RACHEL FRIEDBERG'S DEFERRED NARRATIVES (page 6)
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This image can be read as a disruption of the narrative of female sexual passivity or aggressiveness. She stand inquisitively confronting the mythical "power of the penis." But its power shrivels within the context of the female gaze, and the much larger, looming and erect verticals above and below. The tiny, vulnerable penis does not take on the overwhelming power of the Phallus and the Symbolic Order that dominates all forms of intercourse in our society, as Jacques Lacan describes it, but it is relegated to the all-too mundane position of a body part and the singular focus of male sexuality. Nor does Friedberg allow the female in the image to become a fantasmatic myth of potential freedom, but, rather, heaps her responses through her head and hand gestures, within the bounds of human capability.

A number of images deal with the passive stereotype of female sexuality; that is, woman as the passive object of male desire, the legitimizer of the male role of authority and power. These include: The Cruse, Valentine, and Embarazada. In The Cruise a voluptuous woman is literally "manhandled" by the shadowy and faceless male figure who makes an appearance in a number of Friedberg's paintings. He grabs her around the waist from behind and moves in close. This dance of passion shifts into a grip of authority, force, and coercion, the very emotions so often conflated in relationships between men and women in our society.