The hypersexualisation of the female body

Practices and representations

To address this question of the hypersexualisation of the female body, I would begin this reflection with my direct relationship to the stage. There is the theatre stage, but also the drag stage.

Drag is an art that comes from queer culture and, as such, carries political claims. The performer develops a character that lets them exaggerate certain traits.

In this frame, hypersexualisation lets people reclaim and manipulate the image of their body as they wish. The metamorphosis of bodies becomes a language.

But this freedom sometimes comes at a price, when the body is received as an object of desire or disgust. That price can range from heavy flirting to physical assault.

If drag aims to question the status quo, we can still question its institutionalisation and the way emerging competitions or television shows capitalise on it.

Reclaiming hypersexualisation

As in drag, strong figures choose to reclaim hypersexualisation, a choice that sometimes sparks controversy. Elsa Dorlin, on the debate around Beyoncé’s feminism, states:

There are feminisms. In Beyoncé’s case, her claim to feminism is part of a tradition of African-American feminism. It has always worked to fight the stereotype of the hyper-sexualised black woman, and her way of fighting it is to own it and reclaim it.

Elsa Dorlin, France Culture, June 2020

This choice sets itself against the model of the “lady”, steeped in a normalised racism and class contempt, centred on whiteness, thinness and restraint.

But reclaiming this hypersexualisation can also appear as a new constraint on the path to recognition, and the notion of women’s empowerment deserves to be questioned.

Empowerment is a process of awareness and skill-building through which women gain the capacity to act autonomously.

Fortin-Pellerin, 2006

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