emmanuel reynaud holy virility the social construction of masculinity

He sometimes likes to imagine that his sperm is the seed from
which life will be created, and that woman is no more than fertile
soil in which to sow it. He may even wish to conserve it, and he
will force himself not to spill his 'vital substance' outside
himself too much. But most of the time, man does not associate
ejaculation with reproduction; it is more common for him to feel
that it is the culmination of his 'pleasure'. In the extension of his
penis used as a weapon and instrument of appropriation, it
easily becomes the shot aimed at the target, or the mark with
which the owner brands the flesh of the appropriated.
And so, if ejaculation can be directly associated with pleasure, it
is only in so far as it is bound up with power: outside a power
relation, it has very little to do with sensuality. For if it does
actually occur when the body trembles in ecstasy, it is then only
a secondary sensation, and it can equally be triggered off in a
man who will not let himself go the tiniest bit and experience
pleasure.
[62 / Holy virility]
Ejaculation is sometimes a semblance of orgasm but rarely its
reality. But man does not often bother with such subtleties: he
would rather consider his sexuality a simple matter. So, when
he desires, his penis speaks for him; when he comes, his penis
spits for him: he does not generally feel there is much more to it
... were it, not for the fact that the instrument sometimes fails,
and that it does not always function as expected.
Today, sexuality has its mechanics, who, before starting out on
hasty repairs, have applied themselves first to defining the
tool's good working order. And so they describe man's 'normal'
heterosexuality as being the capacity to ejaculate and at the
same time to give the woman an orgasm with the erect penis
(unless of course the woman suffers from 'orgasmic
malfunction'). From this simple definition 'naturally' follows the
list of malfunctions, i.e. absence of ejaculation, premature
ejaculation, difficulties with, or absence of, erection.
Once the problems have been so well classified, all the
sexologists have to do is treat them, so that the man will be able
to ejaculate again and the woman at last have an orgasm.
Masters and Johnson, just to mention the pioneers, took on,
between 1959 and 1970, 448 patients of the male sex and got
them back in working order after a cure lasting only two weeks,
and with an immediate failure rate of no more than 16.9 percent.
It is no doubt an excellent result, which has even been
surpassed since in their therapy centre in St Louis, or in the
numerous centres of the same kind which have been set up,
during the last twenty years, primarily in the United States. But
it would still be interesting to analyse what 'healthy' sexuality in
man, as it is defined by sexology, conceals.