Anne Bolin presented work titled “Secret Sexual Places as Sites of Embodied Renovation” at the Annual Meetings of the Society for Applied Anthropology in Santa Fe, N.M. from March 17-21.
Bolin’s work was an invited presentation as part of the “Issues in Teaching Sex: Surgeries, Sex and Beauty” symposium. A summary of the symposium topic follows:
“While body modifications reflecting gender, social status and age grade are widely practiced, intense controversies exist among human rights groups and within anthropology over (female) genital cutting in particular. Over the past decade U.S. ‘female sexual rejuvenation surgery’ has recast these controversies into cultural context regarding the scope of cultural relativism, conceptualizations of ‘mutilation and beautification, empowerment and oppression/subjugation,’ and how globalization affects these practices. Concurrent dialogues concern the medico-socio-political dimensions of male circumcision (MC) and male genital alterations. This session focused on how anthropologists who teach human sexuality incorporate these discourses and related issues of body ideals into their courses.”