Abstract
Sara Baartman (“Venus Hottentot”) was a curvaceous South African teenager lured to Europe to perform for audiences in 1810—her genitals and brain posthumously dissected, pickled, and museumized. As researcher and playwright, reflexivity on my power is not enough. I use co-performance as theory and method to unravel my story with Baartman’s to share power and problematize how Western culture shames women for their sexuality. I call upon Anzaldúa and Brody to stand for gender ambiguity and freedom in the world, for binaries of sexual desire are unsustainable and sexual purity impossible because women are sexual beings.
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