emmanuel reynaud holy virility the social construction of masculinity

Yet the institution of circumcision plays an important part in the
Old Testament. A few chapters after the description of the
mythical separation of man from his phallus-snake, it seems in
fact, like the symbolic separation that man engraves in his own
flesh, his 'covenant' with God:
«God said to Abraham, 'For your part you must keep
my covenant, you and your descendants after you;
circumcise yourselves, every male among you. You
shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall
be the sign of the covenant between us.'» (Genesis
XVII: 9-11)
The other condition of the covenant , the advanages gained
―i.e. the point of the mutilation― is presented quite
straightforwardly:
«As an everlasting possession I will give you and your
descendants after you the land in which you now are
aliens, all the land of Canaan, and I will be God to your
descendants.» (Genesis XVII: 8)
[Man and his penis / 35]
Thus circumcision is established as the price man must pay not
only in order to assert his pointer as father, leader and
proprietor, but also to perpetuate and extend it, from one
generation to the next, by handing it down from father to son. It
is in fact the rite through which man generates supremacy, and
he forces it on his son almost immediately after his birth: 'Every
male among you in every generation shall be circumcised on
the eighth day.' (Genesis XVΙΙ: 12) The Old Testament has
revived a marriage initiation rite, practised among the ancient
Hebrews at the time of betrothal, and by applying it to new-born
males, made it the sign of the covenant with God. The mutilation
of the penis was no longer the last stage of initiation into
'manhood' before taking a wife, it became the very symbol of
man's power. inscribed on his penis from the earliest age.
Thus, in the history of Judeo-Christian ideology, circumcision is
the baton through which the father passes his power on to his
son. I can't agree with Bettelheim's theory that one of the
purposes of the rite is 'to pretend that men too can bear
children', [5] as it is not the ability to reproduce life that man is
concerned with when mutilating his son's penis, but rather the
reproduction of power. Nor is circumcision, as Freud supposed,
'the symbolical substitute of castration, a punishment which the
primeval father dealt his sons long ago with the fullness of his
power.' [6] On the contrary, it is the transmission of the father's
power to the son.
The separation from his penis, which man achieves mythically
in the description of original sin, and symbolically through
circumcision, has nothing to do with castration. Its purpose is
diametrically opposed. Castration is the removal of the symbol
of power and the instrument of sexual appropriation ― it was,