One idea in the reading this week that I found most intriguing was the idea that mermaids are sexualized, whereas mermen are seen as ugly creatures. When describing the Christian Church’s use of merpeople as symbolism, it is stated: “…authors and illustrators represented mermen either as ugly creatures intended to oppose the mermaid’s striking femininity and sexuality, or as a symbol of Christian piety” (p. 14). I found this idea particularly interesting because it reminded me of an essay I read a few years back on the sexualization of Asian people in the United States. I can’t quite remember the name, but there are many essays on this topic–the hyper-sexualization of Asian women and the ‘yellow fever’, which is sharply juxtaposed to the desexualization of Asian men. I wonder if there is a connection between the idea of the ‘foreign’ and this chosen hyper-sexualization versus desexualization of mermaids. It is mentioned in the introduction that the hope of finding mermaids was reserved for the uncharted territories on the maps–to the east and to the west–making these sea creatures of foreign lands. Particularly, mermaids were often depicted in the seas of the lands in the ‘Far East’. 

https://www.csusm.edu/apidafsa/documents/hypersexualization_asianwomen_april2021_readonly.pdf

For further comparison of the similarities between Asian women and mermaids, I found these slides from CSUSM. On the 20th slide, there are two types of Asian women stereotypes shown: the Dragon Lady stereotype and the Lotus Blossom/War Bride stereotype. The Dragon Lady is seen as “licentious, immoral, diseased, cunning, wicked, dehumanized, a threat who should be extinguished”. On the other hand, the Lotus Blossom is “poor, obedient, passive, exotic, helpless, submissive, objectified, dispensable”. These two contrasts are similar to how the Christian Church saw mermaids, as both a symbol of wonder and danger. On page 41: “Hence the repeating image of mermaids as dangerous, passionate, sexual beings…” And comparatively, Asian women are seen as that as well–the Dragon lady is dangerous and cunning (also similar to depictions of sirens), but the Lotus Blossom is seen as sexual, passionate, exotic. Perhaps we can bring this beyond Asian women, to women in general, how they are depicted in the media and stereotyped. Some are seen as cunning, wicked, and dehumanized–like politicians. On the other hand, others are objectified and sexualized–like actresses.  

For this week’s reading I found it fairly interesting in regards to getting to know the origin and history of the mermaid and how the fascination came about. While reading the text I found that the origin began from the idea of trying to “cultivate the largest following possible” for the early christian churches by trying to embrace a mix of pagan and christian beliefs; thus introducing the idea of mermaids and merpeople to the church (Scribner, page 15). The first introduction of mermaids from the church began with Atargatis, when comparing mermen and mermaids the church often would depict mermaids as the more dangerous type. So in regards to the female prototype for mermaids, “Atargatis symbolized the danger of love and lust an association which christians would later embrace wholeheartedly,” and that is a theme that I saw when doing the reading this week that the church men would depict only female merpeople as the more threatening type (Scribner, page 10). Again men degrading women for their own selfish needs, in this case trying to grow a religion. Even with the origin story of mermen and mermaids the difference was very much there, “Mermen found their origins in a greek god, mermaids largely originated from hideous beasts who only intended to bring man to destruction through his own lust for sex and power,” this clear distinction of men again making women seem less than or even a danger was all because the “christian churchmen were on a mission to dethrone femininity” (Scribner, page 11). With making these female creatures seem like a threat to men, church men also overly sexualized mermaids to again emphasize the lust and the only purpose that these mermaids had, which was another theme I recognized. “Churchmen especially adopted these pagan creatures in an effort to depreciate the feminine – hence the overtly sexual representation of mermaids in church carvings, bestiaries, illuminated texts, and artwork” (Scribner, page 11-12). With creating nude art and carvings of mermaids and putting them in churches, churchmen were further emphasizing the purpose of these beings and just the female body for only sexual purposes. Thus again the idea and pattern of men exploiting women and creating narratives to only benefit themselves.