The Independent, Monday February 28, 1994,  Page 18

"Why I Adore the Penis," by a radical lesbian feminist

Professor Camille  Paglia,  famous for her attacks on the politically
correct school of feminism, has now made a film in praise of the male
organ. She explains herself to Ruth Picardie

By Ruth Picardie

= Why make a film about the penis?

Women who can't deal with men, who can't deal with the penis, are just
immature, they're adolescent. I'm tired of it. I'm trying to bring a
whole new kind of sexual sophistication to feminism, to allow even
women who are openly lesbian, as I am with my lover, to say that we
regard the penis as hot. It's natural for any woman, lesbian or not, to
regard the penis as hot; your body naturally responds to that.

There's a puritanism in anglo-American feminism. It's all about
trivialising men, jeering at men, diminishing them, cutting them down.
People get mad at me.  They say, 'It's not true, we're not phobic.' And
I say, 'Yes you are. You may have hot private lives with your husbands
or lovers, but when it comes to your stupid ideology, it's completely
sanitised.' My feminism is all about strong men, strong women. It's not
about strong women, castrated men.

I don't believe there is such a thing as pornography. There is nothing
degrading or humiliating about the open display of the genitals or of
any sex act whatever. Right now, I'm in this magazine called Playguy.
It's all about a video I made with this drag queen, Glenda Orgasm.
Fabulous. Page after page of the most beautiful boys, the most
beautiful penises. Gay men have such a sense of sexuality, such a sense
of eroticism. It is so depressing the lack of it among lesbians. The
kind of images they produce are just boring and banal.

There's a sensuality lacking from all feminist discourse. I am highly
aware of the excessive gentility, the white bread quality of a lot of
feminist discourse. That's what I'm attacking. The penis is perfect
because it makes people very uncomfortable. Deal with the penis. If you
can't deal with it, you are not pro-sex.

= But you personally don't respond to the penis?

Here's the problem. I grew up in the Fifties which was a highly
conformist era and I had, there's no doubt, a massive gender
dysfunction. My particular aggressive personality was completely out of
sync with what was expected of a young girl at that time. I thought I
was probably a boy. I was also attracted to women when I was very tiny.
Then when puberty hit, suddenly my body changed.  Boom! I found myself
attracted to creatures I couldn't stand.

I still don't get along with men as erotic partners, but the point is
my body became attracted to male bodies. I've dated men, I just haven't
had relationships with them. My problem with men I guess would have to
be called a political problem. I can mate perfectly well with men on a
physical level; I'm very attracted on a physical level. But I don't
fall in love with them; I'm not involved with them emotionally. I'm one
of the strangest mutant creatures on the face of the earth.

I'm honest enough to admit that mother nature wants my body to mate
with men. I resisted it. To me, that's the rebellion of feminism. But
just because we don't want to be under the power of men, does not mean
that we have to continue to say penises are silly, penises are ugly.

We're trying to force anglo-American feminism to face images, without
all of this sermonising, this attempt to edit and censor. The best way
to do it is with a penis. Force the penis! The way men see sex is sex.
The penis is the ultimate symbol of real feminist liberation for the
21st century.

Followers of Michel Foucault argue that men and women are exactly the
same, we're tabula rasa, we're only gendered by society. That is
riduculous. There is an enormous difference. Your whole life is going
to be different if you have a thing hanging between your legs. It
doesn't mean that you're definitely going to be more powerful, or more
self-confident, but your whole attitude towards life is different.

I talk about this in Chapter One of Sexual Personae, how a penis is
like an extension, it's like your hand or your arm, it goes outward
from you. You are testing things, you probe. Men when they urinate have
this arc, they project outward, and they have to learn how to do it.
Adulthood is learning how to aim, to focus, to make an arc of
transcendance. Women merely water the ground they stand on.

The actual physicality, the unarguable concrete physicality of our sex
lives has got to be brought back to centre stage. The masses of people
on the earth would agree with me. I'm sick of a bunch of white
middle-class feminists sitting around saying it doesn't make any
difference at all that a person has this long finger of flesh between
their legs. They make me sick.

= What's your favourite representation of a penis?

The ancient Greeks felt that a large penis was a sign of animality, of
bestiality. A man was embarrassed to have a large penis and coveted a
small, shapely boy-like penis. For that reason, the Greek nudes always
have tiny penises. Also, having a long, pendulous penis in its real
size throws off the proportion. The great Greek classic sculptures are
always organised by the golden mean -- the proportion of the size of
the head to the rest of the body.

In the the medieval period you don't get the beautiful nude at all. If
there are any nudes at all it will be Adam and Eve -- ugly, crabbed,
the mortification of the flesh, the ugliness of the flesh -- in a
window. The Renaissance, beginning with Michelangelo's David, was
simply imitating the classical style.

That's a convention that goes throughout the 19th century, right up to
the photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe. A conventionally sized penis
looks very odd to us. It looks vulgar in a high art context because we
have been trained in this tradition of having it shrunk down.

You might have a satyr -- half goat, half human, a creature of the
woods -- with a big penis and an erection. He's usually pointing at
some nymph or some hermaphrodite. But it's always considered vulgar,
comic, pornographic, never part of the high art tradition. Part of the
comedy of Aristophanes is having figures on stage with gigantic
leather, sawdust-filled phalluses with which they would bat each other
over the heads. It was considered incredibly humorous.

The Western art tradition depends on contour: the sharp, sculptural
outline of the human body. When you have a very muscular body of a guy
who's been doing weight training, there's this thing hanging there,
this bag, this loose flesh.  Even if he gets an erection, the balls
bounce around. It is the one area of unstructured fleshiness on the
male figure. The way they dealt with this as a visual problem was
simply to shrink it.

Mapplethorpe was probably the first to be able to get the actual image
of the penis at its true size into the high art context. I have to say
that his representation of the penis is my favourite, because he's not
lying, he's not trying to shrink them, to reduce them to the ''proper''
proportions.

Do you suffer from penis envy?

I agree with what Madonna says in that horrible book, Sex. She doesn't
have penis envy, she doesn't want a dick, she says: 'I already have a
dick in my brain.' I think I have power envy. A penis must be very
aggravating. You'd have to go around with it bouncing up and down all
day long.

What is your view of the Bobbitt case?

I've carried a knife for years. The implication is that if anyone
touches me I will stab them or cut it off. One of my most famous
pictures was two years ago in People magazine, where I posed with an
Italian switchblade knife. It's open and coming at the camera. There's
another picture of me posing with a sword in front of the Philadelphia
Museum of Art.

All of these images were to imply the Amazonism that I think is
necessary for the contemporary woman. Men have to start realising the
power women have in any given sexual encounter, the power to cut it
off. So I treat Lorena Bobbitt as a heroine.

At the same time, she committed a criminal act and I feel she should
have been convicted and gone to prison. It's absolutely ridiculous that
her husband was acquitted of assault charges and yet, at her trial,
they acted as if he were guilty. I don't accept this post-traumatic
syndrome that put her into an insane state when she cut it off.

To attack a person while they're sleeping is cowardly, that is tacky.
It makes me sick. Stabbing someone in the back is not fair play.

If she'd cut it off while he was attacking her, or while they were
fighting, I would have applauded it. I would have admired her if she
had said, 'Yes I did it, it was a blow for women, I'm guilty and I'm
going to prison.' If she'd stood up and taken responsibility for it.
Instead of saying 'Oh I was just a victim.'

By the way, Lorena Bobbitt is Latin. She's from South America. I'm
Italian.  The same thing. Vendetta! Take the knife in your hands.

32 responses total.

Very enjoyable!  Thanks, arron.

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Uh...  Like, the lady who wrote this is, well, uh, stupid n stuff.

What a sorry excuse for a human.

I wondered when the furor started.  I'm beginning to understand.  This woman
*is* strange.

She's got guts, though.  It's too bad that most of Paglia's ideas are
like the above, calculated annoyances manufactured to make the academics
jump.  I read her second book, the collection of essays on education,
Madonna, feminism, etc.  If half of what she says about the cutthroat
careerism and quackery that passes for scholarship is true...then maybe
more outspoken Paglias are needed in the world.  I don't know.  I found
her essays on Madonna (which amount to undisguised groveling) to be 
highly annoying.  Yet I agree (from a distance) with her opinion that
French theorists like Derrida and Foucault have ushered in a swarm of
empty-headed lingo-slingers, and should be 'dumped back into the ocean'
as she puts it.  Her attacks on them (both the French and their American
shadows) are hilarious, and if true:  depressing to say the least.
And her groveling before 60's & 70's pop culture--that's really annoying!
She loves to cite people like Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan, and the 
'psychedelic' subculture, as being some really valid, worthwhile
phenomenon which is more or less the embodiment of what a lot of 
philisophical systems are trying to *say*.  It always scares me when
people do that.  I've had discussions (in good philosophy courses,
mind you) where Madonna has been used in the same way.  Not as a kind
of fictional character or Freudian wish-phantasm conjured out of the
heads of record company executives but as some self-conscious, active
agent who is in some bizarre way tuned to the same frequency as academia.
Paglia will go on and on in that vein, reflecting on how we really don't
need Derrida because we have David Bowie (or whoever).  It's no wonder
that she's making films now like the one mentioned above "in celebration
of the penis."

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Paglia shows proper disdain for deconstructionism.  As for her views on 
Penii, while I cannot say that I envy the penis (I personally think that
one would be rather uncomfortable), I do see the penis as a focal point of
male ego, and think that behind our backs men spar with them.  We don't have
such a focal point, even though the vulva, could be just as powerful a 
symbol. I think that I'll make a movie called 'The Vulva'.

"Spar with them"?  No.  No.  Nope.  Never done that.

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I think she may mean spar figuratively, Mark.  Many men do use their penises as
competive tools in that they appear to compare size and make it a big issue.

I have never witnesses two men "comparing sizes," so I'm not sure what you
mean, Audrey.

/s/witnesses/witnessed

(It sorta makes a funny picture in the mind's eye... "En garde!")

Ok Mark, didn't mean literally sit and compare sizes.  But some men talk about
size (also some seem to boast about size) more then I think is warranted.
Can't tell you how often I have heard a man "joke" about how large his penis
is as if that was a big accomplishment or something to be valued.  And its
funny, I have only heard once a woman talk about a penis's size as being
relevant to anything (read sexual pleasure.)  That's what the "spar-ing"
comment reminded me of. Is this getting out of hand?  Do we want it in hand?
8-D.

   I guess I have heard men jokingly brag like that once in a while.  It's
kind of crass, though, and not done in a polite (read "non-locker room")
conversation, in my experience.  And I don't think anyone takes such
statements seriously, though I'll grant that having a small penis may be a
source of insecurity for some men.
   The best analogy I can think of is that the stereotype of men talking
about their penis sizes in the locker room is like the stereotype of
women gossiping in the beauty parlor.  I doubt most women ever even visit
the beauty parlor these days, and not all of those that do pay attention
to what they hear there.

True, when penis size is discussed, the men doing so are almost always "joking"
On the otherhand, when in the beauty parlor (and many of us still go to get
our hair cut) I don't talk to anyone else, much less compare the size of a
body organ (or orifice).  Do men really talk about size in the locker room?
I learn something new every day ;-).

I was on a bbs when someone asked me about my measurements.  I asked about
his measurement. funny how I thought that the perfect thing to deflate his
ego would be to attack his 'unit'

ROTFL.  What a great response, miranda.

Re #16:  Actually, I haven't been in a locker room since high school, Audrey,
so I can't really speak for what goes on there.  My point was that talking
about penis size is not a thing that happens in a normal, run-of-the-mill
daytime conversation.  It occurred to me, though, after I entered #15, that
maybe some women think that when men are left without and women around, they
are always very crude (and they "spar" with whatever's at hand).  That's not
true, though it is probably accurate that the average all male conversation
is measurably different from the average mixed-company conversation.

Re #17:  I think that's the perfect response, Miranda.  Anyone who asks for
measurements ought to be prepared to provide his or her own!

Now we're drifting off. . but you have piqued my interest in what men talk
about in all male company.  Please share.

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   Well, I've been trying for a couple of days to come up with a good
answer for y'all, but I haven't thought of anything earth-shattering. Most
of the (plentiful) all-male conversations I engage in are with the other
programmers in my group, who are indeed all male, and in fact all married. 
One talks about what a pain his wife is, all the time (and they fight on
the phone a lot).  There is hardly any talk about sports, oddly; I have in
the past found that talking about sports is one way that men who otherwise
have nothing in common can relate. 
   There is a lot of (boring, to me) talk about what neat computer
hardware is coming out soon.  People occasionally tell drinking stories,
or stories about flaunting authority (like, taking apart a masterlock and
figuring out how it works, and then making a pass key that would open any
lock of the same type).  I have one co-worker who seems to associate
everyone very closely with their car; I never know what he's talking about
because I rarely notice much about the kind of car a person drives.
   One of my co-workers is facinated by any new developement he's read
about in physics or engineering.  Unfortunately, he's a very blustery sort
of person and pretends to understand (and explain) a lot of things that he
doesn't truly grasp.  In other words, he bullshits us a lot.  (That bugs
me more than most people, since I used to be a math teacher.  :))
   We all refer to our programs as "he" a lot, which it occurred to me
might offend some women if any ever dropped in on our conversations.  I
thought about making a conscious effort to call some programs "she", but
that was worse; it sounds like you're making some kind of statement (it's
not clear what) about gender difference, and program differences, when you
make some of them male and some of them female.  I decided just to
associate the gender of a program with the gender of the programmer.
   I think that one of the things which sets the all-male conversations I
have apart from mixed-company conversations is the complete lack of sexual
tension.
   There are certainly jokes told, and off the cuff comments made, that
probably wouldn't be made in mixed company.  The other day, we were
discussing the fact that someone in another department had come to America
from Sweden; one co-worker said, "Well, I can understand that, with taxes
being so high in Sweden", and another said, "Are you kidding me?  Have you
*seen* the women in Sweden?!"  That sort of thing prompts a general laugh.
   There is more swearing, and more teasing, and more general disdain
expressed between men than between men and women, I think.
   Other than the above, mostly what we talk about is work, and that
wouldn't be any different if some of us were female.
   Disclaimer:  The above are my experiences only, and I would be very
surprised if every other male on the planet didn't answer differently
than I.

   So, it's only fair that I ask, what do women talk about when there are
no men around?  :)

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Not at my age, Valerie.  The kind of talk the women I associate with engage in

(Oh!  Please do that again, Audrey, I wanted to hear your answer.)

What the heck happened to the rest of my response?

Who remembers what I said?  I'll try again anyway for you, Mark.  Because
you seem so nice. . . .
If I am with women who are in the mentalhealth field, we talk about mental
health issues.  If I am with women with young children, we invariably talk
about children's issues and topics and problems around child raising.  If
I am with educators, we talk about problems and issues relative to schools
and education, including financing of same.  With women my own age, when
we are not talking about work related issues, we frequently talk about
the problems of helping our aging parents (and those problems are a never-
ending source of frustation.) 

But mostly, we intersperse our discussions with expressions about our
feelings about things.  I have noticed, and heard that men, when in same
sex company are not prone to talk about their feelings, but rather talk about
things (products, objects, processes.)  When they are with women, they are
more likely to let some discussion of their feelings surface.  That is,
if they are at all in touch with their feelings.

Women my age rarely talk about sex, and up until recently, rarely even
discussed their concerns about changes in their bodies.

Also, Valerie, I meant to add, single women of all ages seem to talk more
about men then do married women.  Not surprisingly, they talk about
difficulties in their relationships with men more then anything else.

One last thing, when I lived in NYC, I noticed that both women and men talked
much more about national issues, cultural events (music, literature, theater)
then they do out here.  I always felt I had to be "up" on the latest of
everything just to keep pace conversationally.  Here, I am more laid back in
terms of the breadth of my current topic knowledge.

Thanks, Audrey.  I think your statement about men not usually discussing
their feelings with each other is pretty accurate.

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Valerie, you've got to help me out and use smiley faces once in awhile when
you are kidding, or even smiling to yourself.  Also, I need a good face for
the times when I want to be a little sarcastic.  Anyone got one?

I go with the standard wink ;) .

Does anyone know if the term "Venus envy" exists, or may I take credit for
a new phrase to mean the male analog of penis envy? -camper

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