Work Text:
On sex and the superhero
by JR
Why am I interested in the subject of sexuality for comic characters.?
Well, I love both comics, and erotica, so to look for combinations of both is only logical. Also, if we stop to consider the iconic nature of several comic book characters, the issue of sexuality becomes even more important in the context of the superhero as the modern myth, a concern which has been ever present in all mythological pantheons and collections of folklore. In iconic characters, traits are emphasized to represent major symbolism, so to deprive superheroes of sexual natures would be to render them unnaturally stilted, incomplete, artificial.
Does this mean superheroes should be perpetually horny bastards? No of course. What I meant is that their sexual nature should be addressed, even if simply to explain its nonexistence.
Is the sexuality issue out of place in a medium aimed theoretically at children? Not really. Are morality, politics and other such concerns also unfit with cohabitation with the superheroic ideal? No. You just need to express them properly, aiming it at the proper audience in proper fashion.
Younger readers may see surface plot and action, but the more experience reader can see deeper meanings in reading, and sexuality can be one of those deeper levels. And, just as there is a Batman Adventures comic geared toward younger readers, there could be a Batman Mature geared towards the adult audience, focusing on more "touchy" issues.
Some books have written about sex in superhero world, aiming more for sensationalism, seeking to shock the reader with the inclusion of "dirty" matters in the pristine, innocent comicworld, than trying to explore it as just one more seldom seen side of normal existence in the superhero existence. These books, like Veitch's Bratpack, focus on perversion, on the depravity hidden behind the innocence.
What I prefer however are books like Savage Dragon and Starman, where innocence, normal sexuality, and depravity, can exist side by side, showing a more real, more complete image of the fictional scenarios.
THe fact is that the perennial tintillation factor of comics leads to inevitable sexual thoughts, but like I have written before, lead nowhere, foreplay without payoff, teasing the reader with innuendo and showing off of the wares while declining to sell. This leads of course, to deviant mentality, with shame and regret as consequences.
Who has not thought to himself "Boy, if I were SUpes, I would nail WW for sure" or "Man, the Hulk must be hung like a Brontosaurus!". Very few, but most repress that ashamed of projecting sexuality onto an innocent, chaste situation/character. Well, the sexuality IS there, just not acknowledged. And to acknowledge it would deprive it of much of its perversion stigma.
One of you commented once that you believed that drawing personal erotic comics was a normal development for any comic fan with artistic abilities. Well, I agree. As we begin to seek that which we are growing more interested in, and find it lacking in our comics, we begin to try to fill the lack ourselves.
And surprisingly, much like the potential for action, I believe comics have enormous potential for depictions of sexuality.
Another once told me that he did not share the need of some people to see cartoon characters indulging in sex. That it puzzled him a bit. Well, I do understand that sex may remove the patina of innocent joy some cartoons such as Donald Duck, MIckey Mouse and Bambi have for us. But I feel that superhero comics in particular do suit the erotic treatment. Why? Because superhero comics are based more upon the action/adventure genre than other comic characters, which focus on humor or whimsical adventure. And we all know that most action adventure stories are based upon a constant sexual tension between characters.
And what mostly interests me in the comic medium is the potential for defusing troublesome situations. Simply, sex in comics can be more imaginative, diverse and appealing than in real life because of the aesthetic distortions possible in the medium.
We all know that people in comics are idealized to the point of absurdity. Women are impossibly beautiful and voluptuous. Men are exaggeratedly muscular and powerful. Thus, to show them as sexual creatures engaged in erotic endeavors also benefit from the virtues of such possible exaggeration. The sex can be as athletic, intense, and beautiful as desired. Sad is the fact that real people engaged in sex rarely paint pretty pictures, often giving the impression of unappealing animal mechanicity or even ridiculousness. My wife often tells me that I never look so dumb as when I am having sex (!). But the comic book sex can be depicted as beautiful. it can be idealized and defused from negative connotations much as violence is.
We often see outstanding feats of physical action and extreme violence in comics. The hero punches the villain and he is sent flying. The furious exchange of blows and the hurling of object to be shredded upon impact account for great dynamic scenes with intense excitement. But we know real violence is not that pretty or well choreographed. Violence is messy, chaotic and brutal, and can very easily be sickening. However, the comic medium manages to portray it in more innocuous ways, "it is just sheer fun" we are told. Well, the same can apply to sex. Sex can be then portrayed as violence is, forsaking certain realism for enhancing its "fun" aspect, so that when certain degrees of realism do intrude (premature culmination, temporary impotence, etc.) we notice it pleasantly.
But it is important that the comic IS capable of showing sex as FUN.
And isn't that a message we should be teaching people more often?
Also, the technical lack of restriction in a comic, that can allow us to show a character performing impossibly feats of strength, or facing inmensely disproportionate foes, can also allow us to show sex in as wildly possible configurations as we wish. Storytellers have always played around w ith impossible match-ups, like Beauty and the Beast, like Pigmalion, which if enacted in realistic depictions would seem grossly grotesque most likely. But comics can give life and make palatable such cliches as the beautiful heroine falling for the noble monster, and can show us the culmination of such relationships in a way that can sidestep the absurdity and frank ugliness of such a liason.
But that does not mean I want all comic characters to screw everyone and everything in sight. Their particular, individual sexuality should be approached as another part of characterization, enriching it.
And superheroes in particular should lead interesting sexual lives both in its richness of lack of, given that as larger-than-life figures, they fall under what Heinlein called great people. Those, he expounded, were generally either Apollonian or Dyonisiac, since their wider range of opportunities and choices allowed them to go to extremes, either becoming extremely promiscuous (Dyonisiac) or chaste (Apolonian). Being fully honest, who among us would not have a richer, varied sexual life if given the chance? Anyone? And anyone who decides not to, must have a particular reason for it, which is often strong enough to lead to strict monogamy or even celibacy.
For example, a large part of Superman's appeal is his iconic character as the "savior form above", the benevolent all-powerful overseer of good behaviour in the world. Superman is the one who came from high, from the heavens, seeming like one of us, but truly a superior order of being, yet humble enough to conhabit with us, and share our mundane existance. He uses his power not to change drastically the status quo, as he easily could, but more to provide a role model to aspire to, being a defender from non-mundane concerns, which acts only upon extraordinary circumstances with miraculous actions. He saves us from evil although he does not dabble in political change. To Caesar what is Caesar´s. The Christ symbolism is truly strong. Thus, Superman perenially remained a chaste symbol. His relationship with Lois Lane was more in the ideal plane, Platonic in the true sense of the word, and he constantly spurred the advances of worldly temptation, such as Maxima, and others. Part of the strength of the Superman icon is his character of purity. Even through the biologically impossible marriage with Lois, Superman can still be seen as chaste, trapped in the standard stereotype of dulled sexuality that marriage has become.
Batman however, is a womanizer, not only to preserve his playboy facade or because he seeks gratituous pleasure, but because he needs an anchor to his humanity to avoid being consumed and destroyed by his obsession. Batman does not love, he grasps for companionship, for humanity. Will his sexual life be then frantic, desperate, fueled by an urgency to remind himself of his basic human normalcy? Is Batman's sexuality a cry for help?
On the other hand, Wonder Woman represents a figure with enormous sexual potential and curious ambiguities. She comes from a matriarcal society, a messanger of peace, of reformation of values. Unlike Superman, she wants to change the status quo, she wants to preach love and sharing. She represents the female principle of preservation, of preotection against the runaway destructive tendencies of mankind. And she wants to better ourselves through integration of the male/female principles, not through domination of one over the other. She is against the cnacerous side-products of ownership, of subjugation. She wants freedom of expression, of realization and of integration. Thus, WW should be the antithesis of Superman, and as such, she should practive freely her sexuality as a further means of expression.
Still, just as WW's warrior nature seems to contradict her message of peace, there are other dichotomies hidden at the basis of her persona, mostly involved sex, because of her restricted upbringing and her drastic change of environs when entering Man's World.
WW was raised by an all-female society, composed particularly of women with a very bad opinion of men and their behaviour. By current DC continuity, all Amazons are reincarnations of women abused by men through the ages. Thus, despite their stated philosophy of love and understanding, Amazons are probably justifiably paranoid about men and their sexual urges. And so, WW was raised surrounded only by women and being taught that even though all humankind should love each other, men could be beasts who only want sex, as a means of subjugation, and that men seek to dominate and abuse women to restrict their potential into "owned" sex toys (A view sadly not too inaccurate).
With that background, when drop-dead-gorgeous Diana, the only Amazon without memories of being actually mistreated by men, arrived at Man's World, she had to have a long held curiosity regarding that creature "man" and his oh-so-often-mentioned sexuality. But the fact that Mommy Hypolita had probably warned her again and again about the dangers of sex-crazed men, had to make her reserved and wary.
Diana however, had none of the sexual mores we have, as she was raised in a society without bipolar interchange, whose only sexual activity would be lesbian sex by necessity, and where all modern sexual hang-ups would be inexistent. She was actually raised believing as truth the facts we take as myth: the existence of Olympian Gods. She must then be familiar with (in her world) the promiscuous sexuality of such myth/culture, including actual transformed-god bestiality, where to be ravished by a god impersonating an animal was to gain favor in Heaven's eyes!
The fact is then that Diana can quite possible consider as perfectly acceptable sexual practices we would frown upon, being held back only by her education's instilled distrust for males and the way that sex symbolizes their ownership over women.
Thus WW has to reconcile such diametrically opposite views into one of integration. She must integrate the message of love with that of the fight against discrimination. She must find the way to teach the world to stop poisoning the sexual bipolar nature with attitudes of restriction, ownership and abuse. She must teach to share, not to conquer. Sex must then for her involve not "possession" as commonly seen, but as sharing, as the practice of bridging differences and healing spirits.
So, from her background we have two different possibilities regarding WW:
1. Either WW is a sexual free-spirit with no hang-ups about sex, who would then feel glad to practice any way of bringing people closer, and would actually be willing to have sex with even possible enemies to attempt to "mend differences", seeking thus to include sexual liberation as part of her mission, or
2. She has been well-taught by a men-despising Amazon culture, and is thus wary of men, and at guard against their lusts. However, her complete ignorance of men and her natural curiosity, together with the subsconscious desire to do that which is forbidden, must make her feel secretly attracted to sexuality, further compounded that having been gifted by Afrodite herself must have also included great sexual potential as well as merely superficialy attractive looks.
Both possibilities lead to a very likely sexually active character, although the second one leads more to what could be called perverted reactive behaviour. Thus I prefer the first option.
That would further counterpoint Wonder Woman's immanent nature against Superman's transcendental role. Superman protects from above, detached, desguised when amongst us, while WW works from within, openly and with a more personal involvement.
There are many contradictions involved in the above, but they do parallel the contradictions present in WW's stance regarding violence.
Oh, well, too much ranting already, I will continue later with the Hulk, Prof. Xavier, and others, plus isolating particular instances of interesting sexual development potential.
Take care,
JR