Liv Strömquist · Reservoir Books · 2018
The Swedish cartoonist Liv Strömquist very sardonically explains in The forbidden fruit how a woman's body and her sexuality have been used throughout the centuries to keep her in submission. The criticism is made from the bitterest humor, but providing data and a lot of documentation. To reach the conclusion that ALL discourses on female sexuality and orgasm are constructed in relation to the body, male sexuality and orgasm. First conceiving the vulva as a bad version of the male organ and then as its opposite, but never in its own right! We will read about the pilgrim ideas of John Harvey Kellogg (Yeah, that of cereals) regarding female masturbation (causes cancer!), and we will see the plaque engraved on the Pioneer space probe that NASA launched in 1972 –a kind of message in a bottle that contained information about life on Earth intended for possible extraterrestrials– where the man proudly displays his sexual organ while the woman has nothing to show. As if nothing existed there, Listen. Besides, our good friend Sigmund Freud will affirm that only young and immature women have clitoral orgasms (and!) and we will see how many cultures have agreed to demonize menstruation. Which explains that, For example, a tampon company write on their page: “XXX tampons fit in your jeans pocket and you can carry them in your hand to go to the bathroom without them being visible.”. Feminist comic that shakes consciences and awakens. S.M.
