Become Cliterate! Watch her TED talk here: https://www.ted.com/talks/sophia_wallace_a_case_for_cliteracy/transcript?language=en
Sophia Wallace has a B.A. in political science with an M.A. in photography. She also happens to be the founder of the cliteracy movement, which is a holistic understanding of the clitoris as it fits into society as a whole. She has created an art movement and project that has been showcased in U.S., Spain, Austria, Mexico, Italy, Nigeria, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Her project began when she realized that there was a part of her anatomy that she simply had no idea about, and then she further realized that discussions regarding the clitoris had been reserved solely for the medical sphere. Wallace’s project wants to bring discussions about the clitoris into the public sphere.
Wallace coined the project “cliteracy” because it was catchy and because she wants it to be similar to literacy in general. Wallace states that once one is taught to read, one cannot be un-taught. She also realized that misinformation about the clitoris was blatantly spread. Not all states require sex education classes, and of the states that do, an even smaller handful of them have a portion of the curriculum that focuses on sexual pleasure as well as sexual health. Within the courses that focus on sexual pleasure, a majority of the material is presented to focus on male sexual pleasure. This tends to reflect society as a whole, creating a phenomenon called the orgasm gap. Heterosexual men have three times more orgasms than heterosexual women, and interestingly enough, women in relationships with other women have the same amount of orgasms as heterosexual men. In light of all these points, Wallace seeks to create more awareness of female bodies and female pleasure.
In order to make the project feasible, Wallace had to discuss female desire and female genitals, which are both taboo topics. She states that “all bodies are entitled to experience the pleasure that they are capable of,” and in the case of bodies with female sex organs, that directly invovles the clitoris. This is the core pillar of cliteracy, that the clitoris has a right to exist and be talked about and to serve as a vehicle for pleasure. The full anatomy of the clitoris was only discovered 21 years ago, meaning that a part of a body had not been fully discussed until after we had landed on the moon, made an atom bomb, and discovered the structure of DNA. If that’s not patriarchy, I don’t know what is. Part of this gap in knowledge can be attributed to Freud. He stated that men have the phallus and thus the agency. In Freud’s view, women had the “lack” or the “void.” This teaches people possessing female genitals to view their existence as less than, or their bodies as not whole. The clitoris is the pleasure organ for women, just as the phallus is for men, meaning that women are just as whole as men.
Another central tenet of cliteracy is language, as Wallace says that it can be a mechanism of restricting and confining, but also liberating the female body. She wanted the aesthetic of the art she produced to be neutral, avoiding pinks, purples, and graphic sexual images. To Wallace, the point of the project was the acquisition of new knowledge. She created the piece “100 Laws of Cliteracy”
which spans 13 by 10 feet. The piece upholds her doctrine that all bodies are entitled to pleasure, and that pleasure is entitled to being a full citizen of this society. This work explores the paradox of the hypersexualization of female bodies while also ignoring a fundamental part of them and pathologizing their desire for pleasure. 
Wallace also began to put up street art because she did not want this project to stay solely within the art realm. Although she has collaborated with other artists, most notably, she and another artist created a clit-rodeo. Her next goal is to create an anatomically correct sculpture, as it would be the first of its kind. Her dream overall is to radically change the population so that we can ensure all bodies are respected. As she says, “democracy without cliteracy is phallusy.”
Amabile defines creativity as “the production of novel, appropriate ideas or works.” She identifies three tenets of creativity: domain relevant skills, creativity relevant processes, and intrinsic task motivation. Wallace has knowledge of the domain of art and public art creation, creativity relevant processes in her hard work and curiosity, and an intrinsic task motivation in that she really wants to create a more cliterate world.
https://www.ted.com/talks/sophia_wallace_a_case_for_cliteracy/transcript?language=en
http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/projects/cliteracy/intro
After reading your article, I looked more into Sophia Wallace and found the quote, “It’s appalling and shocking to think that scientifically, the clitoris was only discovered in 1998.” Wallace continued speaking on the subject, stating, “but really, it may as well have never been discovered at all because there’s still such ignorance when it comes to the female body.” This is something that I have never thought about/ questioned growing up, but when thinking about the "sex-ed" I had to attend at school, I realized that even then everything was focused on male pleasure on what their experience would be like. Wallace's commentary on the way we, as a society, glorify male sexual pleasure highlights the lack of importance place on others' sexual wellbeing and is something that needs to be addressed and further discussed in classrooms and in society as a whole.
ReplyDeleteIt's reassuring to hear that someone is making female sexuality and anatomy more public and less of something that has this stigma that it should be hidden. I see a penis graffitied on public transportation almost every single day...but where the clits at? I am super frustrated with the inequality in sexual education as well as the idea that women's bodies are something "unknown". The fact that men see women as beings that have hidden inexplicable motives is a product of years of disregard for understanding on the patriarchy's side.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fascinating and incredibly important subject to be talking about. When I was reading your point about sex ed classes, I thought back to how little sexual pleasure was discussed in my own education of sex and how large a disparity there is between the anatomy and the emotion behind sex and how it's addressed in schools and society in general, especially female sexuality. Wallace is truly starting really important dialogues in our times that will hopefully lead to more comprehensive and inclusive sexual education and discussion of sexuality as a whole.
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