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.
It's not only lack of deference that makes people uneasy at the idea of visiting the Body Worlds show. He is a dubious character and there is a whole list of accusations against him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunther_von_Hagens
I would not feel comfortable visiting a show knowing that the bodies stem from executed prisoners who have been sold after their death to be preserved and used as entertainment.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,2763,…
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/08/business/worldb…
Another article can be found here: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,448913…
I acknowledge the accusations regarding von Hagens and I find them disturbing too. On the other hand, the Body Worlds exhibitions contain many hundreds of human bodies, and very few of them involve specific allegations. Von Hagens responds (vaguely, I admit) to the vague general allegations here: http://www.bodyworlds.com/en/institute_for_plasti…. The moral spin on dissecting unclaimed bodies is further complicated by the fact that hundreds of people attending these shows have agreed to donate their own bodies to the exhibition. http://www.koerperspende.de/en/body_donation/the_…
To answer the suggestion that it is improper to attend these exhibitions: I really don't believe that, by buying a ticket to Body Worlds, I am causing Chinese authorities to execute prisoners.
As I do with most artists, I am willing to distinguish the artist from the art. The exhibition is painstakingly done and has inspired more than 25 million people. For me, the work has inspired a much deeper understanding and respect for the human animal.
Further, my post is based on what the general public knows. None of Van Hagens legal disputes are promulgated in the local media, yet many people are nonetheless repulsed by the display of the bodies. I've met several of those people in the past week–they've explained that it's all "creepy" yet they laugh off slasher movies and Halloween.
Why do so many people claim that they don't like looking at the dead, even though they do find it interesting? That is the point of my post, this ambivalence, or is it hypocrisy?
There is a bit of fear of the unknown here, for me. The show was recently in town, and I was even invited to go, but I decided not to go to see it in person (chickened out?). I normally like museums, but this seems a bit extreme, at least at first glance. I wouldn't mind looking at a few more of the images though. Is it creepy, or is it just overwhelming? Maybe that's what makes it seem creepy – that it is so foreign and complex.
I did not say that China will execute more prisoners to ensure a sufficient supply of bodies for the show, although I would not outrule this idea, given that they have no moral objections against the exploitation of executed prisoners as organ donors. What I find questionable is the use of executed prisoners for the show, especially with China's dodgy judicial system. They had probably been stripped of their basic human rights and are now sold and processed on an assembly-line like a piece of meat to entertain people and to make money for von Hagens.
In this case, if you support the art, you are supporting the artist and his philosophy, including his business ethics. He is not an artist, because his goal is not to educate people or to express himself in a creative way, his goal is to make money. There are allegations that during his time as research assistant at the University of Heidelberg he had started a half-legal business with selling body parts. He sells a product that people need or want to see, nothing more, nothing less.
The title of this post reminds me of a comment by a primate researcher that is mentioned in another of Erich's posts. The researcher investigates the behavior of bonobo primates and commented that the reason why bonobos are not displayed in many zoos is because their sexual behavior is so much like that of humans that zoo visitors might be upset.
Humans, especially those in repressive cultures (like America's) indeed are uncomfortable with various aspects of natural bodily functions. One odd exception to this rule is the way American mothers will talk endlessly about the details of their pregnancies, even though pregnancy is no more or less natural than a bowel movement, yet very few people would consider the latter topic suitable for luncheon conversation.
Pregnancies are a major event in a woman's life, it's no wonder they're talking about it! There's a lot of responsibility involved with the birth of a child, you want it to be healthy, you worry about this alien life that is growing inside of you, and let's not forget the scary prospect of painful labor. Why should they not talk about it?
There's a grain of truth (actually, not a grain, a huge rock) when people make jokes about men whining when they're a bit sick. Headaches? No, it's a tumor! Cold? No, it's influenza! Cough? No, it's pneumonia! But hey, it's ok to belittle pregnancies. Humankind would have been extinguished long ago if men had to carry out babies. "There's an alien being inside of me that depends on my life energy and support? Take. that. out. at once!!!!"
Real men aren't freaked out by pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding.
While we've been having this little chat, [X} women around the globe have died in childbirth (where X is some unacceptable, avoidable #)
Of course, this is not the first time Grumpy has brought up the "childbirth as bowel movement" metaphor. One might be tempted to psychoanalyze him (does he believe on some level that people are shit? Is he a poster child for male anxieties/resentments around childbirth?)
However, this comment:
suggests a more easily quantifiable explanation for his grumpy attitudes about birth.
It's well established that men interrupt and cut off women more than the reverse, and that in public conversation, men are usually more successful in steering the conversation toward their preferred topics. Other studies have shown that this is not simply gender-based – when high status speakers converse with low status speakers, the high status speakers are granted the ability to interrupt at will and steer the conversation. So what's happening with the men interrupting women is that men are granted honorary high status in a conversation unless there are other status markers in play. However, for some topics, pregnancy and childbirth being one, men are willing to concede status, or women may not be willing to play along with the "man as high status speaker" game.
So, when the topic turns to pregnancy and childbirth, Grumpy may resent that his usual ability to cut off and re-direct the conversation has been revoked.
It is a pity that Grumpy never thought to equip himself with a microphone to record his conversations over the course of several days, so we could have a linguistic corpus to analyze to see to what extent he relies on the "male as honorary high status speaker" paradigm to direct his communicative interactions.
I'm also totally disappointed with grumpy. I thought he was one of us girls and now it turns it out he is just another guy. *sniff* 😀
My, my. Grumpypilgrim appears to have struck a nerve.
Attacking the messenger instead of the message is a favorite tactic of … well, you fill in the blank.
Edgar, in this case I find grumpy's statement to be too silly, frivolous and crappy (a pun, a pun :D) to bother about dissecting and analyzing it, instead I find more entertainment in poking fun at him.
Edgar, since Grumpy's "message" consisted of a sweeping generalization followed by condescending comparison, the only insight it offered was into his own personality and possibly into the pragmatics of male/female conversations. The only message was "STFU, pregnant women, and don't bore me with the details." Given the history of men humiliating women by making them ashamed of their bodies, I think it has no place in a blog that claims to be a liberal voice.
I saw Bodyworlds II in Cleveland two years ago. I wanted to see III when it came to my town, and one of the people I invited to go with me called it "pornographic". I found the label extreme, but not without validity. I responded that Body Worlds' display becomes pornography when a vistor buys a ticket for the sheer sake of "seeing dead people" and finding morbid fun in it.
I'd like to think that most people visit the exhibit with at least some sense of scientific intrigue. The displays lay somewhere on the cusp between science and art; bodies demonstrating the harmful effects of excess fat on the body, and the stages of pregnancy are informative. Bodies in ballerina poses are a bit less so. The opportunity to touch a plastinated brain is perhaps even less scientific than that. But the exhibit never struck me as pornographic.
Watching videos of beheadings and executions online, however, seems expressly pornographic. The Faces of Death video series provides nothing but a constant barrage of gore for its own sake. Many people enjoy this kind of taboo entertainment. I suppose that raises a question of its own: even if it is pornographic, is it wrong? I doubt many of us consider sexual pornography wrong. Should we excuse the natural desire to face death? The only difference I see is that the dying didn't get paid to be watched and didn't give consent the way porn stars do.
Responding to my critics above: there is a difference, it seems to me, between discussing child rearing techniques and other aspects of parenthood, and the bizarre (American?) practice some women have of describing, in public and in excruciating detail, every biological symptom of their pregnancies. My previous comment was intended to refer to the latter.
I would liken it to the way some (usually elderly) people sit around describing, in excruciating detail, the symtoms of whatever disease they happen to be suffering from. Or, to reverse the gender roles, it would be like a group of men sitting around discussing, in public and in excruciating detail, the symptoms of their prostate trouble. It's one thing to discuss such things in the privacy of a doctor's office, it is quite another to drag it out at a cocktail party.
Simply put, I would hope my above critics would agree that there are boundaries on what is tasteful in a given social setting. Personally, I don't see why the intimate details of a person's medical condition are suitable subject matter for a public discussion. Perhaps my erudite critics could explain why it is. My hunch is they don't engage in the sort of discussions I've heard, and perhaps they would agree with me if they had.
After I'm done with my body, and if I cannot find a live-use (organs, extracts, etc) or educational (research, med. school) use for it, I'd happily leave it to art.
I put art third only because there is a long line of eager donors for von Hagen, and proportionally far fewer for the other uses.
As to allegations that several of the tens of thousands of bodies he has processed so far may have been improperly documented: I don't ask from where my licensed scrapyards or precious metal suppliers get the metals I buy, either.
If you wear gold, you probably are wearing some atoms stolen from corpses or tombs without familial consent.
As to the other animal activities: I'm still kicking myself for not taking a picture of our local elephant, Raja, one day when he was obviously a horny adolescent. I thought at first glance that he had an extra trunk!
Maybe grumpy lives in an alternate universe where pregnant women pour out the details of their "medical conditions" (hint: pregnancy is not an illness) into the unwilling ears of those around them.
In the world that the rest of us inhabit, most people exhibit a lively interest in pregnancy, birth and babies. Perhaps a bit of reflection on the aspects of human physiology and our nature as primates with a well-developed theory of mind, might give some clues as to why this might be so.
Most pregnant women find that as soon as their pregnancy becomes obvious, other people will express interest, offer advice (not always welcome) and share their experiences. There's no getting away from it. And of course, since we don't live in close social groups or extended families anymore, the information exchange is often valuable. So, I'm willing to believe that Grumpy felt left out of conversations where pregnancy became the topic of conversation among a group of people, sidelining grumpy who could not contribute his expert opinion.,
So, nobody has a problem going to this show although it looks like he is just a greedy business guy who has no qualms about using the dead bodies of prisoners who very likely would have been hesitant to give their permission for this kind of show?
Dan, this is an absolutely lame answer and you know it. If your metal suppliers were suspected to have used old gold filling of dead Jews (which doesn't mean they were involved in their death, just selling them) would you continue buying from them without further investigation?
Grumpy, I understand more or less your point (although I have yet to meet a woman who would bore me like this with details of her pregnancies), but I still think your comparison is a tad over the top and your irritation seems to go a little bit beyond normal frustration. Honestly, it sounds as if you have some issues with women…
I have two comments; one conciliatory, the other accusatory.
First, the conciliatory.
I read grumpypilgrim's comment and found nothing offensive, or even noteworthy, about his "bodily function" reference. But grumpy and I are both childless men. Neither of us have ever experienced the "miracle of parenthood", so whatever "magical" properties it possesses are foreign to us. We have both experienced the conversations of countless pregnant women and new mothers (and fathers) and found ourselves not only completely out of our element, but quite distressed by what we judged to be gratuitously detailed descriptions of things that qualify as "TMI" (too much information).
HOWEVER … and forgive me if this analogy is somewhat lame, but it's the closest thing I've got … before I became a dog owner I felt the same way about conversations of dog owners in which they offered excessively detailed descriptions of everything from colorful excrement to things that their dogs had killed to things that their dogs had vomited, and the circumstances surrounding each of these events. Then I adopted two dogs of my own, and soon found myself delighting in the very conversations that had disgusted me before. The reason for this transformation was that these events were so traumatic that I sought comfort from the only other people who could truly understand — those who had also experienced them. Perhaps something similar is going on with new parents.
Now, the accusatory.
I have read articles from grumpypilgrim attacking everything from Christianity to the President to abortion to war to gun control to just about everything in-between. Always he has made his point by simply describing things as they really are. Virtually every one of his articles has targeted something that somebody, somewhere, considered sacred. Yet here at Dangerous Intersection, where nothing is sacred, that was always considered a "good thing".
But suddenly childbirth is off-limits. A description of childbirth, a bodily function, as a "bodily function", elicits attacks not on the description, but ad hominem attacks on grumpypilgrim himself. I honestly expected better from the regulars here at DI. Ladies, let me point something out. Do you think that your ability to reproduce is something special? THE VAST MAJORITY OF LIVING THINGS ON THIS PLANET ARE CAPABLE OF REPRODUCTION. In fact, in that context, men's INability to reproduce makes THEM special, or at least unusual. So get over yourselves.
DI has, up to now, struck me as a place to ferret-out hypocrisy, fundamentalism, fanaticism, elitism, and the like. It appears to me that, if you want to continue the tradition, the first place to look for these things may be in the mirror.
Proj: "Just a greedy business guy"? He had a new idea, invented a new process, and created many artistic expressions with this new technique. He cannot produce enough works to satisfy the demand, not because of lack of material, but lack of time. Legitimate volunteers are numerous, and his coolers are overflowing. How else could he be able to return or cremate bodies that are challenged months or years later?
He has no need to sneak bodies from possibly unwilling sources. Bodies are donated and he accepts. Then it turns out that some of the material may not have been fully informed by those who donated them.
So, you blame the recipient for not fully investigated each donation?
Greedy? He spends days actively working on each piece, and weeks of prep time before that. He pays assistants to spend even more time on the less creative parts of the process.
Bill Gates clicks "copy" and sells another hundred-million pieces at hundreds a pop. What seems more greedy?
As to gold: Most of my family disappeared in the Shoah. If you buy gold in or from Europe, it is likely to contain atoms that had been in the mouths or on the fingers of some of my relatives before they got to the death camps. With the high recycle rate of the metal, it is unlikely to find a gold ring that is totally free of material taken unethically.
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.