Superhero bodies and superhero sexuality are frequent talking points. As on-screen bodies increase muscle, with actors bulking themselves to unattainably immense proportions, the superhero sex drive remains virtually non-existent. It often appears redundant and a contradiction, mainly because the actors portraying superheroes are objects of desirability. But on screen, they are sexless, without desire, and lacking hormonal drive or deep bodily urgency. In a brilliant online article titled ‘everyone is beautiful and nobody is horny’, RS Benedict argued that while everyone is more beautiful than ever, nobody is having sex or wants to have sex.
But sex does exist in the realm of superheroes, and always has, in both comic books and on-screen. It’s just a matter of choosing where to look and how we look and perceive.
Supersex: Sexuality, Fantasy, and the Superhero
Anna F. Peppard (ed).
University of Texas Press
December 2020
Supersex: Sexuality, Fantasy, and the Superhero, the Comic Studies Society 2021 Prize-winning edited collection, interrogates not just superhero sexuality but bodies, desires, sexual fluidity, and queerness via media theory, queer theory, gender studies, and costume history. Springboarding off Frederic Wertham’s work on the subject and conservative morals implicit in the comics code, Peppard writes in her introduction, ‘superhero sexuality is flagrantly present even when it is officially absent.’ This absence opens up the potency of speculation, teases, and what Peppard calls ‘inviting erotic possibilities’ because sex does exist in comic books and superhero realms. As Peppard writes, ‘the deviant potential of superheroes has proved resistant to erasure.’
From the queering of costume to weapons and war, shapeshifting characters, and buddy systems, Supersex takes the subject to places not usually explored, creating a solid foundation for future scholars and critics. So rich and thoughtful is the material on display that specific arguments could become lost due to the vastness and scope. However, the focus on only discussing costumed heroes narrows the scope to allow authors to take a deep dive into the characters themselves and their worlds. While this may still appear broad, it enables the authors to contain their narratives while taking their essays in some very inspired directions. While there are chapters, especially in Part 1, on the characters and movies you would expect — X-Men, Batman, Thor: Ragnarok, Batman, and Dazzler, amongst others — Part 2 branches further afield by tackling subjects including fan art and gay porn paradise. Examples of these illuminating chapters include Joseph Brennan’s ‘”I Think That’s My Favourite Weapon in the Whole Batcave”: Interrogating the Subversions of Mens.com’s Gay Superhero Parodies’ and Anne Kutritz’s ‘Meet Stephanie Rogers, Captain America; Genderbending the Body Politic in Fan Art, Fiction, and Cosplay.’ It is this blend of familiar and unfamiliar (which will obviously be unique to the reader) that makes ‘Supersex’ such a thorough and engrossing read.
I especially enjoyed Richard Reynolds opening chapter on Tárpe Miller’s Miss Fury titled ‘Tárpe Mill’s Miss Fury: Costume, Sexuality, and Power.’ In this chapter, Reynolds uses costume history and fashion theory to investigate how Mill’s superhero costume and personal sense of style allows us to read further into her sexuality, alongside the art of dressing and the power of clothes, both superhero and sartorial. Incorporating examples from the Surrealist art movement and old Hollywood fashion, Reynolds references the Surrealist couturier Elsa Schiaparelli and writes about the delight in double meanings and the Surrealist’s ability to decontextualize the body. Schiaparelli, a personal interest of mine in my field of women Surrealists — and who I have written about here —knew the power of clothes and the fun of fashion and was incredibly potent in presenting the female body without presenting the body in an obvious manner. Not so much ‘less is more’ but ‘what is alluded to is more.’ Take, say, Schiaparelli’s Skeleton Dress (1938), a form-fitted black dress with wide soft piping alluding to a woman’s ribs, or her Tear Dress of the same year, alluding to ripped flesh. The Surrealists, and Schiap as a Surrealist Couturier, excel in double meanings, with Schiaparelli’s Shoe Hat and Meret Oppenheim’s fur-lined bracelet and teacup amongst the quintessential examples. Given my personal biases, any book that opens with a first chapter focusing on Tarpé Mills and the power of dress, while alluding to Surrealism and old Hollywood (another personal interest of mine), is sure to suck me in! Literal catnip — Supersex had me from the get-go!
The book is divided into two parts: Part I: Comics, and Part II: Film, Television and Fan Culture, which enables richer readings and allows contributors to delve into subjects and consider materials not often aligned with superhero studies. Furthermore, the deeper the book goes, the more risqué and sexually graphic the material. There is an excellent piece on the secret work of the superhero penis, which is always unseen but possesses tremendous power, and thoughtful analysis about the typically heteronormative and whiteness of superhero worlds in which so much traditional material is rooted. There is also the blatant, autonomous sexuality of superheroes to consider, for example, the auto-erotic sexuality of Hela, portrayed by Cate Blanchett in Thor: Ragnarok in Samantha Langsdale’s intriguing chapter ‘Over the Bridge: Female/Queer Sexuality in Marvel’s Thor Film Trilogy.’ This encourages the reader to see the importance of expanding outside the remits when thinking about and analysing these characters, fans coding superheroes as queer, superhero desire, and the delineation between queer porn, gay porn and superhero porn parades.
Although no less rigorous, deft moments of light touches are present. In Jeffrey A. Brown’s chapter, ‘The Invisible and The Invisible: Superheroes, Pornography, and Phallic Masculinity,’ he discusses Hulk’s colossal genitalia and how absence exaggerates the absence of display. We never see Hulk’s penis in Thor: Ragnorok, but we know everything needed saying by the expression on Thor’s face. To quote Jacques Lacan, ‘the phallus can only play a role when veiled.’
Contributors are, quite naturally, from the academic sector. Still, the variety of disciplines working in and around the comic book sector will appeal to those working across various disciplines, not just comics studies. In his epilogue, titled ‘The Matter with Size,’ Richard Harrison considers the heroic male body versus the male sexual one. He encapsulates, in a nutshell, something so pivotal to superhero sex and sexuality: that acknowledging the limitations is precisely what makes them so Super.
Supersex is a long, rich academic book; however, it’s highly accessible and written with enthusiasm and verve, which jargon-free, which means curious readers seek something a little weightier and will find plenty to ponder.
