Lad-magazine raunch culture reframed sexual objectification as feminist empowerment

Evidence

Richardson’s photography dovetailed with a new set of gender norms that critic Ariel Levy labeled “raunch culture.” In this latest stage of feminism, women celebrated sexual objectification as empowerment, thumbing their noses at the seriousness of second-wave feminists. “Female chauvinist pigs” embraced “the sleazy energy and aesthetic of a topless club or a Penthouse shoot.” Lad magazines like Maxim and FHM capitalized on this shift, coaxing top female actors into appearing in “greased” poses, wearing “scraps of fabric,” and mimicking pornographic imagery. “Things got very repressed in the 90’s,” noted downtown gallerist Jeffrey Deitch. Richardson’s photos, his supporters claimed, similarly liberated the viewer from the straitjacket puritanism of nineties political correctness. His work was “honest” about sexual desire, and defenders claimed that this extended to the female models who engaged in sexual acts with him for the photos. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 65

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines raunch culture: the post-second-wave turn where women celebrated sexual objectification as empowerment.
• XREF: Connects to the book’s omnivore monoculture thesis — raunch culture as self-policing of desire, and to the reader’s article ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ on moral panics over dress.