Pygmalion
Keywords: Pygmalion,
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Some of the coed students in Professor Higgins' Sculpture 101 class regard him as a sexist or, as Amanda Blake describes him, as if she were living back in the sixties, "a male sexist pig." He does have an eye for the ladies, I'll grant you that (he's ogled me enough times!), but what man doesn't who isn't gay or dead?
Amanda's suspicions of Professor Higgins' sexism were confirmed (for her) when, as our final art project, he assigned us the task of sculpting our respective ideas of The Perfect Woman. I decided to have a little fun with Amanda.
As a woman myself, who is, if I may say so without being labeled narcissistic, a true beauty, I resent feminists' arrogant assumption that anyone who has a cunt between her legs is, ipso facto, going to agree with women libbers' extremist views regarding men, sexism, the dreaded Patriarchy, and similar subjects. In my opinion, if anyone's sexist, anymore, it's the lesbo feminists. Sculpting my idea of The Perfect Woman was just the way to stick it to Amanda. To annoy her even more, I'd call my masterpiece "Galatea."
When we unveil our final projects at the end of the semester, which is only a few weeks away, we must provide a brief oral report as to how and why we chose to create our particular versions of the ideal woman. In presenting my figure to my classmates (and to Professor Higgins, of course), I'd recount the myth of Pygmalion, explaining how an ancient Greek sculptor created a lovely ivory portrait of The Perfect Woman, naming her Galatea, only to fall in love with his own creation.
Seeing that the local women prostituted themselves, Pygmalion had no interest in the fair sex--until he created Galatea. She was so beautiful that he simply had to have her. Venus, taking pity upon him, answered his prayers, bringing the ivory image to life. Sculptor and sculpture married, sculpting a child together, as it were, whom they named Paphos.
I might also include a reference or two to the alleged theological and psychological significance of the myth. On the basis that Pygmalion's inspiration had been the goddess of love, Aphrodite herself, Medieval theologians regarded the myth as a cautionary tale concerning the effects of idolatry. For psychologists, the story is an imaginative depiction of the consequences of narcissism, for, rather than falling in love with an actual woman, Pygmalion succumbs to the charms of an artificial woman--an image of the ideal woman he has made himself. Galatea, in the final analysis, they argue, is a "man-made woman" and, as such, she is a depiction of her creator's anima, the "woman within." It's an interesting theory.
Pygmalion's inspiration may have been Aphrodite, but mine was myself--well, myself and as many artistic representations, in both oil and marble, as I could find. I wanted to see how other artists had represented the ideal woman so that, learning from their masterful techniques, I could all the better carve an image of myself as the awakening Galatea.
I examined such paintings of my intended subject as those by Jean-Léon Gérôme, Honoré Daumier, Edward Burne-Jones, Auguste Rodin, Ernest Normand, Paul Delvaux, Francisco Goya, Franz van Stuck, Francois Boucher, and Thomas Rowlandson. I studied the smooth stone curves of as many statues as well. In doing so, I viewed Galatea from the front, the sides, and the back. Her every view was beautiful, whether of her smooth, round breasts; her concave tummy; her sleek flanks; her shapely legs; her lustrous buttocks; or her polished pubes. The sight of her was arousing: it was easy to understand how Pygmalion had fallen in love with her or, for that matter, why Professor Higgins had an eye for the ladies.
I could never hope to surpass the skill and art with which these painters and sculptors had, as it were, brought their interpretations of Galatea to life in oils and stone, but, it was my hope--call me arrogant if you will--that I might equal them. After all, as I have explained, as raw material, I am quite beautiful, both by others' accounts and by the evidence of my own eyes.
With color photographs and mirrors, both handheld and full-length, at hand, I labored for hours, days, and weeks, to create The Perfect Woman, toiling to make the marble I'd chosen for my medium to take on the texture and tone of skin; to suggest muscle and bone beneath the sleek contours of the limbs and torso of my creation; to breathe, as it were, through my art and skill, life into the cold mineral that was her flesh and form.
Finally, the final week of the course had come, and it was time to present our projects to our classmates and to Professor Higgins.
There are many talented artists among my fellow students; consequently, there were many beautiful versions of the ideal woman, but none, I dare say, surpassed my own.
Amanda may hate men, but, judging by her statue of The Perfect Woman, she loves the ladies well enough. Her sculpture was exquisitely beautiful. The eyes, the nose, the lips, the chin, like the hair, the breasts, and the rest, were lovely almost beyond compare. Only in the best paintings and sculptures I'd studied in preparation for my own carving had I seen anything as lovely as her ideal woman, her Eve, as she'd named her.
Her oral account of her creation's origin was also somehow charming, despite its underlying ugliness. In short, she claimed, her image of woman was meant to portray her as she'd been--or might be again--"unsullied" by the sexism of "male chauvinists and sexist pigs." She'd made this particular comment while her gaze was trained upon Professor Higgins. In response, he'd merely offered her a smile, which seemed to incense her further.
"Natalie Mann," the professor said, calling my name.
I gave my speech about Pygmalion and Galatea, about the artistic celebration of life and beauty, and about narcissism and idolatry. Then, I grasped the cloth with which my statue was veiled, drew it away, and heard the gasps and muttered comments of the shocked assembly who stared, eyes wide and mouths agape, at my version of The Perfect Woman.
In every detail, I'd obviously been the model. The likeness of both the statue's face and form were undeniably those of my own; the figure could have been my stony twin.
Amanda, in particular, I noticed, was stunned.
I looked at Professor Higgins. He was beaming, genuine appreciation and respect as well as a paternal pride radiating from his grinning countenance. In his face, I saw the satisfaction and the bliss of a teacher who knows he has not taught in vain, but who has been, on the contrary, a midwife, so to speak, to the creative talents of a prized pupil, helping her to give birth to the genius within. He was, I realized, a Pygmalion of sorts himself, as much as I'd become one in creating my Galatea.
The other students, both male and female, continued to stare in amazement, in disbelief, as horror stole over the features of some faces and confusion over those of others'. The whispered commentaries thickened. Some pointed at my statue, others at me. Faces of disgust and revulsion were made. One by one and in small groups, my fellow students began to take their leave, scorn all but dripping from the acidic glances they directed at me and my lovely Galatea. Were my ideal woman made of flesh instead of stone, I had no doubt, she'd have melted under their stony looks.
After the last had left, Professor Higgins approached me. "She's lovely," he said. "She is you very likeness,"
I knew his comment was no mere compliment; it was a critique, and, coming from such an accomplished artist as he, I did not regard it lightly. "Thank you."
His gaze traveled down the statue's abdomen, trailing as if it were a caress, over the figure's high, firm-soft, smooth, round breasts; the sleek, inward-curving concavity of her belly; and the slight knoll of her lustrous pubic region, lingering where the glances of the horrified students' gazes had dallied.
"Tell me," he said, beholding the perfect, flaccid cock that dangled before the small pouch of lined scrotum supporting the oval shapes that suggested the presence of testicles within, "is she like you in every detail?"
He meant, of course, Galatea's male genitals.
My ideal woman was not female, any more than she was male. She was a transsexual.
"Yes," I confessed, smiling at him. I knew that, as an artist, he would want, most ardently, to see, not only to hear, the answer to his question and, as we were now alone, the other students having fled in disgust at the shemale Galatea I'd created, as perfect and whole as Athena, sprung from the brow of Zeus, I unzipped my jeans and extracted the cock within that was the perfect match to the marble penis with which I'd endowed my stone twin.
"Beautiful," Professor Higgins said. The word had issued from his lips in a hush of awe.
Again, I knew his praise was not just a complement; it was the assessment of an artist known the world over for his understanding of beauty and his ability to depict and to create figures and forms that showed such appreciation.
I kissed him.
He kissed me back.
Understanding, like knowledge, comes through experience. We know by seeing, by hearing, by touching, by tasting, and by smelling. It is only after the perception of the thing that we can contemplate it, examining with the mind and the heart what we have captured with the senses. Professor Higgins knew the beauty of women because he had seen many, heard many, touched many, tasted many, smelled many. He had also thought about many, holding his memories of them in his mind as he considered their charms and felt the majesty and splendor of their inner selves, their hearts and souls, as much as he'd admired their physical and sexual aspects. He'd learned the Beauty of Woman because he'd known many beautiful women.
He confessed to me the afternoon that we made love in his studio, among the students' many versions of the ideal woman, that he'd never made love with a shemale before.
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Keywords: Pygmalion,