Please Me & Aphrodite Holding Apple

Please Me, 2022

Pepper Greenley

collage on foam core

This piece is centric on women’s sexuality, specifically, women’s pleasure. Historically, women have been denied the ability to pursue sexual pleasure, bearing the burden of expectation that sex is only for child-bearing, not for their own desire. Sex for pleasure is a sin, masturbation even worse. In Ancient Greece, women were expected to be pure, untouched unless by their husband to have a child. This purity culture pervades today, our politics steeped in this ideology. With the very real and present threat to women’s reproductive rights we face today, we see once again that the men in control view women as birthing machines rather than people capable of experiencing and pursuing sexual pleasure - as beings that deserve that pleasure like anyone else. My piece works to snap, crumble, and break these expectations laid heavy on the backs of women. This is to show that women, just as any other person, can enjoy, even actively pursue, their own pleasure. More-so, that women can demand their own pleasure. Too often I have heard the stories of women unable to ask for what they want, sometimes to the point of not even knowing what feels pleasurable to them, participating in sexual activities for only a man’s pleasure because they believe that is their role, that the man should experience sexual gratification over the woman; misogyny that runs so deep it becomes unknowingly internalized. I say no to this; I say that women can exist in vulgarity and sensuality too.

Misogyny is not just this. Men have crafted pleasure into just the act of actual sex, into just what involves sexual organs. I want to show that pleasure, especially for women, is so much more than just sex. It is caressing hands, foreheads pressed to each other, being held and holding, laughing together: pleasure is also the moments of small intimacy from which connections are formed. These moments are just as important as the actual sex, connection increasing the comfortability necessary for some women to ask for what makes them feel good, deepening the pleasure they experience. Often, pleasure is found in the moments before actual sex occurs, so I also tried to show moments poised in the tension before actual sexual acts.

As this is a response evoked in me from looking upon this statue of Aphrodite, I used the imagery of shells, swans, and roses to invoke Aphrodite, overlaying it over these images of female pleasure and intimacy to emphasize her role in these themes.

As I used photos and art from open domain sources that other people had taken/created, I noticed that most of the subjects were straight, white, young, and slim. This piece is focused on a universal female experience, so I sourced photos of older women, women of different sizes, women of color, and different sexualities to incorporate into my collage. All women experience pleasure and intimacy, and I wanted to reflect the diversity that exists at present in our world, as no woman is less deserving of pleasure. This is why some faces are spliced onto bodies that do not match, to show this lack of diversity in source material and my attempt to address that.

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Aphrodite holding apple, 190 - 100 BCE Greek

Bronze

RISD Museum, Museum Appropriation Fund and Special Gift Fund 26.117

Crafted by an unknown maker, this bronze statue of Aphrodite stands at 47.3 cm tall. One arm is reaching upward to adjust what would have been a necklace. Her left arm was restored from the shoulder down and now extends outward, holding an apple. Originally, this arm was also raised to grasp the necklace that is now missing. The right foot and ankle were also replaced. These restorations occurred in the early 19th century. As the material is bronze, it was originally a warm brown, but is now an oxidized green. Her hair was originally inlaid with silver and her lips with copper.

This sculpture was created using the incredibly time consuming process of lost wax casting. The usage of this technique with bronze indicates that this was created for a wealthy patron and highly treasured, as bronze was reserved for the most prestigious of sculptures. Aphrodite was the goddess of love, sexuality, and beauty. This meaning is emphasized by the apple in her hand: apples symbolized love, lust, and affection. Aphrodite is also displayed as nude, following a tradition beginning in the 4th century BCE. She was the very first representation of the female nude form in sculptures, fitting the goddess of beauty and sexuality. Despite this, female sexuality was discouraged in ancient Greek culture. Women were expected to be pure and modest, the opposite of the amorous Aphrodite. The only place in which they were allowed to embrace sexuality was in marriage to produce children. This depiction of Aphrodite holding an apple pushes back against this erasure of female sexuality, especially because she refused to allow marriage to constrain her sexuality. Instead, she embraced physical love as she pleased, empowering women to pursue their own desires.