Conclusion

It is with hesitation that I approach an end point; this conclusion. As would be obvious to a reader by now, this discussion has no resolution. If not for a deadline, it could extend forever, a perpetual thesis. And perhaps it will be, within a different context. Yet, for now, a conclusion is required. So I will leave it here, suspended. It is a reluctant, twitching hand that takes these pages to be bound, as if complete.

So where does this leave me? Unfortunately (but perhaps predictably) I am no closer to the male body that lies at the centre of this project. The male body not as a material body whose outline, shades and dimensions can be articulated, but a concept that many of us live by, and through. The body through which engages some of us to our worlds. I am no closer to that body or my own – that which does have shape, colour and thickness. Yet, the body with which I started this project differs today. Not because I am transformed by this, but because I, like all bodies, continue to grow, move, and become. Transient, and without home.

My little project turned big. It grew up, got wings, and now, I throw paper to the wind. Not knowing where the scratches of my pen will settle. In some ways I fear its future. I fear the loss that comes with submission. I fear failure. Most days I question the worth of these assertions, discussions, transferences, questions, problematisations, thoughts, writings.

Here and now:

1. I assert that male bodies play a crucial role in challenging all situations of male dominance that subordinate women and others. I find that to speak of men, of male bodies, of male/masculine subjectivities is extremely problematic, and can only be achieved if I challenge the ideals of a natural, true self which I and others have come to value and rely upon over the years. I speak myself incomprehensible in order that I might find other ways to be sexed, to be self.

2. I discuss ways in which rationality might be located within male bodies, why this is so, and how such a concept may be destabilised, rendered impossible, and no longer desired by all people. Rationality appears to be our major obstacle to embodiment. The desire for rational subjectivity seems to prevent articulations of embodied males, of male sexual difference, of the self as a fluid process of becoming.

3. I transfer the words, ideas, concepts, theories, poetics and contemplations of other writers who I hold in high esteem for their contribution to the ‘subject’ that interests me.

4. I question theories that describe maleness as one of two categories, as complementary to femaleness, as fixed and ahistorical. I question the ideology of masculinity, its dislocation from sexed-man. I question gender constructions that rely upon mutually exclusive sexualities, roles, beings. And I ask if desire can cross these and other boundaries, locate the spaces-in-between, and enable the pleasure of viscosity.

5. I problematise the binaries that encase people as one thing or its other, but never something between or beyond two poles. Such barriers not only stifle creative possibilities in expressing humanness, but can be found at the core of much repression and violence. I problematise accounts of embodiment that are detached from bodies.

6. I try to think beyond the margins of bodies and ideologies, and how one might express the body beyond, or in contrast with, phallocentric codes of existence. How might the male body, framed differently, interact with the world, others, the self, and the phallocentric order in which it is indoctrinated?

7. I write these assertions, thoughts, problematisations in such a way that my words themselves are a blend of theory and practice. I embody the text. I let my writing hint at what may be possible through uncertainty. The possibilities of men speaking through their bodies, bleeding their selves into texts, exploring their abject selves without projecting it onto others. Contemplating their own dirt, subverting current understandings of what it means to be male, putting aside rational hesitation. Performing a symbolic castration with a sharpened pencil.

I want to say that this is an attempt to tear down the phallocentric culture that binds and limits our daily gestures, choices, and becomings. But as an honours thesis, I understand this carries little weight. Perhaps it marks an early chapter of my phallus-tearing future. For, as stated, this is not an end point.

This thesis makes me uncomfortable. Not just because it is unfinished, but because I fear its masculinity. I fear that, through my assertions, I have contradicted my arguments, and am using a forceful argument to position myself as master, above others, casting a wide view upon a distant world. For the male body I speak of is not just mine. It is not just of my imagination. It is a collage. A creative gesture toward change. So it is with reluctance that I profess my knowledge, my argument – that which is required of me, in writing this thesis.

I do not wish to argue, but to speak. And here I take leave, close this book, and take my pen to another place. I leave these words to brush against you, assemble between us. A dialogue suspended?