Sociological Images drew my attention to Viktoria [interview and photos here], the May 2008 cover model for Bizarre, a British glossy about fetish activities and style. Viktoria is a woman in her early 20s who designs and models fetishwear. Her left leg is amputated below the knee. As Lisa asks in SocIm:
What makes Viktoria “bizarre”? Is it her amputated leg? Is it the fact that she has an amputated leg and is still incredibly sexy? Or is it that she has an amputated leg and still considers herself a sexual person?
The comments also got me thinking about the ways in which Viktoria is presented. To me it seems that Bizarre thinks that Viktoria is bizarre because she has 1.5 legs, but she can easily conform to modern bourgeois stereotypes of what white, attractive, sexy, young women with 2 legs are supposed to look like. As the rest of the post points out, though, and as some commenters observe, there’s really nothing bizarre, unusual, original or subversive about this shoot. Viktoria is just being objectified like all the other cover models.
I do not think it is helpful and subversive and interesting and, above all, feminist and pro-accessibility, if a woman with 1.5 legs ends up treated just as misogynistically as women with 2 legs. A feminist and pro-accessibility view of Viktoria would neither dismiss nor fetishize her 1.5 legs, but instead talk about how being a WOMAN with 1.5 LEGS informs her unique experience of being a sexual person. We get an interesting glimpse into her self-perception, assuming that the interview is true, when she says of her post-amputation reactions, “[My amputated leg] was so cute. It was the biggest release you could imagine.” The article, which would rather profess wide-eyed amazement that a person with 1.5 legs actually has sexuality, does not really investigate the content thereof, contenting itself instead with the facile conclusion that Viktoria is so awesome because she can be airbrushed and Photoshopped just to look as “sexy” as models with 2 legs!!
P.S. I included this particular picture because Viktoria’s outfit in this part of the shoot is hot.
2 Comments
That is indeed a very hot outfit.
It’s definitely interesting that have having 1.5 legs somehow makes one “bizarre”, and that obtaining the status of objectified sexual commodity can be debated as an accomplishment.
Did you read the article? I don’t think her amputated leg was the sole focus, the article also talked of her difficult background and her desire for fetishism and lesbianism which seemed to be innate because she never had exposure to it. Also – not all of the models who appear in Bizarre should be titled so; Dita von Teese for example, could be seen as a beautiful, successful business woman. She’s not somebody depicted as a ‘freak’ or particularly weird at all, but she works in an industry that Bizarre associates with – burlesque, fetish, pin-up modelling. As does Viktoria.