Insulting Sex
An Analysis of a Photo of Sophia Rossi as a Penthouse Pet
by Ed Moorman

Here you may view, at your own discernment, the offending image.

Pornography is constructed to create an image of eroticism for a tongue-lolled audience. The image of Sophia Rossi as a Penthouse “Pet” bring to mind the animals in a diorama standing frozen, locked in a timeless gaze towards the viewer. And like the natural history museum dioramas, its effect depends on keeping the seams hidden. Its careful construction lies underneath its intricate stitching, and in deconstructing the image we can tell much about its makers and their views. In this carefully constructed picture of Sophia Rossi, we can see how the natural history of patriarchal ideas of sexuality, class, gender roles, and beauty are reinforced, similarly to how Donna Haraway dismantles Carl Akeley and his dioramas.

Sophia Rossi, the photographer, the designers of the Penthouse magazine and website, and the digital retoucher of the photograph join their efforts to create an image of lust. The focus is on the heterosexual male audience and the spectacle's reaction to him. Rossi's interested eyes, open mouth, tilt of her head, and body thrust forward wantonly are intended to create pleasure in the spectator. In regard to Akeley's views on which animals to bag, Haraway says "Character, as well as mere physical appearance, was important in judging an animal to be perfect" (Haraway 41). Rossi's projected personality of a libido-driven vixen is just as crucial as her physical attributes in generating the aroma of lust. It is important to note that in this image from Penthouse (though certainly not in all pornography), one of the premier vehicles of adult entertainment, the heterosexual male is absent. In the context of natural history museums, it is pointed out that "Man is not in nature partly because he is not seen, he is not the spectacle" (Haraway 54). The imagined relationship between the spectator and spectacle is potent, and rife with sexual possibilities in the viewer's mind. It is only through the careful fabrication of the image that this relationship is made possible. If the Rossi were to seem disinterested in the camera’s gaze in any way, and therefore indifferent to the viewer, it would not only fail to generate the solicited effect, but it would seem completely out of place. This reminds us of how odd it would appear to one walking through a natural history museum and finding a diorama of animals copulating – even though that is a natural part of life. Also, if the viewer was made aware of the fabrication involved in the image, such as being told about the digital airbrushing, shown the camera or photographer, or seeing shots of the porn star that are in-between the sexualized poses, the effect would be lost. Much like watching people venture inside natural history museum dioramas, seeing any steps before the composition is complete would be shocking. "Representation thus disguises the praxis that organizes it" (de Certeau 203), and the viewer lets himself slip into this fantasy without any thought to the fact that it is nothing but a fantasy, of sexuality and wealth as well.

This woman and her surroundings exude notions of wealth, luxury, and the idea that a rich man deserves to 'own' a beautiful woman. Behind her, a gigantic pool stretches infinitely (not unlike the endless panorama of the dioramas), teeming with crisp blue water. Rossi and the chair face away from the pool. (One might expect that the owner of this pleasure palace would have the chair face the pool, but this is for the spectator and not the characters inside the narrative.) The pool furniture is full of fancy curls in its design, and the pattern on the cushion is that of exotic flora. Plants also flank her on our right, continuing the tropical motif. The rug's material resembles fur, with its connotations to both luxury and conquering the untamed. The depiction of the woman embodies ideals of wealth and luxury in her stately high heels, ornate underpants, and lavish bracelet and necklace. There is the unspoken belief that as the wealthy owner of this property, the viewer deserves this woman and the bounty of her body that she is offering. As Haraway says of the halls in the American Museum of Natural History, "This is the Gospel of Wealth, reverently examined" (Haraway 57). And the Gospel of Wealth has specific thoughts on men, women, and what their place is the natural order is.

The image of Sophia Rossi reinforces patriarchal views on female subservience. Rossi's pose is submissive. She is on her knees before the viewer, leaning back onto the furniture; symbolically, she is not standing, she poses no threat and has lowered herself below the male gaze. She thrusts her breasts towards the spectator, offering herself to him. Her panties are slightly off to the side, and her left leg partly obscures them, calling attention to it. The phrase "Penthouse Pet" creates the notions of residing in a wealthy home and of owning this woman and lowering her to animal status. In speaking of historiography, it is posited, "The bewitching voices of the narration transform, reorient, and regulate the space of social relations" (de Certeau 207). We are reminded of the notion of the ‘nuclear family’ of the animals within the space of natural history dioramas; whether the depiction is truthful is irrelevant. It informs the onlooker regardless, and without any thought to the minds behind the building. And those minds have made sure that the viewer must merely look at this woman to get this effect, creating the assumption that he deserves this reaction from a beautiful woman.

Rossi's image is that of a manufactured image of beauty, hand-in-hand with luxury and subservient female sexuality. Rossi's breasts are large, probably artificially enhanced through implants. She has dyed bleached blond hair. She is trim, Caucasian. She is adorned in jewelry, and scantily clad. Her skin is unusually 'perfect' and smooth, a product of digital airbrushing. Taxidermy, and pornography, is "made into a servant of the 'real'... better than life" (Haraway 38). Natural beauty is, ironically, apparently too crude, too gross for pornographers to depict. A plasticized beauty must be established in its place, for maximum erotic effect. "In pretending to recount the real, it manufactures it" (de Certau 207). The pornographer arrogantly "improves" upon human beauty and sexuality.

This piece of pornography is an example of the fashion in which the natural history of the female body has been assembled in 21st-century America. The hyper-sexualized female body, young (youth, according to Haraway, was one of the ideals of Akeley and his cohorts) and fit but not muscular, is the image laid before us. Sophia Rossi is scantily clad; if a figure is too clothed, she is not focused enough on pleasing men by revealing her body, and therefore deemed insufficient for arousal. This fiction of what a woman is and should be is a fantasy, but it is not restricted to pornography. These ideas are reinforced in advertisements, television, film – essentially, all of modern media. This perceptual flooding, often from a young age, with a very slim (no pun intended) margin of what a female can be, tells women that any other way to present themselves is abnormal or unacceptable. And the focus is on females presenting themselves, willingly and compulsively making themselves into objects, ready for viewing. Women everywhere are attempting to make the mirage real.

The Penthouse picture shows the viewer the site of the male fantasy. As Hall of African Mammal diaromas are nature filtered through Akeley’s lens, this is lust projected through a very narrow peephole. Because the patriarchy expects the male to be the person in possession of wealth, and that heterosexual male desire is the all-important drive of society, it is regarded as a specifically male fantasy. However, the 21st-century shows the laws of desire crumbling, and it seems clear that arousal can be attained by a variety of sources by almost anyone. Even though the establishment that produced Penthouse might think it improper or impossible for women to derive pleasure from this pageant, there is no reason why this might not occur. Thus, we see how oddly particular this fiction is. The fictionalization is strikingly clear, since desire is a polymorphous and universally human force. To posit any image of sexuality as only enjoyable for one specialized audience is absurd. But absurdity is the name of the pornographer’s game.

The pornographic image is a diorama. Its framework is laid down by those who hold the patent on beauty and sexuality in America, through the lens of the patriarchal gaze. And like Akeley's Hall of African Mammals, every element - the background, the figures, the place of the spectator - belie the craftsmen stitching the seams.

Works Cited