Intercourse, by: Andrea Dworkin - Feminish

Proust too described the “feminine male” as one who cravedmasculinity in other men but was despised by them because ofhis femininity. In his “ Cities of the Plain” in Remembrance ofThings Past, Proust said that those who committed the crimeof Sodom were men who were women inside; because theywere women inside, they wanted, sought, needed, the malemember. Ironically (see Mailer above), they are unable to getwhat they want because they want real men, masculine men,men with the right nature—the so-called deviant himself has anorthodox religious view of that nature, expressed in sexual desire.But any such real man despises the femininity that makesthe feminine male want him. Because they cannot have themasculine men they want, the feminine men are forced to buymale prostitutes to enact the sex and the virility they want.They are lonely and in despair; they arelovers who are almost precluded from the possibility of that lovethe hope of which gives them the strength to endure so many risksand so much loneliness, since they are enamoured o f precisely thetype of man who has nothing feminine about him, who is not aninvert and consequently cannot love them in return;. . . 11The “irony” is tragic for Proust. The feminine men are “ thatrace of beings. . . whose ideal is manly precisely because theirtemperament is feminine, and who in ordinary life resembleother men in appearance only;. . . ” 12For Mailer, the dispossessionof the men who want men is another occasion onwhich to extol the joys of impregnating women:For whatever else is in the act, lust, cruelty, the desire to dominate,or whole delights o f desire, the result can be no more