Please READ :
Amanda Phillips, “Dicks, Dicks, Dicks: Hardness and Flaccidity in (Virtual) Masculinity” (2017)
https://www.flowjournal.org/2017/11/dicks-dicks-di…r
&Selection of online articles about “radical softness” (artist’s website, HelloFlo, Medium)
http://www.loramathis.com/kipp-harbor-times
& “Embracing Radical Softness: An Interview with Poet and Artist Lora Mathis,” HelloFlo, 2016
https://helloflo.com/embracing-radical-softness-in…
&“‘No One’s Softness Has to Look the Same Way’: An Interview with Poet and Artist Lora Mathis,” Medium, 2016
https://medium.com/@summerfabian28/no-ones-softnes…
THEN :
1. In your own words, how would you paraphrase Phillips’s point about the connection between masculinity and hardness? What normative cultural expectations are put onto masculine bodies?[
2. According to Phillips, what are some of the ways that digital spaces (like video games and virtual worlds) offer alternatives? How might they allow us to envision the relationship between masculinity and hardness in new ways?
3. What is Lora Mathis’ idea of “radical softness”? What makes this focus on emotions “radical”? (Refer to the HelloFlo and Medium interviews but also look at the images on Mathis’ website.)
4. Think about Phillips’ idea of hardness and Mathis’ idea of softness together. Do you see similarities or differences in the ways that they theorize the cultural meanings of being “hard” or “soft”?
