title: Eeram

text: The investigation reveals that Ramya was having an extramarital affair with an unknown person, and his frequent visits to her flat are confirmed by the neighbors in Ramya's apartment building. However, Vasu is not convinced, sure that there is someone behind Ramya's death and names him Mr. X. He also remembers his love life with Ramya during their college years. Vasu was denied marriage with Ramya by her father Shriraman (Rajashekar) as he was not willing to get his daughter married to a police officer. When Vasu asked her to marry him without the consent of her father, she refused, and they parted ways. Later, Ramya married a rich businessman Balakrishnan (Nandha). From then on, the relationship was entirely cut between Vasu and Ramya. Vasu then became a police officer.


title: Eeram

text: Meanwhile, strange mishaps begin to take place in the apartment where Ramya died. Kalyani Subramanyam (Lakshmi Ramakrishnan), who resides in the flat opposite to Ramya's, dies by electric shock. An ex-army veteran, Thiyagarajan (Boys Rajan), on his travel to Pondicherry, dies when an umbrella tip pierces his neck. The apartment watchman also dies a mysterious death. Vasu connects the deaths to Ramya but does not know how exactly. He finds that water is the common element in all the deaths. He appoints a few assistants to live in various flats of the apartment and inform him if there is any suspicious activity. The assistants point out a young man (Krishna) coming there to meet his girlfriend Deepa. Vasu identifies him as Mr. X and follows him to a theater, but before he can catch him, he sees "Mr. X" banging his head into the restroom mirror. Vasu tries to stop him, but an eerie spirit stops him from saving Mr. X. Vasu then sees human footprints walking on water and understands that it is the work of a supernatural entity.


title: Eeram

text: The color red and water keep appearing together as premonitions and signals to Vasu that a murder is about to take place. He is unable to convince his superiors that the deaths are not accidental. Vasu investigates in the angle of life after death, and finds that a spirit can contact this world in any medium after the death. It may also be through water. Vasu realizes that Ramya's spirit killed everyone. One night, when Ramya's sister Divya (Saranya Mohan) visits Vasu in his house to console him over Ramya's death, the latter's spirit possesses her body and reveals the truth of her life after her separation from Vasu.


title: Eeram

text: Ramya lived happily with Bala but just for a short time. Bala was a person who disliked anything secondhand in his life. He could not digest his wife's past relation with her lover Vasu, and hence started to torture her. Ramya's maidservant complained of Thiyagarajan in another flat as he had been sexually harassing her. Ramya warned Thiyagarajan that if he repeated this, she would inform it to his wife. Ramya also advised Deepa to stop having a boyfriend (Mr. X) as it would spoil her life, and this earned her Deepa's dislike. Ramya's opposite apartment neighbor Kalyani wanted the flat where Ramya lived, for her daughter. Mr. X created an impression that he had come to visit Ramya to Kalyani. She had spun a false story against Ramya, and Thiyagarajan also confirmed it to Bala as revenge. Therefore, Bala killed Ramya and drowned her in the water to make it look like a suicide.


title: Eeram

text: Hence, Ramya's soul killed Kalyani by electric shock; Thiyagarajan by the umbrella tip; the watchman who supported the false statement against Ramya; Mr. X by dashing him in the mirror; and now, she traumatizes Deepa, which leaves the girl mentally unstable, yet she survives. Vasu warns Bala that he will soon catch him with evidence for murdering Ramya. Bala's friend Vignesh (Srinath) misguides him right from the beginning of the film about the women tendency of varieties and also against Ramya. Vicky later gets killed by Bala himself as he threatened to reveal the truth about the murder. Bala is confident that he can be caught only if he confesses to the crime. One midnight, Bala kidnaps Divya and holds her captive in his car showroom. Vasu comes to save Divya but involves himself into a face-to-face combat with Bala. At the fight, Bala initially gains the upper hand, hits Vasu mercilessly with an iron rod on his head, and then stabs Vasu in his stomach with his own machete. Vasu then loses his power and consciousness, but Ramya's blood-thirsty spirit possesses him and gives him the upper hand to knock out Bala. Vasu succeeds in saving Divya, and then Ramya's spirit leaves him.


title: Eeram

text: The very next day, Bala suddenly confesses to his wife's murder, giving Vasu a chance to arrest him. In reality, Ramya's spirit had possessed Bala and made him speak the truth. After the press conference, while Bala is being taken to court, the sky's color begins to appear bizarre, it begins to rain, and petrol is shown to be leaking from the police jeep in which Bala is being taken to court. Vasu sees a red umbrella with water dripping from it. Then the screen fades to black and a jeep crashing sound can be heard, indicating that Bala was killed.


title: Eeram

text: Filming began in January 2008, after Shankar had completed the shooting of his previous film "Shivaji", which starred Rajinikanth in the main lead. Filming finally came to an end in June 2009 and was prepared for a September 2009 release. Aadhi of "Mirugam" fame was roped as the protagonist, while Nandha of "Mounam Pesiyadhe" and "Urchagam" fame was selected as the main antagonist. While Simran to make her comeback as heroine through this film, though actress's demand led Shankar to cast a new face. Soon, Sindhu Menon, who starred in the Tamil Movies "Youth" and "Kadal Pookkal", signed for the female lead role.


title: Eeram

text: The music was composed by debutant S. Thaman. The audio rights was bagged by Think Music and Sony Music India. The songs were released on 9 August 2009, although the recording took place in 2007. The audio event was attended by M. Sasikumar, Rajinikanth, Allu Arjun, Nandha, and Aadhi Pinisetty. All lyrics were penned by Viveka.


title: Eeram

text: The Telugu-dubbed soundtrack was released in 2011 by Aditya Music, sometime around the dub's release.


title: Eeram

text: "Rediff" wrote "Debutant director Arivazhagan, who has written and directed the film, has turned out a horror/suspense film that strives to score points on logic, novelty and raciness. The best part is that he actually makes you cling to the edge of the seat most of the time. No mean feat, considering the limitations on mainstream Tamil cinema." "Behindwoods" wrote " Although paranormal subjects are not something new, the narrative style, technical wizardry and the brilliant camera work give Eeram, the real eerie experience." "The Hindu" wrote "Arivazhagan must have polished his screenplay over and over again to come up with such a lucid narrative that strongly impacts the viewer. Only wish the attempt doesn’t prove to be a flash in the pan. Because Eeram shows that this young director is worth looking out for."


title: History of zoophilia

text: The history of zoophilia and bestiality begins in the prehistoric era, where depictions of humans and animals in a sexual context appear infrequently in European rock art. Bestiality remained a theme in mythology and folklore through the classical period and into the Middle Ages (e.g. the Greek myth of Leda and the Swan) and several ancient authors purported to document it as a regular, accepted practice—albeit usually in "other" cultures.


title: History of zoophilia

text: Explicit legal prohibition of human sexual contact with animals is a legacy of the Abrahamic religions: the Hebrew Bible imposes the death penalty on both the person and animal involved in an act of bestiality. There are several examples known from medieval Europe of people and animals executed for committing bestiality. With the Age of Enlightenment, bestiality was subsumed with other sexual "crimes against nature" into civil sodomy laws, usually remaining a capital crime.


title: History of zoophilia

text: Bestiality remains illegal in most countries. Arguments used to justify this include: it is against religion, it is a "crime against nature," and that non-human animals cannot give consent and that sex with animals is inherently abusive. In common with many paraphilias, the internet has provided a connective platform for the zoophile community, which has lobbied for the recognition of zoophilia (or zoosexuality as an alternative sexuality), and advocated for the legalisation of bestiality.


title: History of zoophilia

text: Depictions of human sexual activity with animals appear infrequently in prehistoric art. Possibly the oldest depiction, and the only known example from the Palaeolithic (prior to the domestication of animals), is found in the Vale do Côa in Portugal. It shows a man with an exaggerated, erect penis juxtaposed with a goat. However, there is some doubt that the two figures are contemporary; while the goat is depicted in characteristic palaeolithic style, the scene may have been altered in a later period with the insertion of the human figure.


title: History of zoophilia

text: From the Neolithic onwards, images of zoophilia are slightly more common. Examples are found at "Coren del Valento", a cave in Val Camonica, Italy, containing rock art dating from 10,000 BCE to as late as the Middle Ages, one depicting a man penetrating a horse, and Sagaholm, a Bronze Age cairn in Sweden where several petroglyphs have been found with similar scenes.


title: History of zoophilia

text: Several Greek myths include the God Zeus seducing or abducting favoured mortals while in the form of an animal: Europa and the bull, Ganymede and the eagle, and Leda and the Swan. Only the latter legend includes actual copulation between Leda and Zeus in his animal form, but depictions of this act, fairly uncommon in antiquity, became a popular motif in classicising Renaissance art, contributing to a lasting prominence in Western culture.


title: History of zoophilia

text: Various classical writers recorded that bestiality was common in other cultures. Herodotus was followed by Pindar, Strabo and Plutarch in alleging that Egyptian women engaged in sexual relations with goats for religious and magical purposes – the animal aspects of Egyptian deities being particularly alien to the Greco-Roman world. Conversely, Plutarch and Virgil make similar accusations of the Greeks, with Plutarch writing in his "Discourse on the Reason of Beasts" that they committed "very frequently and in many places great outrages, disorders and scandals against nature, in the matter of this pleasure of love; for there are men who have loved she-goats, sows and mares."


title: History of zoophilia

text: Despite their place in mythology and literature, actual acts of bestiality were probably as uncommon in antiquity as they are today. Roman civil law, however, made no mention of it. The explicit prohibition of and strict penalties for zoophilia universal in later European legal systems were derived from Jewish and Christian tradition. The Hebrew Bible imposes the death penalty on both the human and animal parties involved in an act of bestiality: "if a man has sexual relations with an animal, he shall be put to death; and you shall kill the animal." The Synod of Ancyra in 313–316 discussed the position of the church with regard to bestiality at length and two of the resulting twenty-five canons addressed it: the sixteenth canon described the penance and level of restrictions to be applied to various age groups for committing bestiality; the seventeenth canon prohibited all lepers from praying inside church if they had committed bestiality while they suffered from leprosy.


title: History of zoophilia

text: Hittite law mandated the death penalty for intercourse with animals, excluding horses and mules (violators were instead barred from the priesthood and from approaching the king).


title: History of zoophilia

text: In the Church-oriented culture of the Middle Ages, zoosexual activity was met with execution, typically burning, and death to the animals involved either the same way or by hanging. Sects deemed heretical by the Church such as the Hussites were accused of bestiality. Masters comments that:


title: History of zoophilia

text: In 1468, Jean Beisse, accused of bestiality with a cow on one occasion and a goat on another, was first hanged, then burned. The animals involved were also burned. In 1539, Guillaume Garnier, charged with intercourse with a female dog (described as "sodomy"), was ordered strangled after he confessed under torture. The dog was burned, along with the trial records which were "too horrible and potentially dangerous to be permitted to exist" (Masters). Other accusations of bestiality in the period include the trials of Thomas Weir and John Atherton. In 1601, Claudine de Culam, a young girl of sixteen, was convicted of copulating with a dog. Both the girl and the dog were first hanged, and finally burned. In 1735, François Borniche was charged with sexual intercourse with animals. It was greatly feared that "his infamous debauches may corrupt the young men." He was imprisoned, and there is no record of his release. Historians claim there were more than a thousand executions recorded for bestiality in Sweden throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.


title: History of zoophilia

text: On the other hand, other accounts are more possibly fictitious, such as Pietro Damiani's, who in his "De bono religiosi status et variorum animatium tropologia" (11th century) tells of a Count Gulielmus whose pet ape became his wife's lover. One day the ape became "mad with jealousy" on seeing the count lying with his wife that it fatally attacked him. Damiani claims he was told about this incident by Pope Alexander II and shown an offspring claimed to be that of the ape and woman. ("Illustrated Book of Sexual Records")


title: History of zoophilia

text: Clergyman and chronicler Gerald of Wales claimed to have witnessed a man having intercourse with a horse as part of a pagan ritual in Ireland.


title: History of zoophilia

text: Although thousands of female witches were accused of having sex with animals, usually said to be the Devil in animal form or their familiars, court records available in Europe and the United States, dating back to the 14th century and continuing into the 20th century, nearly always show males, rather than females, as the human parties in court cases. ("Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality", Humboldt University)


title: History of zoophilia

text: From at least the 13th century and until the French Revolution, French criminal law had theoretically punished bestiality with death (burning at the stake), although in practice law courts only occasionally meted out that penalty. When the revolutionary politicians of the National Constituent Assembly set out to remake French government and society, their reforms included new criminal laws liberalizing sexual activities, which inspired by ideas of the 18th-century Enlightenment. In 1791, Louis-Michel Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau presented a newly drafted penal code to the National Constituent Assembly. He explained that it outlawed only "true crimes" and not "phoney offenses, created by superstition, feudalism, the tax system, and [royal] despotism." Zoophilia was not mentioned in the new Penal Code (promulgated September 26-October 6, 1791) and thus decriminalized it.


title: History of zoophilia

text: In 1835, the Russian Empire criminalized "skotolozhstvo" (bestiality) in the country. In 1845, the Russian Empire merged both "muzhelozhstvo" (sodomy) and "skotolozhstvo" statues together into a single statue prohibiting "protivoestestvennye poroki" (vices contrary to nature). On August 20, 1848, Norway adopted new penal codes which replaced a 1687 law that implemented the capital punishment by burning for "intercourse which is against nature" (bestiality) and reduced the punishment for engaging in bestiality from capital punishment to a sentence of hard labor of the fifth degree.


title: History of zoophilia

text: In 1855, the German physician Wilhelm Gollmann claimed that sodomy was initially committed by shepherds. He adds that shepherds were drawn to this method of pleasure for the "want of more natural opportunities." Gollmann then prejudicially attacks Sicilians, whom he claims commit zoophilia against goats. According to Blumenbach, the females of Guinea commit indecent acts against monkeys. Gollmann finalizes his dubious claims with his assertion that Iranians commit acts against donkeys as a cure for coxalgia.


title: History of zoophilia

text: In 1852, the Austrian Empire enacted § 130 which criminalized bestiality with a maximum of five years in prison. About fifty people were convicted annually due to the law. In 1861, the Offences against the Person Act 1861 lowered the criminal penalty of buggery in the United Kingdom from the death penalty to life in prison. On February 10, 1866, Denmark (including Greenland and Faroes) adopted new penal codes which replaced a 1683 law that implemented the death penalty at the stake by means of royal pardon for "intercourse against nature" (bestiality) and reduced the punishment for engaging in bestiality from capital punishment to a sentence of hard labor ranging from about eight months to six years, which was further reduced with about one third if the penalty was served in solitude. On June 25, 1869, Iceland adopted a new penal code that replaced a 13th-century law mandating death by burning for "intercourse which is against nature" (bestiality) to a punishment of work in a house of correction.


title: History of zoophilia

text: On May 15, 1871, the German Empire enacted Paragraph 175 into the “Reichs-Criminal Code” (RStGB) which outlawed zoophilia and punished it by imprisonment. In 1878, the penal code of the Kingdom of Hungary criminalized bestiality with a maximum of one year in prison. Sweden, in 1864, and Grand Duchy of Finland, on December 19, 1889, adopted new penal codes replacing and a 1734 penal code, which applied to both countries and criminalized bestiality with being burnt at the stake. The 1864 Swedish law punished "fornication with animals" (bestiality) with two years hard labor, while the 1889 Finished law punished bestiality with imprisonment for two years.


title: History of zoophilia

text: On June 28, 1935, Nazi Germany enacted legislation that created a separate category in Paragraph 175 for "fornication with animals" and penalized with up to five years in prison.


title: History of zoophilia

text: During the 20th century, zoophilia was legalized in the Russian Empire in 1903, in Denmark (including Greenland and Faroes) on January 1, 1933, in Iceland on August 12, 1940, in Sweden in 1944, in Hungarian People's Republic in 1961, in West Germany in 1969, in Austria in 1971, in Finland on January 15, 1971, and Norway on April 21, 1972.


title: History of zoophilia

text: In 2003, the Sexual Offences Act 2003 lowered the criminal penalty of bestiality in the United Kingdom from life in prison to two years in prison.


title: History of zoophilia

text: In 2006, Denmark's Council for Animal Ethics said there was no need to ban bestiality unless it took place in pornographic films or sex shows. Only one of the 10 members of the council, set up by the Danish Justice Ministry to establish and uphold animal ethics, wanted bestiality expressly prohibited. The other members said current laws provided enough animal protection. Denmark outlawed bestiality in 2015 after all parties except the Liberal Alliance voted in support of a ban, leaving Hungary, Finland and Romania as the only European Union countries without bans on bestiality.


title: History of zoophilia

text: During the 21st century, zoophilia was re-criminalized in the following countries or territories: Iowa (illegal since 2001), Maine (illegal since 2001), Oregon (illegal since 2001), Illinois (illegal since January 1, 2003), Maryland (illegal since October 1, 2002), South Dakota (illegal since July 1, 2003), France (illegal since March 10, 2004), Washington (illegal since June 7, 2006), Arizona (illegal since September 21, 2006), Belgium (illegal since May 11, 2007), Colorado (illegal since July 1, 2007), Indiana (illegal since July 1, 2007), Tennessee (illegal since July 1, 2007), Netherlands (illegal since 2010), Norway (illegal since January 1, 2010), Alaska (illegal since September 13, 2010), Australian Capital Territory (illegal since 2011), Florida (illegal since October 1, 2011), Germany (illegal since 2013), Sweden (illegal since January 1, 2014), and Denmark (illegal since April 2015).


title: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

text: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters or The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters () is an aquatint by the Spanish painter and printmaker Francisco Goya. Created between 1797 and 1799 for the , it is the 43rd of the 80 aquatints making up the satirical .


title: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

text: is a series of 80 etchings published in 1799 wherein Goya criticized the rampant political, social, and religious abuses of the time period. In this series of etchings, Goya heavily utilized the popular technique of caricature, which he enriched with artistic innovation. Goya’s usage of the recently-developed technique of aquatint (i.e., a method of etching a printing plate so that tones similar to watercolor washes can be reproduced) gave pronounced tonal effects and spirited contrast that made them a major achievement in the history of engraving.


title: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

text: Of the 80 aquatints, number 43, "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters", can be viewed as Goya’s personal manifesto; many observers believe that Goya intended to depict himself asleep amidst his drawing tools, his reason dulled by slumber, bedeviled by creatures that prowl in the dark. Such creatures that appear in this work are often associated in Spanish folk tradition with mystery and evil; the owls surrounding Goya may be symbols of folly, and the swarming bats may symbolize ignorance. The title of the print, as marked on the front of the desk, is typically read as a proclamation of Goya’s adherence to the values of the Enlightenment: without reason, evil and corruption prevail. Goya also included a caption for this print that may suggest a slightly different interpretation: "Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and source of their wonders". This implies that Goya believed that imagination should never be completely renounced in favor of the strictly rational, as imagination (in combination with reason) is what produces works of artistic innovation.


title: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

text: Implied in Goya's preparatory inscription, the artist's nightmare reflects his view of Spanish society, which he portrayed in the as demented, corrupt, and ripe for ridicule.


title: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

text: The full epigraph for No. 43 reads; "Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: united with her [reason], she [fantasy] is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels."


title: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

text: Goya's print has sometimes been interpreted in the context of satire. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in Spain, Goya's paintings and etchings combined artistic innovation with social criticism to create visually-satirical works. Goya created numerous portraits of Spanish royalty that were quite realistic, and completed these portraits with jarring social commentary that marked a departure from the practice of painting royal figures with sensational opulence and splendor.


title: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

text: , Goya's set of 80 aquatints that were published in the year 1799, revealed and emphasized the innumerable flaws that human beings inherently possess. The series of works as a whole deals with the uniquely-human vices of "...vanity, greed, superstition, promiscuity and delusion". Particularly, 'The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters' exhibits (quite literally) the treacherous lengths of human irrationality, and the implications of excessive illogicality without the counterbalance of reason. The remainder of the aquatints featured in incorporated contentious subjects including marriage, prostitution, the law, and the Church; some of these works featured specific and targeted political satire, implying Goya's dismay at the developments of Spanish political life. Goya supplemented these works with caustic and sardonic captions, augmenting the overall satirical effect.


title: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

text: Goya’s artistic career was initially marked by his creation of artwork for the Spanish royalty; Goya was called to Madrid to produce preliminary paintings in the form of tapestry cartoons for the Royal Tapestry Factory of Santa Barbara (). Goya began to produce oil-on-canvas cartoon paintings from which tapestries for the royal palaces could be made. According to many relevant sources of the time period, Goya displayed extraordinary skill in painting tapestry cartoons, and his talent apparently warranted the attention of the Neoclassical painter Anton Raphael Mengs. Some of the preliminary paintings he completed in Madrid included a series of nine hunting scenes for the dining room at the Royal Monastery of (located in the municipality of near Madrid), as well as a series of ten cartoons for tapestries in the dining room of the Royal Palace of El Pardo.


title: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

text: As Goya continued to engage with members of the aristocracy, he was met with an increasing quantity of royal patronage and received commissions at a higher frequency. Between the years of 1785 and 1788, Goya created works that depicted executives and their families from the Bank of San Carlos () in Spain. In 1786, Goya was appointed the official painter to King Charles III, and in 1789 he was promoted to Court Painter under Charles IV (1788–1808) who had recently ascended to the throne.


title: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

text: In the year 1792, Goya contracted an illness that left him permanently deaf; historians are unsure what the precise illness was that he suffered from, but it is speculated that Goya contracted either lead poisoning or “colic of Madrid” (a metal poisoning produced by cooking utensils), or some form of palsy. This illness caused him to suffer from an inability to balance on his feet, temporary blindness, and permanent deafness, which profoundly affected his life and his artistic style. In the years following his going deaf, Goya spent much of his time isolated from the outside world, as he asserted that he was unable to resume his work on large tapestry cartoons, and thus he turned to more personal projects. During this time, he studied the events and philosophies of the French Revolution, and created a series of etchings portraying the inherent vices and cruelties of human nature in a more pessimistic and sardonic style for which he would later become known. This series of prints, namely , were published in 1799 and depicted the confines of human reason, featuring whimsical and fantastical creatures that invade the mind during dreams, as displayed in 'The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters' ().


title: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

text: During the year 1799, Goya was promoted by the Spanish crown to the position of First Court Painter, and spent the next two years working on a portrait of the family of Charles IV. In 1801, Goya published "Charles IV of Spain and His Family", an oil painting that displays Charles IV of Spain and his family. Influenced by Diego Velázquez’s , Goya painted the royal family in the foreground and himself in the background at an easel. This painting was shocking as it was very detailed and naturalistic; critics widely believed that the painting was meant as a criticism of the royal family as the members of the family were portrayed in a physically-unflattering manner.


title: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

text: Goya’s echo key themes of the Enlightenment, particularly the prioritization of freedom and expression over custom and tradition, and the emphasis on knowledge and intellect over ignorance. Goya’s "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters" presents a similar concept; this work praises reason as a work of imagination, such that it is on the basis of the imagination that reason "sleeps", and the abundance of imagination with an absence of reasoning and logic may produce "monsters". One of the work’s critics writes, "[The animals] symbolize the world’s 'vulgar prejudices' and 'harmful ideas commonly believed'. Goya, borrowing the penetrating vision of the lynx, intended to expose them to light by depicting them so that we can recognize and fight them, perpetuating the solid testimony of the truth... When we are asleep we do not see, nor can we denounce, the monsters of ignorance and vice." This interpretation of "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters" reflects the ideals of the Enlightenment by denouncing ignorance and highlighting the importance of awareness.


title: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

text: This conventional interpretation of this plate--an endorsement of Enlightenment ideology, translating "sueño" as "sleep" rather than the equally justifiable translation as "dream"--remains for the most part silent about motives for its placement in the center of the series. Interpreted as "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters", Plate 43 might have made an ideal frontispiece for the plates to follow in the first half, as humans beings do exhibit monstrous behavior without using "reason." This would then be a usual Enlightenment criticism of society. By placing Plate 43 in the middle, as it is, what follows in the second half is also an Enlightenment criticism of society--but a very dark satire of the first half. It is the Enlightenment gone mad, run amok; it begins with "The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters." John J. Ciofalo has written: "Truly, however, placing it in the middle made its meaning unmistakable and unleashed in "Los Caprichos" a potent, even explosive, narrative power...the gateway from the "dream" of reason into the nightmare of reason, indeed, of madness." Goya turns the light of the Enlightenment back on itself and here are where the monsters are found.


title: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

text: On the preparatory drawings for "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters", Goya explained (in reference to the artist that is depicted asleep), "His only purpose is to banish harmful, vulgar beliefs, and to perpetuate in this work of caprices the solid testimony of truth." Art historian Philip Hofer has suggested on the evidence of one of the preparatory sketches that Goya had intended for this work to be the frontispiece of , but Goya ultimately opted for "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters" to be the 43rd etching out of the 80 total. This work apparently provides a transition from the first half of , which includes more elements related to the vices of humanity, whereas the second half of the series introduces more fantastical creatures such as witches and goblins. Philip Hofer posits that the illustration on a title page of one of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s volumes influenced Goya’s composition in this work, but that Goya ultimately decided not to display this as the frontispiece because it would seem speculative in a political sense (i.e., Rousseau’s Social Contract Theory that all men were born free heavily contributed to the French Revolution). Art historians relate "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters" to historical events that occurred after its publication, such as the World Wars and the Holocaust, that represented an utter lack of reason "...on a modern industrial scale, all condemning our unwitting slumber".


title: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

text: is notable for its use of aquatint, a printing technique that falls under the category of intaglio printing. Intaglio printing is characterized by the artist applying ink to the grooves of the matrix (i.e., the surface from which a print is made), allowing for intricate lines and refined tonality. According to William M. Ivins Jr., the first official Curator of Prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "every intaglio print in which the lines are laid in a formal manner is an "engraving", and every one in which they are laid freely is an "etching"," thus clarifying that the series falls under the broad category of "etchings". To produce an aquatint, the image itself is formed by applying a layer of resin (or a substitute of asphalt or bitumen) using one of two technical methods. An artist may allow the resin to settle on the plate as a dry dust by inserting the printing plate at the bottom of a box wherein the dust has been distributed. The printing plate is then heated so that each grain of resin dust melts and adheres to the metal. The alternative method is to dissolve the resin or asphalt in alcohol, and then pour this solution over the printing plate. The alcohol will then evaporate, leaving a thin film of resin which will dry on the plate. The plate is then immersed in acid, which etches the metal in the gaps around the grains of resin. The dust is then cleaned off the plate, to which ink is applied; the ink penetrates the etched depressions, and when the plate is printed, it creates a network of thin etched lines. This process produces a single tone, but the density of the tone varies depending on how finely the dust was ground and how thickly it covered the plate.


title: Nyra Banerjee

text: Madhuurima Banerjee (born 14 May 1987), also known by her stage name Nyra Banerjee, is an Indian actress who appears predominantly in Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam and Kannada language films. Following appearances in various television serials, she made her feature film debut in director Srinivasa murthy Nidadavole's Telugu comedy film "Aa Okkadu" which was a moderate success, and then went on to act in several successful Telugu films including Vamsi's Saradaga Kasepu in 2010. She acted in Bollywood film "One Night Stand". She also assisted director Tony D'Souza for his film "Azhar".


title: Nyra Banerjee

text: Banerjee learned Hindustani classical music and ghazal from her mother and used to sing children's songs. She also learned the classical dancing form Kathak but had to discontinue due to her father's transferable job. While recording a song one day, she was spotted by noted director G. V. Iyer who signed her on for the Hindi television serial "Kadambari". She was supposed to play Sita's role in a film adaptation of "Ramayana" that G. V. Iyer was planning to shoot, but the director died and the project failed to materialise. However, owing to her studies had to turn down some big banners, until Priyadarshan managed to convince her to play the lead in his movie.


title: Nyra Banerjee

text: Banerjee's official name is Madhuurima. In order to avoid confusion with her contemporary actress Madhurima Tuli, she changed her screen name to her pet name Nyra in 2016. In an interview with "The Times of India", she stated: "I don't want any association with my old name 'Madhuurima'. In fact, I want everyone to get into the habit of calling me Nyra."


title: Nyra Banerjee

text: The same year she appeared in her first Telugu film. She went on to act in three Telugu projects within the next year, including the female lead role in Vamsy's "Saradaga Kasepu" and a cameo role in "Orange", directed by Bhaskar. However, none of the Telugu films helped her career. In 2012, her second Bollywood film, "Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal", directed by Priyadarshan, released.


title: Nyra Banerjee

text: In 2014 she was first seen in the Telugu film "Veta", which was followed by her first Kannada release, "Savaari 2", and her first Malayalam release, "Koothara". "Savaari 2" saw her playing a bank manager, while in "Koothara" she played the role of Shaista, an NRI. She then starred in Maruthi's "Kotha Janta" starring Allu Sirish and made a special appearance in "Green Signal" which was co-produced by Maruthi.


title: Nyra Banerjee

text: In early 2015, she was seen in Puri Jagannadh's "Temper", which very successful and for which she was critically acclaimed. She then appeared in two Tamil films, "Serndhu Polama" helmed by Malayalam director Anil Kumar and Sundar C.'s "Aambala". She is working on the Telugu film "Close Friends", and has completed the Malayalam film "Black Coffee", in which she plays a Malayali living in Mumbai.


title: Last surviving United States war veterans

text: This is an incomplete list of the last surviving veterans of American wars. The last surviving veteran of any particular war, upon their death, marks the end of a historic era. Exactly who "is" the last surviving veteran is often an issue of contention, especially with records from long-ago wars. The "last man standing" was often very young at the time of enlistment and in many cases had lied about his age to gain entry into the service, which confuses matters further.


text: "American and other Allied forces were involved in the Polar Bear Expedition which began during World War I and continued into the Russian Civil War"


title: Paranthropus

text: Paranthropus is a genus of extinct hominin which contains two widely accepted species: "P. robustus" and "P. boisei". However, the validity of "Paranthropus" is contested, and it is sometimes considered to be synonymous with "Australopithecus". They are also referred to as the robust australopithecines. They lived between approximately 2.6 and 1.2 million years ago (mya) from the end of the Pliocene to the Middle Pleistocene.


title: Paranthropus

text: "Paranthropus" is characterised by robust skulls, with a prominent gorilla-like sagittal crest along the midline—which suggest strong chewing muscles—and broad, herbivorous teeth used for grinding. However, they likely preferred soft food over tough and hard food. "Paranthropus" species were generalist feeders, but "P. robustus" was likely an omnivore, whereas "P. boisei" was likely herbivorous and mainly ate bulbotubers. They were bipeds. Despite their robust heads, they had comparatively small bodies. Average weight and height are estimated to be at for "P. robustus" males, at for "P. boisei" males, at for "P. robustus" females, and at for "P. boisei" females.


title: Paranthropus

text: They were possibly polygamous and patrilocal, but there are no modern analogues for australopithecine societies. They are associated with bone tools and contested as the earliest evidence of fire usage. They typically inhabited woodlands, and coexisted with some early human species, namely "A. africanus", "H. habilis" and "H. erectus". They were preyed upon by the large carnivores of the time, specifically crocodiles, leopards, sabertoothed cats and hyenas.


title: Paranthropus

text: The genus "Paranthropus" was first erected by Scottish-South African palaeontologist Robert Broom in 1938, with the type species "P. robustus". ""Paranthropus"" derives from Ancient Greek παρα "para" beside or alongside; and άνθρωπος "ánthropos" man. The type specimen, a male braincase, TM 1517, was discovered by schoolboy Gert Terblanche at the Kromdraai fossil site, about southwest of Pretoria, South Africa. By 1988, at least six individuals were unearthed in around the same area, now known as the Cradle of Humankind.


title: Paranthropus

text: In 1948, at Swartkrans Cave, in about the same vicinity as Kromdraai, Broom and South African palaeontologist John Talbot Robinson described "P. crassidens" based on a subadult jaw, SK 6. He believed later "Paranthropus" were morphologically distinct from earlier "Paranthropus" in the cave—that is, the Swartkrans "Paranthropus" were reproductively isolated from Kromdraai "Paranthropus" and the former eventually speciated. By 1988, several specimens from Swartkrans had been placed into "P. crassidens". However, this has since been synonymised with "P. robustus" as the two populations do not seem to be very distinct.


title: Paranthropus

text: In 1959, "P. boisei" was discovered by Mary Leakey at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania (specimen OH 5). Her husband Louis named it "Zinjanthropus boisei" because he believed it differed greatly from "Paranthropus" and "Australopithecus". The name derives from "Zinj", an ancient Arabic word for the coast of East Africa, and "boisei", referring to their financial benefactor Charles Watson Boise. However, this genus was rejected at Mr. Leakey's presentation before the 4th Pan-African Congress on Prehistory, as it was based on a single specimen. The discovery of the Peninj Mandible made the Leakey's reclassify their species as "Australopithecus (Zinjanthropus) boisei" in 1964, but in 1967, South African palaeoanthropologist Phillip V. Tobias subsumed it into "Australopithecus" as "A. boisei". However, as more specimens were found, the combination "Paranthropus boisei" became more popular.


title: Paranthropus

text: It is debated whether the wide range of variation in jaw size indicates simply sexual dimorphism or a grounds for identifying a new species. It could be explained as groundmass filling in cracks naturally formed after death, inflating the perceived size of the bone. "P. boisei" also has a notably wide range of variation in skull anatomy, but these features likely have no taxonomic bearing.


title: Paranthropus

text: In 1968, French palaeontologists Camille Arambourg and Yves Coppens described ""Paraustralopithecus aethiopicus"" based on a toothless mandible from the Shungura Formation, Ethiopia (Omo 18). In 1976, American anthropologist Francis Clark Howell and Breton anthropologist Yves Coppens reclassified it as "A. africanus". In 1986, after the discovery of the skull KNM WT 17000 by English anthropologist Alan Walker and Richard Leakey classified it into "Paranthropus" as "P. aethiopicus". There is debate whether this is synonymous with "P. boisei", the main argument for separation being the skull seems less adapted for chewing tough vegetation.


title: Paranthropus

text: In 1989, palaeoartist and zoologist Walter Ferguson reclassified KNM WT 17000 into a new species, "walkeri", because he considered the skull's species designation questionable as it comprised the skull whereas the holotype of "P. aethiopicus" comprised only the mandible. Ferguson's classification is almost universally ignored, and is considered to be synonymous with "P. aethiopicus".


title: Paranthropus

text: In 1963, while in the Congo, French ethnographer Charles Cordier assigned the name "P. congensis" to a super-strong, monstrous ape-man cryptid called "Kikomba", "Apamándi", "Abanaánji", "Zuluzúgu", or "Tshingómbe" by various native tribes which he heard stories about.


title: Paranthropus

text: In 2015, Ethiopian palaeoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie and colleagues described the 3.5–3.2 Ma "A. deyiremeda" based on three jawbones from the Afar Region, Ethiopia. They noted that, though it shares many similarities with "Paranthropus", it may not have been closely related because it lacked enlarged molars which characterize the genus. Nonetheless, in 2018, independent researcher Johan Nygren recommended moving it to "Paranthropus" based on dental and presumed dietary similarity.


title: Paranthropus

text: In 1951, American anthropologists Sherwood Washburn and Bruce D. Patterson were the first to suggest that "Paranthropus" should be considered a junior synonym of "Australopithecus" as the former was only known from fragmentary remains at the time, and dental differences were too minute to serve as justification. In face of calls for subsumation, Leakey and Robinson continued defending its validity. Various other authors were still unsure until more complete remains were found. "Paranthropus" is sometimes classified as a subgenus of "Australopithecus".


title: Paranthropus

text: There is currently no clear consensus on the validity of "Paranthropus". The argument rests upon whether the genus is monophyletic—is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants—and the argument against monophyly (that the genus is paraphyletic) says that "P. robustus" and "P. boisei" evolved similar gorilla-like heads independently of each other by coincidence (convergent evolution), as chewing adaptations in hominins evolve very rapidly and multiple times at various points in the family tree (homoplasy). In 1999, a chimp-like ulna forearm bone was assigned to "P. boisei", the first discovered ulna of the species, which was markedly different from "P. robustus" ulnae, which could suggest paraphyly.


title: Paranthropus

text: "P. aethiopicus" is the earliest member of the genus, with the oldest remains, from the Ethiopian Omo Kibish Formation, dated to 2.6 mya at the end of the Pliocene. It is sometimes regarded as the direct ancestor of "P. boisei" and "P. robustus". It is possible that "P. aethiopicus" evolved even earlier, up to 3.3 mya, on the expansive Kenyan floodplains of the time. The oldest "P. boisei" remains date to about 2.3 mya from Malema, Malawi. "P. boisei" changed remarkably little over its nearly one-million-year existence. "Paranthropus" had spread into South Africa by 2 mya with the earliest "P. robustus" remains.


title: Paranthropus

text: It is sometimes suggested that "Paranthropus" and "Homo" are sister taxa, both evolving from "Australopithecus". This may have occurred during a drying trend 2.8–2.5 mya in the Great Rift Valley, which caused the retreat of woodland environments in favor of open savanna, with forests growing only along rivers and lakes. "Homo" evolved in the former, and "Paranthropus" in the latter riparian environment. However, the classifications of "Australopithecus" species is problematic.


title: Paranthropus

text: "Paranthropus" had a massively built, tall and flat skull, with a prominent gorilla-like sagittal crest along the midline which anchored massive temporalis muscles used in chewing. Like other australopithecines, "Paranthropus" exhibited sexual dimorphism, with males notably larger than females. They had large molars with a relatively thick tooth enamel coating (post-canine megadontia), and comparatively small incisors (similar in size to modern humans), possibly adaptations to processing abrasive foods. The teeth of "P. aethiopicus" developed faster than those of "P. boisei".


title: Paranthropus

text: "Paranthropus" had adaptations to the skull to resist large bite loads while feeding, namely the expansive squamosal sutures. The notably thick palate was once thought to have been an adaptation to resist a high bite force, but is better explained as a byproduct of facial lengthening and nasal anatomy.


title: Paranthropus

text: In "P. boisei", the jaw hinge was adapted to grinding food side-to-side (rather than up-and-down in modern humans), which is better at processing the starchy abrasive foods that likely made up the bulk of its diet. "P. robustus" may have chewed in a front-to-back direction instead, and had less exaggerated (less derived) anatomical features than "P. boisei" as it perhaps did not require them with this kind of chewing strategy. This may have also allowed "P. robustus" to better process tougher foods.


title: Paranthropus

text: The braincase volume averaged about , comparable to gracile australopithecines, but smaller than "Homo". Modern human brain volume averages for men and for women.


title: Paranthropus

text: Unlike "P. robustus", the forearms of "P. boisei" were heavily built, which might suggest habitual suspensory behaviour as in orangutans and gibbons. A "P. boisei" shoulder blade indicates long infraspinatus muscles, which is also associated with suspensory behavior. A "P. aethiopicus" ulna, on the other hand, shows more similarities to "Homo" than "P. boisei".


title: Paranthropus

text: "Paranthropus" were bipeds, and their hips, legs and feet resemble "A. afarensis" and modern humans. The pelvis is similar to "A. afarensis", but the hip joints are smaller in "P. robustus". The physical similarity implies a similar walking gait. Their modern-humanlike big toe indicates a modern-humanlike foot posture and range of motion, but the more distal ankle joint would have inhibited the modern human toe-off gait cycle. By 1.8 mya, "Paranthropus" and "H. habilis" may have achieved about the same grade of bipedality.


title: Paranthropus

text: In comparison to the large, robust head, the body was rather small. Average weight for "P. robustus" may have been for males and for females; and for "P. boisei" for males and for females. At Swartkrans Cave Members 1 and 2, about 35% of the "P. robustus" individuals are estimated to have weighed , 22% about , and the remaining 43% bigger than the former but less than . At Member 3, all individuals were about . Female weight was about the same in contemporaneous "H. erectus", but male "H. erectus" were on average heavier than "P. robustus" males. "P. robustus" sites are oddly dominated by small adults, which could be explained as heightened predation or mortality of the larger males of a group. The largest-known "Paranthropus" individual was estimated at .


title: Paranthropus

text: According to a 1991 study, based on femur length and using the dimensions of modern humans, male and female "P. robustus" are estimated to have stood on average , respectively, and "P. boisei" . However, the latter estimates are problematic as there were no positively identified male "P. boisei" femurs at the time. In 2013, a 1.34 Ma male "P. boisei" partial skeleton was estimated to be at least and .


title: Paranthropus

text: "Paranthropus" seems to have had notably high rates of pitting enamel hypoplasia (PEH), where tooth enamel formation is spotty instead of mostly uniform. In "P. robustus", about 47% of baby teeth and 14% of adult teeth were affected, in comparison to about 6.7% and 4.3%, respectively, in any other tested hominin species. The condition of these holes covering the entire tooth is consistent with the modern human ailment amelogenesis imperfecta. However, since circular holes in enamel coverage are uniform in size, only present on the molar teeth, and have the same severity across individuals, the PEH may have been a genetic condition. It is possible that the coding-DNA concerned with thickening enamel also left them more vulnerable to PEH.


title: Paranthropus

text: There have been 10 identified cases of cavities in "P. robustus", indicating a rate similar to modern humans. A molar from Drimolen, South Africa, showed a cavity on the tooth root, a rare occurrence in fossil great apes. In order for cavity-creating bacteria to reach this area, the individual would have had to have also presented either alveolar resportion, which is commonly associated with gum disease; or super-eruption of teeth which occurs when teeth become worn down and have to erupt a bit more in order to maintain a proper bite, and this exposed the root. The latter is most likely, and the exposed root seems to have caused hypercementosis to anchor the tooth in place. The cavity seems to have been healing, which may have been caused by a change in diet or mouth microbiome, or the loss of the adjacent molar.


title: Paranthropus

text: It was once thought "P. boisei" cracked open nuts with its powerful teeth, giving OH 5 the nickname "Nutcracker Man". However, like gorillas, "Paranthropus" likely preferred soft foods, but would consume tough or hard food during leaner times, and the powerful jaws were used only in the latter situation. In "P. boisei", thick enamel was more likely used to resist abrasive gritty particles rather than to minimize chipping while eating hard foods. In fact, there is a distinct lack of tooth fractures which would have resulted from such activity.


title: Paranthropus

text: "Paranthropus" were generalist feeders, but diet seems to have ranged dramatically with location. The South African "P. robustus" appears to have been an omnivore, with a diet similar to contemporaneous "Homo" and nearly identical to the later "H. ergaster", and subsisted on mainly C4 savanna plants and C3 forest plants, which could indicate either seasonal shifts in diet or seasonal migration from forest to savanna. In leaner times it may have fallen back on brittle food. It likely also consumed seeds and possibly tubers or termites. A high cavity rate could indicate honey consumption.


title: Paranthropus

text: The East African "P. boisei", on the other hand, seems to have been largely herbivorous and fed on C4 plants. Its powerful jaws allowed it to consume a wide variety of different plants, though it may have largely preferred nutrient-rich bulbotubers as these are known to thrive in the well-watered woodlands it is thought to have inhabited. Feeding on these, "P. boisei" may have been able to meet its daily caloric requirements of approximately 9,700 kJ after about 6 hours of foraging.


title: Paranthropus

text: Juvenile "P. robustus" may have relied more on tubers than adults, given the elevated levels of strontium compared to adults in teeth from Swartkrans Cave, which, in the area, was most likely sourced from tubers. Dentin exposure on juvenile teeth could indicate early weaning, or a more abrasive diet than adults which wore away the cementum and enamel coatings, or both. It is also possible juveniles were less capable of removing grit from dug-up food rather than purposefully seeking out more abrasive foods.


title: Paranthropus

text: Bone tools dating between 2.3 and 0.6 mya have been found in abundance in Swartkrans, Kromdraai and Drimolen caves, and are often associated with "P. robustus". Though "Homo" is also known from these caves, their remains are comparatively scarce to "Paranthropus", making "Homo"-attribution unlikely. The tools also cooccur with "Homo"-associated Oldawan and possibly Acheulian stone tool industries. The bone tools were typically sourced from the shaft of long bones from medium- to large-sized mammals, but tools made sourced from mandibles, ribs and horn cores have also been found. Bone tools have also been found at Oldawan Gorge and directly associated with "P. boisei", the youngest dating to 1.34 mya, though a great proportion of other bone tools from here have ambiguous attribution. Stone tools from Kromdraai could possibly be attributed to "P. robustus", as no "Homo" have been found there yet.


title: Paranthropus

text: The bone tools were not manufactured or purposefully shaped for a task. However, since the bones display no weathering (and were not scavenged randomly), and there is a preference displayed for certain bones, raw materials were likely specifically hand-picked. This could indicate a similar cognitive ability to contemporary Stone Age "Homo".


title: Paranthropus

text: Bone tools may have been used to cut or process vegetation, or dig up tubers or termites, The form of "P. robustus" incisors appear to be intermediate between "H. erectus" and modern humans, which could indicate less food processing done by the teeth due to preparation with simple tools.


title: Paranthropus

text: Burnt bones were also associated with the inhabitants of Swartkrans, which could indicate some of the earliest fire usage. However, these bones were found in Member 3, where "Paranthropus" remains are rarer than "H. erectus", and it is also possible the bones were burned in a wildfire and washed into the cave as it is known the bones were not burned onsite.


title: Paranthropus

text: Given the marked anatomical and physical differences with modern great apes, there may be no modern analogue for australopithecine societies, so comparisons drawn with modern primates will not be entirely accurate.


title: Paranthropus

text: "Paranthropus" had pronounced sexual dimorphism, with males notably larger than females, which is commonly correlated with a male-dominated polygamous society. "P. robustus" may have had a harem society similar to modern forest-dwelling silverback gorillas, where one male has exclusive breeding rights to a group of females, as male-female size disparity is comparable to gorillas (based on facial dimensions), and younger males were less robust than older males (delayed maturity is also exhibited in gorillas).


title: Paranthropus

text: However, if "P. robustus" preferred a savanna habitat, a multi-male society would have been more productive to better defend the troop from predators in the more exposed environment, much like savanna baboons. Further, among primates, delayed maturity is also exhibited in the rhesus monkey which has a multi-male society, and may not be an accurate indicator of social structure.


title: Paranthropus

text: A 2011 strontium isotope study of "P. robustus" teeth from the dolomite Sterkfontein Valley found that, like other hominins, but unlike other great apes, "P. robustus" females were more likely to leave their place of birth (patrilocal). This also discounts the plausibility of a harem society, which would have resulted in a matrilocal society due to heightened male–male competition. Males did not seem to have ventured very far from the valley, which could either indicate small home ranges, or that they preferred dolomitic landscapes due to perhaps cave abundance or factors related to vegetation growth.


title: Paranthropus

text: Dental development seems to have followed about the same timeframe as it does in modern humans and most other hominins, but, since "Paranthropus" molars are markedly larger, rate of tooth eruption would have been accelerated. Their life history may have mirrored that of gorillas as they have the same brain volume, which (depending on the subspecies) reach physical maturity from 12–18 years and have birthing intervals of 40–70 months.


title: Paranthropus

text: It is generally thought that "Paranthropus" preferred to inhabit wooded, riverine landscapes. The teeth of "Paranthropus", "H. habilis" and "H. erectus" are all known from various overlapping beds in East Africa, such as at Olduvai Gorge and the Turkana Basin. "P. robustus" and "H. erectus" also appear to have coexisted.


title: Paranthropus

text: "P. boisei", known from the Great Rift Valley, may have typically inhabited wetlands along lakes and rivers, wooded or arid shrublands, and semiarid woodlands, though their presence in the savanna-dominated Malawian Chiwondo Beds implies they could tolerate a range of habitats. During the Pleistocene, there seems to have been coastal and montane forests in Eastern Africa. More expansive river valleys—namely the Omo River Valley—may have served as important refuges for forest-dwelling creatures. Being cut off from the forests of Central Africa by a savanna corridor, these East African forests would have promoted high rates of endemism, especially during times of climatic volatility.


title: Paranthropus

text: The Cradle of Humankind, the only area "P. robustus" is known from, was mainly dominated by the springbok "Antidorcas recki", but other antelope, giraffes and elephants were also seemingly abundant megafauna. Other known primates are early "Homo", the hamadryas baboon, and the extinct colobine monkey "Cercopithecoides williamsi".


title: Paranthropus

text: The left foot of a "P. boisei" specimen (though perhaps actually belonging to "H. habilis") from Olduvai Gorge seems to have been bitten off by a crocodile, possibly "Crocodylus anthropophagus", and another's leg shows evidence of leopard predation. Other likely Olduvan predators of great apes include the hunting hyena "Chasmaporthetes nitidula", and the sabertoothed cats "Dinofelis" and "Megantereon". The carnivore assemblage at the Cradle of Humankind comprises the two sabertooths, and the hyena "Lycyaenops silberbergi".


title: Paranthropus

text: Male "P. robustus" appear to have had a higher mortality rate than females. It is possible that males were more likely to be kicked out of a group, and these lone males had a higher risk of predation.


title: Paranthropus

text: It was once thought that "Paranthropus" had become a specialist feeder, and were inferior to the more adaptable tool-producing "Homo", leading to their extinction, but this has been called into question. However, smaller brain size may have been a factor in their extinction along with gracile australopithecines. "P. boisei" may have died out due to an arid trend starting 1.45 mya, causing the retreat of woodlands, and more competition with savanna baboons and "Homo" for alternative food resources.


title: Paranthropus

text: South African "Paranthropus" appear to have outlasted their East African counterparts. The youngest record of "P. boisei" comes from Konso, Ethiopia about 1.4 mya; however, there are no East African sites dated between 1.4 and 1 mya, so it may have persisted until 1 mya. "P. robustus", on the other hand, was recorded in Swartkrans until Member 3 dated to 1–0.6 mya (the Middle Pleistocene), though more likely the younger side of the estimate.


title: Nick Wilson (Survivor contestant)

text: Nicolas Joseph Caleb Wilson (born June 11, 1990) is an American politician and former public defender best known for competing on the reality competition show "Survivor". He was voted the winner of the show's thirty-seventh season, "", in 2018, and returned in 2020 for the fortieth season, "", to compete against former winners in the "Survivor" franchise, where he would finish in seventh place.


title: Nick Wilson (Survivor contestant)

text: Wilson, a Republican, won an election to become a state representative of the 82nd District in the Kentucky House of Representatives in 2022.


title: Nick Wilson (Survivor contestant)

text: Wilson grew up in Williamsburg, Kentucky. Wilson's parents divorced while he was growing up. His grandmother helped raise him and his four siblings while they stayed with their father. He became the first person in his family to graduate from college when he completed a Bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Kentucky. At Kentucky, he became a member of Kappa Sigma (Beta-Nu) fraternity. He eventually went on to the University of Alabama School of Law and graduated to become a public defender. While at Alabama, he lost his mother when she died due to a drug overdose.


title: Nick Wilson (Survivor contestant)

text: As part of the original David tribe, Wilson began his game with a bit of a rocky start, being seen as someone who was lazy and sat around camp all day. In particular, he became targeted by tribemates Pat Cusack and Carl Boudreaux. However, Wilson was spared from the chopping block of the first tribal council when Cusack was medically evacuated following the season's first immunity challenge. Afterward, Wilson immediately shifted his focus and became an aggressive alliance-builder, crafting one-on-one allegiances with several players in the game. In the next Tribal Council, Wilson voted with Christian Hubicki (with whom he'd founded the Mason-Dixon Alliance), Elizabeth Olson (together, the Thoroughbreds), Gabby Pascuzzi and Lyrsa Torres to send Jessica Peet out of the game. Wilson also forged a friendship with Davie Rickenbacker during this time.


title: Nick Wilson (Survivor contestant)

text: A tribe swap occurred on Day Ten, putting Wilson on the Jabeni tribe with Torres and three former Goliaths: Natalie Cole, Mike White and Angelina Keeley. During his time on Jabeni, Wilson aligned with White and Keeley, and together the three of them ousted Cole (a former Goliath) and Torres (a former David) at the next two Tribal Councils. This alliance would become a crucial fulcrum in the rest of the season.


title: Nick Wilson (Survivor contestant)

text: The merge occurred with thirteen players, forming the Kalokalo tribe. From that point, Wilson became part of an alliance with Hubicki and Pascuzzi from the Davids, as well as White, Alec Merlino and Alison Raybould from the Goliaths. Olson became the first person unanimously voted from the merge. Afterwards, Wilson found a vote stealer advantage. At the next Tribal Council, he voted with the Davids to blindside Goliath John Hennigan with a hidden immunity idol play and minority vote split. The former Goliaths remained in control of the numbers with a 6–5 advantage, but Wilson used his advantage along with Boudreaux's idol nullifier to send Goliath Dan Rengering to the jury. At the next Tribal Council, Merlino was unanimously sent to the jury, giving the surviving David players the majority.


title: Nick Wilson (Survivor contestant)

text: At this point, Wilson and most of the Davids sought to target Raybould, but tribal lines were crossed when Hubicki and Pascuzzi flipped on their original alliances to orchestrate Boudreaux's elimination, leaving Wilson out of the vote. Frustrated by their betrayal, Wilson sought revenge. He and Keeley won the Family Visit in the next reward challenge, and together they selected White and Davie Rickenbacker to accompany them. They forged a Final Four deal on the reward, with the idea that Hubicki would be the next target. However, Hubicki sensed the tide had turned on him and played an immunity idol, voiding the votes against him and causing Pascuzzi (who had been attempting to engineer Hubicki's elimination) to be sent to the jury. Hubicki's safety would prove short-lived, as he was soon eliminated at the following Tribal Council.


title: Nick Wilson (Survivor contestant)

text: At the Final Six, Wilson won his first immunity challenge of the season. During this time, he strengthened his bonds with Keeley and White, agreeing to a Final Three deal. Wilson once more attempted to target Raybould, but Rickenbacker was eliminated instead, having been seen as a bigger threat by White and Keeley. Furious at Rickenbacker's boot at the hands of his own allies, Wilson was now the last David standing. However, he secured his safety within the game by winning the next immunity challenge, finally ousting Raybould from the game as a result. He then went on to win the final immunity challenge of the season, becoming the only player from the season to win multiple immunities as well as guaranteeing his spot in the Final Tribal Council. Wilson selected Keeley to sit alongside him at the Final Three, forcing Kay and White to compete for the final slot via the Fire-Making Challenge. White won, cementing the Jabeni Three's final pact as well as sending Kay to the jury. Since the introduction of the final four forced fire-making challenge, Wilson is the first castaway to win the Final Immunity Challenge, not compete in the fire-making tiebreaker, and go on to win the season.


title: Nick Wilson (Survivor contestant)

text: During the Final Tribal Council, Wilson was praised for his social and strategic acumen as well as his immunity wins, but was criticized for his game peaking too early, whereas much of the game's final maneuvers were credited to White. However, Wilson highlighted on the bonds he'd made with the other players, citing his role as an underdog who represented the spirit of the season's theme. Wilson's impassioned speech, which neatly outlined his gameplay, swayed seven of the ten jurors to vote for him, giving him the title of Sole Survivor.


title: Nick Wilson (Survivor contestant)

text: With his victory, Wilson became the ninth winner in "Survivor" history to win the game while receiving zero votes cast against them the entire game.


title: Nick Wilson (Survivor contestant)

text: He returned to compete on the show's first all-winners season, "". Wilson was initially a part of the Dakal tribe. While he would receive one vote in both the first two Tribal Councils he attended, he was not voted out. At the merge, Wilson found himself on the bottom for the first couple of votes, before finding himself in a good spot. He won a crucial immunity challenge at the Final Seven, which was needed as he was the target. At the Final Six (before the last Edge of Extinction re-entry challenge), Wilson received an advantage from Natalie Anderson (who was on Edge of Extinction), which allowed him to give another player a disadvantage in the immunity challenge, and he would need to pay six Fire Tokens to purchase this. Wilson, who had four tokens, got two tokens from Michele Fitzgerald and purchased the advantage. He used the advantage against Ben Driebergen at the immunity challenge. However, Wilson was voted out that night, as Sarah Lacina felt that his underdog story made him a threat. Wilson was eliminated from the game after failing to win the final re-entry Edge of Extinction challenge.


title: Nick Wilson (Survivor contestant)

text: At the Final Tribal Council, Wilson voted for Tony Vlachos to win, which he did in a 12-4-0 vote, making him the series' second two-time winner.


title: Nick Wilson (Survivor contestant)

text: His mother's passing helped Wilson understand that he could use his platform as a public defender more than his own personal success. He felt a responsibility to return to his hometown and help his community. Upon graduation, Wilson became a public defender in his hometown. His main focus is fighting the opioid epidemic. In January 2019, he started a new position with the Kentucky Commonwealth's Attorney Office.


title: Nick Wilson (Survivor contestant)

text: In November 2021, Wilson announced that he was running for a seat in the Kentucky House of Representatives, for the 82nd District, which includes his hometown of Williamsburg. Wilson, who is a Republican, was endorsed by retiring incumbent Regina Huff.


title: Nick Wilson (Survivor contestant)

text: On January 14, 2019, Wilson received the key to the city of Williamsburg and was given his own day, "Nick Wilson Day" on January 16.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Concepts of race and sexuality have interacted in various ways in different historical contexts. While partially based on physical similarities within groups, race is understood by scientists to be a social construct rather than a biological reality. Human sexuality involves biological, erotic, physical, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors.


title: Race and sexuality

text: The ways in which people perceive the relationship between these two concepts implicitly informs attitudes toward interracial sexual relationships and sexual preferences for particular races expressed by individuals. Racial bias may involve a sexual dimension, which often takes the form of racial fetishism.


title: Race and sexuality

text: After the abolition of slavery in 1865, white Americans showed an increasing fear of racial mixing. The remnants of the racial divide became stronger post-slavery as the concept of whiteness developed. There was a widely held belief that uncontrollable lust threatens the purity of the nation. This increased white anxiety about interracial sex, and has been described through Montesquieu's climatic theory in his book "The Spirit of the Laws", which explains how people from different climates have different temperaments, "The inhabitants of warm countries are, like old men, timorous; the people in cold countries are, like young men, brave." At the time, black women held the "Jezebel" stereotype, which claimed black women often initiated sex outside of marriage and were generally sexually promiscuous. This idea stemmed from the first encounters between European men and African women. As the men were not used to the extremely hot climate, they misinterpreted the women's lack of clothing for vulgarity. Similarly, black men were stereotyped as having a specific lust for white women. This stereotype triggered tensions, implying that white men were having sex with black women because black women were more lustful than white women were, and in turn, black men would lust after white women in the same way that white men would lust after black women.


title: Race and sexuality

text: There are a few potential reasons as to why such strong ideas on interracial sex developed. The Reconstruction Era which followed the Civil War started to disassemble traditional aspects of Southern society. Now, the Southerners who were used to being dominant were no longer legally allowed to run their farms by practicing slavery. Many whites struggled with this reformation and they attempted to get around it by searching for legal loopholes which would have allowed them to continue their practice of exploiting black laborers. Additionally, the white Democrats were not pleased with the outcome of this reformation and white men felt inadequate as a result. This radical reconstruction of the South was deeply unpopular and it slowly unraveled, leading to the introduction of Jim Crow laws. There was an increase in the sense of white dominance and sexual racism among the Southern people.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Generally, tensions heightened after the end of the civil war in 1865, and as a result, the sexual anxiety which existed in the white population intensified. The Ku Klux Klan was formed in 1867, an event which triggered violence and terrorism which targeted the black population. There was an increase in the number of acts of lynch-mob violence in which many black men were falsely accused of committing rape. These acts of violence were not just senseless, they were attempts to preserve 'whiteness' and prevent the blurring of racial distinctions; some racist whites wanted to maintain a system of racial separation and prevent the occurrence of interracial sexual activity. For example, mixed race couples that chose to live together were sought out and lynched by the KKK. The famous case of Emmett Till, who was lynched by two men when he was fourteen years old, , shows the extent of the acts of violence which were committed against black people who flirted with white people. Till was lynched because the two men who lynched him believed that he had whistled at a white woman, but in actuality, he had whistled for his own reasons. When Jim Crow laws were eventually overturned, it took years for the court to resolve the numerous acts of discrimination.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Sexual racism is presumed to exist in all sexual communities across the globe. The prevalence of interracial couples may demonstrate how attitudes have changed in the last 50 years. A case that received heightened publicity is that of Mildred and Richard Loving. The couple lived in Virginia yet had to marry outside the state due to the anti-miscegenation laws present in nearly half of the US states in 1958. Once married, the pair returned to Virginia, and were both arrested in their home for the infringement of the Racial Integrity Act, and each sentenced to a year in prison, a sentence which was ultimately overturned by the United States Supreme Court.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Around a similar time, the controversy involving Seretse and Ruth Khama broke out. Seretse was the chief of an eminent Botswanan tribe, and Ruth a British student. The pair married in 1948 but experienced frequent hardships from the onset of the relationship, including Seretse's removal from his tribal responsibilities as chief in Bechuanaland. For nearly 10 years, Seretse and Ruth lived as exiles in Britain, as the government refused to allow Seretse to return to Bechuanaland. Once the couple were allowed to return to Bechuanaland in 1956, they became prominent campaigners for social equality, contributing to Seretse's election as president of the independent Botswana in 1966. Later, they continued campaigning for the legalization of interracial marriage around the globe.


title: Race and sexuality

text: More recent examples portray the increasingly accepting attitudes of the majority to interracial relationships and marriage. In 1999, Jeb Bush was elected as Governor of Florida, accompanied by his wife, Columba, a Mexican woman he met in León who did not speak English when they met. They were one of the first interracial couples to stand in power side by side. Other prominent interracial couples in American politics are Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and former Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, as well as New York City mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife Chirlane McCray. The political success of these couples is seen by some to demonstrate that attitudes toward interracial marriage (at least in the United States) are much more positive and optimistic than in previous decades. Across much of the world, it is ever increasingly the situation that interracial couples can live, marry and have children without prosecution that was previously rife, due to major changes in law along with reductions in discriminatory attitudes.


title: Race and sexuality

text: While discrimination among partners based on perceived racial identity has been asserted by some to be a form of racism, it is generally considered a matter of personal preference. A study by Callander, Newman, and Holts quoted Watts from the "Huffington Post", who argued that sexual attraction and racism are not the same:


title: Race and sexuality

text: In the last 15 years, online dating has overtaken previously preferred methods of meeting with potential partners, surpassing both the occupational setting and area of residence as chosen locations. This spike is consistent with an increase in access to the internet in homes across the globe, in addition to the number of dating sites available to individuals differing in age, gender, race, sexual orientation and ethnic background. Partner race is the most highly selected preference chosen by users when creating their online profiles, ahead of both educational and religious characteristics. Research has indicated a progressive acceptance of interracial relationships by white individuals. The majority of white Americans are not against interracial relationships and marriage, though these beliefs do not imply that the person in question will pursue an interracial marriage themselves. Currently, fewer than 5% of white Americans wed outside their own race; indeed, less than 46% of white Americans are willing to date an individual of any other race. Overall, African Americans appear to be the most open to interracial relationships, yet are the least preferred partner by other racial groups. However, regardless of stated preferences, racial discrimination still occurs in online dating.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Each group significantly prefers to date intra-racially. Beyond this, in the online dating world, preferences appear to follow a racial hierarchy. White Americans are the least open to interracial dating, and select preferences in the order of Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and then African American individuals last at 60.5%, 58.5% and 49.4% respectively. African American preferences follow a similar pattern, with the most preferred partner belonging to the Hispanic group (61%), followed by white individuals (59.6%) and then Asian Americans (43.5%). Both Hispanic and Asian Americans prefer to date a white individual (80.3% and 87.3%, respectively), and both are least willing to date African Americans (56.5% and 69.5%). In all significant cases, Hispanic Americans are preferred to Asian Americans, and Asian Americans are significantly preferred over African Americans. Hispanic Americans are less likely to be excluded in online dating partner preferences by whites seeking a partner, as Latinos are often viewed as an ethnic group that is increasingly assimilating more into white American culture.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Another aspect of racial preferences is that women of any race are significantly less likely to date inter-racially than a male of any race. Specifically, Asian men and black men and women face more obstacles to acceptance online. White women are the most likely to only date their own race, with Asian and black men being the most rejected groups by them. The rejection of Asian men was asserted by one author to be due to a hypothetical effeminate portrayal in media. The preference for men of other races remains present even when considering high-earning Asian men with an advanced educational background. Increased education does however influence choices in the other direction, such that a higher level of schooling is associated with more optimistic feelings towards interracial relationships. White men are most likely to exclude black women, as opposed to women of another race. High levels of previous exposure to a variety of racial groups is correlated with decreased racial preferences. Racial preferences in dating are also influenced by the area of residence. Those residing in the south-eastern regions in American states are less likely to have been in an interracial relationship and are less likely to interracially date in the future. People who engaged in regular religious customs at age 12 are also less likely to interracially date. Moreover, those from a Jewish background are significantly more likely to enter an interracial relationship than those from a Protestant background.


title: Race and sexuality

text: A 2015 study of interracial online dating within multiple European countries, analyzing the dating preferences of Europeans, as well as Arabs, Africans, Asians and Hispanics in Diaspora, found that in aggregate all races ranked Europeans as most preferred, followed by Hispanics and Asians as intermediately preferable, then by Arabs and finally Africans as the least preferred. Country-specific results were more variable, with countries with more non-Europeans showing more openness for Europeans to engage in interracial dating, while exceptions resulted in those with tensions between racial groups (such as in cases where tensions existed between Europeans and Arabs due to Arab Anti-Western sentiment and Western Anti-Arab populism) showed a marked decrease in preference for interracial dating between the two. The researchers noted that Arabs tended to have higher same-race preferences in regions with higher Arabic populations, possibly due to more traditional cultural norms on marriage. The researchers did note a portion of the study was influenced by selection bias, as the data gathered may have disproportionately drawn from people already inclined to engage in interracial dating.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Currently, there are websites specifically targeted to different demographic preferences, such that singles can sign up online and focus on one particular partner quality, such as race, religious beliefs or ethnicity. In addition to this, there are online dating services that target race-specific partner choices, and a selection of pages dedicated to interracial dating that allow users to select partners based on age, gender and particularly race. Online dating services experience controversy in this context as debate is cast over whether statements such as "no Asians" or "not attracted to Asians" in user profiles are racist or merely signify individual preferences.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Non-white ethnic minorities, mostly Indians and Asians, who feel they lack dating prospects as a result of their race, sometimes refer to themselves as "ricecels", "currycels", or more broadly "ethnicels", a term related to the incel, who is generally considered to be white. Racial preferences can sometimes considered as a subset of lookism.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Hoang Tan Nguyen, an Assistant Professor of English and Film Studies at Bryn Mawr College, wrote that Asian men are often feminized and desexualized by both mainstream and LGBT media. The gay Asian-Canadian author Richard Fung has opined that he believes that while black and Arab men are portrayed as hypersexualized, gay Asian men are portrayed as being desexualized. Again according to Fung, gay Asian men supposedly tend to ignore or display displeasure with races such as Arabs, Blacks, and other Asians but seemingly give sexual acceptance and approval to gay white men. However, gay white men supposedly are more likely than other racial groups to state "No Asians" when seeking partners.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Asian American women also report similar discrimination in lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) communities. According to a study by Sung, Szymanski, and Henrichs-Beck (2015), Asian American participants who identified as lesbian or bisexual often reported invisibility, stereotyping, and fetishism in LGB circles and the larger U.S. culture.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Multiple studies in European gay communities have shown, that while many immigrants from the Mediterranean, such as Amazighs, Turks, Greeks, Arabs, Albanians and Romanians tend to be discriminatory towards and avoidant of homosexuals, with many being openly homophobic, they are actively sought after and fetishized as hypermasculine. "Südländer" or "Mediterraneans", as they're called in German subculture, are often explicitly requested, with frequent statements of "Nur Südländer", "Only Mediterraneans" being not too uncommon, though the demand is rarely met.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Racial preferences are also prevalent in gay online dating. Phua and Kaufman (2003) noted that men seeking men online were more likely than men seeking women to look at racial traits.


title: Race and sexuality

text: In a qualitative study conducted by Paul, Ayala, and Choi (2010) with Asian and Pacific Islanders (API), Latino, and African American men seeking men, participants interviewed endorsed racial preference as a common criterion in online dating partner selection.


title: Race and sexuality

text: A 2015 study on sexual racism among gay and bisexual men found a strong correlation between test subjects' racist attitudes and their stated racial preferences.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Philosopher Amia Srinivasan argued for racialized origins of Western beauty standards in her 2018 essay "Does anyone have the right to sex?", and stated that racial bias can shape sexual desire.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Racial fetishism is sexually fetishizing a person or culture belonging to a specific race or ethnic group.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Homi K. Bhabha explains racial fetishism as a version of racist stereotyping, which is woven into colonial discourse and based on multiple/contradictory and splitting beliefs, similar to the disavowal which Freud discusses. Bhabha defines colonial discourse as that which activates the simultaneous "recognition and disavowal of racial/cultural/historical differences" and whose goal is to define the colonized as 'other', but also as fixed and knowable stereotypes. Racial fetishism involves contradictory belief systems where the 'other' is both demonized and idolized.


title: Race and sexuality

text: The effects of racial fetishism as a form of sexual racism are discussed in research conducted by Plummer. Plummer used qualitative interviews within given focus groups, and found that specific social locations came up as areas in which sexual racism commonly manifests. These mentioned social locations included pornographic media, gay clubs and bars, casual sex encounters as well as romantic relationships. This high prevalence was recorded within Plummer's research to be consequently related to the recorded lower self-esteem, internalized sexual racism, and increased psychological distress in participants of color.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Fetishism can take multiple forms and has branched off to incorporate different races. The theories of naturalist Darwin can offer some observations in regards to why some people might find other races more attractive than their own. Attraction can be viewed as a mechanism for choosing a healthy mate. People's minds have evolved to recognize aspects of other peoples' biology that makes them an appropriate or good mate. This area of theory is called optimal outbreeding hypothesis.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Rey Chow argues that the fetishism of white women in Chinese media does not have to do with sex. Chow describes it as a type of commodity fetishism. White women, according to Chow, are seen as a representation of what China does not have: an image of a woman as something more than the heterosexual opposite to man.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Perry Johansson argues that following the globalization of China, the perception of Westerners changed drastically. With the Opening of China to the outside world, representations of Westerners shifted from enemies of China to individuals of great power, money, and pleasure.


title: Race and sexuality

text: In a study of Chinese advertisements from 1990 to 1995, marketed solely to the Chinese people, Johansson concluded that, in China, the racial fetish of Western women does have to do with sex. Chinese advertisements depict Western women as symbols of strength and sexuality. The body language of Chinese models in ads expresses shyness and subordination with canting of heads and bodies, lying down and covering of faces, while the body language of Western women demonstrates power and uninhibited unashamedness. Western women more often hold their heads high, stare straight into the camera, and do not cover their mouths while laughing. The study suggested Western women represent a shift in the power dynamics between women and men and are even presented with qualities otherwise considered to be "masculine" in Chinese culture.


title: Race and sexuality

text: An Asian fetish focusing on East Asian, Southeast Asian and to some extent South Asian women has been documented in Australasia, North America, and Scandinavia.


title: Race and sexuality

text: According to an article from the "Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice", the "Asian fetish" syndrome is born out of the male desire for dominance and the stereotype of Asian women as individuals open to domination. For example, following the 1970s and a peak in the American feminist movement, many white men turned to mail-order bride companies in search of a loyal, understanding, and subservient partner. They saw women of their own race as too career-oriented and strong-willed. Asian women were the antithesis to their perception of white women. While white women resisted powerlessness and subjugation to the white man, Asian women were seen as open to the subjugation, even depicted as enjoying it.


title: Race and sexuality

text: The song "Yellow Fever" by The Bloodhound Gang includes lyrics such as, "She's an oriental rug cause I lay her where I please," and "Then I blindfold her with dental floss and get down on her knees." Both of these instances exemplify the stereotype of Asians as submissive. Margaret Cho has labeled Gwen Stefani's Harajuku Girls as a "minstrel show" because they represent fetishized East Asian stereotypes. The girls follow Stefani around on tour and are contractually obligated not to speak English in public. The performer had "renamed" them corresponding to her album title and clothing brand, L.A.M.B.: Love, Angel, Music, and Baby.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Furthermore, there have been many cases of Asian fetishism leading to criminal activity. In one case in 2000, two men, David Dailey and Edmund Ball, abducted and blindfolded two Japanese women in Washington, one who was eighteen and the other who was nineteen. Ball specifically targeted these Asian students because he thought that they were submissive and were less likely to report sexual abuse. In another case, in 2005, Michael Lohman, a doctoral student at Princeton University, was charged by the state of New Jersey for reckless endangerment, theft, harassment as well as tampering with a food product. Michael had cut locks of hair off at least nine Asian women. He also poured his semen and urine into the drinks of Asian Princeton students more than fifty times. In his apartment, Michael also had mittens filled with hairs of Asian women.


title: Race and sexuality

text: According to multiple articles, the West's fetishization of fully covered Arab women has led to the stereotype that Arab women and women from the Muslim world are oppressed and therefore submissive. When French armies invaded Algeria, they had anticipated Algerian women to be sexually available and hookah smokers. To their surprise, Algerian women actually appeared to have been more modestly dressed and covered from their head to toes. Many French photographers paid Algerian women to remove part of their religious attire and pose for photos to make French postcards. In his book "Desiring Arabs," Joseph Massad talks about how the West's interpretation of Arab culture has painted the stereotype of Arab women being exotic and desirable. Massad's book was largely influenced by Edward Said's book "Orientalism".


title: Race and sexuality

text: In her book "Sex Tourism in Bahia Ambiguous Entanglements", Erica Lorraine Williams published the first full-length ethnography of sex tourism in Brazil, including interviews with tourists who come solely to participate in sexual tourism, which may be considered a form of racialized fetishism. One of the tourists interviewed described his experience, "I've had a thing for Latin, brown-skinned women since my early twenties. I'm from [a place] where there are a lot of blond, white girls. Whatever you have, you like the opposite – they're exotic, intriguing."


title: Race and sexuality

text: The fetishization of black women expanded during the Colonial Era, as some white male slave owners raped and sexually abused their black, female slaves. They justified their actions by labeling the women as hyper-sexual property. These labels solidified into what is commonly referred to as the "Jezebel" stereotype. The opposite of this "Jezebel" identity or persona is the "Mammy" figure who loses all of her sexual agency and autonomy, and becomes an asexual figure. L. H. Stallings notes that the creation and identities for the Jezebel or Mammy figures are "dependent upon patriarchy and heterosexuality." An example of racial fetishism within the colonial era is that of Sarah Baartman. Baartman's body was utilized as a means to develop an anatomically accurate representation of a black woman's body juxtaposed to that of a white European woman's body during the age of biological racism. The scientist studying her anatomy went as far as making a mold of Baartman's genitalia postmortem because she refused him access to examine her vaginal region while she was alive. The data collected on Baartman is the origin of the black female body stereotype, i.e. large buttocks and labia.


title: Race and sexuality

text: Charmaine Nelson suggests that every nude painting feeds into the voyeuristic male gaze, but the way black women are painted has even more undertones. "The black female body defies the white male subject's desire for a single subject of 'pure' origin in two ways: firstly, through a sexual 'otherness' as woman, and secondly through a racial and color 'otherness' as black. It is the combined power of these two markers of social location which has enabled western artists to represent black women at the margins of societal boundaries of propriety." Nelson asserts that any black woman is considered a fetish in these paintings and that she is only viewed in a sexual lens.


title: Race and sexuality

text: One of the more recent popular discourses around the fetishization of black women surrounds the release of Nicki Minaj's popular song, "Anaconda" in 2014. The entire song and music video revolves around the largeness of black women's bottoms. While some praise Minaj's work for its embrace of female sexuality, some criticized that this song continues to reduce black women to be the focus of the male gaze. The 2020 song "WAP" ("Wet-Ass Pussy") by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion received a similar mixed reception, with some outlets praising its embrace of black female sexuality and others claiming it was degrading or objectifying women of color.


title: Race and sexuality

text: In the context of pornography, black men are more often expected to be hyper-masculine and hyper-sexual, and their fetishization is seen predominately throughout the "BBC" (big black cock) category, which reinforces the idea that they should have a large penis. As the word "dick" is used more frequently than "cock" in African American English, the phrase BBC, which ranks among the most searched categories on PornHub as of 2019, is assumed to have originated from white fetishization of interracial pornography involving black males. The stereotype of larger penis size in black men has been subjected to scientific scrutiny, with inconclusive results. Furthermore, within porn videos, the black male is expected to be rough and sexually dominant, acting in almost a primitive manner. This reflects the prominent "Mandingo" stereotype of black men, dating back to the time of slavery. Black actors in porn have been calling out issues with filming on social media, bringing attention to the practice whereby a white performer charges a higher rate for interracial (IR) scenes, to which Isiah Maxwell states: "IR is a smokescreen for what you're really trying to say ... it doesn't mean Asian or Latino. It means, 'Are you willing to have sex with a black guy?'"


title: Race and sexuality

text: The aspect of the black male being a performer under the "white gaze", according to psychiatrist and political philosopher Frantz Fanon, can be manifested through the sporting body and their representation within the sphere of athleticism. Ben Carrington further elaborates on this hypothesis in his article "Race, representation and the sporting body", whereby "Blackness itself was pathologized as a deviant identity, and the black male was stereotyped (and subsequently mythologized) as a hyper-sexed, almost animal-like, entity." (Carrington, 2002). This idea that the black man has to possess animalistic behaviour is explained in more detail by Carrington, explaining that "Black athletes – female and male ─ are invariably described as being strong, powerful and quick but with unpredictable and 'wild' moments when they supposedly lack the cognitive capabilities – unlike their white peers – to have 'composure' at critical moments". Just as Fanon talks about the white gaze, Carrington presents the view that representation in the media (both in sports and pornography) leaves the black male body vulnerable and exposed to inspection.


title: Race and sexuality

text: There is also a practice in BDSM which involves fetishizing race called "raceplay". Susanne Schotanus defined raceplay as "a sexual practice where the either imagined or real racial background of one or more of the participants is used to create this power-imbalance in a BDSM-scene, through the use of slurs, narratives and objects laden with racial history." Feminist author Audre Lorde cautions that this kind of BDSM “operates in tandem with social, cultural, economic, and political patterns of domination and submission” creating the perpetuation of negative stereotypes for black women in particular.