Anasuromai, or the scandalous superpower of the pudenda.

Feminist, transfeminist and queer interpretations of bodily display

Abstract

By reconstructing the historical trajectories of anasuromai - the ancient apotropaic practice of pulling up garments to publicly expose the external genitalia, typically the vulva - especially in its iconographic dimensions exemplified by the medieval Sheela-Na-Gigs, and examining some of its contemporary queer reconfigurations as a playful tool of public protest, our article investigates the disruptive political and aesthetic dimension of public bodily display associated with feminine, feminized and nonbinary bodies. In doing so, and contextualizing it in a wider theoretical discussion, we contrast two  figures: on one hand, the unsanctified yet monstrous “mother” theorized by Adriana Cavarero’s latest philosophy of sexual difference; on the other hand, the non-monstrous but sanctified “sl*t” reclaimed and performed from a postporn and pornactivist positioning by Non Una Di Meno movement in Italy (March 8th, 2017, 2018, 2025; Milan and Rome). Drawing on Lorenzo Bernini’s framework on the sexual as a social scandal, we ultimately read the pudenda’s exposure as a claim to its superpower of disidentification from both compulsory maternity and gender norms, politically embracing the transformative and disruptive charge of the sexual abjection projected and reclaimed by subjectivities that exceed the norms. By tracing these different perspectives on bodily display through the lens of anasuromai, our article illuminates the ruptures and convergences shaping feminist, transfeminist and queer coalitions, contributing to the ongoing debates on embodiment, sexuality and political resistance.

Keywords: Anasuromai, monstrous maternity, transfeminist activism, queer theory, gender studies.