Why expose Amaral or show boobs when ‘No Touching’ continues to challenge patriarchy

Singer Eva Amaral did just that this weekend in one of these places where, every time it happens, it’s reinforced by public scrutiny: on top of a set. “It’s for Rocio (Says), it’s for Rigoberta, it’s for Zahara, it’s for Mirren, it’s for Bebe, it’s for all of us. Because no one can take away the dignity of our nudity, our fragility and strength”, declares the singer at the concert of the Sonorama festival in Aranda de Duero (Burgos), before leaving the upper part and singing Revolution Chest open.

Amaral followed artists who claimed to have ended censorship after showing their breasts or over their problems. “No se por que dan so much medo nuestras titus”, sings Rigoberta Bandini. oh mother, In light of the controversy in the song and her performing on stage with a giant chest that emulates an earthly globe, it seems women’s breasts are scary: they’re not a problem, but women have historically been. Not associated with scandal, guilt, concealment or embarrassment.

The importance of the female body lies within the culture and the dominant ideology, which is patriarchal and continues to shape women’s bodies, breasts and lives.

“The importance of the culture and dominant ideology on the female body is rooted, which is patriarchal and which continues to shape women’s bodies, breasts and lives”, says Fefa Villa, a sociologist at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). “Our body has a control and regulation, which tells us where (and how) you are and where not – continue the experts-. It would depend on the outward look, which is male and heterosexual. That is why Amaral has all the meaning but even after seeing the controversy that has come up and that it is a scam for some people,” he concluded.

Without going any further, Instagram and Facebook censor female legs, which can only be shown on the social network as long as the algorithms allow before organically culling them, but it doesn’t do the same with men. . This internal metal policy led to the automatic censoring of works of art or cultural works, as was the case with Almodovar’s film Cartel. parallel mothers, which depicts a lactating leg, or the Venus of Willendorf, a sculpture that is about 30,000 years old. Today, on Twitter, Amaral’s video warns that “multimedia element contains potentially sensitive material”.

a sensual and manly reading

Art historian Eugenia Tenenbaum states, “It is a revolutionary act because it is destroying the context in which a woman is allowed to show her body and the function that this act fulfills.” “The female body is seldom understood as a feather in itself, but is regarded as a medium, moreover, for the enjoyment and pleasure of man. Such is the misogynist myth of beauty conceptualized by Naomi Wolf, who has been saying from the beginning that women exist to contemplate and to evaluate or enjoy our bodies, but never by themselves and never Not even by our own standards.

What happened at the 2004 Super Bowl became a global debate when spectators witnessed Janet Jackson’s right breast being pulled over Justin Timberlake, something that was classified as a scandal and is today known as #Nipplegate. Known as

The different size that society sticks to some people’s breasts has deep roots, but what emerges behind it is their sexualisation for male consumption, which experts agree. Tenenbaum explains that “instead of being understood as a pair of mammary glands in themselves”, this part of the body is read as something erotic and that this is why it is “the only area where it is well looked at”. goes” is crossed with that view to show them while “any non-sexual space in which a woman thinks her breasts are to be condemned, punished or censored”.

You don’t have to go far to see it. Less than three months ago, singer Rocío Sáez, named by Eva Amaral as her accuser, saw how a police officer forced her to cover her breasts during a concert at the Pride of Murcia. In 2018 Molina de Segura’s PP criticized the then lead singer of Las Chillers for teaching her breasts during a festival and classified the show as “disrespectful, lacking values ​​and sexist”.

What happened at the 2004 Super Bowl became a global debate when spectators witnessed Janet Jackson’s right breast being pulled over Justin Timberlake’s, something that was classified as a scandal and today as # was baptizedteat ,teat Es Pezon en Inglis) that seriously damaged and ruined Jackson’s career.

The misogynist myth of beauty, conceptualized by Naomi Wolf, has been saying for some time now that women exist for contemplation and for our bodies to be appraised or enjoyed, but never by others or by our own standards.

Outside the world of the show, Fefa Villa cites the battle of mothers who breastfeed in public to avoid criticism and rebuke while doing so, an experience that has never been seen before. Meanwhile, on the other hand, the naturalness with which men teach their breasts: “On a stage, climbing a shirt to celebrate a goal, working on pectoral work on social networks or simply in any position the sun on the beach Bake”, exemplifies Patricia Luján, author of ¡Pechos Fuera! (Zenith editorial), containing a march for the copulation of women’s breasts and calls for their release.

naturalizing breasts as a subversive act

The male gaze shapes the social text carried on the female breast, which is verifiable in historical artistic representations carried on it. Analyzed by Marilyn Yalom history of chestPublished in 1997, it explores how female breasts have historically been coded as “good guys” or “bad guys”, but always from the perspective of men, as well as the perspective of lactating virgins. from, like political metaphor Guiding La Libertad Puebloby Delacroix or lady macbeth Shakespeare is an example.

On the other hand, freeing the female breast where you don’t want it has also been a political tool for feminists in many places around the world. Perhaps the most immediate was the Femen protests, but “in the Second Republic they attempted to show how leaving out marginalized subjects was a way of claiming freedom, whereas in the San Francisco demonstrations it was common to put subjects into cubby cubes”. was”, explains Villa, who also cites actions by gay groups Weird It took place in the nineties with the aim of giving a meaning to the female body at the fringes of heterosexuality, the series among them lesbian es-culture From the LSD Collective.

We have witnessed a performance where instead of eroticizing and serving the male gaze and pleasure, the artist’s breasts are turned into a political tool.

In this sense, Luján believes that the challenge of Amaral’s action lies in the fact that “we have seen a performance where instead of the artist’s breasts, sexuality and submission to the service of the male gaze and pleasure, a turned into a political tool and a call to attention to the inequalities that afflict women all over the world today.” The public re-symbolization of the female body and breast, which more and more women are claiming, with movements such as #freednipple (Free the feet, in English) from a few years back.

This is why, for Tenenbaum, the idea of ​​”naturalizing” showing women’s breasts is “subversive in itself” because “in the collective imagination, female nudity exists to sexualize, not naturalize”. Breaking this norm and “understanding that the body only tells us that we exist”, freeing it from the sensual burden it places on it, translates into “reviving the joy of existing and occupying space in our own terms”. Goes, he concluded. art historian.