emmanuel reynaud holy virility the social construction of masculinity

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want to be recognised as such, is not how to transform himself into a woman, but how to avoid overdoing it. For several years, the man who has decided to make his body resemble woman's as closely as possible has also been able to resort to surgery to transform his penis and testicles into a sort of vulva extended into a vagina. These operations are quite common in the United States, Morocco and in England, and individuals who have modified the criteria which assign them to a sex category, are sometimes allowed to change their legal status. There are many famous cases in Anglo-Saxon countries. In 1978, for the first time in France, three changes in civil status were granted by provincial tribunals. Somehow or other, when man manages to be recognised in his daily life as a woman, he can then hold jobs such as cashier, factory girl, hairdresser or typist, and even become a wife. But if he is refused legal recognition and he is short of money, the feminine image which most often attracts the transsexual and the transvestite is that of the woman as an object of contemplation which kindles desire in the man; and she is generally on a stage or walking the streets. Transvestite shows have always been highly successful. Man, who rarely dares live out his desire to dress up in woman's clothes, is fond of going to watch those who do it professionally on the stage; however, not feeling necessarily at ease faced with a body which he knows to be masculine, he generally prefers to laugh rather than desire. The entertainment world knows this, and most transvestite numbers are comic ― ridiculous get-ups, exaggerated poses, parody ― so that in fact the transvestite is not regarded as a woman, but as a transvestite; and man laughs more often than he gets a hard-on. Prostitution, on the other hand, offers real opportunities: by specialising in oral sex, the transvestite can be approached and treated 'like a woman'. Obviously, even if he has already had a breast operation, the situation carries the risk that a wandering hand might not be content just to fondle his breasts ―which are so 'perfect'― and wand to descend towards his genitals; then the reaction is unpredictable, and not necessarily violent. The encounter may end up with one of those good old conversations between men. [Man and his body / 29] Indeed, whatever he does to become a 'woman', and even if be occasionally manages to carry it off, the transvestite nevertheless remains socially a 'man'. Even the transsexual will never really be considered as a woman but always as a man trying to pass himself off as a woman. Neither of them can escape the 'man' category, they are merely the exceptions who confirm the rules. Through transvestism and transsexuality, man tries in vain to throw off virility; he will risk anything ― simple jeering, brutal social rejection, sefious physical mutilation― to no longer be a 'man'. He deeply feels the frustration of being locked in a
definition. But he does not usually find himself as a transvestite, as it is not in to himself, physically male, that he looks; all he does is try and imitate. Dazzled by 'woman', fascinated by femininity, he yearns to have those breasts, that vulva and that womb which he sees as symbols of the life, the beauty and the sensuality that he does not see in himself. When man feels ill at ease in his masculine body, which he does not always want to sacrifice on the altar of virile glory, it rarely occurs to him that he can discover life and beauty, fragility and sensuality in his own body. He generally prefers to try, as if by magic, to make it sensual by copying a female stereotype. Man struggles within his body, he seeks to free himself from it, but he generally gets his priorities wrong. It is not through fragmenting it or mutilating it that he will become independent and feel good in himself, but by accepting it as it is. Whether he wants it or not, his body is no more that tool which he tries to make into an instrument of power than the flesh which he tries to render attractive beneath a feminine appearance: it is simply an integral part of himself. [30 / Holy virility] It is not through the symbols of femininity that man will regain his integrity, his lost 'rib'. On the contrary, his freedom and the diversity of his pleasures begin beyond the sexual dichotomy: an unshaven face no longer has anything masculine about it, it can simply be the desire not to irritate the cheeks with a razor blade too often; a skirt no longer has anything feminine about it because it is pleasant to feel your legs free under the material, or because you enjoy, on a summer evening, to feel the warm air between the thighs. Anything is possible outside the definitions 'masculine' and 'feminine', and it is highly likely that the obsessive desire for the female body, be it to appropriate it or to imitate it, would no longer weigh on the male who could glimpse the potential of his own body when released from confinement in a sex category.
Page 1 and 2: EMMANUEL REYNAUD HOLY VIRILITY THE
Page 3 and 4: 1 INTRODUCTION Old ideas die hard;
Page 5 and 6: [Introduction / 3] The division int
Page 7 and 8: individual matter, in other words ,
Page 9 and 10: tenderness, etc.― give rise more
Page 11 and 12: The first version presents the crea
Page 13 and 14: you shall win your food from it all
Page 15 and 16: Whatever the truth about the origin
Page 17 and 18: The disappearing bοdy Man reproduc
Page 19 and 20: sufficient to guarantee his power,
Page 21 and 22: ut we could also speak of mutilatio
Page 23 and 24: It seems that over the last few yea
Page 25: Desiring to be a woman Man sometime
Page 29 and 30: Ignorance and mutilation For a long
Page 31 and 32: Yet the institution of circumcision
Page 33 and 34: with their gentle swaying are more
Page 35 and 36: associated with power, but the dime
Page 37 and 38: 4 MAN AND SEXUALITY Man does not al
Page 39 and 40: ealised them successfully. Of cours
Page 41 and 42: [48 / Holy virility] Rape and eroti
Page 43 and 44: which the possibility of such an ev
Page 45 and 46: mind make up a single indissociable
Page 47 and 48: consider his penis as an organ asso
Page 49 and 50: 5 THE MYTH OF THE PHALLIC ORGASM Ma
Page 51 and 52: is frigid, and not in imagination:
Page 53 and 54: Male sexuality and its breakdowns M
Page 55 and 56: Why get a hard-on if one does not a
Page 57 and 58: «Nathalie put her finger on it tha
Page 59 and 60: the flesh by exerting total control
Page 61 and 62: appropriation of women means that a
Page 63 and 64: has fallen so low that the job is b
Page 65 and 66: [The daddy and the rapist / 77] Art
Page 67 and 68: Man does not generally envisage rel
Page 69 and 70: «I would like to put in an ad: '22
Page 71 and 72: discord that women are supposed to
Page 73 and 74: wife cannot claim her body as her o
Page 75 and 76: . . The list of disadvantages of th
Page 77 and 78:
The contradictions of appropriation
Page 79 and 80:
of Christianity, to usher it into t
Page 81 and 82:
sacrifice. But at the same time he
Page 83 and 84:
[Between men / 99] Faced with the w
Page 85 and 86:
There is never a human being at the
Page 87 and 88:
Relations between men in patriarchy
Page 89 and 90:
possession of their rights, their w
Page 91 and 92:
fragility of power when men at last
Page 93 and 94:
Power rid of its eternal alibi appe
Page 95 and 96:
doing this, they have set in motion
Page 97 and 98:
2. MAN AND HIS BODY 1. Joseph Dietz
Page 99 and 100:
6. THE DADDY AND THE RAPIST 1. Heid
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emmanuel reynaud holy virility the social construction of masculinity

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