If you're intrigued by the crossroads of linguistics, feminism, and cultural studies, "The Vagina: A Literary and Cultural History" is an enlightening exploration. Emma L.E. Rees unpacks the complexities of how society and media portray female sexuality, offering insights that might forever change the way you think about language and gender politics. This book could be a fascinating journey for those interested in deep-diving into the powerful narratives woven around women's bodies through history and art.

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From South Park to Kathy Acker, and from Lars Von Trier to Sex and the City , women's sexual organs are demonized. Rees traces the fascinating evolution of this demonization, considering how calling the ‘c-word' obscene both legitimates and perpetuates the fractured identities of women globally. Rees demonstrates how writers, artists, and filmmakers contend with the dilemma of the vagina's puzzlingly ‘covert visibility'.In our postmodern, porn-obsessed culture, vaginas appear to be everywhere, literally or symbolically but, crucially, they are as silenced as they are objectified. The A Literary and Cultural History examines the paradox of female genitalia through five fields of artistic literature, film, TV, visual, and performance art.There is a peculiar paradox – unlike any other – regarding female genitalia. Rees focuses on this paradox of what is termed the ‘covert visibility' of the vagina and on its monstrous manifestations. That is, what happens when the female body refuses to be pathologized, eroticized, or rendered subordinate to the will or intention of another? Common, and often offensive, slang terms for the vagina can be seen as an attempt to divert attention away from the reality of women's lived sexual experiences such that we don't ‘look' at the vagina itself – slang offers a convenient distraction to something so taboo. The A Literary and Cultural History is an important contribution to the ongoing debate in understanding the feminine identity

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