Phallus Envy

Meant to write something about this article on penis enlargement in the Guardian a couple of days ago, but better late than never I guess. While the article is right to talk about the homoeroticism of this "locker room surgery," the Freudian lead-in is rather misleading, indeed I wonder if the author has actually read Freud, and lies in the persistent confusion between the phallus and the penis (see the article's title).

The phallus for Freud, and Freudians like Lacan, is not merely the penis, indeed there's only a rough equivalence between the two. It's what the phallus represents that is important, in this culture it's power (seen the cultural privileging of "masculine" values like hardness*). So for Freudians, the phallus can never actually be possessed, no matter how large a penis you have, because it exists as a symbolic representation. So the men in the story are clearly chasing after the phallus signifier of power, hence the actuality of their penises can never be enough.

Freud did indeed ascribe penis envy to women, but Freudians following after him have been fairly clear that the implications of phallus envy are equally applicable for men. Those implications, though, are substantially different depending on gender. As usual, it pays to look to our culture's monsters for an insight into how this works--on the one hand, phallic women are a persistent figure of the monstrous whilst feminised men frequently appear as a warning about the danger of men not aspiring to the phallus (that feminisation being linked in a phallogocentric symbolic economy with queerness, whether blatant or insinuated).

I've written elsewhere about the feminised male monstrous, but that feminine phallic monstrousity must also be accounted for by texts that have active female leads. It's one of the markers of post-feminist heroes like Buffy or Jennifer Garner in Alias that the female lead must off-set her phallic power with a sexualisation for a (presumably) male audience. Whilst the article points out the surrealism of the search for a mythic penis, and begins a critique of the homosocial/homoerotic continuum, I think it would be far more productive for us as a culture to start interrogating the terms of the phallic economy. Why privilege the penis, when a strap-on will do just as well? Why continue to situate an active masculine/passive feminine predicated on a mapping of phallus to penis, when that has been well and truly exploded by bottoming men, topping women, switches, trannies, tranny fags and on and on? Forget the "size doesn't matter" debate, where's the discourse on whether dicks should matter at all?

*though on the flipside, Luce Iragaray points out that the privileging of apparently neutral "transcendental" values like Truth and Beauty in the arts and sciences (she singles out medicine in particular) typically obscures a masculinist viewpoint that relegates women to the bodily. In her view, men get to be individuals, while women merely are... similar theories of difference apply to race, class and sexuality..

Brokeback Mountain

For anyone who hasn't read Annie Proulx's short story, here's the link, since the New Yorker seems to have taken it down.

Queer Drag

"Cast with such proven heteronormative stars, the audience can be certain that the film represents play, not identity. This is a formula that Esther Newton took note of in her pioneering study of female impersonators, Mother Camp, where she notes that 'known legitimate performers sometimes do drag in the movies and on TV but are not thought of as drag queens'(5 n13)."

"Passing as Queer and Racing Towards Whiteness, Kathyrn Kane, Genders, Issue 42, 2005.

Since Brokeback Mountain and Transamerica are both reliant on performers with public straight personas, the quote seems pretty relevant. Both films, like To Wong Foo, represent queerness as a form of drag that straight performers can put on for the screen, and then divest themselves of once on the usual chat show circuit. It's kind of another version of metrosexuality or indeed blackface--you play with the spice of Otherness, but make sure that the play is not mistaken for actual identity*.

*on the other hand, to not confess one's straightness when playing a gay, lesbian or transgendered role is to in some sense already be outed--see for instance Sean Haye's (Jack from Will & Grace) refusal to talk about his sexual identity, there wouldn't be the same scrutiny of that refusal if he was playing a het character.

Fill My Pills, Dammit

Awhile back I wrote something about the bastard pharmacists refusing to fill women's contraception prescriptions due to their own anti-contraception beliefs (pro-life is way too kind a description, let's be honest, the Right doesn't give a shit about kids once they're born). Here's a site organising to protest this disturbing invasion of women's rights. If you're American and plan on ever having sex without conceiving, get involved, and get active.

Lean On Me

Came across this really sweet transamourous comic by an artist called Jade Gordon. It's basically a high-school romance thing, with lots of cross-dressing, gender-fucking and commentary on gender and sexuality. You know you want it.

You like me, you really like me

I know those "news" stories you get when you log into MSN are stupid and facile, but this one really excels at stupid and facile. Oh, ok, one movie and suddenly all these redneck states are feeling the queer love. How many American states voted to ban gay marriage last year, again? but between Brokeback and Transamerica, I feel so accepted and validated now--it's official, homophobia and transphobia are a thing of the past. Aww.

Funny how there's all this talk about "gay" movies (isn't Brokeback Mountain actually a bisexual story? I don't think the pervasive homophobia of the time and place are necessarily enough to invalidate 100% the opposite-sex relationships...) and yet the whole of Hollywood is still an enormous closet. Shit, it's almost like there's such a widespread homophobia that performers aren't willing to risk their million-dollar paychecks by coming out. At the very least, coming out means becoming the "gay" or "lesbian" performer, rather than just themselves--it becomes an unavoidable referent to every aspect of an artist's work in a way that heterosexuality never is. Cultural privilege is often the privilege of individualism, one gets to be an individual instead of a cultural category, marked by difference.

Whilst Brokeback and Trans will both undeniably have an effect on a generation of kids coming out (to themselves first and foremost), in a lot of ways it's already preaching to the converted. The straight folks who see it are likely to be already pretty accepting of same-sex relationships, the people who are most virulently homophobic are just not going to go anywhere near it. Whilst each movie will undeniably become part of a general cultural conversation about gender and sexuality, it's just way too easy to over-estimate the emancipatory effects of film.. Priscilla, Queen of the Desert was a massive homegrown hit here, but it didn't exactly make coming out any easier, and it most certainly hasn't meant that it's any safer for trannies and drag queens to walk the streets of most of the country.

For all of that, I am *still* looking forward to seeing both films, because it is so rare to see queer stories in mainstream arenas (seriously, Queer Eye etc scarcely count, most of them are either desexualised gay men or "hot" femme lesbians... not exactly progressive) that it'll still be really nice to see them up on the big screen.

The 10 Commandments According to My Television

stolen from Serenity Rose issue 1, by aaron alexovitch

I thou shalt not resist booze.
II thou shalt not disparage money.
III thou shalt not refuse sexual relations, as sexual relations are the only important thing in the whole wide world ever.
IV thou shalt never be average in the looks departmentm (ugly is right out).
V thou shalt never deny the existence of some sort of god or something.
VI thou shalt never fail to defend your friends and family (those similar to you) regardless of the facts.
VII thou shalt never fail to attack your enemies (those dissimilar to you) regardless of the facts.
VIII thou shalt have a whole mess of spawn (min. 2).
IX thou shalt never be alone.
X america rocks!!

J.T Leroy

I admit it, I don't want to believe that writer J.T Leroy is a hoax. Why would such a talented writer need to make up a back-story of child prostitution, cross-dressing, and heroin addiction? I guess that's part of the frission with a seemingly autobiographical writer...

Truthfully part of me thinks that for that story to be true is too unbearable a truth for our culture--Leroy's life would seem to talk of an America fucked beyond belief. His existence, like that of rape and abuse victims, would be literally obscene, a truth too difficult to maintain. There are some truths that are just too difficult to really accept, that there are children out there working as prostitutes, or with abusive families, or with drug problems is just not something we can deal with. To have it all come together in one writer would be just too much. Or maybe it's the rags to riches tale that is unbearable, abuse is fine so long as one doesn't profit from it.

Anyway, most of literary America seems to be leaning towards Leroy being a hoax. One of JT Leroy's earliest supporters Susie Bright has posted a number of interesting posts on the subject--in particular, this one which posits that JT's writing is comparable to slash fiction. I still don't quite know what to think, but it's an interesting way to read Leroy's work alright.

*Update* here's some more links on the fall-out:
Helen Boyd writes that JT's use of transgender-as-cover only plays on stereotypes of transpeople as liars.
The Bay Reporter points out that the deception plays on trans and homophobia - whilst pointing out that the criticism will inevitably be tinged with the same.
GLBTQI youth in San Fran get rightly pissed about *their* stories being appropriated.
And lastly, a couple transgender writers have their say.

*Recent Classics* Junior Boys - Last Exit

The first in a possible series of posts about kickarse albums that are classic, but not venerable enough to make any kind of established critical canon. So, first up we have Canadian electronic group the Junior Boys.

Last Exit was released in 2004 I believe, following a couple of appetite-whetting EPs. Initially when I got the album late 2004/early 2005 I caned it for about six months, but this afternoon I pulled the album down off the shelf and it still holds up now (always a good sign). Unlike the Rachel Stevens review, I can't be arsed doing a track by track analysis for this one though.

Basically the sound of the album is electro, but it's electro refracted through the rhythms of 2-step garage and Timbaland rnb. The synths are warm and soundscapey (without getting into IDM-yawn territory) and the beats are intricate. I know it was a fairly common way to review the album at the time, but Last Exit really is like the Pet Shop Boys with Timbaland on the drum programming, or something. Melancholy, even icy at times (hey they are Canadian *bmm tssh*), but always interesting and consistent across the album. Standout track is the single "Birthday" (one of the few vocals) and there's remixes by Fennesz and a few others also worth checking out. "High Come Down" is another standout vocal, but truthfully, the whole album is good from start to finish. So hurrah for those melancholy Canadians, and hopefully they manage to come through on that promised follow-up sometime this year.

Fading/Falling/Drowning

I have been watching the anime series Serial Experiments Lain this week--it's bloody good. Basically it explores the usual cyberpunk hijinks, but with the added twist that the virtual and the digital worlds have started to bleed into one another. Though there's other anime series with a similar visual aesthetic (Witch Hunter Robin springs to mind), the visuals actually remind me more of Waking Life--minus the existential ramblings.. seriously, existentialism was their idea of current philosophy? The series plays between two truisms of the postmodern world--everyone's connected, and no-one is. I'm only a quarter through, but so far it's been pretty absorbing.

The theme song for the series is good too-- K-Pop/J-Pop artist BoA inna angsty Goth stylee. Here's a link for the song, nicked from here.

Zizek On 24 and Torture

Here's a really straight-forward article by Zizek about the television series 24, in which he argues that the series legitimates the real-life Unites States' increasingly open torture policy. He says "the message of the TV series, that torturers can retain their human dignity if the cause is right, is a profound lie." Since tv always does ideological work in the culture - ie it works to make certain ideas acceptable and others not - it is indeed troubling that 24 works to confer some kind of gravitas and respectability to the dispicable human rights crimes that the U.S has been responsible. And this is not to suggest that other countries are not just as bad, but this (and 24 is merely one text, one can find this same discourse in "real" news media as well) is a concerted effort to make torture somehow morally acceptable. And that's just plain wrong.

Animal Metaphors

Man, fuck Piers Ackerman. Why is that conservatives think comparing same-sex marriage to marrying an animal is a clever analogy? And just for good measure, Ackerman allies that with mental illness. Cos obviously, relationships between two consenting adults are clearly the same as a mentally ill woman marrying a dolphin. How can you even argue with that kind of logic, in which prejudice is the starting point for any kind of argument? Fuck Piers Ackerman, and fuck the Daily Telegraph for letting him publish this shite on a regular basis.

Odds and ends

Here's the best end-of-year list I've come across, with mp3s for the top 25. Link from Poptext, who has been given the old heavy-handed lawyer treatment for her own mp3 hosting, but stoically continues with a text-only version. If only there were some programs I had in which to search for these mp3s.. *sigh* if only... Also, the Prettiest Pony has up that Britney/DFA collaboration her record company rejected for being "too hip." Proving once and for all that record companies have no business making records.

Elsewhere, Lenin breaks down the racist tea-cup storm over the 50 cent movie posters in the UK, with help from a killer quote from bell hooks. hooks' point about gangsta rap as labour for a wider misogynistic culture is a good one, I always find it ironic that hip-hop and Islam are slagged off for misogyny and homophobia by media and politicians that are so frequently both themselves (George Bush as champion of Afghan women springs to mind as the most laughable example, given his own war-on-contraception at home).

Sydney Riots II

Still thinking through the Sydney riots, and a bit that Zizek wrote about France (and recycled from somewhere else, Ticklish Subject maybe?) sprang to mind:

"All the talk about foreigners stealing work from us or about the threat they represent to our Western values should not deceive us: under closer examination, it soon becomes clear that this talk provides a rather superficial secondary rationalization. The answer we ultimately obtain from a skinhead is that it makes him feel good to beat foreigners, that their presence disturbs him. What we encounter here is indeed Id-Evil, the Evil structured and motivated by the most elementary imbalance in the relationship between the Ego and jouissance, by the tension between pleasure and the foreign body of jouissance in the very heart of it. Id-Evil thus stages the most elementary "short-circuit" in the relationship of the subject to the primordially missing object-cause of his desire: what "bothers" us in the "other" (Jew, Japanese, African, Turk) is that he appears to entertain a privileged relationship to the object - the other either possesses the object-treasure, having snatched it away from us (which is why we don't have it), or he poses a threat to our possession of the object."

It's this relationship between racist and the Other that explains that the free-floating nature of the Sydney riots--that slippage between Lebanese, Muslim, Greek, Italian, whatever. The racist attack functions purely as projected desire onto the Other. "Justifications" are, in the end, just that, an excuse to slip into a mode of behaviour one had already desired.

Yesterday I slagged off The Brothers Grimm for its French villains, but they function in much the same way. The villains are, naturally in this post-Iraq epoch, over-the-top Frenchmen. The chief villain, played by Johnathon Pryce if my information on the internets is right, was finickey beyond belief, and yet, in a torture scene, ate a bit from a diced cat. Similarly, sexuality is over-the-top, effete femme gay boys who are also after your women. That monstrous figure is so central to the cinema of the last 20 years, the coding of the monstrous as feminised masculinity, underphallic and oversexed at the same time. Think of Gladiator, or the many villains that litter those Law & Order type shows--often conflated with Englishness in American productions. For some reason Englishness often gets coded as inherently queer in America, public-school-accented-nancy-boys. Even the last Harry Potter (an English production, so at least it had the relief of throwing other models of Englishness into the mix) had Ralph Fiennes doing a deliciously camp Lord Voldemore, apparently J.K Rowling's ultimate evil turned out to be a bald OTT queen (who knew?)

The point is, then, it is the Other's apparent privileged relationship to jouissance (Lacanian terminology for sexual ecstasy) that entails this excess. As Zizek says, the Other either has the object, or prevents our access to it. The Other becomes overwritten in contradictory meanings--simultaneously gay and straight, feminine and masculine, foreign and yet here. Edward Said famously wrote in Orientalism about how the West's desires structure depictions of the East. Indeed, the decadent East of harems, opium, eunuchs, is inflected with anxieties about gender and sexuality--the racialised (ie non-white) body becomes over-infused with sexuality, and not just in the East, the "black buck" idea continues powerfully, for instance, in American discourse on hip-hop.

The privileged access to desire structures television current affairs programs like Today Tonight or A Current Affair here, indeed to much conservative discourse generally. Someone - dole cheats, single mothers, immigrants, fat kids - has privileged access to a desire, and the current affairs program stages a phantasmic recovery of desire for the lacking viewing, crusading to stamp outall those fat single mothers on the dole with a phoney worker's comp. Current affairs shows run on this resentment, indeed that is basically their raison d'etre.

It is this resentment of the Other that fuelled the white rioters in Sydney. This was not merely about an attacked life-guard, this was about a group of Australians who felt they were under threat. In these circumstances, the flourishing of the Australian flag was a clear symbolic gesture that suggested that whiteness and Australianess were one and the same. That disturbing presence of the foreigner that Zizek mentioned is predicated on the visual "scanning" of racial difference, presence is enough. In fact, any demonstration that immigrants keep their culture merely fuels that resentment--language difference in particular infuriates people. I cannot count the times I have heard an Australian say "if they want to come to our country, the least they can do is learn the language." Australia's much vaunted multiculturalism, then, depends on true alterity being elided--the Other is fine so long as they minimise difference. And even then, there is some kernel that elides measurement, what Zizek would call the Real of racism, the Other is ultimately always unknowable. It was this kernel of the Real that lead the Third Reich to try to empirically measure Jewishness, as if there were some secret element waiting to be discovered.

That kernel of Otherness - at least as a function of the racist's desire - sees conflations between these disparate positions - butch, femme, gay, straight, bisexual, French, English, Lebanese, Greek, Italian, Chinese, Jewish, African-American and on and on. Interestingly, though, unlike the fall-out from September 11 in the States, the one surprise to me is that it didn't seem to be overwritten in homophobia. The pathologising of socially marginal catergories, however, means that inevitably the culture becomes written in a palimpsest of these shifting and interlocking cultural anxieties--I'm waiting for the next batch of oversexualised queer-but-woman-stealing villains to appear on tv here, newly made over as Middle Eastern.