Don’t stare at dead things or animals having sex.
I bristled yesterday as I read yet another faux-controversy concocting article in my misguided home town paper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. You see, Body Worlds is coming to my town and the morality “experts” are getting restless. The “concern” is that maybe we shouldn’t be staring at dead bodies. The morality experts quoted by the article are suggesting that the Body Worlds exhibit, sponsored by the St. Louis Science Center, “exploits the dead for entertainment and commerce.”
What is Body Worlds? Check out the short video at the bottom of this page. Here’s a written description from the official Body Worlds site:
The BODY WORLDS exhibitions are first-of-their-kind exhibitions through which visitors learn about anatomy, physiology, and health by viewing real human bodies, using an extraordinary process called Plastination a groundbreaking method for specimen preservation invented by Dr. von Hagens in 1977. Each exhibition features more than 200 real human specimens, including whole-body plastinates,
individual organs, organ configurations and transparent body slices. The specimens on display stem from the body donation program that Gunther von Hagens established in 1983. The exhibitions also allow visitors to see and better understand the long-term impact of diseases, the effects of tobacco consumption and the mechanics of artificial supports such as knees and hips. To date, nearly 25 million people around the world have viewed the BODY WORLDS exhibits.
I visited the Body Worlds exhibit twice while it was in Chicago two years ago. The exhibition was breath-taking and educational. I plan to see Body Worlds III while it is in St. Louis. I plan to bring my kids (aged 7 and 9), because this is a terrific chance to learn about one of the most incredible phenomena on Earth—the human body. Viewing the body from the numerous perspectives offered by the exibitors, the question is not why it sometimes breaks down or dies. The real question is how it ever actually works, given its surreal complexity. There is no reason that human specimens should be viewable by anatomy students, but off-limits to the rest of us. Why has the viewing of dead humans become off-limits to most of us? There is probably no single reason, but it’s not because we aren’t interested in viewing dead bodies. I’ve long suspected that it’s due to a widespread reluctance to consider the undeniable fact that humans are animals. See here and here and here and here and here and here.
While at Body Worlds, I plan to be inspired (as I was in Chicago) by Gunther von Hagens’ professionalism and creativity. He puts boundless time and energy into preparing his specimens. Perhaps the problem for some people is that von Hagens has a little fun with his specimens. Instead laying the bodies out on slabs, he arranges them in real-world postures. They “do” things like play chess and ride bicycles. Oh, but how dare they arrange dead human bodies so that they are doing the same things that living humans do! Such disrespect!
Yes, there are now accusations that Body Worlds is “exploiting the dead for entertainment and commerce,” as though the dead can be exploited. And as though dead bodies aren’t exploited whenever they are dressed up for wakes, to allow us to pretend that those dead people are merely sleeping.
Consider yet another way of displaying images of dead human bodies: Two days ago, my family attended a St. Louis animal preserve run by Anheuser-Busch.
This beautiful facility is called “Grant’s Farm” because part of the land was once owned by Ulysses S. Grant. Given that Halloween is coming up, the grounds were decorated with ghoulish specimens that undoubtedly exploit the dead for entertainment and commerce. 
Check out these photos, then nod your head in agreement that we have a stark double-standard at play:
In two weeks, images of creepy dead people like this will be ubiquitous. Children will dress up like dead decaying people and we will chuckle and hand them candy. We’ll revel in the realism of the costumes and images and no one will judge us as immoral because of our desire to combine kids, candy and corpses. We just can’t get enough of the stuff, of course, so we’ll need to do it all over again, year after year.
But that’s not all. Not only do we look at things we’re not supposed to look at (the dead). We refuse to look at things we should feel free to look at because they’re interesting. You want an example of that to which I am referring? It was an unplanned show that we also saw at Grant’s Farm. It was (drum roll) . . . Llama sex. No, this is not my code word for something metaphorical. I mean llama sex. Llamas having sex. Llamas in flagrante delicto.
My two daughters noticed two llamas going at it in the llama area about 100 feet away from the camel area where we were standing along with dozens of other people. My kids kept staring because what they saw was interesting. I eventually took their cue and announced, “Hey, let’s go take a look at those llamas.” Here’s what we saw.
The sounds were as interesting as the sight, I can assure you. My daughters and I spoke candidly about the scene as we watched for a minute or two.
The llamas were interesting, but not as interesting as the tourists who were pretending not to watch the llamas. Dozens of tourists remained standing up the hill, ostensibly viewing the camels, 100 feet from the randy llamas. They were all sneaking peeks at the llamas, though none of them wanted to be seen actually looking at llamas having sex. They really really (really) wanted to walk down the small hill and take a closer look at those grunting llamas along with my young daughters and me. In the end, only two or three immoral souls joined us (a mom and her two kids).
Is there a moral to these stories? Perhaps. What is certain is that people often claim to be offended by things that don’t really offend them. What they are really worried about is that someone else might think ill of them if they were seen looking at something they found interesting. That attitude is unfortunate. Life is short and looking at love-making llamas is not immoral (though maybe my llama sex photography is closer to that line!). I have no doubt that most of those people who were too embarrassed to stare at the llamas would have walked down the hill and watched, at least for a minute, had they been the only person in the park.
Maybe the next time those hesitant tourists spy something interesting, they will have the courage to ignore social pressures and actually go learn something. In the meantime, they might want to consider going to Body Worlds, whether or not their neighbor approves of that exhibit. If they do have the “guts” to actually see Body Worlds, they could, later that night, visit the judgmental neighbor wearing one of those gory Halloween skeleton costumes (to put the neighbor at ease) and then tell him or her a few of the amazing things they just learned by staring, unashamed, at creatively displayed human cadavers.
Edgar, I get it. Childbirth is a natural function, but we can’t talk about it for fear of offending childless males. I guess we need to go study our handbooks of Victorian euphemisms in order to not offend the ears of these prudish young gentlemen.
I summarized some relevant research to explain GP’s perceptionthat pregnant women go on and on about their pregnancies- it could be explained by the usual dynamics of male-femaile conversations and how these norms may be violated by pregnancy-talk. Also, we have to acknowledge that norms of what is proper to talk about in mixed company are in flux.
Edgar, I suggest that you, too, get over yourself. I said nothing about childbirth being “magical” or a “miracle” or any of the other things that you put in condescending scare quotes. I see no reason why you should shout at me in capitals. I’m not asking for a paean to the miracle of motherhood, just the f**cking acknowledgement that pregnancy and childbirth aren’t some kind of shameful, secret disease.
Edgar, have I really exhibited ” hypocrisy, fundamentalism, fanaticism, elitism, and the like”? A bit passionate, maybe. As a feminist, I can’t help but see issues around childbirth in a politicial light.
Also, from my interest in linguistic research, I look with skepticism on any claim by a man that women “talk too much” about any subject, since most studies show that men talk more in most social situations.
Of course there are similarities, in the basic physiology, between giving birth and having a bowel movement. It’s not the peurile gross-out factor that I find offensive, but the idea that pregnancy and birth is as simple as taking a crap, and there’s no need to talk about it. In fact, given that we don’t live in ready-made social networks, there’s every reason why pregnant women need to talk with other parents, bond, and exchange information.
To your point that GP is simply “telling it like it is” - what is that supposed to mean? That Grumpy has some special knowledge “of what is tasteful in a given social setting.”?” Who died and made him Emily Post? I would have had no problem with the statement: “I feel uncomfortable when women share details about their pregnancy with me.” That’s an “I” statement, and GP would be owning his feelings, instead of using them to make up some kind of bogus absolute standard of what is acceptable in any “given social setting.” The fact is those standards are constantly in flux. 50 years ago, nobody would have been comfortable saying “I have breast cancer” in public or writing a book about fighting testicular cancer. Were things so much better then?
There are no absolute standards of what is acceptable to talk about, I believe. There are many complex factors that affect what people feel comfortable sharing. Certainly I get bored when people turn a conversation into their monologue, whether it’s about Linux or something they saw on TV or their birth story, take 15. But I guess I just don’t embarrass easily, because I can recall some conversations with people where they shared pretty intimate physical details with me without my getting uncomfortable, even with people (well, women) I did not know *that* well.
OK, when my Dad complained that his catheter was hurting, that was a bit awkward. “Uh, there’s no blood in the bag, should I get the nurse?” Even so, I was glad he could share that with me rather than suffering in silence.
Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto
Woah woah woah. I think everyone contributing to the pregnancy sub-discussion here actually agrees on many aspects of the subject, but have just gotten a bit caught up in the perceived topic rather than the actual topic.
We can both have respect for what pregant women go through- guts and gore and stretchmarks, blood, placenta and pain- and not really want to hear about it. We shirk away from our animalness and have stigmatized all signs of it as gross- just like pooping, death and animals having sex. Pregnancy, too, has a lot of gross aspects that some try to deal with by avoiding at all costs, or by labelling it a magical miracle (thereby making it supernatural, not icky-gross animal business). No doubt grumpy meant this when he compared pregnancy to other natural processes. That doesn’t make pregnancy a disease, but it does make it kind of icky.
Obviously none of us want to hide women away while they carry a fetus, or throw them in a red tent when they menstruate. But neither do most of us like the more extreme descriptions of pregnancy- a woman has the right to talk about it all she wants, but I nonetheless don’t really want to know about how much of her perennium a doctor had to slice to drag the infant out of her. I think we all understand that distinction.
From these posts it seems like Grumpy has a misogynistic streak in him when it come to pregancy and childbirth.
I can’t help but notice that he compares pregnancy, which I think most people would agree is a positive, creative bodily function, with defecation and disease. Moving one’s bowels is necessary but somewhat unpleasant, and disease is clearly negative and destructive. To compare those functions to childbirth I find psychologically revealing and I would ask grumpy to re-examine his deeper reasons for being repulsed by a woman’s “endless” conversation about probably the most significant event in her life, as I’m sure they are often bored by the many topics that he is passionate about.
You too Edgar! Why the anger? What’s this really about for you? I don’t see any of the womens’ defenses of childbirth to be in any way an attempt to censor this blog. We’ve all had our disagreements before. This is just another one.
Vicki: It’s true, “Real men aren’t freaked out by pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding.”
Or changing diapers, to bring grumpy’s comparison full circle.
Edgar and grumpy if you did not have any kind of issues with women, you would have compared pregnancy with a less offending body function like breathing, instead you choose to compare it with bowel movement, a certainly not so appropriate topic for dinner. I do not believe that this choice of comparison was random, because anything less offensive could have been chosen, so it does look as if the comparison was meant to degrade pregnancy and as a result women.
Dan: Von Hagens is German, so maybe the reason why your opinion of him is so positive is due to a lack of information that has crossed the ocean. It seems the controversy has not reached the States yet, so maybe it’s time to research more details about him on your own as the influx of information might be quite low.
Regarding the gold fillings, we’re not talking about atoms here, I mean original gold fillings from people who died during the Holocaust, just as we’re not talking about some hypothetical atoms of dead people like Cesar that you’re breathing in at every minute of your life. We’re talking about people who have not been dead for so long, whose atoms are not floating around in our atmosphere yet, not that many at least, because their physical remains have been preserved and exposed in a show. I so doubt that you would use these gold fillings.
With the same kind of moral standpoint that allows us to use dead prisoners for a show we could also say, hey, why not use the gold fillings? I didn’t kill these people and they’re dead anyway. I paid for them, so I have the right to use them.
And for goodness’ sake, he is not an artist. Who the hell came up with the idea that he was about teaching people science and the wonders of life and nature? It just irritates me that this man manages to present himself as an idealist to a whole group of people whose opinion I usually do respect (more or less, grumpy and Edgar! :D).
Someone said that this exhibit reminds him more of the shows at fairs. He was probably thinking of elephant man, people with stunted growth, anybody beyond the average with all kinds of abnormities who would attract people. It’s not that I find dead people to be so disgusting that I frown at the idea of showing people how the human body looks like, it’s the hidden motivation behind this show that makes it questionable to me.
As an afterthought, Dan, I’m sorry about what happened to your family. I don’t think you wanted me to stop debating your argument though, right?
The society leader explains that he took the world’s biggest crap in 1960, and that he was so proud of it that he took it home and decided to raise it as a child, and over time it grew up into Bono. This explains why Bono is ashamed of being called “number two” and why Bono can help so many people and still seem “like such a piece of shit”. After this is revealed, Bono’s father starts breast feeding Bono with his “Biddy”. However, the society leader also points out that, even though Bono faked his newest record, Bono himself is over 80 Courics (200 lbs.) in weight, and thus is still bigger than Randy’s old record crap or any other crap in the world.
Right after this is revealed, Randy is finally able to relax after taking a giant crap, estimated to weigh more than 100 Courics (250 lbs.).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/10/12/couric-coined-the-unit-_n_68211.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Crap
Gatomjp, you get it. Thanks for your remarks.
Grumpy, Edgar - Just think about who is insulted most by your analogy. It’s not the mom. Just reflect next time before inserting foot in mouth.
When, 12 years on, one of your BM’s is described by all as a joy to be around, and can get an A in algebra, play Scottish airs on the harp, and leap on to the back of a cantering horse, I wouldn’t mind hearing all the details of how it came about.
Erika, you write:
What a seriously skewed idea of what childbirth is like. Doctors drag babies out of women? What you’re describing is a massive medical intervention, not a normal childbirth. Does this reflect any actual conversation about birth that you have actually had with a real woman, or something you saw on TV or read about? I seriously doubt any woman who has been through labor would say “the doctor dragged the baby out of me.” Routine episiotomies are also no longer the order of the day, so it sounds like you need more information, not less.
On the other strand of this thread: projektleiterin, von Hagens acquiring bodies in China bothers me too. Dan’s comment about atoms from gold fillings doesn’t really apply. China executes more prisoners for more offenses than any other country, and anyone who is dealing in organs or cadavers there can’t help but be aware of allegations that demand for organs is corrupting the justice system and contributing to the high rate of executions. So claiming that the problem was missing paperwork or whatever is like someone claiming they had no idea the watch they bought off a guy on the street corner was stolen. As to the claim that people are lining up to be plastinated after death so why would he need to buy execution victims, well, most of those people aren’t dead yet.
On the other hand, he does claim to have destroyed the questionable cadavers, and to have avoided convictions for any serious crime so far..
I also agree that it’s not art. The thing that pushes it over the line into freakshow for me is his soliciting the guy with giantism for his cadaver after death.
Ben:
My birth video. Let me show you eet.
Revealing our innards in a humorous vein does not imply a venal humour.
Freak shows are a (seldom mentioned) part of modern culture.
Any “reality” show is merely taking a set of mismatched or complementary personality disorders and pushing them to the edge to display what happens.
These posthumous displays are not so obscene as the not-so-old practice of pulling the insides of criminals out to put them on public display to watch as they died. This was acceptable practice (even to churches) in Europe and the Americas for many centuries.
IF I were a “real” enough man to click on that link, I’m sure it would be a wonderful, beautiful experience.
AND a bit icky.
Wow, I’m just amazed by how far off the deep end so many of you have gone concerning my comment. Get a grip, people. Not only was my observation directed to a tiny subset of the female population (i.e., pregnant women and their friends who ignore the usual boundaries of good taste when discussing the condition in public), it was more about human behavior and social norms than it was about pregnancy. People who actually know me (fyi, my circle of friends includes far more women than men) would howl with laughter to hear some of the ridiculous things some of you have said about me. I think Edgar hit the nail on the head when he observed that I must have hit a nerve. Indeed, from my perspective, your comments reveal far more about yourselves than they do about me.
Grumpy
I acknowledge that all my speculations about your motivation for picking that particular analogy, were simply that, speculation. I realize now that it would have been much much more appropriate just to say how hurtful your analogy was and to convey how it affected my perception of you, rather than climbing up to the judge’s high box. In fact, I probably should have mentioned how offensive I found it the first time you used it, so as not to let the resulting impression of your character harden in my mind. But saying “That hurt my feelings,” puts us in a vulnerable position so we tend to lob the judgment back instead of acting skillfully.
You may be a nice guy in person, but all I have to go by is what you write here. You write “my observation [was] directed to a tiny subset of the female population.” You may have meant to convey this, but what you said was “American mothers.” You may not have meant comparing childbirth to taking a shit to be offensive, but I think that most people would take it a put-down. Several others here found it so. Again, I don’t think you are thinking of who you are comparing to crap in your analogy. To call someone a shit, or full of crap, or any one of a number of similar terms, is an insult in the English language.
And, when a number of people have found something you said offensive, does it really help to accuse them of going off the deep end?
I realize I could have gotten my point across much more clearly, with including judgmental language. I can also think of a number of ways you might have made your point without being offensive. We might have had quite a different discussion then, probably a much more interesting one.
Now you are being disingenuous, grumpy.
“People who actually know me (fyi, my circle of friends includes far more women than men) would howl with laughter to hear some of the ridiculous things some of you have said about me.”
Being the writer that you are you are well aware of the power and limitations of language. All we know about you is what we read here. When you chose that offensive comparison (for whatever reason, even jokingly) it made you SEEM misogynistic. Surely you must be able to see that.
“…your comments reveal far more about yourselves than they do about me.”
I’m rubber, you’re glue? Is that what you are saying, grump? I’m curious, what do our comments reveal to you?
To Vicki: I just don’t see how my analogy was “hurtful” to anyone. I merely pointed out that pregnancy is a normal biological function, as normal as any other biological function, most of which are, well, messy, for lack of a better word. What analogy would you use that would be a better analogy than mine? A fetus has a parasitical (and potentially life-threatening, as you pointed out) attachment to its host…perhaps you would prefer the analogy of a malignant tumor? Seriously, just compare the amount of text (and its content) devoted to my initial (and tangential) comment and your many longwinded rants in response, and it should be obvious that your comments are the product of your own over-reaction.
To gatomjp: I also don’t see how I can reasonably be called disingenuous or misogynistic. These labels flow directly from your own (grossly) distorted misinterpretations of what I wrote; thus, they do not reveal anything about me at all. From my single analogy about pregnancy — one that I will continue to defend despite all the criticism it has generated — I’ve been accused of all sorts of ridiculous things. These accusations are plainly the result of reader over-reaction. As I said previously: get a grip. Try to look at my analogy more objectively and perhaps you will understand.
So, this exhibit is indeed more like a freak/reality show for you than an educational recreation?
You’re comparing the Body World shows with a cruel and disgusting tradition that has attracted a lot of people as well, but is no longer practised for human reason…? Do you really want to draw a comparison between yourself and all these Middle Age rubberneckers?
Do. some. research. That’s all you’re being asked to do before you walk happily into this show and defend it like it’s the next cure for cancer.
Grumpy, when a guy claims, and not only once it seems, but several times, that being pregnant belongs to the same category of natural body functions as bowel movement it’s a red flag for me. Period. What this kind of attitude tells you about me? That I have issues with guys? Umm, probably true, but I still know that you are not honest here.
What is it with all this “it’s just a normal body function” and “also animals have sex”? Why is that people get so upset then when their partner cheats on them? Animals most of the time don’t seem to be so picky about it. I say, get a grip on yourself and stop this whining. People talk about the wonder of life when they see an animal giving birth. Kittens - aw, so cute. Puppies - aw, so sweet. Babies? They’re the product of a body function just like going to the toilet.
People, People! Please. I’d like to comment that the elevation of pregnancy (an incredible process terrifically portrayed by NOVA’s documentary “Life’s Greatest Miracle”) is OK by me, as long as it is not meant as a disparagement of bowel movements. BM’s are incredible in and of their own right. In a prior post I went so far as to decribe humans as “mobile intestinal tracts”! Or, perhaps it’s an age thing, and maybe I’m just showing my age. In fact, for very old folks (I’ll define “very old people” as people older than me), you sometimes hear bowel movements being venerated above every other natural pheonema.
I therefore toast bowel movements and pregnancies. Without either of these glorious functions you couldn’t have the other.
Caveat: By singling out these two incredible functions, I’m not intending to impliedly dispage any other functions such as the Krebs Cycle or the coagulation cascade that enables the healing of wounds. I’d add that death itself is, to some extent, a “natural” function too, and that serious scientists have dared to ask the simplistic sounding question of why people die.
I do chuckle (but only a little bit) that Grumpypilgrim might have thought that he was preempting the sort of criticism he has received by his choice of screen name.
For fear of sounding patronistic, I hope that in light of Grumpy’s clarification (that he didn’t mean to include all talk of pregnancy by all women) and the various metaphorical fig leaves I’ve noticed in further down in these comments, that we can move away from personal internecine skirmishes. If that doesn’t happen soon, I’ll intentionally say something really stupid and insulting to unite everyone against a new common enemy. I love you all that much.