VENUS NOIRE

Her name is synonymous with the ugliest of racial and sexual exploitation: The 'Hottentot Venus' — born Sarah ‘Saartjie Baaartman’ in South Africa, circa 1770 — became a freak-show attraction in early-19th-century Europe, where she was brought by her slave master/manager, Hendrik Caezar. In grimy London carnivals and, later, in the libertine salons of aristocratic Parisians, Baartman was gawked at and groped (and more), the object of prurient fascination of those mesmerized by her 'savage' performances and her enlarged buttocks and labia — physical conditions that would soon attract the relentless scrutiny of French anatomists. After her act lost its titillating appeal, she turned to prostitution; Baartman died in 1815, most likely due to a combination of pneumonia and venereal disease.