UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology Fall and Winter 2022 - Flipbook - Page 10
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
What should be noted about this series is that it
is unarguably about sex. Unlike the ambiguity
of previous works that could be deemed by one
viewer as sexual and not sexual by another, this
series celebrates the sex lives of couples ages
70-90. The photographs provide visual context
for Jones’ account of the couples having the most
meaningful sex of their lives. How is this type
of article not more common? Are the sex lives
of older couples not often discussed because
we have not been told that older couples being
intimate is okay by portraying them as such in
film and in mainstream media? While Minter
doesn’t have answers to these questions, she
does find it curious that she and a contemporary,
Betty Tompkins, are now “allowed” to depict
images that are or could be deemed sexual
simply because they’ve reached an age where it
is acceptable. While Minter’s own work did not
encounter the same level of scrutiny and unrest
that Tompkins’ work elicited (Tompkins had work
seized at customs when enroute to an exhibition
in Paris in 1974; the photo-realist paintings of
couples in sexual acts were viewed as obscene by
French officials), Minter reflects that she’s always
been very polite and uses humor rather than
anger when her work or values are questioned.
And yet, polite and humorous or not, Minter’s
work speaks volumes. The tradition of painting
women grooming or bathing that Old Masters put
into motion has been set on its head and spun the
other direction. While the Old Masters positioned
their models in demure or lurid poses, Minter
catches moments when the model and the water
droplets are in exquisite motion.
For context, Jean Baptiste Santerre’s Susanna at
the Bath, a painting in the Louvre’s collection,
is a prime example of male patrons asking male
painters to intentionally present the female
bather as lurid: the model seems in the process
of covering or uncovering herself demurely, her
skin glowing with youth, and her face showing
no signs of being put off by—or, perhaps, is
unaware of—the older men watching from the
open window behind her. Susanna was often
painted around the 17th century, but Santerre’s
version represents abject eroticism and what
became a common practice. Although his
painting did not align with the modesty Susanna
is to represent from the lesson about the Elders
in The Book of Daniel, patrons realized they
could commission a depiction that would be
approved of by the Catholic Church...despite
it being a lurid female nude. Susanna and
the Elders, painted by Artemisia Gentileschi
about a century prior to Santerre’s, exhibits
Susanna’s discomfort and horror through her
body language and facial expression. And yet,
Gentileschi’s version does not shy away from
Susanna’s nudity, from how the Elders are
fetishizing or sexualizing Susanna’s body as she
attempts to bathe.
Dr. Venkat told me, “Society operates under the
falsity, which underlies the expectations and
demands of our profession, that it is a woman’s
job to care and it is a man’s job to lead and
innovate.” Although she said that she does not
see medicine as currently dominated by men,
and that she has had “strong female mentors
at every level of training,” she acknowledges
that “what remains constant in medicine in
my experience is that when I walk into a room
with a male (scribe, student, resident, fellow,
colleague), the man is looked to as the voice/
presence in charge.” Just as Minter and her
work’s focus was questioned when she was Dr.
Venkat’s age, Dr. Venkat thinks age, gender,
and race factor into patients and colleagues
questioning her expertise. But, also like Minter,
she takes pride in her work and has undertaken
a trial to study vaginal and vulvar health for
women post-radiation treatment for pelvic
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Star Tattoo Copyright Marilyn Minter
In late-2021, The New York Times commissioned
Minter to create photographs to accompany
Maggie Jones’ cover article, “The Joys (and
Challenges) of Sex After 70.” It was difficult to
find couples willing to pose, nude or semi-nude,
for the project, and Minter realized that “if a
20-something is photographed, it’s sexualized,
but if a woman my age is, people say, ‘oh, that’s
cute.’” Intimacy beyond a certain age is not often
studied or discussed, and many viewers refuse to
acknowledge people as sexual once over seventy.
