than those of whites” (Gilman 1989:292). In this dictionary article the ‘Hottent — tot’ woman is seen as the epitome of lasciviousness, for which the author’s “central proof is a discussion of the unique structure of the Hottentot female’s sexual parts, the description of which he takes from the anatomical studies of his contemporary, Charles Cuvier” (Gilman 1989:292).
In his detailed analysis of the Sarah Bartmann case, Sander Gilman makes several points. First the—at the time very important—establishment of obvious details of physical difference between this Khoikhoi woman and ‘civilized Europeans’. Apart from her skin colour, the ‘difference’ that is seen as particularly important is her large buttocks, the so-called steatopygia. In almost every image of Sarah Bartmann her buttocks are indeed excessive.[54] According to Gilman—and this is his second point—in nineteenth century imagination and fascination, the buttocks may be seen as a displacement for the genitalia. “Female sexuality” he says, “is tied to the image of the buttocks, and the quintessential buttocks are those of the Hottentot” (Gilman 1989:296). The really interesting part of Gilman’s analysis, however, starts with his third point: that white Parisian prostitutes were depicted in painting and drawing—Gilman refers to works by Edouard Monet and Edgar Degas—with remarkably large buttocks.[55] This brings home his point (which has already been introduced in the discussion of King Solomon’s Mines) that in so far as the white woman is sexual—she is black. A prostitute of course is an icon of a sexual — ized woman (cf. the Madonna/whore dichotomy) and thus a prostitute is imagined as similar to the black woman. The shared large buttocks are the proof. “The perception of the prostitute in the late nineteenth century has merged with the perception of the black. … It is a commonplace that the primitive was associated with unbridled sexuality. This was either condemned… or praised” (Gilman 1989:303). The praise—in a kind of Noble Savage line of thinking, attributed here to Diderot, and also voiced in early 19th century colonial discourse (cf. Megan Vaughan 1991, and Heike Becker, this volume)—seems however to have been less frequent than the condemnation.
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Condemnation and fear of unbridled sexuality also make up an important ingredient in Gilman’s fourth point: “Black females do not merely represent the sexualized female; they also represent the female as the source of corruption and disease” (Gilman 1989:303). Gilman now extends his analysis of excessive and fascinating, but also threatening (black) female sexuality with further images and imaginations of sexuality as pathology: sex is dangerous and may bring death. This was also introduced as a motif in King Solomon’s Mines above, but Gilman (of course) refers to what was in the late 19th century the core producer of such imaginations: the spectre of syphilis. The fear of syphilis was very alive and a potent producer of mental images from the 19 th century onwards, often with a female seductress as the source of the disease. “The ‘taming’ of syphilis and other related
‘African Sexuality’/Sexuality in Africa: Tales and Silences
sexually transmitted diseases” Gilman writes, “with the introduction of antibiotics in the late 1940s left our culture with a series of images of the mortally infected and infecting patient suffering from a morally repugnant disease, but without a disease sufficiently powerful with which to associate these icons” (Gilman 1989:311). Well, this is no longer the case. The icons of syphilis are no longer homeless. They have been appropriately filled up and even extended with new related icons of HIV/AIDS.
The connections between (female) sexuality, sin and disease are also traced by Megan Vaughan in her analysis of a debate initiated in 1908 on what was supposed to be an epidemic of syphilis amongst the Baganda people in the Uganda Protectorate. In this debate “the medical missionaries stressed the essential and ‘innate’ sinfulness of traditional African society and the connection between this essential sinfulness and disease” (Vaughan 1991:135). Then, just as now in the case of AIDS, women were seen as the principal carriers of the disease, and female sexuality was seen as responsible for the syphilis problem (Vaughan 1991:133). The same old story about the dangers of excessive and unbridled female sexuality. Vaughan’s analysis takes the discussion further, linking it back to the issues of female chastity and passionlessness:
Female sexuality was everywhere a danger, it seemed, but the enlightened early-twentieth century male medic saw that female sexuality in ‘civilized’ countries had been successfully tamed. Only when female passions had been brought under control was it possible to grant women greater freedom without endangering the whole society (Vaughan 1991:133).
Thus the very mark and emblem of civilization is female chastity, and conversely, uncontrolled ‘free’ female sexuality is the root of evil, sin and disease.