emmanuel reynaud holy virility the social construction of masculinity

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6 THE DADDY AND THE RAPIST The separation of humans into two groups according to the anatomy of their sex organs, expresses in itself the appropriation of the woman group by the man group, and this generalised appropriation enables each man to take a woman for his particular use. This relation, where one class is owned by another, is not only legalised in the marriage contract and institutionalised in prostitution, it determines all relations between men and women: every man is the potential owner of every woman. If he cannot ask for, buy or hire her, he can always rape her, and even if he gives up his rights, he can still avail himself of them again whenever he chooses. Whatever his attitude and feelings about the appropriation of women, he remains, within patriarchy, 'a man', and even if he decides not to take advantage of the prerogatives attached to his category, they are still socially established as his. But most of the time, man does not even ask himself this sort of question. He is content simply to enjoy his privileges, and his behaviour as owner oscillates between two extremes: he is either the daddy or the rapist. The daddy is the reassuring side of the phallus, the one which protects, nourishes and judges; in other words, appropriation through protection, providing the means of subsistence and deciding what a 'woman' is or is not. Man is fond of this daddy uniform and often likes to imagine that it is he who makes a woman feel secure― 'Don't worry darling, I'm here.' He thinks he is as solid as a rock, ready to run any risk to protect a creature he imagines to be fragile and defenceless. He is the knight in shining armour carrying off the peasant girl in rags, away from her woes, he is the rescuer of Sleeping Beauty from the enchanted forest who snatches the defenceless girl from the clutches of the wicked. [72 / Holy virility] Man often takes a malicious delight, in his fantasies, in putting women in desperate predicaments, so that, having saved their lives, he can subsequently appropriate them in triumph. And so, from fairy tales to James Bond, including adolescent dreams, the tradition is perpetuated by being honoured. And the reality of everyday life is hardly any different: the collective
appropriation of women means that any woman who has not been already clearly taken is available for a man to appropriate at any moment. That is, she is constantly threatened― physically as well ―with appropriation (until it occurs, when she is granted a relative respite). Seeing the situation in a more individual light, one could say that, like the mafioso who instigates a rule of terror in order to justify his racket, man creates a reign of fear to enable him to protect: he rapes the others to be daddy to one ― moreover, does he not make the distinction himself between the women he 'screws' and the woman he marries? Once a woman has been exclusively appropriated, man guarantees his 'protection' but retains the threat that he might withdraw it, at the same time making himself necessary and trying to treat 'his' woman as a child. This process is part of a global ideology according to which a woman is not supposed to be capable of looking after herself. We can see it expressed in a range of activities from filling in a tax form, which she is considered incapable of doing by herself, or mending a fuse, which she is not supposed to know about, to driving a car, which she is bound to crash into a brick wall. That man himself may skid on a wet road, or not know the different between 13 and 15 amps or has not got a clue about tax law, makes no difference. It is enough that Alan Jones, Thomas Edison and the Chancellor of the Exchequer are men, for any man to feel that driving, electricity and the tax system are biologically impregnated in him. Woman should not have to be told twice and should be happy among her pots and pans in the kitchen― 'Don't touch that! I'm coming!' He is a man, therefore he knows and he acts. Of course, given the rate at which traditional values are losing credibility nowadays, man's image as the all-powerful protector has become somewhat tarnished. But even so, it still holds sway: the saviours and supermen remain high in the charts of men's fantasies, and the medieval knights have simply been transformed into crusaders of domestic cleanliness. The procedure remains exactly the same: man 'proves' his love by overcoming difficulties, woman shows her gratitude by placing herself entirely at his disposal. He proudly invents washing powder, and she does the washing. [The daddy and the rapist / 73] Man does not acquire a woman only by 'protecting' her, he also provides for her. Daddy is generous, he feeds and houses, but underneath this magnanimous exterior ―which he sometimes emphasises― he is, in reality, concealing his attempts to prevent a woman surviving unless she serves him. Indeed, whether in the guise of father, husband, boss or lover, man generally does his best to discourage a woman from working for a salary― if she insists, or if the couple need the money, it will only be as a secondary income. She thus becomes more dependent on him or on another member of the man class, to provide for her vital needs.
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EMMANUEL REYNAUD HOLY VIRILITY THE
Page 3 and 4:
1 INTRODUCTION Old ideas die hard;
Page 5 and 6:
[Introduction / 3] The division int
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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 and 26: Desiring to be a woman Man sometime
Page 27 and 28: definition. But he does not usually
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: the flesh by exerting total control
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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