emmanuel reynaud holy virility the social construction of masculinity

severs a part of himself which he calls 'woman', and then
appropriates a woman to reconstitute, in the couple, the
mutilated human being. Having created the sex categories and
begun to define them, all that is left is for the narrator to finish
off his work with a striking myth: original sin.
The story is very well known but is generally taken at face value,
without being examined critically. Yet the scene depicts the
archetypal heterosexual patriarchal relationship. Man, who is
already minus a 'rib', is parted from his sexuality, symbolised by
a snake. With the help of deception ―call it smooth talk― and
with the phallus snake as go-between, «More crafty than any
wild creature that the Lord God had made» (ΙΙΙ:1) man seduces
woman and together they discover 'good and evil'. This odd way
of making love in a threesome, the phallus, the woman and the
man, which is presented as the first sexual relationship, is in
reality the standard heterosexual relationship and is
institutionalised as such:
«Then the Lord God said to the snake: 'Because you have
done this you are accursed more than all cattle and all wild
creatures. On your belly you shall crawl, and dust you shall
eat all the days of your life.' » (ΙΙΙ-14)
Male sexuality, confined to the penis, is reduced to less than
nothing¯and that is not all:
«I will put enmity between you and the woman between
your brood and hers.They shall strike at your head and you
shall strike at their heel.»(ΙΙΙ: 15)
[ Introduction /12 ]
If we bear in mind the fact that, in the Bible, ''foot'' is often used
as a euphemism for sexual organ, we can imagine what the
woman's 'heel' represents ... the image of the head of the penis
crushing the vulva on its way into the vagina plainly evokes the
heterosexual relationship within patriarchy. And it is once this
type of relationship is institutionalised that the creation of the
categories 'man' and 'woman' becomes complete.
«To the woman he said 'I will increase your labout and your
groaning and in labour you will bear children. You shall be
eager for your husband and he shall be your master.»(ΙΙΙ:
16)
Not one word is superfluous in the definition of the life of
woman: suffering, giving birth often and in pain, and an
irresistible 'desire' to be dominated by a man. As for man, he,
apart from the fact that he dominateg a woman, is definitely
identified with the human species, and his life is presented as a
daily struggle:
«And to the man he said: 'because se you have listened to
your wife and have eaten from the tree which I forbade you,
accursed shall be the ground on your account. With labour