Alice White – HI776: Literature & Science in the 20th Century – Seminar Leader: Charlotte Sleigh

Discuss Pig Tales in relation to cosmetic

surgery and femininity.

The society depicted in Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq is one in which the narrator feels compelled

to obsess over and alter her appearance. Although elements of the book may be considered science-

fiction, many of the ideas expressed are not so far from reality as one would like to think. Much of

what is suggested about the nature of society relates to the protagonist’s femininity and her physical

appearance and transformation, even the name of the products she wears “Moonlight Madness”

alludes to the female body and menstruation (which was once thought to be brought on by the

moon). The narrator turns into a pig, but some women consider surgery because of comparisons the

porcine: ‘when the kids are mad at me they'll sometimes yell, 'buta'"—pig.’1 The pig is culturally

linked with the idea of the unattractive, dirty and lacking in discipline.

Since even before Descartes, the female has been considered the bodily counterpart to the male

mind. Women were considered defined entirely by their sex, since it was this that caused them to

deviate from the masculine norm. There is an obsession with female bodies which dominates our

society, and which Darrieussecq reflects upon in her novel through the narrator’s obsession with her

own body. The novel portrays the way in which, in modern western society, the female body has

been ‘cut up and dissected - literally, dissected. Individual body parts are circled and their virtues or

failings highlighted - laid out for public consumption and comment.’2 It is perhaps this attitude that

causes women to consider themselves to be only the sum of their parts, and therefore seek

perfection in each individual body part through actions such as resorting to cosmetic surgery.

Some feminists suggest that the use of makeup can be liberating:

We love our lipstick, have a passion for polish, and basically, adore this armor we that we call ‘fashion.’ To us, it’s fun, it’s feminine, and, in the particular way we flaunt it, it’s definately feminist.3

However, in Naomi Wolf’s book The Beauty Myth (1991), she argued that consumption and

comment upon the female body is created by a society which promotes unrealistic images of the

beauty women could attain in order to keep women subjugated by immobilising them through self-

1 Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, ‘Changing Faces’, <http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020805/story.html>2 Lara Williams, ‘Some Body To Love’, <http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2009/06/some_body_to_lo> 3 Debbie Stoller, ‘The BUST Guide to the New Girl Order’, <http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2001/04/the_beauty_myth>

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Alice White – HI776: Literature & Science in the 20th Century – Seminar Leader: Charlotte Sleigh

hatred. Even celebrities, who are expected to look “perfect” because of their occupation, and who

have the time and resources at hand to give the most opportunity to become “perfect”, cannot

apparently attain this perfection, if the magazines which promote such ideals are anything to go by.

Technically the narrator of Pig Tales is still attractive to men after becoming much larger, and yet she

remains dissatisfied. In defining femininity as what is attractive to men, women set themselves an

impossible target, because not all men will find the same image attractive. It appears, therefore, that

the concept of beauty is a myth. Women’s pursuit of beauty is considered by Wolf to be a futile

exercise which keeps them from fully participating in male domains, and thus reinforces the power

structure as a patriarchy. The narrator of Pig Tales describes her feelings towards beauty regimes: ‘I

felt worn out just thinking about it but I had to do it.’4 Why do women chose to spend so much time

and effort on their appearance? ‘What so disempowers them[women] about being without their

mask?’5

Women are now positively expected to do everything in their power to look younger, though, and

criticised when they do not. Earlier in the history of beauty, the turn of the century was considered a

‘“Renaissance of the Middle Aged.”’6 This did not mean that the physical attributes of middle age

had become accepted, but instead that there was less disapproval of older women’s attempts to

look younger. As Wolf suggests in The Beauty Myth, the effect of this was anti-democratic, and only

offered women equality with other women, not with men. It perpetuated the idea that women

should be passive by causing them to spend hours on beauty routines to compete with one another.

Furthermore, they were expected to ‘avoid mental and physical exertion to avoid the appearance of

aging-- ... conserving unwrinkled skin was more important than anything else they might achieve.’7

The attitude of the narrator highlights this attitude to aging with reference to her last remaining

female client, whom she describes as ‘rather old... I think she was – what’s the word here – frigid.’8

The woman is described as obsessed with the possibility that the narrator might be pregnant,

suggestive of the idea that older women are desperately linked with the desire to be or appear

reproductively capable once again. The need for women to fight against the appearance of aging has

possibly become more prominent or widespread with the development of Viagara in 1997. The cap

on men’s sexuality was lifted. It appears that perhaps in response to this, women have stepped up

the fight against appearing asexual because of the ways in which the decline in fertility marks the

body. 4 Marie Darrieussecq, Pig Tales translate by Linda Coverdale (Faber and Faber, 1996), p.625 Ibid, p.1156 Elizabeth Haiken, ‘Plastic Surgery Before and After’, <http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/haiken-venus.html> 7 Ibid.8 Marie Darrieussecq, Pig Tales translate by Linda Coverdale (Faber and Faber, 1996), p.11

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Alice White – HI776: Literature & Science in the 20th Century – Seminar Leader: Charlotte Sleigh

Sheila Jeffreys suggests that we are misguided to consider that the veneer of choice overlaid upon

the decisions women make about their bodies differentiates them from cultural practices such as

female genital mutilation in other parts of the world. She suggests that the coercion from society

and men in the western world for women to appear a certain way is equally as compelling, but has

been ‘reframed as simply “pressures” which women have the education to withstand.’9 Foucault

suggests that in modern western societies, the gaze has a gendered dimension. Women have

become subject to the male gaze, and therefore ‘a fundamental part of how females are valued

within such societies, and how they value themselves, is associated with how they look.’10 As a result

of this, women are also under their own gaze and the gaze of other women. In order to have any

value, then, women must make themselves aesthetically pleasing to men and entice men’s sexual

desire. In order to do this, discipline must be used in order to produce the desired effect; even

physically painful discipline such as waxing or surgery is performed on the self in order to “achieve” a

husband or partner.

Are women suitably educated to withstand these pressures, or even to be aware that they are

subject to them? Discipline can potentially be understood in two ways: ‘as a negative force, tied up

with punishment and coercive behaviour. The second values discipline as a positive force, something

tied up with self-empowerment and achievement.’11 The difference between the discipline applied in

some cultures which enforce the wearing of the veil or female genital mutilation, and the discipline

in the west which makes women believe that they should wear makeup and have cosmetic surgery,

appears to be one of perception. One is perceived as negative because it is openly linked with

punishment; the other is positive because it encourages success, yet still carries the suggestion of

failure and punishment being associated with failing to behave in the desired way. Does it make it

any better that people opt to have cosmetic surgery because they believe it is the only route to

success rather than because they have been lead to fear the consequences of failure to do so?

It is often almost impossible to be disciplined enough to find the route to this supposed success. The

difficulty of living up to society’s high expectations of beauty and attractiveness is reflected in

Darrieussecq’s novel, society today, and the writing of feminist authors on beauty. When the

narrator of Pig Tales initially begins her transformation, she describes how her customers ‘all

seemed to like me kind of fat, even the new ones... their desire turned bestial, so to speak.’12 This

slight weight gain is approved, she seems happy with the change and the increased profits it brings.

Yet shortly after she despairs that she has become too big; her uniform no longer fits and that her

9 Sheila Jeffreys, Beauty and misogyny: harmful cultural practices in the West,( Routledge, 2005), p. 3610 Geoff Danaher, Tony Schirato and Jen Webb eds., Understanding Foucault (Sage Publications, 2000), p.5411 Ibid., p.5012 Marie Darrieussecq, Pig Tales translate by Linda Coverdale (Faber and Faber, 1996), p.23

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Alice White – HI776: Literature & Science in the 20th Century – Seminar Leader: Charlotte Sleigh

boyfriend does not find her attractive anymore, although other men do and she starts to attract a

new kind of customer. There is a very fine line between what is acceptable and unacceptable in the

society presented in the novel.

Real 20th Century Western society also demonstrates this fickle nature. Ariel Levy suggests in Female

Chauvanist Pigs that women have not only accepted that men can treat women like meat, but have

similarly started referring to other women as meat also, and that women treating themselves in this

way is not liberating rebellion but instead a limiting conformity to society’s prescribed views on

women. For example in women’s fashion and gossip magazines, women are praised for being made-

up and dressed nicely, but there are also polls which allow for readers to judge whether women

have got exactly the right sort of dress or makeup and criticise those who have got it wrong. It is

almost as though women are agreeing that they are only valuable for their bodies.

Plastic surgery has long been considered a way to increase a woman’s value in society by altering the

body to mask sexuality and sexual activity. For example, ‘some of the earliest records of

reconstructive plastic surgery come from sixth century India: the Hindu medical chronicle Susruta

Samhita describes how noses were recreated after being chopped off as punishment for adultery.’13

Similarly, early cosmetic procedures in America were practiced in order to mask the effects of

syphilis, which caused a depression in the nose called “saddle nose”. Because this was widely

associated with the sexual disease, despite there being other causes, ‘New surgeon Joseph Safian

observed in a 1926 radio address, “Many persons with a saddle nose ... are suspected of having

inherited disease and are greatly handicapped, both in their social and business relations.”’14 Surgery

was used to mask any deviance from the socially accepted norm.

An example of this today might be the reconstruction of the hymen carried out upon women of

cultures where virginity is required at marriage. For instance, in Xi’an in western China, young

women students at Northwest Univeristy are targeted by advertising that offers ‘procedures

including hymen reconstruction at a 50% discount for students—"in order to make you tops in both

your academic achievements and your looks!"’15. Surgery is marketed as a method to achieve

success, and the reference to hymen reconstruction echoes the idea that women’s bodies are strictly

regulated in terms of their sexuality as well as appearance.

In the modern west, ironically, female sexuality and nudity is only unacceptable for unattractive

females. This can be seen in the novel. The narrator describes how after her bathing suit is torn off

13 Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, ‘Changing Faces’, <http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020805/story.html> 14 Elizabeth Haiken, ‘Plastic Surgery Before and After’, <http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/haiken-venus.html> 15 Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, ‘Changing Faces’, <http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020805/story2.html>

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Alice White – HI776: Literature & Science in the 20th Century – Seminar Leader: Charlotte Sleigh

by a gang of attacking boys, she hides behind a fake mangrove tree, and is unable to leave to

attempt to reconcile with Honoré because ‘I couldn’t leave my mangrove tree, it would have been

indecent.’16 Yet very shortly afterwards, she describes how a woman ‘on in-line skates came and did

a striptease... finshed her number by climbing naked up a palm tree to unroll a huge poster, which

made everyone applaud.’17 Sexuality is tied up with ideas of beauty, and it is suggested that if one

does not conform to expectations of appearance then one should not be allowed to participate in

sexual intercourse. The novel demonstrates how some women feel obliged to seek cosmetic surgery

in order not only to enhance their sexuality but in order to not feel guilty about their sexuality and to

be able to enjoy sex.

In the middle of the narrative, before the narrator has any confidence about her body, she describes

how ‘Honoré managed to rise to the occasion and sodomize me.’18 The narrator herself derives no

pleasure from the act, but spends the time considering the appearance of her genitals. She remarks

that ‘the greater labia were hanging down a mite lower than normal’.19 Whilst the narrator is talking

about what is normal for her, some women in modern western society have come to believe that

the appearance of their genitals is not “normal” compared with others in society, and thus embark

upon cosmetic surgery procedures in order to correct this perceived abnormality.

Where did this comparison arise from? The very existence of such drastic cosmetic surgery implies

the existence of abnormality, and the advertising suggests that “many” patients have undergone

what is actually quite a rare procedure, thus causing women who have not to feel like the

exceptions. The doctors seem very aware of this fact, and Dr. Alter who was one of the pioneers of

labiaplasty calls it ‘“another insecurity to throw out there," ... as if he weren't one of the guys doing

the throwing.’20 It has been called the “Penthouse effect” because in the same way that the

popularisation of men’s magazines in the 1950’s caused a trend for breast enlargements in order to

live up to the pornography, women are now comparing themselves to crotch shots and seeking to

emulate porn stars genitals. The virgin/whore dualism leaves no room for anything in between. In

the novel, the narrator describes how ‘I was obliged on the one hand to act as if I were always in

heat, on the other to stimulate a constant coldness. It was tiring.’21 Surgery perpetuates this dualism

by creating on the one hand women who have the enormous breasts of porn stars and on the other

hand creating the virgins men expect to take on their wedding night. Clearly, both of these ingrained

though opposite views of femininity are a result of trying to please men. 16 Marie Darrieussecq, Pig Tales translate by Linda Coverdale (Faber and Faber, 1996), p.5017 Ibid., p.5218 Ibid., p.4719 Ibid., p.4720 Louisa Kamps, ‘Labia Envy’, <http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1998/03/17/16feature/index1.html> 21 Marie Darrieussecq, Pig Tales translate by Linda Coverdale (Faber and Faber, 1996), p. 35

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Alice White – HI776: Literature & Science in the 20th Century – Seminar Leader: Charlotte Sleigh

‘In 1958, Pope Pius XII cautioned plastic surgeons to not operate on patients seeking the "power of

seduction, thus leading others more easily into sin."’22 Often, the intention of surgery is in order to

appeal more sexually attractive to men, and yet the “Penthouse Effect” suggests that this supposed

seduction by images is propagated more by men and the male media than by women. In Pig Tales,

Darrieussecq portrays her narrator as initially very insecure about her body, and conscious of

enhancing the sexuality of her body in order to satisfy men, particularly her boyfriend Honoré. This

illustrates the influence of the male gaze upon her and her consciousness of the gaze. She looks at

herself as others (men) would see her. This awareness, though, demonstrates a contradiction. At the

beginning of the novel, the narrator states that her boss ‘pawed at my right breast, obviously finding

it marvellously elastic. At that point in my life, men in general had begun finding me marvellously

elastic.’23 However, she then goes on to say very shortly afterwards that with the free cosmetics she

may be entitled to, ‘Honoré would undoubtedly find me even more alluring.’24 She is already

attractive to men, as clearly indicated by the first example, but Darrieussecq demonstrates the

ingrained idea that women need to make themselves ever more attractive to the opposite sex. There

is no attainable perfection at which point there is no longer any need to continue making

adjustments, there is always another improvement to make. Since the narrator of Pig Tales intends

to use her earnings to spend on more cosmetics and products to make herself more attractive, she

embodies this sort of dissatisfaction that Wolf argues women are conditioned to feel.

Arguably, women submit themselves to discipline in order to operate more effectively in social and

economic settings. Darrieussecq alludes to the perception that sexuality and beauty brings economic

success in the comment that ‘the boutique started doing a bang-up business with me on board’25 as

well as the fact that the narrator has to perform sexual acts on the director in order to get her job.

The narrator is literally selling herself, yet it appears that women feel the need to visually sell

themselves. Sheila Jeffreys refers to a study by Dellinger and Williams (1997) into women in the

workplace in order to indicate that women feel compelled to wear make-up in order to have an

easier life in the workplace, because ‘women who did not wear makeup did not appear to be

“healthy”, “heterosexual” or “credible”’,26 all of which are notions that affect a person’s career.

Whilst the actual policy of the office was not a formal dress code in which makeup was required, and

therefore there was no threatening figure, the women still felt the need to discipline themselves into

wearing makeup in order that they might advance their success or their perceived success.

22 William Norwich, 'Elizabeth Haiken Faces Off Against Americans Addicted to Cosmetic Surgery', <http://www.observer.com/node/40044> 23 Marie Darrieussecq, Pig Tales translate by Linda Coverdale (Faber and Faber, 1996), p. 224 Ibid., p.325 Ibid., p.826 Marie Darrieussecq, Pig Tales translate by Linda Coverdale (Faber and Faber, 1996), p.114

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Alice White – HI776: Literature & Science in the 20th Century – Seminar Leader: Charlotte Sleigh

Race is also a key issue with regards to femininity, attractiveness and cosmetic surgery. Issues of race

can be seen in the novel, where Darrieussecq refers to the racism inherent in society, the fact that

anyone of any other ethnicity was rounded up and forces to leave and there ‘weren’t many blacks in

the streets any more, and I had no idea what had happened to the marabout.’27 This elimination of

other racial traits can be seen in the practices of the beauty industry. Jeffreys argues that because ‘it

is unlikely that black women are somehow naturally excluded from the province of essential beauty,

it is clear that what is beautiful is constructed politically and incorporates race, class and sex

prejudices.’28 Sander L. Gilman has written almost an entire book focused upon the role of race in

cosmetic surgery in Making the Body Beautiful: a Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery, where he

particularly uses the example of a “Jewish nose”. Jeffreys refers to a Taiwanese women who said

that she wore makeup to give her ‘a “wide-eyed” American look.’29 Soul magazine from South Africa

reports that today more black women are opting for surgery, and demonstrates the role models

followed:

consider the popularity of other non-whites basing their beauty on Caucasian traits. It reads like the ABC of Hollywood. A is for Alicia Keyes, B is for Halle Berry… the list goes on to Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey, Naomi Campbell, Rihanna, and Tyra Banks.

All of these examples appear to demonstrate the idea that by using cosmetics and cosmetic surgery,

women ‘“let the sexism” pass in favour of diluting racism.’30 Jeffreys suggests that this is in order to

become less threatening to the sexist, racist men who dominate industry, and Wolf would similarly

suggest that it is a way of subjugating women.

Recently, cosmetic surgery has undergone a drastic increase in popularity in the East. One reason

given for this is the need to compete economically:

The owner of a "beauty center" in Shenzen's Jiulong City Mall observes, "China has too many people. How do you make yourself stand out from 1.3 billion? Imagine your boss sees two people of similar ability. He will definitely pick the person with the better appearance."31

The media continually reinforce the assumption that women who appear older will be unable to find

or keep work, for instance in the reporting on the ‘discarded’ newsreader Moira Stewart and the

‘ageism row when Arlene Phillips, 66, was replaced as a judge on Strictly Come Dancing by Alesha

Dixon, 31, a decision criticised by Harriet Harman, Equalities Minister.’32

27 Ibid., p.10128 Sheila Jeffreys, Beauty and misogyny: harmful cultural practices in the West,( Routledge, 2005), p.11329 Ibid., p.11430 Ibid., p.11531 Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, ‘Changing Faces’, <http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020805/story2.html> 32 Adam Sherwin, '‘Ageist’ BBC criticised as news presenter Susan Osman, 51, takes China job', <http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article6941375.ece>

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Alice White – HI776: Literature & Science in the 20th Century – Seminar Leader: Charlotte Sleigh

The idea that cosmetic surgery is necessary has even perhaps surprisingly been endorsed by feminist

leader Terry O’Neill of the National Organization for Women. She argues that the decline in the

economy has put women in a situation where they are forced to go to any lengths to find and keep

employment, including surgery. To support her argument, she suggests that ‘any number of studies

have shown that people with better (read: younger) looks have a better chance of getting a good job’

and that ‘now a lot of men are out of work. Which means that, in this economy, getting the old face

and belly looking tighter may, for many middle-aged women, be as crucial as having an eye-catching

résumé.’33

Criticism for this position has come from many feminists, such as Kate Harding writing for Salon.com,

who argues that goes against feminist aims to agree with the

far more powerful people and organizations who depend on sexist, ageist, racist beauty standards for their very livelihoods, essentially to defend the right of white women who can afford it (even if they really can't) to make themselves appear more acceptable to sexist, ageist, racist employers.

The plastic surgeons who pander to the desires of the employers are helping to reinforce a culture

where women are not acceptable as they are, and rather than supporting their campaign feminists

should oppose it as a stand against such ideals. Another feminist, Alexandra Suich, has suggested a

regression in feminism, because where Wolf’s book The Beauty Myth launched the Third Wave of

feminism it is now undermined by betraying feminists such as Terry O’Neill, who ‘is not decrying the

"beauty myth" but is accepting a "beauty reality."’34 The idea of surgery as a means to become more

financially stable would seem to be somewhat naive. Not only could it kill the women undergoing

procedures, rendering money irrelevant to them, but also taking out huge credit card loans to

finance surgery still does not guarantee a job at the end of it.

Such feminists advocate a move away from the existing rules of society rather than conforming to

them by going under the knife. It is only once the narrator of Pig Tales has been liberated from her

female body and become a pig living away from society that she becomes able to understand her

story and no longer be constrained by struggling to fit into an expected role.

Donna Haraway states that one of the definitions of cyborg is ‘a creature of social reality as well as a

creature of fiction.’35 Since cosmetic surgery is present in our society, and people are aware of this

33 Judith Warner, 'Bo-Tax Backlash', <http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/bo-tax-backlash/?ref=opinion> 34 Alexandra Suich, 'The Nation: Feminism's Face Lift', <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121500283> 35 Donna Haraway, ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980’s’, Feminisms, ed. Kemp and Squires (Oxford University Press, 1997), p.474

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Alice White – HI776: Literature & Science in the 20th Century – Seminar Leader: Charlotte Sleigh

and discuss and debate it, it is a social reality. People do have cosmetic surgery in our society. And

yet it is also a fiction: it is a creation of humans that is not naturally occurring but imagined into

being. The perceived need for it more than anything perhaps is an elaborate fiction. Many of the

alterations pursued by cosmetic surgery have their origin in the fiction of pornography and

airbrushing of images, two types of fiction which propagate the fiction that women are supposed to

uniformly appear a certain way, and that any deviation from this is a disfigurement. The normal, the

original social reality, becomes increasingly abnormal and thus unreal as more people convert to the

view of the fiction as a social reality. So does cosmetic surgery create cyborgs? In that those who

have undergone procedures are a mixture of social reality and fiction, perhaps. But Haraway

imagines her cyborg as a ‘creature in a postgender world’,36 and the surgically or cosmetically altered

body is surely more gendered than even the natural body. If 95% of those who have cosmetic

surgery are women, then women are more defined by their bodies than ever before, because they

are physically altering them to conform to expectations about femininity. Even men who undergo

sex-change operations are reinforcing the idea that femininity is all about the body. If ‘cyborg

imagery can suggest a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we have explained our bodies and

our tools to ourselves’37 then cosmetics and cosmetic surgery are not currently helping to create

cyborgs as Haraway envisioned them, but instead reinforcing the dualisms by which we explain

ourselves, and creating masks which women hide behind in the existing society rather than forging

the new genderless society which Haraway advocates.

36 Ibid., p. 47537 Ibid., p. 482

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Alice White – HI776: Literature & Science in the 20th Century – Seminar Leader: Charlotte Sleigh

BibliographyDanaher, G., Schirato, T., and Webb J., eds., Understanding Foucault (Sage Publications, 2000)

Darrieussecq, Marie, Pig Tales translate by Linda Coverdale (Faber and Faber, 1996)

Haiken, Elizabeth, ‘Plastic Surgery Before and After’, <http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/haiken-venus.html>

Haraway, Donna, ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980’s’, Feminisms, ed. Kemp and Squires (Oxford University Press, 1997)

Jeffreys, Sheila, Beauty and misogyny: harmful cultural practices in the West,( Routledge, 2005)

Kamps, Louisa, ‘Labia Envy’, <http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1998/03/17/16feature/index1.html>

Norwich, William, 'Elizabeth Haiken Faces Off Against Americans Addicted to Cosmetic Surgery', <http://www.observer.com/node/40044>

Sherwin, Adam, '‘Ageist’ BBC criticised as news presenter Susan Osman, 51, takes China job', <http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article6941375.ece>

Stoller, Debbie, ‘The BUST Guide to the New Girl Order’, <http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2001/04/the_beauty_myth>

Suich, Alexandra, 'The Nation: Feminism's Face Lift', <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121500283>

Takeuchi Cullen, Lisa, ‘Changing Faces’, <http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020805/story.html>

Warner, Judith, 'Bo-Tax Backlash', <http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/bo-tax-backlash/?ref=opinion>

Williams, Lara, ‘Some Body To Love’, <http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2009/06/some_body_to_lo>

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