Why the naked Sophie Dahl touched more than a nerve

It is by no means the most sexually explicit advertisement of recent months. True, the angle of the knees and the nearby phallic thrust of a high heel rub against an observer's perceptions with lascivious intent. True, too, that the thrown-back head is a long-standing sign of ecstatic abandonment - whether it's in Bernini's statue of Saint Theresa or a top-shelf glamour pose. But nothing really tells you whether Sophie Dahl, star of a poster campaign for Opium perfume that has just been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority, is waiting for sex or recovering from it.

It is by no means the most sexually explicit advertisement of recent months. True, the angle of the knees and the nearby phallic thrust of a high heel rub against an observer's perceptions with lascivious intent. True, too, that the thrown-back head is a long-standing sign of ecstatic abandonment - whether it's in Bernini's statue of Saint Theresa or a top-shelf glamour pose. But nothing really tells you whether Sophie Dahl, star of a poster campaign for Opium perfume that has just been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority, is waiting for sex or recovering from it.

It is certainly nowhere near as overtly sexual as a recent campaign by Gossard, in which soft-focus shots of boudoir disarray were accompanied, if I remember correctly, by the copy lines: "If he's late, start without him", and, "Get him on his knees" (the latter depicting a woman lying backwards on a bed, her crotch just out of frame). It must have been the first national poster campaign in favour of masturbation and cunnilingus and, excellent causes though those both are, I thought it marked something of a step change in the sexualisation of public spaces. We had all seen fellatio represented in commercials before, but in these instances there were no obvious alibis to hand for curious innocents - no good here telling your child that the lady just really, really liked chocolate flakes.

The moral watchdogs didn't bark then, though - or at least not noisily enough to come to the attention of journalists. And while some of the explanation for that may lie in the exact nature of the Gossard campaign - that it was suggestive rather than explicit - that's surely only half the story. What has to be explained, too, is why Steven Meisel's image for Opium received the accolade of "most complained-about advertisement in the last five years". In the torrent of insinuation and blandishment and sexual display we wade through daily, what was it about this particular image that caused such perturbation?

It is, I think, a matter of aesthetics as much as sexual politics. Other models have revealed as much in the interests of fragrance, but they have rarely done so with quite such luxurious languor. In quite a few cases, the visual language is that of a Madonna - head bowed and body folded in upon itself so that the gesture is one of modesty and reserve. But here, there is a kind of indifference to the prospect of being seen that is written into the image.

It is highly artificial. Look closely at the pose, for example, and you can see that Dahl earned her presumably considerable fee. It must have been murder to hold that position, and yet it reads as voluptuous oblivion. And the effect is further amplified by the bleached-out look of the photograph, which makes pubic hair vanish and reduces the aureole of the nipples to the merest blush of pink - the kind of secondary sexual characteristic it takes a 14-year-old boy to detect.

Those who have defended the poster on the grounds that it takes a stand against the pernicious stereotyping of the female form need their eyes examining. What could be more idealised than this sinuous, ivory form? What could be more detached from the reality of all flesh, not just female flesh?

What it reminds me of most strongly, in fact, is the erotic classicism of the late 19th century - there's a dash of Alma-Tadema's bloodless nudes and their far more sultry descendants at the lascivious end of Art Nouveau. Even the colour of Dahl's hair - a swirl of coppery red - emphasises the oddly antique nature of the poster. Klimt painted such nudes early in his career, and he carried their air of sensual reverie into later works, too. The Dahl picture is, in effect, another contribution to the familiar genre of decadent sexual exoticism, in which we - usually assumed to be men - are privileged to peep at the unselfconscious inhabitants of a harem or steam bath... or even opium den.

And significantly, when the image was still in the virtual harem of the fashion magazines, there were hardly any complaints about it. Concealed between the covers of Vogue, it could, perhaps, achieve what has already been claimed for it by some female journalists - to present an image of independent, unsurveyed female sensuality, one that makes no reference to male desire. Out in the streets, however, its nature was changed - and inevitably changed for the worse.

But to describe it as pornographic or exploitative seems to be missing the point. Indeed, those who argue that this is a man-made rape fantasy might note that the novelist Jeanette Winterson - nobody's idea of feminine compliance - adopted an almost identical pose for a celebrated nude publicity shot a few years ago.

The nerve it touches is a different one, in truth, and one you might have thought had gone numb years ago. The reason the poster arouses strong (if very different) feelings in men and women is that it resuscitates a dying taboo - the idea that there are things that women are allowed to see that men aren't.

20 December 2000

sutcliff@globalnet.co.uk

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