Fighting Porn & Purity Culture Through Body Art

Red Light Exposé

Host Elly Arrow speaks to Victoria Gugenheim, a world award-winning body painter, feminist, and women’s rights activist, about her work focused on healing after sexual trauma, fighting purity & porn culture, desexualizing the female body, ending the policing of survivor activists’ appearances and cultivating joy within the movement so that dealing with heavy subjects doesn’t lead to burnout.

Links

• Victoria Gugenheim’s Website and socials:

• gugenheim.co.uk

• thatvictoriag.substack.com

• instagram.com/victoriagugenheim

• x.com/quirkathon

• facebook.com/GugenheimGlobal

• Women Create: womencreate.co.uk

• Painted Powerful: paintedpowerful.substack.com

• Article in the Radical Notion: theradicalnotion.org/the-body-as-boundary-painted-powerful

• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the “flow state”: cgu.edu/people/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi

• TED talk about the "flow state": youtu.be/fXIeFJCqsPs?feature=shared

• Maryam Namazie: maryamnamazie.com

• Body Riot - Protest Against Mandatory Hijab: imago-images.com/search?suchtext=Topless+woman+activists+protest+Iranian+regime+in&imagepage=on&db=stock

• Note: Despite being successful on social media, this was censored on both YouTube and X. facebook.com/share/p/T9vArH9ye5vET6bb/?mibextid=qi2Omg

• Matriarchal/Matrilineal tribes who wear makeup:

• Asante people of Ghana: mmstudies.com/matriarchies/akan

• Mosuo women in makeup: images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c6b5514fb18201758b96c7f/1602524611344-H2A0ZK37VJHYNEVA4I8Y/DSCF2858.jpg

• Historic examples of freer body culture for women:

• Minoans of Crete: jstor.org/stable/jj.15136008?searchText=&searchUri=&ab_segments=&refreqid=&searchKey=

• Minoan women in high positions of power, topless snake goddesses, topless women in Fresco Art: blog.thesyntopiahotel.gr/minoan-crete-the-women-rulers

• On Bare Breasts in Ancient Greece - private parts and patriarchy: rogueclassicism.com/2012/09/20/on-bare-breasts-in-ancient-greece

• Talk: Matriarchies as Egalitarian societies: youtu.be/_rHijP0C7WI?si=QEZXKwAgWDP-LDht

• Free The Nipple: campaignsoftheworld.com/outdoor/free-the-nipple

• Our episode on spy cam porn: “Korean Women Fighting Porn Culture”

• FiLia: www.filia.org.uk

• Andrea Dworkin “Pornography: Men Possessing Women”: archive.org/details/PornographyMenPossessingWomenAndreaDworkinPdf

• Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain: ex-muslim.org.uk

• One Law For All: onelawforall.org

• Trashing, the dark side of sisterhood: jofreeman.com/joreen/trashing.htm

• The Tyranny of Structurelessness: jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

• Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy: psycnet.apa.org/record/2007-01368-000

• Dancing in the Streets Book: amazon.com/Dancing-Streets-History-Collective-Joy/dp/0805057242

• Kofra Women’s Center, Munich: kofra.de/layout/index.htm

• Vulva/Vagina Folklore: youtu.be/mYMWd467YT8?si=mZWL_GfpV-bFtW1x

• How Sadness Survived - The History of Depression: www.amazon.com/How-Sadness-Survived-Evolutionary-Depression/dp/1846190134

• Claudia Clare: claudiaclare.co.uk

• The Thin Black Line: lubainahimid.com/portfolio/the-thin-black-line

• Jennifer Packer: serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/jennifer-packer

• Orange is The New Black: netflix.com/de/title/70242311

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