Claude Cahun's Double Author(s): Carolyn J. Dean Reviewed work(s): Source: Yale French Studies, No.

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CAROLYNJ.DEAN

Claude Cahun'sDouble
Look at themoon!How strange themoonseems!She is like a womanrising from a tomb.She is like a deadwoman.You would fancy she was looking for deadthings. -Oscar Wilde,Salom6 Les personnages qui 6voluent dans ce cortege de morts imaginaires ne sontpas precisement des fant6mes. Plus exactement ce sontdes apparences dontonpeut,cependant, calculer le poids et qui n'6chappent pointa la sensualite des mains. -Pierre Mac Orlan, preface to Claude Cahun,Aveuxnon avenus

in thestaging ofherown Claude Cahun'sparticular consisted artistry death.Herinsistence thatdeathrepresents rather thanstasis, mobility reducible andthat"life"as suchis never to "biography" (thetidiness of documented itself inhertexts thoroughly manifests andphoresearch) are tomontages.Her subjects (mostlyherselfand self-surrogates) mortsimaginaires, opaque and inaccessible. Theyare alwayspeeling off their skin,onlyto find their hearts stillbeating andimagining they aresingular areinfinitely (uncomplicated, onlytofind they immobile), I arguethathomosexuality mutable. In thisessay, thestagrepresents in Cahun'swork-especiallyin herwritingofthesubject's mobility I historicize to suggest tentexts-and further, in order homosexuality bothlegitimated and challenged thatits production any immobile, transcendental conceptof"Art." None ofthecriticalstudieson Cahun-a marginal writer-photographer whose lesbianismhas been well-established-hasfocusedon and its complicated function in herwork.Most ofthe homosexuality workon Cahun (1889-1954)has been done byarthistorians and has focusedon herphotomontages, fewofwhichwerepublished in very arthistorians herlifetime. Feminist frame theiranalysesin terms of recent(oftenpsychoanalytically about debates the congrounded) offemalesubjectivity in womenartists' struction work.Franqois Lerecentbiography links Cahun's writing and photographs perlier's to
YFS 90, Same Sex/Different Text? ed. Mahuzier, McPherson, Porter, Sarkonak, ? 1996byYale University.

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symbolismand surrealism(she was Marcel Schwob's niece, and changed hernamefrom Lucie Schwobto Claude Cahun-an androgynous first certainly inspired bysurrealist approprianame).'Although Frenchavant-garde tions and critiquesof late nineteenth-century thesurrealist leaderAndre themes, Cahun challenges Breton's latent thenormative and subverts in Cartesianism heterosexuality implicit who shied awayfrom surrealist textsand images.2She was an artist in surrealist for direct involvement activities, except short-lived political engagements.3 Perhaps becauseofthismarginality, she was notincluded in Whitney Chadwick'srecentbook on WomenArtistsand the Surrealist andin their1985exhibition Movement; catalogueofsurrealist photoDawn Ades,and RosalindKrauss, for wantof graphy, Jane Livingston, information, speculatedthatshe mayhave died in a concentration Cahun was imprisoned camp.4In fact, by the GestapoforResistance
1. See Frangois Leperlier, Claude Cahun: lecart et la metamorphose (Paris:Jean Cahun'slife.He has amasseda remarkMichelPlace,1992)for all thedetailsregarding of unpublished sources.Leperlier able amountof information, usinga wide variety SuzanneMalherbe(pseudonym Marcel establishes that she had a life-long partner, on all herphotomontages. Moore)withwhomshe collaborated See also HonorLasalle "Surrealist Confession:Claude Cahun's Photomonand Abigail Solomon-Godeau, in thenowvoluarticles tages," AfterImage 19 (March1992):10-13. Fortwoexcellent to moving in its initialformulation see: minousworkdevoted beyond "gaze" theory ElisabethLyon,"UnspeakableImages,UnspeakableBodies," Camera Obscura 24 "The Reflexive andthePossessive View:Thoughts (1992):169-93;andCarolArmstrong, 1989):57-70. onKertesz, Brandt, andthePhotographic Nude,"Representations 25 (Winter did not 2. Cahun preferred photomontage, whereasmostsurrealist photography Rosalind Krausshas persuasively thatsurrealist photography employ montage. argued its use of "doubling" undermines and "spacing"(a Cartesian perspectivism through thestrategy ofdoubling). See Rosalind "The deferral effected Krauss, temporal through in The Originality ofSurrealism," Conditions and Photographic of theAvant-Garde MIT Press,1987),especially109; and "Corpus OtherModernist Myths(Cambridge: 33 (Summer to enter thisdiscusDelicti,"October 1985):31-72. Itis notmyintention In my discussionof Cahun's use of the leftto arthistorians. sion, whichis better I am explicitly concerned withgender andsexuality as categories ofanalysis, "double," herwork. andwithhow Cahun'shomosexuality helpeddefine 3. See ClaudeCahun'soneexplicitly "political" essay, Lesparissontouverts (Paris: LouisAragon's she repudiates defense ofsocialistrealism and Jose Corti,1934).There, Shewasalso engaged for a short timeinthe insists thatartis intrinsically antidogmatic. formed BatailleandAndr6 Breton to politicalactiongroup Contre-attaque, byGeorges fascism in 1935. fight 4. Whitney Women Artists and theSurrealist Movement Little Chadwick, (Boston: Dawn Ades,L'AmourFou: Photography Brown, 1985);Rosalind Krauss, Jane Livingston, and Surrealism Press,1985),205. See also LaurieJ.Monahan's (New York:Abbeville Texte zur review ofLeperlier's biography, "Claude Cahun'sRadicalTransformation," workand Kunst3 (September 1993): 100-09. Monahannotesthatmostoftherecent

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oftheIsle ofJersey, activities during theGermanoccupation Cahun's heryearsin Paris.She liveduntilroughly residence before and after a decade after the war endedwithher companionand collaborator of overthirty years, SuzanneMalherbe. The fewanalysesofCahun'sworkthatdo existhavelittlein common excepta tendency to transform lesbianism into a rigididentity category. Theyall conceiveCahun'ssame-sex desire as irrelevant, even contrary, to her intellectualproject.Abigail Solomon-Godeauand in keeping withCahun'sspirit HonorLaSalle claimin a footnote that, to hergender or sexuality), references (herbook makesno direct they orsexualidentity do notwantto reduceherto a fixed gender (LaSalle andSolomon-Godeau, refer toherlesbianism 13).Theynever in except ofa warning ofextrapolating from thecontext aboutthedangers biography (from stableidentity Theirpostcategories) to theartist's work. tostabilize thesubject toa putatively structuralist refusal byreference hersolelyfrom stablebiography refusal to consider thepointof (their in keeping viewof"woman"or"lesbian")is certainly withtheartist's owninsistence thatidentities arenever static.Although focuson they herdisruption ofnormative gender roles,however, they inadvertently thestatusofa "fixed"identity. In other assignherlesbianism words, as a siteofmobility, whilefor someinexplicathey analyzehergender ble reason,they makeherlesbianism thesubjectofa warning against ofimmobilizing ofimthetheoretical consequences identity-indeed mobileidentity itself (13).5
inthe1978 haveexcluded Cahunandthat catalogues concerning women andsurrealism one of Cahun's exhibition Dada and Surrealism Reviewed(London, Tate Gallery), pieces,displayed in the 1936surrealist exhibition ofobjects, was listedas having been madeby"Anonymous." 5. The authors also raiseeyebrows whenthey marks around puta setofquotation "life partner" whenreferring to SuzanneMalherbe Arethey tosomeone referring (13n8). the category? Whentheyclaim,in a footnote, that else's wordsor are theyrefusing herhomosexuality to thestatus "indicate shewas a lesbian," biographers they relegate totheir ofbiography andthereby that herlesbianism is notgermane But imply analysis. thatCahunwas a womannotinterfere withthe why, thereader mustask,doesthefact taskofradical ifthefact that shewasa lesbian cultural criticism does,atleastimplicitly? Cahun'slesbianism, butdoesnotinterAnother arthistorian refuses to shyawayfrom "A MutableMirror: pret itin thecontext ofherwork. See Therese Lichtenstein, Claude " ArtForum 8 (April1992):64-67. Cahun, Thereis,ofcourse, a voluminous literature with thewayinwhich homosexdealing For onlesbian uality challenges normative heterosexual subjectivity. recent work identiLesbian:FemaleHomosexuality ties,see,among others, Terry Castle,TheApparitional ColumbiaUniversity De Lauretis, and ModernCulture Press, 1993);Teresa (NewYork: The Practiceof Love: Lesbian Sexualityand Perverse Desire (Bloomington: Indiana

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is thefirst andonly In contrast, Leperlier, whosebiography Franqois majortextdevoted to Cahun,arguesthatherlesbianismis a form of regression and narcissism (19; 58-59). Although he claims she was a conceivedas an androgyne lesbian,he also assertsthatshe is better (i.e.,she rejected all gender who would snubfeminists, lesidentity) Thereis, of bians,and anyoneelse who soughtto "fix"heridentity. deal oftension course, a great between thesetwopositions: shecannot and regressive and yet elude all identity be narcissistic categories. Leperlier exacerbates thistensionbyimplicitly linking Cahun's own ofcentered to "la relation criticism subjectivity impossible"-heteroto her lesbianism autoeroticism. The entirebook is sexuality-and arounda homology betweenthisimpossiblerelationand structured love for alAndreBreton, thesurrealist Cahun'sputative, unrequited littleif any evidenceforthatpassion.He thoughLeperlier provides from to textin order, thusextrapolates biography (phantasmatically) thesiteofepistemological finally, torender heterosexuality instability (theimpossible (137; 120). relation) herintoan ofCahunas artist-heroine transform Suchresurrections from hersexuality, herleshergender artist byseparating bymaking biansexuality thesiteofthatwhichis notartbecausesame-sex desire is notmutableorunstableenough. This fantasy aboutthestability of ofpurging has theeffect homosexual Cahun'sworkof desire, however, claimdefine themobility thesecritics itsoriginality. Thatis,bytaking outofCahun'swork, transform thehomosexuality thatwork into they thetranscendental, idealizedartthey themselves she rightly presume desire as intrinsically Without same-sex destacriticized. representing I would arguethatit is emblematicof the bilizingand subversive, of aesthetics in Cahun's work.I first address critique transcendental in termsofthe relationship the questionofhomosexuality between the interwar same-sexdesireand literary production during yearsin thathomosexuality was theprivileged France. Then,I wantto suggest for theerosion ofstable(boundaried, signifier coherent, impermeable) I focuspriin Cahun'swork. In thiscontext heterosexual subjectivity to both elite and popular marilyon how Cahun's texts,in contrast concerned differentiate betweenmale literature withhomosexuality, andtheorize andfemale same-sex desire lesbianism as theprimary site ofresistance to normative heterosexuality.
Perversions: DeviantReadings Merck, University Press,1994);andMandy (NewYork: Routledge, 1993).

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I. By the interwar in Francecould no longer years, homosexuality be confined ofhereditary and recognizable-at to a certain specialgroup werealways least to themedicalgaze-"inverts." Viewsofinversion fraught withtension aboutwhether it was congenital oracquired. But in spite of the apparent triumph of the former conclusionin early twentieth-century medical circles,popularanxietyabout its contagionincreased. Literary criticscalled theinterwar yearsa transition from a "literature ofhomosexuals" toa "homosexual literature"; in so doing,theyreconceived heretofore decipherable, markedauthorial identities as mobileones thatcompromised theboundaries between the worksof homosexualand heterosexual writers and so between inferior and canonicalliterature.6 The first homosexualFrench revue,Inversions, in Nopublished vember 1924,was seizedbythepolice,andreappeared a month later in 1925 underthe title of L'amitie. The first issue of Inversions proin claimeditself a journalnot "ofbutfor homosexuality," reinforcing othertermsthe dissolutionof the boundary betweenhomosexual writers and "homosexual It also defiantly that literature." proclaimed heterosexuals shouldtheoretically be considered as homoas bizarre sexuals.7Cahun (alongwithHavelockEllis and others) contributed a responseto a "poll" conducted in the first issue thatasked writers if and why theyfoundthe reviewoffensive.8 The (rather ironically) police finallyseized L'amitie, and condemnedthe editorsto six inprison under months theantipornography law (sincehomosexuality was notillegal)for"propagande anti-conceptionelle."9 in yetanother Most ofthe commentators poll in Les margesand no devotedto the questionofhomosexuality in literature (inspired, doubt,by the publicationof Inversionsand of Andre Gide's undeclared on male homosexualdesire,Corydon),10 apologetictreatise
6. Lesmarges, 1926). Reissued in CahiersGai Kitsch Camp19(Paris, (March-April 1993):57. 7. Inversions 1 (15 November 1924):1. 8. Cahun,"Response," L'amiti61 (April 1925). 9. Willy, Le troisieme sexe (Paris: Paris-Edition, 1927),106. 10. An incomplete and "extremely smallanonymous limited edition" ofCorydon was published in Bruges in 1911(C.R.D.N. [Bruges: The St Catherine PressLtdI,1911; in a limited then published edition oftwenty-one copiesin 1920(Corydon, anonymous), nouvelle6dition [Bruges: L'Imprimerie SainteCatherinel, 1920; anonymous), and was finally published under Gide'snameandputon general sale in 1924(Andr6 Gide. CorNRF 19241). See Patrick AndreGide: Homosexydon.Nouvelleedition. [Paris: Pollard, ual Moralist(New Haven and London:Yale University Press,1991),Chap. 1, "The and474. Chronology ofCorydon,"

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forhomosexualpractices and insistedthatliterary theirrepugnance The resultsof celebrity was now dependent upon beinghomosexual. Colette's famous ex-husband the poll inspired Willyto claim thatif mostoftherespondents wouldnothesitate to pose as thatweretrue, from "inverts" (Willy, 28-29). Willysought to profit theapparent noofhomosexuality-its toriety presumed contagion and infiltration of all ranks of society-with his own popularizationof sexological life"in Francemodviewsand a voyeuristic accountof "homosexual eled after anecdotalGermanand French accountsofgaylifein Berlin and Pariswhich became popularat the end of the nineteenth century." Willy condemnedthe State's seizure of Inversionsbut also echoed(andquoted)Georges Anquetil'salarmist assertion that"sapin public places and phism and pederasty [now]displaythemselves and othercommentators were primarily Most literary worried for whomhomosexuality aboutitsprevalence amongartists, was conless as sexualpractice ceivedtraditionally thanas an aesthetics. The and the aesthetics ofmoralruin associationbetween homosexuality in both England and France. In some has been well-documented nineteenth-century avant-garde movements, homosexuality constito thedominant tutedan aestheticized opposition bourgeois culture andprogress thatcelebrated (reproduction andassociatedthecorrelation betweenwordand deed withvirtuous living;forthisreason,as used lesbianism one critichas noted, writers as a metaphor for DecaThe presumed narcissism ofhomosexuals dentwriting itself.13 exemthe sterility, often plified stasis,and artifice associated, subversively, withhomosexuality since the late nineteenth and well into century thetwentieth. EvenColette, whoseoriginal version ofLe puret Vimas Ces plaisirsin 1932,stillimplicitly purwas published equatedJean Lorrain's with "masks,black masses,and happybehomosexuality
11. In fin-de-siecle a scandalabouttheputative Germany, ofhighhomosexuality in theKaiser's ranking officers entourage becamethesubject Affair") of (the"Eulenburg In France, a great deal ofsatirein bothGermany and France. authors sought to depict as a Germanvice, whereasGermanwriters homosexuality alwaysspoke about its French origins. Duringtheinterwar years, whentheanxiety inabouthomosexuality suchaccounts becamemoreandmorenumerous. creased, 12. GeorgesAnquetil,Satan conduitle bal (Paris:EditionsGeorgesAnquetil, 25. 1925), 13. NicoleAlbert, "Lesbosetla decadence. dusapphisme Images dansla litterature d6cadente," Diplomed'Etudes Universit6 de ParisIV (1988). Approfondies, "'12 bourgeoisie.

...

penetrate austere and closely-guardeddwellings of yesteryear's

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headedwomen. .. [thelascivious, and sterile narcissistic, necrophilic Salome]."'4 Drawingon fin-de-siecle stereotypes and a well-established association betweenperversion (e.g.,homosexuality) and the Decadent now expressed artists abouttheirown tenliterary tradition, anxiety as something dencyto treat homosexuality "romanesque," linkedto and the sublime beautyof moral ruin.Homosexuality, narcissistic consterile, existedonly"for its ownsake," thesame charge cultural onceleveledagainst servatives avant-garde art.Inhispreface toWilly's Le troisieme sexe, Louis Estevenoted that "in its blind pursuitof form ofegotism" is onlyan aestheticized sensualjoy, homosexuality that threatensthe "judicious altruism"on which civilization is This metaphorical selfthat based.15 sterility impliesa boundaryless The sees nothing but its own reflection (henceits real "blindness"). of identificatory logicofhomosexual desire precludes therecognition a boundary and so between betweenselfand other, fantasy (theegooftheother). can onlysee in ideal)andreality (thealterity Becausethey of themselves, reflections othersphantasmatic homosexualscannot oftheir see things as they livein a dream world own are:in short, they making. In cultural terms, homosexuality violatesthemostbasicrules ofthesocial contract-therecognition ofthedistinction between self and otherimplicitin the abilityto distinguish betweenrealityand fantasy. Homosexualsthuscannotpractice the "judiciousaltruism" thatguarantees nationalharmony. The surrealists' later1928 "investigation" intoquestionsconcerning sexuality was one moremanifestation ofthe interest in and the in particular thisperiod.In threat posed by deviantsexuality during that investigation, publishedin La revolution surrealists, Andre for Breton his repugnance male homosexualinfamously pronounced male homosexuity(theMarquisde Sade's sexualpractices excepted); ifmoretolerant from the other alityreceiveda lukewarm reception of so-called deviant In their indifference to participants.16 spite general heterosexual freedom sexualpractices, tobourthesurrealists opposed marked freedom from the so thatliberated geoisrepression, sexuality ofnature in thename ofmoral perversion imposedbythebourgeoisie order. Breton didnotuse sexuality to questionbourgeois and morality
14. Colette,Ces plaisirs(Paris: & Fils,1932),107. J. Ferenczi 15. In Willy, 21. 16. See "Recherches surla sexualit" (January 1928-August Jose Pierre, ed. 1932), du surrealisme Archives 4 (1990), 67-68.

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its oppositions between goodand bad,pureand impure. His problem withbourgeois was thatitwas notmoralorpureenough, and morality he countered naturalheterosexuality it withan idealized,liberated, of the tainted, and hence compromised purged repressed, bourgeois ideal oflovethat andpresumably, homoproduced treachery, adultery, In others sexualrepression sexuality. words, produced perversion. Breton merely echoedtheideas ofmostinterwar sexualliberationistsandsexologists (including Willy, Louis Esteve, Victor Margueritte, and others) whose tirades againstthebourgeoisie had as their targets values.Breton's rather thanbourgeois for male hypocrisy repugnance discomfort lover his purported withCahun and her homosexuals, (he apparently changedcafesto avoid them)simplyconfirm this asserto homophobia and belittle tion.'7I do notwantto reducesurrealism radical accomplishments: the movement's undeniably my point is rather sentiments-at least in the thatthe surrealists' antibourgeois realmof gender and sexuality-sustainedthe dichotomies between andhomosexuality, andfantasy and heterosexuality pureandimpure, in theory to challenge. reality they sought Purified, magicalheterosexit Vlamour termed as the uality(Breton homosexuality fou)replaced siteofopposition to bourgeois culture. As Georges Bataillenotedlong was morebourgeois thanthebourgeoisie, to be cast ago,Breton ready outfrom his ownclass in thenameofits (nowcompromised) ideals.18 didnotexpress The surrealists, including Breton, thesame explicit discomfort with femalehomosexuality and oftendepictedwomen ordisdained loversas eroticobjects.Whereas surrealists male ignored lesbianismserved a complicated and sometimes homosexuality, parin the surrealist allel function to idealized heterosexuality imagin19In his preface Dons de feminines,a surreto Valentine Penrose's ary.
17. MarcelJean, Au galop dans le vent(Paris:Jean-Pierre de Monza, 1991),27. for criticizes thesurrealist Jean's memoirs less thangenerous to Breton Leperlier being (he claimsJean had personal accounts to settle). See Leperlier, 160n30. 18. Georges Bataille,Oeuvrescompltes, vol. 2 (Paris:Gallimard, 1970),51-109. Feminist critics havelongmadethesame charge. See Susan R. Suleiman, Subversive Intent:Gender, Politics,and theAvant-Garde (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,1990). 19. The meaning oflesbiansexuality anditsrepresentation in surrealist work is a littleattention. complicated one thathas received ChadwickarguesthatPenrose, a woman Ernst artist, differs from becausethe"implied narrative builtoutoffreely associatedimages replaces theFreudian modeloferotic so that women disjunction," surrealist artists ofhuman refused toviolatetheintegrity form. Whatever themerits ofthisclaim, Penrose herself bothdoes and does not diverge from male surrealists, dramatically at leastto theextent thattheir work expressed tension between purifying thehumanform

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alist dreamnarrative about two lesbian lovers,Paul Eluardclaimed thatthe womenmustperishby the veryforceof theirlove. In this romanticnarrative, true love is inevitablybound up with selfannihilation; here,desiretranscends base corporeality and takeson a metaphysical dimension. The Max Ernst-inspired etchings thatPenrosedrewto accompany thetextdepictan otherworldly love signified decors(see Figure byexoticand dream-like 1).Whitney Chadwickhas ofunrelated argued thatPenrose's drawings relyon thejuxtaposition oftime,place,andscale to createa hallucinaimagesanddislocations oflesbianlovemarks world. This otherworldly the tory representation toidealize,purify, andthuseliminate thesubversurrealists' tendency sivenessof the putatively subversive things theycelebrated. Unlike Cahun's "hors natures,"ValentinePenrose'slesbian lovers go to usedpurified heaven.20 In thisinstance, surrealists lesbianloverather love to opposebourgeois thanheterosexual cultural norms. ofa "homosexual II. I havespeculated thusfar thattheconcept literature"obscuredthe boundary betweenheterosexual and homosexual and between"pure" and "impure"writing writers and became the for dialecticalpointofdeparture thedrawing ofnewboundaries. The of lesbian love to draw boundaries surrealists used representations in termsthatbothinverted betweenpurity and impurity and reinforced the hegemonies In contrast evento her antitheychallenged. Cahun used lesbianbourgeois avant-garde contemporaries, however, ismto marktheabsenceofclearboundaries between pureandimpure a 1918British literature. trial concernOne ofherfirst essaysaddressed to transform ingOscarWilde'splaySalome anditspresumed capacity the play as a into homosexuals.When the trialrestaged spectators " as thedisplaced dramaabout"inversion,itproducedhomosexuality cause ofEngland's thecollapseofnormative social ills,including genderrolesand thenation'semasculation at theendoftheGreatWar. I analyze Cahun's reproduction of the trial-she excerpted and translated with a 1925 seriesshe pubspecificmoments-together on lishedin Mercurede Franceentitled"Heroines."In hervignette
notedthatthesurrealists rather andviolating its integrity. Feminist critics haveoften or sexuality traditionally dividedlesbianlove into "love" (e.g.,Penrose) (e.g.,erotic division associated with female drawings andpaintings), therefore replicating thebinary subjectivity 66; Chadwick, 227).See also MaryAnnCaws, TheEyein the (Armstrong, 127. Text(Princeton: Princeton University Press,1981), especially 1951), np. 20. Valentine Penrose, Dons de feminines (Paris: Le Pas Perdu,

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Claude Cahun'sBodyDouble. X3 1. Valentine Penrose, Bibliotheque France. Nationalede France, Paris,

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Salome in that series,she uses what I termthe "tropeof the body theputative theproduction ofhomodouble" to destabilize stability sexualityachieves.The "bodydouble" is a termused in cinema to forthe real actor(or the real actor'sbodyparts) denotethe stand-in orpossessesinadequate whenhe orsheis either unavailable bodyparts forthe required role. The tropeis especiallypertinent because both invoketheatricality and cinematic Cahun'stextsand photomontages illusionas theprivileged vehicleofsubjectformation. Moreover, Cais a meansofreading hunuses thistrope-which itself female homoofsame-sex sexuality morespecifically-tobreakwiththefiguration as either an aestheticized to bourgeois ora desire opposition normalcy symptom ofbourgeois repression. In the same issue of Mercurede France,the writer Rachildedenouncedthetrialandimplicitly reaffirmed thelinkbetween homosexof homosexuality was tantauality and aesthetics;a denunciation ofart.21 mountto a denunciation Cahun,whoseownarticlefollowed instead mobilized thefantasy ofan infinitely immediately after, mutable bodyto questionthedichotomy between andbourhomosexuality geois culture.Cahun's articlesuggeststhat the trial demonstrated a reliablemarker thathomosexuality was no longer paradoxically of thedistinction between andfantasy orpurity reality andimpurity; the need to restageit in legal formin 1918 signified the instability of the "reality"and the "purity" homosexuality putatively threatened. to make hercase,Cahunmobilizedthefantasy ofthebody Moreover, doubletoundermine thedichotomy between andpermeimpermeable able (contagion of a free, secure)bodiesin the same waythe fantasy thecontained andmarked literature" bodyof"homosexual challenged ofhomosexual"bodies.22 "literature The private ofOscarWilde'splaySalome in Londonin production fora new public attackon homosexuality. 1918 became the pretext theeditor Maud Allan,chosentoplaySalome,suedPemberton Billing, ofthe right fordefamation ofcharacter after wingjournalVigilante, " as Cahun inthejournal an article Billing published whose"obscenity, whichEnglish toprint; itis, refused noted, "layin itstitle, newspapers
21. Rachilde, "OscarWildeet lui," Mercure de France(1 July 1918):59-68. 22. Leperlier interprets Cahun'sarticle as a defense ofartagainst censure andas an affirmation offreeexpression regardless of circumstances (35-36). This seemsto me simply toreplicate thethemes oftheFrench ofWilde. interwar reception As for thetrial I havebeenunabletolocateanyreference toitin therecent andvoluminous itself, work on OscarWilde, perhaps becausethetrial was notaboutWildeperse butusedhimas a symbol.

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themorals ofanyperson whotakes itseems,a medicalterm describing The TimesofLondonputit more partin or attends performances."23 in the Vigilante a paragraph case concerned directly: the defamation that the said Maud Allan was a andimmoral lewd, unchaste, "meaning ofan obsceneand womanand was aboutto giveprivate performances and encourage unnatural indecentcharacter, so designed as to foster practices amongwomen,and the said Maud Allan associatedherself to unnatural Like Wildehimself, withpersonsaddicted practices."24 all ofwhichwere Allan lost thetrialamidstspectacular accusations, in The TimesofLondonfrom 30 May to 5 June 1918. published on three choseto be his ownlawyer andfocused Pemberton Billing ofa particular ortheperformance thedesire toperform issues:whether whether rolerevealssomething abouttheactor'srealidentity; Oscar meant that the play itselfwas perverted; and Wilde's "perversion" All his theaudiencemight be endangered whether bytheperformance. ofhomosexuality behind around theassumption queriesthusrevolved iftheplaywereperformed anditspresumed infectiousness thecurtain barrier Thesethree linesofinquiry were, (iftheprotective werelifted). else: theexistence of meanttoprove something however, onlypretexts British a listof47,000influential a "blackbook" comprising perverts Billingcalled witnesseswho identified by the Germangovernment. claimedto have seen the book,butno one could producea copy.He listed,acaccusedMaud Allan ofhavingassociatedwiththeperverts at thetrialofbeingon thelist,and claimed cused thejudgepresiding thatmost ofthe people who wentto see the private performance of Salome werenamedin thebook. with Maud Allan and with Cahun excerpted Billing'sexchanges to Wilde'sperversion. witnessestestifying BillingaskedMaud Allan or not herbrother forthe murder oftwo had been executed whether their girlsin San Franciscoand whether theyhad been rapedafter his statement but acknowledged it to be true. death.Allan qualified ofsuch questions, Whenaskedbythejudgeaboutthepurpose Billing cases the victims give expressionat greatpersonal risk to their is used bypeoplewholack vices.... " He suggested that"pantomime debasedto take the riskof the courage,or who are not sufficiently
Le proces et les 47,000pervertis 23. Cahun,"Le Salom6d'OscarWilde, Billing du 'livrenoir,"'Mercure de France(1 July from The Timesof 1918):69. I quote directly London, sinceCahuntookno poeticlicensein hertranslations. 24. The Times(30 May 1918):4.

to . .. are hereditary, and . .. in some respondedthatthe "vices referred

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it leaves Here,thebodydoubleparadoxically parodiesthefantasy thelesbiandesireshe expresses-"IfI vibrate accordintact, protects is ingto other vibrations thanyours, mustyouconcludethatmyflesh "lesbian" desire as unfeeling?" ("Heroines," 642)-by performing for others haveconstructed it.Salome'sdesire theBaptist's headis John as a male fantasy marked thatSalome'sstand-in finds inexrepulsive, ofthetheater, andbloodless:artandlife, theworld now"leave plicable, hercold" (643).Desperate toleavebehind thehumdrum lifefor she art, finds to heramazement who desigthatthosemen (painters, writers) it. These men,she natehera "heroine" onlycopylifeas they imagine
25. Cahun,"Le Salom6d'OscarWilde,"70-71; The Times(30 May 1918):4. 26. Cahun,"Le Salomed'OscarWilde," 74-75; TheTimes(31May 1918):4. Billing also argued but weaker incoherently that"healthy" peoplemight resisttemptation, soulswouldbecome"infected." Hencethefigure ofthemoonin Wilde's which play, is a for had"a badeffect on sexualmania,"andmight metaphor Salom6herself, makesexual perverts of"innocent persons" (1 June 1918):4. 27. Cahun, "Heroines," Mercure de France(1 February 1925): 642. Translations
mine.

brace.27

in reallife, actualpractice ofthecrimes and I shallhaveto satisfy the jurythatin thiscase thepassionforthehead ofJohn theBaptistis a clearcase ofthispractice."25 inBillingalso called expert witnesses, cludingLordAlfred Douglas, to attestto the factthathomosexuals revealtheir perversion bytheobliquenessoftheir language, and that, indeed,Salome expressed Wilde'shomosexuality in thismanner.26 In Cahun's versionof Salome, "Salome la sceptique,"Salome is depictedas an actress, a stand-in forthe Biblicalfigure. Like Allan, then,Salome is onlya doubleforthe real thing. ForBilling, Salome standsin forWilde's "real" identity; in his view,Allan performing Salomeperforms Wilde,so thatAllan and Wildemustbothbe homosexual.Cahuninverts Billing's logic:in herpiece,contrary to Billing's assertion, Salome'spresumed homosexuality is revealed because she doesnotdesire theheadofJohn theBaptist. On theonehand,Salome's herroleas prescribed: shewill dancefor bodydoubleperforms Herod, she will kiss the head ofJohn theBaptistand,in so doing,leave the as fetish) ofSalomeas an unnatural, fantasy (andthefantasy seductive, and castrating womanintact.On the other hand,Salome in Cahun's is a "vierge tothevery parody jusqu'al'ame" ["virgin soul"],absolutely incapableofunderstanding whyshe shouldkiss so repulsive a head, anddancesfor Herodinpart topersuade himtoexplain whathe thinks about the artificial head the directors of the play want her to em-

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claims,all thinkofthemselves as "damned, incendiaries parricides, . . . How theyintimidate themselves!"(642; 641). Once again, the ofsomeoneelse'sfantasy actress is theextension (sheis WildeimaginingSalome),whichshe performs butwithout knowingly understandwith her own vibrations. ing why it does not conform Like Maud innocencewhenaccusedofbeing"unnatural," Allan,who professed forSalome is also "innocent"evenas she performs Cahun's stand-in thepartofan unnatural woman. ofthetrialalso implicitly Cahun'sreading differentiates between the "staging"of male and femalehomosexuality. The trialrenders or"puton": BillOscarWilde'sidentity opaquebecausealwaysstaged to show, ingtried withhisallusionstoWilde'sloveofperformance and indirection, thathomosexuality revealsitself, paradoxically, through to produce its opacity. Billing's the "blackbook" in thetrial inability forthe production of male may then be easily read as a metaphor To theextent homosexuality as an indecipherable thatBilling identity. thevery he claimedwas self-evident orproduce couldnotprove thing oftheentire he gothimself intothe (thehomosexuality English elite), has defined tohomosexuality: bindEveKosofsky as peculiar Sedgwick toa defined itis "minoritizing" subsetofmarked (specific individuals) in all individuals-at and "universalizing" (a tendency potentially is at once decipherable least sinceFreud).28 and Thus,homosexuality to since is If impossible decipher, everyone potentially gay. everyone is the questionat stake in the trial-who is potentially homosexual, to really gay?-cannotbe answered except tautologically byreference Butit is precisely thiscircularity, everyone's potential homosexuality. thatproducesand subtendsa homosexuality's emptysignification, aboutthespecter ofcontagious cultural homosexualparanoid fantasy ity:Billingwas acquittedbecause the black book became an empty onto which anxietiesabout the instability of social order signifier in theendtostabilize The absent blackbookserved couldbe projected. infor an indecipherable andyet normative heterosexuality bystanding threatagainstwhich righteous and moralmen had to omnipresent mobilizepoliticaland social energies. thetrial renders Maud Allan'sidentity Butas Cahunsuggests, douis coextensive with bly opaque. To the extentthat her perversion an empty because herlesbianism Wilde's,it is not merely signifier;
28. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley: of University California Press,1990), 90.

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ofanyreferent it remains existsdeprived exceptmale homosexuality, outsideofsignification. Moreover, although Cahun codes Salomeas a lesbian(perhaps in retrospective reference to thetrial), lesbianism and female sexuality aretreated throughout "Heroines"as equallyunnaturalorother. All oftheheroines in Cahun'sseriesreplicate thetrope of the bodydouble: all of thesefigures, mostlybiblical,some literary, roleswhose meaningtheydo not understand, perform are complicit withbutdistant to their ownadvanfrom, or,in "Sappho's"case,turn traditional cultural tage.These heroines playrolesthatreinforce narratives aboutnatural andunnatural women, narratives thatmustconbe reenacted. stantly They must,like the trial,eternally reproduce figures (thehomosexual, the sinful woman)thatjustify witchhunts or defeatenemiesbut to and warswhose purposeis not to discover renderthe culturalfantasyof normativeheterosexuality natural. " fooled ofmodern Hencethe"toocredulous Eve, bythemanipulations ontoher allows men to displacetheirown impotence consumerism, butfools "original sin"; "HelentheRebel"is infact quiteunattractive, herself andeveryone else intothinking sheis as beautiful as thelegend ofherpeople,goes through redeemer claims; Judith, the motionsof that"thejoyofthe beheading Holophernes onlyto comment cynically crowshas a thousand mouthsand no ears,"replicating Cahun's own andvocalacclamation sarcasm abouttheenthusiastic Billing received announced hisacquittal. whenthejury wonMarguerite (after Goethe) andis certain derswhether sheis a monster shehas notbeensensitive enoughto the "eternalmasculine" ("Heroines,"622-24; 631-32; 627-30; 637).And thesearebuta fewofthemanyheroines depicted. themostdramatic roleofall for Cahun reserves Sappho.IfSalome ofthebodydoubleimplicitly reinforces and how thetrope represents "other"desires,Sapphoself-consciously herown fabricates protects bodydouble in orderto be leftin peace. When Phaon becomes too thearbiter oflesbianelegance, domineering ("He wantstogiveSappho, his departure lessonsin styleandbehavior! andhas "),sheorchestrates her"daughter"-a young smitten whowilldoherbidding-pusha girl ofSapphooff thecliff at Leucade: mannequin Allthe onthe sawmeabove, amassed immense andyet people, beach, atthe the fatal cliff. Notsostupid! Itwasonly a model... small, edge of that into theviolet sea (it'seasytobefooled Cleis, hidden, pushed by outatsea,sitting inmy lowandtuning the movies). While bark, singing

and preferably women.["Heroines," my lyre. . . I attract passers-by 636]

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Sappho's stagingof her own death thus leaves the mythabout her heterosexuality intact(shecommits suicidefor a man)and allowsher unseen and unheard, to seduce womenwayfarers. to continue, SaplikeCahun'sabsent"lesbianism," doesnotrepresent pho'ssilence, her buthercomplicated on its refusal to namesame-sex desire, insistence ForCahun,Sappho's"passing"is not,as Colettesaw it,an unfortuin whichone laborsto hide one's trueidentity.29 nate sortofdestiny in theparadox ofthebodydouble, which Rather, passingis embedded thatidentity is alwayssubverted to theextent thatit appears suggests In other lesbianism theloss ofreferentiality intact. words, represents in the guise of an identity embodiedeither category metaphorically ormetonymically Cahunrepresents (thestand-in) (thefetish). lesbian or production than the fashioning of desireas the undoingrather identity. Aveuxnon avenus(DisavowedConIII. Cahun'sonlyextended work, is a seriesof nine chapters illustrated by nine photomonfessions), In this the narrator tages.30 text, first-person employsconventional in orderto challengethe model of selftropesof autobiography actualizationthe genrepresumed. Organizedaroundmomentsthat the book targets in particular a standard punctuatethe life-cycle, of sexual development Freudian paradigm by mockingcastration as ofnormative thedeterminant heterosexuality. Cahun identifies withOedipus,"condemned In one vignette, beand condemned foran unspeakablecrime:"How poorly forebirth," but sexuallysociable made the worldmust be, if a nonconforming in crime toseekrefuge as ifin a convent, notonly is compelled creature . .. an impasse" to live,butalso to create newvalues!Butwhatcrime? (Aveuxnon avenus, 167-68; ellipsisin text).This metaphoric equationofcrimeandconvent thatsexualnonconformity andthe suggests in thereligious refusal ofsexuality vowsshe evokes,are the implicit of "sexual nonconformity," but same thing.Celibacymaybe a form oflesbiandesire that raisesthespecter writers Cahun's"convent" well before Diderotassociated withMother andtheir Superiors underlings. ofsexuality amountsoddlyto an articulation The refusal therefore of in terms lesbiandesire thatsimultaneously eraseit.("Butwhatcrime?
1971),168-69. This is certainly (Paris:Hachette, 29. Colette,Le pur et 1'impur Colette'simplication. Editions du Carrefour, 1930). 30. Cahun,Aveuxnon avenus(Paris:

expression.

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nonsensical ... uncanny return oftherepressed, ofthat moment existingparadoxically before thesymbolic"(67).In a somewhat questionable extrapolation, however, thesecritics linkthispresymall further bolicandhenceunspeakable to thepre-Oedipal maternal subjectivity in theseventh and readCahun's "nightmare" ofAveux body, chapter The nightmare non avenusin theseterms. is aboutcastration, andthe photomontage accompanying thetextrefers of also to the"thematics castration" (see Figure2). It includesimagesfrom the nightmare-a a bird's beak-as well as an imageofbirth severed head,scissors, that is "layered with allusions to castration fear"because Freudargued the mother's that(in fantasy) the babyreplaced lackingpenis.Thus, Cahun "orchestrates symbolsoffemalepowerwithmale anxieties" and Lasalle, 13). (Solomon-Godeau does play upon the AlthoughCahun's photomontage certainly it is extremely difficult ofcastration," to readtheimageas "thematics of castration. the image a simplephantasmatic repudiation Rather, andembrace ofcastration simultaneous implies-a repudiation through the tropeofthe bodydouble.In so doing, thephotomontage and the theFreudian text, whicharemeanttobe readtogether, replicate script ofgender aboutthe origins and sexuality and marktheabsenceofits oftheseventh naturalreferents. The epigraph and thenightchapter to theSalomeCahunfabricated in marethatopensitrefer, onceagain, notesthatSalome dancesforHerodbecause she 1925. The epigraph her hopes he will help her "retraceher steps, to weave together

puts the case in similar terms: "Embedded in [Cahun's] art . .. is a

lesbian(or "nonconforming") desire,she deprives the Oedipal narrativeofits conventional heterosexual trajectory. Forin herversion, the tale tellsmanypossiblestories. ThereseLichtenSolomon-Godeau, Lasalle,and to a lesserextent stein, have rightly interpreted Cahun's challenge to determinate in herphotomontages meaning(as it manifests itself rather thanthe text)as a challenge to stable,singular subjectivity. Forthem,theimmarks"precisely passetowhichCahun'swork ... continually returns that point where surrealismintersectswith the notion of the 'unspeakable'-both in the Lacanian sense as thatwhich language cannotname,andthusthatwhichcannotbe represented, as well as in the sense of the womanas taboo-[and thatit is at thatpoint]that feminine of subjecCahun's confession, as a specifically expression and Lasalle, 13). Lichtenstein tivity, can be read" (Solomon-Godeau

...

an impasse.") When Cahun invokes Oedipus in this allusion to

Galerie courtesy 2. FromClaude Cahun'sAveuxnon avenus.Reproduced France. Zabriskie, Paris,

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dreams"-the same hope Salome'sstand-in herdisapclungto before In Cahun'snightmare shelookswithcuriosity at a severed pointment. head thatshe presumesto be her father's. After a brief momentof to have "renounced desire, she runsaway, claiming [her] conquest"as well as herdestiny since (as a woman?as a lesbian?it does notmatter thepointis thatherdestiny is meaningless exceptas a script) (Aveux non avenus,155).Like Salome,she realizedthat"Herod"cannothelp hersustainherdreams; he cannot helpherbecomean artist becausehe ofthescenario in whichshe mustdesirethehead is one oftheauthors of John the Baptist(in the nightmarish versionof the vignette, of head In the father is the from which she other the words, flees). course, into Freud'sreworking of Oedipus' nightmare weaves Salome's story andrepudiates as sheperforms tale,a script Cahun/Salome parodies it. in whichsheparodies In thenextpartofthedream, the"thematics birds' ofcastration," shegoestotaxidermists andcutsoff beaks"at the as an act of "bravery" thissymbolic castration roots."She describes woman and "genius." Cahun is a camped-up Salome,the castrating testifies to her courageand intellectual whose expert beak-shearing In another thesame dream, prowess. scenariofrom an objectfallsout ofnowhere: at first sheis "frozen" with"horror" (liketheboywitnessandfinally relieved whenshe realizesthe inghis mother's castration) objectshe is holding("bya bit ofwarmand viscousflesh")is onlya woodenpanther. (Aveuxaux nonavenus,157).31 The woodenpanther, besides beingdepictedas a rather sillyfetishobject,is usually the symbolof a cunningfemaleand hence the site of the anxietyit is Like thenightmare, themontage supposedto relieve. poses theprobsubstitution lem ofinfinite (ofman forwoman,thefetish-the severedhead-for thefather, SalomeforCahun thedreamer). ofthebodydouble,Cahunuses substitution not thetrope Through or transgress distinctions betweengenders, simplyto trouble binary thosedistinctions between butto deprive (andhencetherelationship ofa referent evenas she (again leaves andsexuality) gender parodically) the bodydoubleto fetishize themintact.In the image,she employs The parody herto remainhappilyand benignly casherself. permits ofmeaning to "be" thephallusin order to escapetheeconomy trated, thephallus.After around organized all,the"birth image"is theimage of Cahun herself as the Medusa and hence as the phallus.It is the
" 31. This allusionto beingfrozen withhorror evokesthe"man"frozen and "stiff in Sigmund withterror Freud's"Medusa'sHead," in Sexuality and thePsychology of Love (NewYork:MacMillan,1963), 212.

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whichappearstwicein reversed doubleofCahun'sface, shorn ofhair, headlessimage theupper part ofthemontage. Similarly thefetishized, headlessimage justbelowthe"real"Cahun'shead,likethefetishized, to (protect us ofVenusdeMilo,functions metonymically and)reassure thatCahunis notcastrated. Shelooksbackat theviewer more jokingly thandefiant, as ifto ask what all thishas to do withherannoyed the same question that stumpsall the heroinesshe has similarly fabricated. and Lasalle notethat"IfCahun'sphotomontage Solomon-Godeau andthusno authentic self areonlymasks, beneath them, impliesthere bothto portray and removethemimplies.. . the possiherattempt and LaSalle, 13).32This asbilityofself-presence" (Solomon-Godeau and removalof sertionstill begs the questionofhow herportrayal I haveargued thatCahun'sself-presence masksdenotesself-presence. anterior orposterior rather thantemporally to,the is continuous with, the double.33 is Self-presence might Symbolic-it Symbolic's parodic in Freud's ofthe"uncanny" bestbe understood as an uncanny parody withthe "doubling, sense ofthe term.Freudassociatedtheuncanny of the self,"with "the recurrence and interchanging of an dividing, intoanxiety" andtransformed andhence emotional impulserepressed and past,familiar with the confusion of selfand other, and present animate andinanimate so central toCahun'ssubversion ofthe strange, Freudhimself and attractive, aesthetics equatedwiththe "beautiful, linksthedoubling andrecurrence associsublime."34 Freud, however, to therepression ofcastration: female genitals atedwiththeuncanny In Cahun's "home" and something "we" fear. areat once ouroriginal also expressed theuncanny "return ofthe workthetrope ofdoubling
selfas embodied and by the "undistorted 32. Oddly, theyconceiveheremerging oftheimage. This interpretation makesvery littlesense unmarked" faceat thebottom theBaptist's. Moreover, the in relation to thetext, whichclearly codestheheadas John assume describesCahun's dismembered head (which the authorsperhapsrightly withherownimage)is againa parodic thana "monstrous" one struggle imagerather who appear in theupper-right musicians hand becauseit is thedoubleofthe(doubled) comer. subjectivity 33. Inhisrecent summary andcriticism oftheideaofa "pre-Symbolic" I havequoted Martin thisnotion alludedtobythearthistorians Jay points outthat here, formation does notaccordwiththeLacanianmodelofidentity theyinvoke, sinceall Martin is contingent ontheSymbolic. DowncastEyes:TheDenigration subjectivity Jay, FrenchThought University of California of Visionin Twentieth-Century (Berkeley: in TheAcoustic madethis Mirror: TheFemale Press, 1993). Kaja Silverman point already and Cinema(Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press,1988). Voicein Psychoanalysis 34. Sigmund "The Uncanny," Standard vol. 17 (London: Edition, Hogarth Freud, Press,1955):234; 241; 219.

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The possibility ofself-presence is best embodied by the uncanny effect ofCahun's "obscene"eyes-I use thewordas Cahun meantit, to denotean idea so blasphemous"God" entrusts it only to angels ofsome secretreality beneath (Aveuxnon avenus,158).Confessions appearances-stableidentity categories-areonlyeverparanoidculturalfantasies(homosexuality and genderincluded)perpetrated by thoseindividuals who cannotbeardesire's who cannotbear mobility, notknowing who they really are.The epigraph thatprecedes thechapteron "sex" uses homosexuality to express theimpossibility ofknowing: "You don'treallythinkyou are moreofa pederast thanI am?" nonavenus,43).The lesbianwhois more ofa malehomosexual (Aveux than a male homosexualis simultaneously a manlywoman (in the I assumeCahunis parodying) anda womanly cultural terms (thewomin thiscontext inversion (she poses as a anliest)man. Again,gender thetransgression ofnormamalehomosexual) doesnotsimply signify tivegender ofanystablebinary distincroles,butmarkstheundoing or between tionbetween and sexuality, and hencethe genders gender It is thus because feundecidability-themobility-of all identity. male homosexuality ofthemobileimis theprivileged manifestation as a lost thatconstitutes mobility normative, gendered subjectivity and yetindispensable referent thatCahunnever nameslesbiandesire in herbook.Lesbianism thebodydouble can onlybe marked through -the paradoxicalseriesof substitutions thatrenders (all) women's desirecommensurate and yetincommensurate withestablished sysbutindecipherable. temsofmeaning and hencetangible This representation ofdesireis no giddy ofepistemorepudiation butan ironic, no celebration ofunknowability, logicalcertainties, cyninsistence that like ical,andnever-complacent responsible knowledge, its even when it can ever refuse own continart, only stability appears

non avenus, 157).

repressed"-thedoubling ofSalome,ofSappho,and ofCahun herself offamiliar a "memmanifests thedisturbing recurrence unfamiliarity, Buttheuncanny ory"at oncetangible andyetforgotten. hereis notthe return ofrepressed castration anxiety; instead, it is thereturn ofthe repression ofthefactthatcastration anxiety is a cultural myth. As in thetextandthephotomontage, themyth offemale castration is a joke thatis not all thateasy to laughat because doubling renders castration's status as culturalmythambiguous.Cahun's testimonyto "Freud's glory" at theendofheraccountofthenightmare epitomizes thisambiguity: it is a deadpanparody as well as a realtribute (Aveux

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thisinsight uous witha stablecanon.Although maynow be predictthatitdeveloped-at leastin Cahun'swork-as able,I havespeculated part of a more generalhistoricalshiftin which homosexuality no longer signified a distorted reality, but,rather, distortion as a permaofall social relations, a shift in whichhomosexuality nentdimension the social body'sreal permeability. her work symbolized Moreover, breaks bothwiththeliterary tradition thatlinked decisively homosex"art"and withtheavant-garde that ualitywitha static,oppositional linkedit withtheopposition. implicitly Cahun suggests (sometimes) and femalehomosexuality in particular, insteadthathomosexuality, thedichotomy andimpurity on whichall undermines between purity and judged. Withthebenefit ofhindaesthetic is founded production todefine derived from Cahunworked sight OscarWilde'stragic hubris, as thesite ofa doubledistortion lesbianism precisely to demonstrate and necessity oftheartist's thesimultaneous danger "self-presence." alive.Every Thus, Cahun stagedherown deathas a meansofstaying bodyhas a double.