Bimbofication Or Bust: The Limits To Accelerationist Femininity

Paris Hilton, an oft-cited influence on contemporary Bimbo culture, circa the early 2000s

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Introduction

It appears as if “femininity”, as it currently exists, is in crisis. This phrasing, commonly associated with the reactionary politics espoused by members of the Men’s Rights Movement, has a vastly different connotation when applied to the numerous permutations of feminine expression that’ve emerged within the past decade. These permutations, unlike their socially acceptable counterparts, have sought to position themselves in opposition to a conception of femininity defined by patriarchal norms and conventions. Many of these new femininities are products of social media, whose capacity for the viral dissemination of information within expansive ecosystems allows for the development of novel forms of identification and expression, forms that now seek to upend the pervasive sexualization of women in contemporary Western culture. 

Out of all the virulent strains of digital feminine expression that have gained significant traction on social media within recent years, “Bimbo culture”, long maligned, has emerged as one of the foremost exponents of an ostensibly radical approach to the expression of feminine sexuality. While the aesthetics associated with Bimbo culture - Dyed blonde hair, breast implants, and fake nails - are not new, it is their utilization as a tool of social critique that is.

Long regarded as a hyper-sexualized stereotype meant to disparage women, the re-appropriation of the Bimbo, which has primarily occurred online, has resulted in an unconditional embrace of hyper-sexuality, weaponizing it in an attempt to destabilize the gender dynamics which allow feminine sexuality to be rendered subordinate to masculine desire. As such, the proliferation of the Bimbo and the associated process of becoming one, termed “Bimbofication” by adherents and detractors alike, has become imbued with the capacity for subversion. 

However admirable the attempt at weaponizing appearance - now the dominant force driving consumption within developed societies - against itself, it appears unclear as to whether “Bimbofication”, alongside the wholehearted embrace of associated aesthetics, will result in the kind of sexual and behavioral emancipation so indefatigably pursued by many women. It is through an examination of this aforementioned tension that the viability of such an approach can be determined. 

Accelerationist Femininities

Foremost amongst the processes that’ve led to the re-appropriation of aesthetic signifiers associated with Bimbofication is the emergence of “Accelerationist Femininities”, of which the digital Bimbo is the archetypal embodiment.  “Accelerationist Femininities”, to provide a cursory definition, involves the theoretical “acceleration” - that is, the intensification and amplification - of aesthetic and behavioral signifiers associated with contemporary feminine expression. These signifiers, such as hair color and nail length, are imbued with a sense of “potentiality” - that is, a radical degree of aesthetic fluctuation - and are thus rendered political. Whereas external pressures, many of them patriarchal, may’ve once governed a woman’s outward presentation - Bimbos, along with their accelerationist contemporaries - have sought to inexorably alter this dynamic. By taking these aesthetic signifiers and subsequently amplifying them to a degree that many would consider discomforting, practitioners establish a “line of flight”, to invoke Deleuzian parlance; such extreme forms of presentation are considered emancipatory by virtue of their supposed inability to be recuperated by capitalism. Ironically, it is through a stated adherence to superficiality, rather than in spite of it, that such a dramatic reinterpretation of the feminine can occur. 

It should not be considered unfathomable that this re-conception of the Bimbo, now firmly situated within accelerationist rhetoric, is also in opposition to Capitalism. In “Preliminary Materials For A Theory Of The Young-Girl”, Tiqqun theorize that capitalism, as it currently exists, has become dominated by the conceptual entity of the “Young-Girl”, an image of the idealized consumer, one whose consumption takes place at the level of the libidinal and whose body, once immune from the deleterious effects of commodification, becomes the primary venue for consumption. The Young-Girl, which is “…not a gendered concept”, is still presented as the embodiment of the “feminine” ideal, the apotheosis of desire, writing,

“Young people, because adolescence is the "period of time with none but a consumptive relation to civil society”… Women, because it is the sphere of reproduction, over which they still reign, that must be colonized. Hypostasized Youth and Femininity, abstracted and recoded into Youthitude and Femininitude, find themselves raised to the rank of ideal regulators of the integration of the Imperial citizenry. The figure of the Young-Girl combines these two determinations into one immediate, spontaneous, and perfectly desirable whole.” 

Tiqqun assert that patriarchal society transforms feminine eroticism, as conceived of as the synthesis between Youth and Femininity, into the consummate form of value, claiming that “..in the time of the Young-Girl, woman becomes the metaphor of money”; it is for this reason that we are inundated with advertising material and media which prominently feature hyper-sexualized young women - all impossibly thin, all having transcended conventional beauty standards, all having become the ideal conduit for the ruthless valorization of libidinal consumption. That men exhibit characteristics associated with that of the Young-Girl only reflects the centrality of desire to the operation of contemporary capitalism. Patriarchy becomes a  mechanism for deterritorialization; No longer a force for prohibition, it actively cultivates a particular conception of the erotic conducive to the continued expansion of the market, the continued incursion of capitalism into the private domain, the continued subjugation of women to the libidinal impulses of men and, by extension, capital. 

Whereas the Young-Girl’s erotic sensibilities and characterization serve as the primary locus of oppression within capitalist society, the Bimbo’s accelerationist approach to feminine signification transforms eroticism into an asset; Lyotard envisioned capitalism as producing a subject governed by the self-contained and cyclical nature of desire, depicted as akin to a Mobieus strip, that the process of Bimbofication succeeds in subverting. By presenting an alternative form of hypersexuality, one that stands in stark contrast to that outlined by Tiqqun, irreparable ruptures are made within this conception of desire. Bimbo eroticism thus transgresses the limits of acceptability, becoming a means by which to render vulgar libidinal impulses - those not considered suitable for visual consumption or marketing - subordinate to those who’ve adopted these aesthetic signifiers, who now occupy a position of relative autonomy as a result. 

Libidinal Suppression

There are, unfortunately, limits to this particular methodology of obtaining emancipation, which as of now, has not been discussed in any considerable detail. While it may appear to be politically expedient to focus on the latent emancipatory capacities of aesthetic revolt, this makes such an approach particularly vulnerable to the process of recuperation first outlined by Debord. According to Debord, recuperation involves the refinement of  the “…mechanism of spectacularization… it must involve the public by incorporating elements of representation that correspond — in fragments — to social rationality.” While this definition is vague, it effectively argues that to remain viable, capitalism must ensure that it retains its stranglehold over the daily lives of those subordinate to its logic, primarily through the capture and sterilization of concepts, ideas, behaviors and forms of being either alien or hostile to it. 

Libidinal recapture is not immune to these processes, proving the attempt to upset the existing gender dynamic intrinsically fraught. As the “Bimbo”, now conceived of as a radical force, has come to pose an existential threat to the established order which subordinates masculine desire to feminine sexual expression, capital has intervened, transforming this formerly “vulgar” form of feminine presentation into one with market appeal; it has become the new paragon of desire, its vision for a novel form of radical femininity preemptively commodified before even being brought to bear. Even its attempt at aesthetic acceleration is stymied by the market - How can one conceive of a force more reactive than one whose sole function is to channel highly volatile reactivity into mammoth profit? It is this impasse that accelerationist femininities must continually confront and which will inevitably subsume them. If capitalism thrives upon the synthesis of desire and aesthetics, it is almost impossible to imagine an aesthetic, even one as transgressive as that of the Bimbo, delivering its adherents to salvation.