Introduction

Part 1

A woman’s body is familiar. Several decades of feminism, and several decades of consumerist branding of the female (sexed) body takes us to this moment. Where the female body is cushioned in multiple discourses of what it means to be, or to have, a woman. We speak of anorexia, abortion, the burqa, contraception, women’s work, motherhood, diet and sex; and through this, we feel that we know her body. We know her. A body on posters, a body marching in protest, a body violated, a body of music videos, medical conditions, classical art. A body put into words, a body made pregnant.

With an interest in feminism, I have read much about women’s bodies, and the fascinations they evoke. But it is particularly the work of Luce Irigaray that I am interested in, and the way she speaks the female body into philosophy, into existence. Doing so without essentialism – speaking of ‘woman’, yet not fixing her into any one existence, not assigning the female body to particular roles, purposes, subordinations. In Irigaray’s world, a woman should exist without any need to be like men.

Irigaray’s project aims to give voice to women, yet does not argue for equality in the way other feminisms might – an equality that argues for a rational subjectivity of women, enabling them to contribute to society, and partake of it, as men do. For Irigaray, this sort of equality takes ‘woman’ closer to extinction. For her, woman is not man, nor is she his opposite. She is woman, of a category unto herself. And it is as a female subject (of a female body) that she must exercise her autonomy.

Irigaray seeks an embodied female subjectivity, acknowledging the dangers of denying the body, as much Western feminism has done, and as men do. For without bodies, a woman cannot be. Irigaray cannot accept Freudian understandings of a female sexuality shaped via male sexuality – as man’s other, a lack to ‘his’ fullness. She does not so much argue against Freud, Plato, Aristotle, Lacan and others, but, through language, she undermines their theories of subjectivities, sexualities. Her work is poetic, erotic, subversive, and it is through this non-combative language that she brings down ‘the masters’. This method itself, illustrates the feminine difference she speaks of. Where engagement does not have to involve rational argument, an attack, a mastery – those things that masculinity has become dependent upon. Hers is less of an argument, more of a dialogue, a dance, a seduction.

And it is the work of Irigaray that seduces me into asking questions, (and considering her questions) about the male body. For until recently, male embodiment has not been discussed. The male body is not cushioned in discourse like that of the female body, whether we look at reproduction, celebrity culture, the workforce, pornography, or literature, there is less trace of, less turmoil surrounding, the male body. And here I ask why.

A man would never set out to write a book on the peculiar situation of the human male (Beauvoir 1997, 15).

It seems the male body has been negated through ideals of (male) subjectivity, as that which de-values bodies. For man is of the mind, not the body. It is his mind that ‘owns’ and constructs knowledge, that which he uses to shape a world outside of himself. Apparently. His body is subordinated, and like the slaves, animals, and women of history, it is an instrument with which to achieve his role, his place, his story of domination. But as argued by phenomenology, and much contemporary feminism, the body is knowledgeable. Its movements are not so much orchestrated from above, by the God-like mind, but are of the knowing body. The body that knows itself well enough to dodge bullets, fight disease, sleep, eat, and find pleasure.

So what might it mean to speak of man as embodied? As flesh and desire? Does man, as bodied, lose power? Or might he gain it? And what sort of power might this be anyway? What of the power of desire, of that force that escapes, perhaps denies, rationality?

The male body I speak of (and through) cannot be clearly defined outside of the world it moves in, the language it is shaped by, the ‘other’ bodies it encounters, the shifting ideas of self. It is an abstract body, not just flesh and blood, and certainly not divorced from mind. This body is a pathway into the world, to other people, to the self. The body is what gives me a sex, is what permits my desires. The fluidity of the body ruptures any sense of cohesion of the bodied self. The body, like desire, is unknowable. It is beyond our grasp, unreachable, never achieved.

A mind/body separation denies the body an active role. In a quest for rational subjectivity, for the knowledge of ‘man’, man has robbed bodies of much of their power. Their flows have been stopped, the processes of the body dealt with, hidden, undiscussed. Yet, much anxiety still lurks in the body and its processes – its waste, its sexual functions, the risk it poses to the knowable, rational subject.

The body I will write about is the body never achieved. I am not interested in the development of the bodied subject, but the process of embodiment. Psychoanalysis expresses a body arrived at after following a series of paths and developments from the womb to adult life. Such pathways, particularly in early childhood, are seen as crucial for the achievement of sexually heteronormative selves. While this is a simplistic account of psychoanalysis, it is for its traditional role of normalising that I do not wish to discuss the body in this realm – as part of the developed self. Yet, I acknowledge the importance of Freud’s realisation of the unconscious, and the central role of desire within this field. Even if I do not support a desire built upon lack (as Freud and Lacan do), but a desire that is productive and willful (like that proposed by Deleuze and Guattari).

Therefore, this body I speak of, is not the body ‘being’, but the body ‘becoming’. As a work in progress, we cannot know this body. It is in constant flux, shifting in various directions at once, operating on invisible levels of desire, always decentring itself. Like the language that brings it into existence, it is forever changing. This body is discursive. It is shaped by language as much as it shapes language. It plays itself out as metaphor in everyday speech and writing. Language, like desire, is productive. Therefore, is it not possible to write words that change the history of bodies? Words that insert the body into the world of the individual and create an awareness of the unknowable self.

The project of embodiment necessarily involves language, the exploration of a discourse that disentangles mind from body – a dualism that only serves to subordinate, separate, delegate the body. To position the body as passive, as feminine, incorporating other binary splits of male/female, masculine/feminine, heterosexual/homosexual, allows men the privilege (?) of not speaking their bodies.

In order to destabilise phallocentrism, as that which upholds the dominance of (some) men, it seems necessary to challenge the foundations of this dominance. Ideologies, knowledges, and the privilege of rational thought that supports a philosophy of binaries (exclusions), allows one to speak of ‘the history of man’ without complication. ‘Man’ is often used as a catch-all term, which further denies a discourse of man as male, as a sexed being, as different to other people. For predominantly, difference does not belong to him, but is measured through him. Everything that is not him, is different.

To speak of man, as sexed, positions him within difference. To speak of women, and then shift the gaze to men, further articulates his difference, and problematises the notion of a neutral subjectivity – that from which man speaks the self. It is through difference, language, sex, and ideas of ‘becoming’ that I wish to look at the possibilities of the embodied male subject.

This thesis is not a singular argument, not in search of an end-point, a resolution. For I do not wish to engage in this topic through a masculine rationality that could only betray my study. I wish to get beyond such masculine ideologies that deny male embodiment. Instead, I want to turn the male body back onto itself, and find within it, a maleness that is not disembodied, not masterful, but creative, desiring, in flux. In thinking through the body, he may no longer be able to know himself as master of the world he thinks he created. But creation need not be about mastery, it can be about exploration. About becoming something other, never becoming whole, moving beyond a definable position in order to grow, adapt, continue. And for this reason, the body is important. As a symbol of the self, the body subverts power, produces desire, defies containment.

The body I discuss is mostly that of the Western male subject. The study of bodies is quite limitless, and as a result, I have forfeited in-depth discussions of bodily ethnicities and the post-colonial body. Instead, the focus is upon the sexed body, even though it cannot be unhinged from its ethnicities and other cultural/identity factors. Unfortunately, limitations also prevent any discussion of violence, as something also tied to sexed bodies, and found within and between bodies.

This thesis is split into three chapters. The Trouble with Bodies chapter looks at the frameworks in which bodies take shape, questioning some of the binary structures that situate bodies, such as sex/gender, male/female, masculine/feminine. It is necessary to unpack such terms that inform ideas about bodies, before they can be challenged. To unfold ideas of ‘truth’ and ‘nature’ in relation to bodies – as limitations, as imperative to masculine and heterosexual privilege.

The Sexed Bodies chapter takes us into difference, feminist notions of embodiment, and brings us closer to embodied male possibilities. It is here that some tensions arise between feminist theory and male bodies, and whether such theories can be justifiably used in relation to male bodies. Treading lightly, I give some examples of what this discursive, bodied male could be, evoking the methods of Irigaray, and questioning the body’s senses, the sex within vision and touch. Here, phenomenology raises its head as a particularly useful too for the emergence of an embodied male.

The final chapter, Irrational Male Bodies, takes another step toward the possibilities of male bodies, speaking to ideas of becoming, fluidity, and other spaces between the binaries I attempt to dislodge. Particularly the passive/active binary, and its investment in other binaries mentioned. It is here that the project of dephallicisation is explored further, through possibilities of a plural, changing, and complex male sexuality. Man’s denial of the abject, of the body processes that destabilise wholeness, is situated as a major contributor to male body anxiety. If the focus is taken away from the phallus, building a self beyond it, where might this take men?

This question, like others posed throughout the thesis, remain unanswered. They are a step toward change. As a gesture toward change, they are left open. This thesis does not aim for truth, so it does not give answers. For truth cannot be found within bodies. Truth, and any facts of ‘being’, can only serve to limit the body’s possibilities.

Part 2

The uncertain body

This thesis is problematic. The more I have read, the more difficult it has been to capture my subject, my topic. My argument, that bodies are not self-contained realms distinct from mind/self makes me wonder if I’m actually speaking of bodies at all. Am I not speaking of the self? And where do I sit amongst all this? What I am doing goes beyond bodies, beyond gender, beyond me.

I am arguing against the idea of rational objective thought, the idea of author, the proclamation that any knowledge is superior, more true, than another. Does this not defeat the purpose of writing a thesis? The further I go, the more I want to draw a line through the words I have written.

And how do I write? How did I get here, to this thesis? My sex, my skin colour, my education, my country of birth are not insignificant. None of these can be assigned to ‘me’ without the others, and more. Such traits usually preclude ‘my kind’ from acknowledging such traits – of what it means to be male, white and educated – to posses the arrogance to think I can make a difference. (Sadly, I want to change the world).

This thesis is a compilation of the thoughts, theories, and observations of myself and others. But mostly, I channel others. Without the likes of Luce Irigaray, Elizabeth Grosz, Moira Gatens, Rosa Braidotti, Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva, Jane Gallop, Monique Wittig, Judith Butler, Calvin Thomas, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Sigmund Freud, Anais Nin and Jean Genet, I would not be able to shape such ideas and opinions. I would not have the tools to construct this thesis.

In working with French texts, Jane Gallop prefers the term ‘transference’ over ‘translation’ – the later being in past tense, positing the text as dead (Gallop 1985, 44). My/this project involves transference in the way I am (it is) taking the words of others, sometimes changing the context, not always sure of initial intent, removing ownership (despite acknowledgement), and shaping another text.

I collect, I deposit, I struggle to form an argument when it is argument that I do not want. I want exploration, dialogue, creativity, the unfolding of an array of possibilities that acknowledge, support and encourage difference. I want text that bleeds, cries, tastes. Bodies that speak.

The author’s intentions, emotions, psyche, and interiority are not only inaccessible to readers, they are likely to be inaccessible to the author herself (Grosz 1995, 13).

I, like Gallop, do not wish to speak as authority, to be masterful of my thoughts and words (which are not even mine). I am no expert. I am not master of this text. I make collage.

Tearing pages, inking pages, shifting paragraphs; a layer of glue on my fingertips and black indecipherable words on the palm of my hand. I am a student, in many senses of the word.

This is not an argument, a manifesto, a proclamation of truth. Rather, it is an assemblage of thoughts, ideas and possibilities. Perhaps.