The Dilemma of Depicting Desire: Maternal Secret or Public Censure

Denise Ferris*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

    Abstract

    Since the inception of photography, women have made public images depicting their children, photographs that both display these children and a maternal pleasure in their physical presence. Viewers have made allegations of transgression and voiced disgust about the images and their makers. There have been legal challenges to exhibiting the photographs and attempts to censure these women. I examine the contributing issues and underlying assumptions made about these mothers in the public and private spheres. I discuss the social expectations that insist mothers not only protect their children, but also their image from taboo consumption, consequently suppressing the visual and public representation of relationship. I contend that controlling these images, manifestations of female pleasure, is a social expectation put onto women and central to a prescribed safe feminine identity. I argue that the makers of these profound revelations, reflections on female desire, daringly made public, circulate significant and authentic images of childhood, essential to an informed understanding of our constructions of childhood and of the family.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationIlluminating the Dark Side
    Subtitle of host publicationEvil, Women and the Feminine
    PublisherBrill
    Pages19-32
    Number of pages14
    ISBN (Electronic)9781848880443
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2020

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