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Rethinking Ruskin’s Wife’s Vulva

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Aesthetic Labour

Part of the book series: Dynamics of Virtual Work ((DVW))

Abstract

We look at the past through contemporary eyes, understand it from our present, and can use the familiarities and unfamiliarities in what we see as a tool for critical insight—to render strange what has come to be taken for granted. Here I take a particular historical event—the non-consummation and eventual annulment of the marriage of UK art historian John Ruskin and socialite Effie Gray—as the starting point for a thought experiment intended to denormalise and reframe contemporary vulval modificatory practices. I have written about the vulval aesthetics, representation and practice for over 15 years (Braun 2004, 2005a, 2009a, 2009b, 2010; Braun and Kitzinger 2001; Braun et al. 2013; Braun and Wilkinson 2001, 2003, 2005); I now invite you to join my imaginative journey between the past and present, to (re)make sense of contemporary aesthetic female genital labour as genital labour, rather than (just) personal aesthetics and choice.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This theory has recently been questioned (Brownell 2013).

  2. 2.

    Now, it is highly unlikely that their marriage night is either’s first sexual encounter—with each other, or anyone—making lack of desire/annulment unlikely.

  3. 3.

    Their original story also was, albeit in a different way.

  4. 4.

    See: http://www.greatwallofvagina.co.uk/

  5. 5.

    John v2016 is quite likely to have also removed or trimmed some of his pubic hair (Terry and Braun 2013); he may have considered some temporary pharmaceutical modification, to alleviate ‘performance’ anxiety.

  6. 6.

    The poor Brazilian has suffered some ‘challenges’ in very recent times (Adams 2014).

  7. 7.

    In what offers a compelling and distressing example of the way female friends’ ‘police’ each other’s bodies—something Winch (2013) has referred to as the ‘girlfriend gaze’—Cameron Diaz notoriously forcibly ‘insisted’ that Gwyneth Paltrow modify her pubic hair, for the sake of her marriage, an event she has recounted publicly as humorous (see spookylorre 2013).

  8. 8.

    I use ‘It girl’ as a heuristic tool, as the term evokes an almost incalculable sexuality and hipness that elides any of the work which goes into embodying such a position.

  9. 9.

    Exploitation in the beauty industries has been highlighted in relation to manicures and pedicures (see Nir 2015), revealing the erased ‘dark side’ of the (western) consumption of services from invisible bodies in global-cheap-labour movements.

  10. 10.

    ‘Vaginal steaming’ refers to a practice whereby herb-infused steam enters the vagina through a combination of a steam-delivery device and an appropriate seating position; the claimed purpose ranges from pampering to fertility enhancement (Vandenburg and Braun 2016).

  11. 11.

    It is problematic to essentialise queer women as a group, suggesting that they necessarily (all) sit outside such cultural imperatives, but their identities may give access to different investments and engagements with different potentialities than those typically accessed by heteronormatively invested straight women.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Virginia Braun

Authors
  1. Virginia Braun
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

    Ana Sofia Elias

  2. King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

    Rosalind Gill

  3. City, University of London, London, United Kingdom

    Christina Scharff

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Braun, V. (2017). Rethinking Ruskin’s Wife’s Vulva. In: Elias, A., Gill, R., Scharff, C. (eds) Aesthetic Labour. Dynamics of Virtual Work. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-47765-1_3

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