He is saying that women can be bought. That sex can be bought. That women will present our vaginas to men only after they buy us shit. How is that not offensive? What the fuck was this guy trying to sell?

While I am not sure that I get the joke, there is a long history of comedy including making people uncomfortable and such, and an offensiveness in this. Humour is certainly used to disperse social tension, to talk about things that are too serious/make people too uncomfortable to otherwise talk about and so forth. One might say we should address serious things with a serious tone, but de facto that simply is often not done, or even not possible (if it makes people too uncomfortable to have a discussion).

Which is not to say that is, or is not, occuring here. How could I begin to guess?

Necessarily, if things being offensive means they can not also be funny, then less things are funny than for thoswe who can be offended and find something funny at the same time. I know one joke (that I can think of, anyhow) that offends me, but I will still laugh at it, or even retell it on occasion - probably in part because it makes me so uncomfortable. Compare The Aristocrats, for instance.

The joke is that it's a pun on the phrase "coinslot pussy." Google it.

Also, it could just as easily be interpreted as being about how the artist thinks some men see women, not about how the artist sees women. I think you missed the joke and then jumped to a conclusion about the author's intentions.

I've been thinking how to put this.

I'd ask this kid what he was thinking when he made this piece. Because it sounds as if there isn't a lot of layers, as Kate points out. And then, ask him how that's funny, or how it upsets long-held beliefs.

Because if your prof is serious about his failure-policy, this piece would be an EPIC fail: it wouldn't be challenging any long-held beliefs, just perpetuating long-held stereotypes.

Couldn't you argue that?

I don't understand what's funny about that.

If I'd been in your class, I'd have had the same reaction as you. :|

My partner is just finishing up his graduate degree in painting. I got him to read this to ask him his opinion. He would like to teach art at University one day, just so you know.

We live in a very progressive, liberal city, and his university is very progressive art-wise, and allows for a lot of experimentation and controversial work.

He thought that this project would not fly at his school -- AT ALL. He said that the only way it would be looked at seriously is if the justification for it was just right. Either, questioning this idea or with some kind of artist statement that really explains what is going on.

This being said, his professors are feminists and don't put up with this kind of garbage.

I think this would be a good teaching moment for that prof. Instead of asking you if he thinks that a woman's vagina is literally a coinslot, he could have started a conversation about women and objectification in art.

(I'm not an artist, but...)
My view about art is that it takes two parties: the creator and the viewer. The creator is attempting to get a "message" across (whether it's 'look at this pretty landscape' or some of the more abstract messages) and evoking a feeling.

If the art makes you uncomfortable, then no one can tell you that you're wrong. If it sends a message that makes you feel that women are viewed as bought, you're not wrong. You as the viewer determine what you see. If the viewer and creator's messages match, then I guess it's a success.

If you think art is offensive, then it's offensive. And while I have issues with censorship, here where something is supposed to be "funny", and you think it's offensive, the creator failed. You don't need to adjust yourself.

While I totally get the need for art to challenge people's perception and even offend them to make a larger point, in a classroom there also has to be some sort of safe space available. Your professor was a complete asswipe for belittling your discomfort that way, implying that the only reason for you to take offense was if you thought that this drawing was being literally true.

What he SHOULD have done was to acknowledge that this was a deeply problematic image and ask the artist to explain what kind of view of women and sexuality he was trying to convey. If it was supposed to be a critical piece about how other men belittle women, then the artist needed concrit about how to point out oppression without engaging in it himself. If the artist thought it was "funny" because LOLOL EVRY1 NOZ TEH WIMMENZ LIEK TEH MONIES then he was simply being offensive without even offering a larger insight.

I seriously doubt this guy put any more thought into this project then, "haha, coinslot vagina!," done. You should be offended because it's uncreative and dull.

Here's what I'm thinking:

If a work of art should be offensive, that's just another way of saying that it should challenge our underlying assumptions and cause us to re-examine the world around us -- "make it strange" or "defamiliarize" as the Russian Formalists would say.

But does this piece do that? Does it accomplish any meaningful or thought-provoking social commentary? Is it iconoclastic or merely incredibly typical? I'm with Glauke -- this isn't challenging anything, merely perpetuating tired and problematic cliches.

So he wants art to be offensive?
Well, then, he'd better be prepared for people to be offended.
Instead, he's saying that since it's supposed to upset people, people somehow don't have the right to get upset.

In situations like this I often ask (with a super innocent expression) what makes it funny. Often this brings out explanations that reveal the inherent sexism, which you can then engage with. Or if the other student was trying to get at some other, non-offensive meaning, then it will come out in his explanation. But you can always make a conditional statement like "if the implication is that women are cheap or women are the kind of thing that can/should be bought and sold then I think it's not really funny and just kind of offensive."

Or you can always resort to sarcasm: "Haha, the commdification of the female body is so fucking hilarious." Depends on the context.

Sounds like a good time in the semester for a comeback. Like, when someone else brings up a piece that's metaphorical, be like "Professor X, do you think the artist thinks the face is a clock?"

that piece sounds highly offensive to me but i'm curious what the assignment was? was there any context to the work? regardless, good for you for voicing your offense in what sounds like a rather hostile environment.

i love comedy and making jokes but i hate "humor" that belittles and puts down other people or groups of people. calling someone an "unfunny feminist" is just an excuse for being a jerk.

I don't know what I would have done in your position - in my early years of school I was usually not brave enough to challenge the TAs or professors (it took until third year - but most of my professors were amazing and didn't merit much rebellion). It would probably have been best to ask a really pointed (and serious) question in response to the professor; "What exactly was the purpose of putting a 25 cent coin slot in place of her vagina?" In my mind: "In the context of this piece, why shouldn't the viewer assume that the "artist" believes that a woman's vagina is a coin slot?"

I graduated with a bachelor degree in visual arts last year... and if someone tried to fly a piece like that at our school they would have to had come up with one hell of an artist's statement. Any art professor who allows students to make art that is offensive without being didactic isn't worth anything as a professor. I hope the year end evaluations (we always got to do one) are crap for him.

Thanks for all your supportive comments so far! I'm tempted to show this to my professor, or, at least to the student who made the "art"...

Doesn't sound very original. The whole swiping a credit card through a vagina joke has been played to death and if it was a play on the coinslot pussy thing (which is offensive in its own right) that is about as funny as my sixth grade drawing of a person in a literal pickle for the phrase "I'm in a pickle". Not creative or clever or original.

I agree with the other commenters here... while the piece may in fact be a very interesting and thought-provoking piece, the artist needs to be ready to explain it, particularly when, as here, the message isn't obvious. If he really did do something as simplistic as taking a sexist phrase and making it into a literal picture -- that in and of itself isn't all that creative. It's entirely possible this piece was meant to be a critique of a particularly offensive turn of phrase -- as in, this is a ridiculous phrase to use, because everyone knows a vagina is not a coinslot. In which case, perhaps it wasn't done in the most advanced or thoughtful way, but not bad for a 19-year-old. On the other hand, he may have just been going for cheap laughs.

Either way, what the professor should have done was taken your question and started a dialogue with the artist, asking him to explain his thoughts about the work, and drawing out other classmates' reactions -- was it funny, why was it funny or not funny, was it thought-provoking, why was it offensive or not offensive, etc. Instead, he dismissed your reaction to the piece, which is about as un-artistic as it gets. That's some pretty crappy teaching, and I know this even as someone who never took art classes in college.

Like others here, this teacher totally failed by brushing what you said off like he did. If he was any good, he would have encouraged a conversation about whether this was funny or not, especially if the assignment was to make something funny. As for your teacher's belief about how if it isn't offensive, it is a failure, does that mean that he thinks Medieval artworks are failures? Because a lot of those were definitely not meant to be offensive.
Because I am me though, I would have drawn a vagina dentate, and if anybody asked I would say that I think the idea of a penis getting eaten by a vagina as being hilarious. I

You know very well that the maker of this piece meant no harm in this: He is a naive 5-year old in a 20-year old body. He darts from the room at every mention of "cock and balls"--which, I must mention, has been prevalent in two of his last pieces. He is probably as horny as the aforementioned 5-year old.

Yes, it is okay for you to question this and think about the feminist issues behind it... but you're forgetting the assignment entirely, and I find it funny that you don't mention it.

We are supposed to be making art that is lame, bad, and ugly. And that piece was all three. Plus, this was far from a final assignment, and I am sure something like this wouldn't be done for the final. This piece was far from "great", as you say, and nobody acknowledged it this way.

What I believe it comes down to is how the teacher handled it. Students may hand it what they may, but it's certainly the teacher's responsibility to take the critique in the direction it needs to go, or at least in the direction that would make for a good discussion.

The piece, of course, was not a final project. But final or not, this student put it up for the class to critique and give their honest opinions, and when I gave mine, it was brushed off.

And about the lame, bad, and ugly part -- there's a difference between making lame, bad, and ugly art that's clever and making lame, bad, and ugly art that is just that. The piece mentioned in my post was just that.

But the main point of this post was to touch on those uneasy feelings that many young female artists face, but are afraid to speak out about for the fear of being thought of as non-progressive or conservative. I decided to confide in the Feministing community, because I know I can receive honest feedback from like-minded people. And while the internet is open source, I have to call you out, defenderofjohncho, of what is known in the blogosphere as "trolling." Whichever defender you are, I would much appreciate it if you ask me in class tomorrow, because I think there's a good discussion in this. I would be happy to tell you how I feel.

this kinda reminds me of a t-shirt i made for my self a couple of years ago..it was based on a drawing i had done of a conventionally attractive, bikini clad woman, tied up and blindfolded, with the slogan 'bound to please'. at the time, i had been reading alot of feminist literature on objectification/commodification of women in the media, and had intended it to be a sarcastic (though poorly thought out) response to expectations of women's appearance and behaviour in our society.
people's reactions included amusement at the pun, confusion (especially when they found out i'd drawn it - i'm a girl, so i guess they didn't expect me to draw scantily clad women, jokes about safewords/dungeons and arousal (mostly teenage boys). even though pretty much no one 'got' my original intentions, i found the conversations pretty interesting, and i think that art that would otherwise be considered sexist can be interpreted differently depending on who made it, how they justify it, the intended audience, etc.

I think your response was reasonable and measured. It's not as if you stormed out of the class the class and slammed the door. You just asked a question.

But your teacher sort of made it personal by making it a conversation about YOUR opinion of the ARTIST, instead of addressing the actual question. Had you asked you 'do you think the painting objectifies women or criticizes women's objectification', it would have been another matter.

As for "If it's not offensive, it's a failure" - that's just SO intellectually lazy! Something can be offensive and good, something can be offensive and bad. Nothing NEEDS to be offensive to be good.

Basically, I think your teacher made you feel like the unfunny feminist for no good reason.

Regardless if acting under assumptions or not, everyone should be allowed to speak up when they are offended. That being said, I do think that we should be respectful and open minded and not assume anyone's motivations.

Not being familiar with the artist, it's hard to say what he was going for. The fact that he didn't attempt to explain, leads me to think that he wasn't going for a critique of our cultural values...

I don't think what makes feminists unfunny is that we're feminists. On one side, I've met feminists who can't take a joke, not even ones that use mysogyny or intolerance to show how ridiculous they are and challange our long held biases. On the other side, I think people who are not used to having their views challenged or problematized (gettin feministy on ya!) are easily made uncomfortable by feminists calling them on their shit, to put it bluntly.

I don't know if anyone said this yet, but you should do a similar project depicting a 19-year-old male butt (like his, that is) as a coin slot. If he thinks it's funny, cool (I guess?). If not, then he's being hypocritical.

There's much more to it than this of course, but it's worth mentioning.