, given that lesbianism as theory and practice was among the most divisive, explosive, and radi- cal issues debated among seventies feminist activists and artists. The editors, as well as the lesbian and nonlesbian contributors, are aware of the central role lesbianism played in the social organizing of seventies feminism (especially in California, which is the book's primary geo- graphical focus), given that all of the contributors (exclud- ing myself) participated in the feminist movement of the 1970s and therefore had direct experience with the trou- bled cycle of enunciation and repression that framed les- bian cultural manifestations during that period. But the different strategies of representation employed by visual artists are incapable of surfacing within historical accounts that refuse to investigate hegemony beyond the level of mention, that stay at the level of superficial nods to the complex histories held and suggested by words like lesbian (or woman or black). It appears that lesbianism, one of the most critical engagements of 1970s feminist art and activism, is still unthinkable, undiscussible, and unpub- lishable twenty-five years later. Of course, a central problem for critics, intellectuals, and historians who have sustained engagements with cul- tural materials deemed irrelevant and not valuable by the dominant culture is that our efforts are not easily rewarded with the resources necessary to conduct our work. We are expected to do more work-find images and documents that do not appear in books and sift through archival mate- rial that has not been catalogued-but we are also expect- ed to take for granted that we will receive less money to conduct our work. And frequently when we are given encouragement to do what we do best and we are even will- ing to accept that the resources we have for our work amount to little more than the air we breathe and the time we number among the living-our efforts are still sabo- taged. There will be no dramatic shift in the circumstances that constrict lesbian experience and lesbian culture until the political circumstances that normalize misogyny and other forces of exploitation are dramatically altered. One of the most insidious formulations manufactured by the cor- ruption of identity politics is the Woman or the African American or the Chicano or the Lesbian invited to present a culturally marked body for the photo session, the acade- mic panel, the cover of the college catalogue, and other staged representations. Our images are used to mask the reality of our subordination. We know just how much we are being used when we attempt to speak and no one lis- tens and when no one bothers to look at or speak of the work that we have produced. Notes 1. Lesbian History Group, Not a Passing Phase: Reclaiming Lesbians in Histo- ry, 1840-1985 (London: Women's Press, 1993), 3. 2. Barbara Smith, ed., Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (New York: Kitchen Table Women of Color Press, 1982), intro., 1. Although this example is now dated by over a decade, it remains a spectacular example of lesbian erasure given how otherwise acclaimed The Color Purple was as both a novel and a film in the early 1980s. 3. Muriel Rukeyser, foreword to Berenice Abbott/Photographs (New York: Smithsonian Institution/Tenth Avenue Editions, 1990). 4. The exhibition is documented in the Mus6e d'Art Modere de la Ville de Paris's catalogue Claude Cahun Photographe (Paris: Jean Michel Place, 1995). See also Francois Leperlier, Claude Cahun, 'ecart et la mdtamorphose (Paris: Jean Michel Place, 1992). 5. Marilyn Frye, Willful Virgin: Essays in Feminism (Freedom, Calif.: Crossing Press, 1992), 53. 6. See Marguerite Yourcenar, Dear Departed: A Memoir, trans. Maria Louise Ascher (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1991); and Tabitha Soren, "Ellen's New Twist on TV," New York Daily News, November 24,1995, USA Weekend section 4-6. 7. Even just looking at the number of women who "became" lesbians dur- ing/within and subsequent to the women's liberation movement indicates that the dialogue on lesbianism that occurred within the movement had a direct effect in enabling women to identify themselves as lesbians. Although an oral history of the movement in the United States would supply considerable evidence, just a look at famous women offers an indicator. Consider, for instance, that Kate Millett, Robin Morgan, and Adrienne Rich were married and considered themselves heterosexu- al before the advent of the movement. In terms of the effect the women's liberation movement has had on subsequent possibilities for self-identified lesbians in the United States, I suggest that the gains in relative economic status the movement garnered for women have made it possible for more members of the next generation to choose to live sexually and economically independent from men (especially, if not exclusively, those of us who are white, middle classed, and college educated). 8. Some of the seventies feminist artists who were approached by the curators and refused to participate in Sexual Politics are Mary Beth Edelson, Harmony Hammond, Joyce Kozloff, Miriam Schapiro, Joan Snyder, and Nancy Spero. 9. Hammond was on the editorial board for the "Lesbian Art and Artists" issue of Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, no. 3 (1977). She was also the curator of A Lesbian Show at 112 Greene Street Workshop in New York in 1978. For a discussion of a variety of contemporary lesbian art and artists, see Hammond's "A Space of Infinite and Pleasurable Possibilities: Lesbian Self-Rep- resentation in Visual Art," in New Feminist Criticism, ed. Joanna Frueh et al. (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 97-131. 10. See Lydia Yee, "Division of Labor: 'Women's Work' in Contemporary Art," in the catalogue for the exhibition of the same name (New York: Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1995), 17. LAURA COTTINGHAM is the author of lesbians are so chic ... (London: Cassell, 1996). She is currently working on Not for Sale, a video history of the feminist art movement. ART JOURNAL 77 Article Contents p.72 p.73 p.74 p.75 p.76 p.77 Issue Table of Contents Art Journal, Vol. 55, No. 4, We're Here: Gay and Lesbian Presence in Art and Art History … Homeroticism in Asia / Sexuality & The Illustrated Text - Homosexual and Lesbian Sex in Shunga Shunga / Ukiyo in Japan The word "ukiyo," means "floating world," and is Buddhist in origin.  Prior to the Tokugawa period (1603 to 1868) the phrase suggested a sadness or anxiety regarding the transitory nature of this world.  During this later period ukiyo came to mean a location of pleasure, consumption, sensuality, and hedonism, but with a positive connotation of "the world of pleasure." The term, Shunga, is translated as "Images of Spring", as the word spring has connections to the idea of youthful sexuality and vigor. For example the phrase, "selling spring," relates to the sale of sexual services, although the meaning is different in the emotive sense than the English term "prostitution." Shunga is a very general term used to describe Japanese erotic prints, books, scrolls and paintings. Many ukiyo or shunga are colored woodblock prints which were produced for a mass audience and were the most popular art form of the time.  In the Tokugawa period vast numbers of these works were made using this simple printing process, which enabled the prints to be priced affordably enough for the general public to enjoy.  The most popular of these works dealt with beauty and sex and show celebrities such as actors, sumo wrestlers and courtesans, the celebrations of youth, love, sexuality, nature and human emotions.   All artists involved with this process of print making were also making Shunga works and no shame was associated with the creation, sale or ownership of these erotic images, which reflected the fact that Japanese society held the belief that the body and sex were a part of the natural world. Men, youths and courtesans in a brothel, Ishikawa Toyonobu, Folio of woodblock print on paper, c. 1730-40 Many  shunga or ukiyo depict male-male sex and female-female sex acts, although it was not until the 1990's that much writing on these works was published.  This was due in part to official Japanese censorship.  It was also previously thought that all shunga were created for a male audience, but more recently this had been disproved.  Inagaki Tsurujo is a female artist from the 18th century who painted Woman Manipulating a Glove Puppet, which is a not-so subtle image expressing female sexuality and control. This is an example of a painting which does not directly depict a sex act. Similarly there are many shunga works which depict social scenes of everyday life where homosexual love is only hinted at and much is left to the imagination. There are also images of courtship, kissing and fondling as well as more explicit images. The earliest shunga works are by Hishikawa Moronobu and his school from 1660 to 1670 and were created as erotic manuals for courtesans.  With growing prosperity in Edo (Tokyo) merchants were becoming wealthier and embracing shunga as part of a lifestyle of leisure and diversions. Stores in the pleasure quarters of Edo, sold shunga prints and books to their visitors. In the 1760's as multi-colour woodblock printing became more popular,  shunga florished both aesthetically and commercially.  Prior to the Tokugawa period, the term "ukiyo," "floating world," conjured up mental images of sadness and anxiety regarding the transitory nature of this world. The term, of course, is of Buddhist origin. Handcolored woodblock print by Hishikawa Moronobu, series ’Yoshiwara no tei’, lobby of a brothel, c. 1680 During the Tokugawa period, however, the term ukiyo underwent a transformation. It came to mean a place of pleasure, consumption, sensuality, and hedonism, but with a positive connotation of "the world of pleasure." After the Tokugawa period, during the Meiji period (1868 - 1912) major change took place in Japan, including changes in attitudes about sexual behavior and the opening of the country to the West. In modern times the state began to take more interest in the regulation of sexual activity and the range of proper or generally acceptable (socially, morally, legally or otherwise) sexual behaviors narrowed significantly.  Overall sexual freedom was curtailed and the country went from having a minimal consciousness of heterosexuality vs. homosexuality to a strong opposition to homosexuality.  During the Meiji period only a few artists specialized in designing shunga prints.  Japan turned towards the west in an effort to modernize. This meant that aspects of Japanese culture deemed "uncivilized" by the censorious Victorian gaze began to be hidden or thrown away completely.  Erotic art in general and homosexual representations in particular went underground. Today, these images are still prohibited but classified as erotica and therefore tolerated. It is nevertheless not permitted to import them into the country.  Shunga are rarely discussed in Japan, although managa and anime borrow from this venerable form of art.  Print from Kitagawa Utamaro, The Pillow Book (Uta Makura), 1788. Returning to the Tokugawa period, homosexuality, in Japanese called nansoku meaning 'male love' or 'male colors', was not an uncommon during this time and was made popular or acceptable by the upper class of samurai or warriors.  Among this class it was typical for an adolescent boy or wakashu train in martial arts with a more experienced adult man, who could take the young man as a lover, but only if the wakashu agreed. This could be formalized into a "brotherhood contact" and was necissarily exclusive. This practice, became codified as a kind of age-structured homosexuality called shudō. The older nenja, would teach the wakashū martial arts, and the samurai code of honor, which was meant to lead the adult to also become a better person and role model.  This relationship was thought to be mutually beneficial. At the same time, as male-male sex did not preclude marriage or intimacy with women, what we considered today to be bisexuality is most close to what we are discussing in the Tokugawa period.  In the early years of the Tokugawa regime men greatly outnumbered women in Edo. There were very strict rules imposed by the government inspired by the loyal standards of Confucianism which excluded women to participate in any kind of work with the exception of household tasks. These regulations and the shortage of women can be seen as deciding factors for the huge amount of homosexual activities. The most characteristic feature of the depictions in shunga of male-male sex is the relation between the two involved "lovers". The leading and dominant male with his shaven head is always the older one, this on the basis of seniority or higher social status, while the subjected passive partner was a young man depicted with a unshaven forelock. These young boys are often shown in female cloths. They served as pages to high ranking samurai's, monks, wealthy merchants or older servants.  The focus in many of these works is not suppose to be purely on a sex act but also on the garments and elegant lines of the body. While there was a Japanese term for male-male (nanshoku) and male-female sex, joshoku or nyoshoku meaning 'female love', there was no such word to describe female-female sex or lesbianism. Most of the shunga regarding explicitly female concentrated designs depicted either isolated women masturbating or two intimate women using this same sexual device. Hokusai (1760-1849), the most famous Ukiyo-e master designed two lesbian ehon (book) prints. Most of these It must be images of lesbianism in shunga were intended for a male audience. Hokusai (1760-1849) c.1814 Erotic prints of the Tokugawa period use a variety of symbols which we may not understand just by looking at the works.  Water is often connected with male sexuality due to its relationship to the yin yang.  Tokugawa period prints also commonly featured vaginal symbols, which tended to be more subtle than the phallic ones. The most common vaginal symbol, however, was the sleeve. Clothing in general--especially expensive clothing--often served as an eroticized surface in shunga (much like the function of skin in Western-style erotic imagery). The sleeves of the robes worn at this time were long, wide, and contained several openings.  The plum and cherry blossoms, favorite images in classical Japanese literature, figured prominently in the repertoire of Tokugawa erotic symbols. The interplay of these symbols could be quite complex, but the basic meaning of the plum blossom was male sexuality and the basic meaning of the cherry blossom was female sexuality. These meanings could be heterosexual or homosexual in nature depending on the context, and in certain homoerotic contexts the cherry blossom could indicate a boy partner of an older man. To "break" a cherry blossom or a plum blossom--in the sense of breaking off a twig or small branch on which the flowers are blooming--meant to offer one's sexuality to another.