Genderfuck The Law of The Dildo

Genderfuck: The Law of the Dildo Author(s): June L. Reich Source: Discourse, Vol. 15, No.
1, Essays in Lesbian and Gay Studies (Fall 1992), pp. 112-127 Published by: Wayne State University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41389251 . Accessed: 19/07/2013 16:07
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Genderfuck:
The
Law
of
the
Dildo
June L. Reich
To revolt outright against patriarchy is to affirm its authority. To righconfront itis toseepatriarchy teously as a monolithic whole free ofcontradiction and morepowerful than itis. Suchrighteousness means denial that is part of us, and thus patriarchy forces ustodefine ourselves incontrast to.Better to acknowledge patriarchy and undermine from within, gently erode,recognize discrepancies, play with theroles, thelanguage and the and let the playitself rob symbols, them oftheir terrifying power. - CarolLeMasters (28) Alexextracted her [Michael's] cock. at her elbowwith a Kaywasalready canofCrisco anda towel. "Roomsershegrinned. slick it vice," "Oh,yeah, up, stud, getthat bigfuckpole ready to do that finepiece a favor. Gonna fuckthatslutright offathosehighheeledshoes." - PatCalifia (120) This is an essay on boys and girls,or those who would-be-boys and those who would-be-girls. It's the parable of genderfuck,a littlepricklivingin a capitalist,postmodern world. Genderfuck: Susie Bright says, "When we want to compliment someone's visual menu, we say 'genderfuck' instead of androgynous" (9). She wrotethisin 1989, in her "Toys For Us" column of the fifth-anniversary issue of On Our Backs.Although
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she was talking about fashion, not theory,her definition condenses a historyof discourse and materialismthat touches on how we live our lives as queers and straights, girlsand boys,and consumers of culture. In the "Toys forUs" essay,"A Staris Porn," Brightpredicted for the gay or "post gay" nineties a sexual liberation theme of "Get Over Yourself' (8). What is this "get over yourself' call to arms? The end of identity politics?Yes. Are we defined by who we are, or by what communitieswe are part of? No . . . "To get over yourself' is counter-identity politics. It's the modus operandi: we are defined not bywho we are but bywhatwe do. This is effectively a politicsof performance.It neitherfixesnor denies sexual and gendered identifications but accomplishes specific else. This is an something paper exploration of the imperative of that somethingelse. As many theoristshave argued, sexuality and gender are interrelatedbut distinctive culturalconstructions, and sexuality, in particular, mustbe thoughtof as irreducibleto gender.1 There are contradictionsthatinhere,let's say, in the difference between in the shower (as a woman - gendered) and myself in myself bed (as a femme - sexualized) that need to be articulated through a theoryof genderfuck,which "deconstructs" the psychoanalytic concept of differencewithout subscribing to any heterosexistor anatomical truthsabout the relations of sex to gender (you remember the binarisms, male=masculine, female=feminine, etc.) masculine=aggressive, feminine=passive, Instead, genderfuck structures meaning in a symbol-performance matrixthat crosses throughsex and gender and destabilizes the boundaries of our recognitionof sex,gender,and sexual practice. In the fall of 1989, already out as a lesbian and a femme,I began coming out as a "genderfucker."What this means, basically,is thatI began a reinvigorated reading of the discontinuity between sex and gender, during sex, in my performance as a and in intellectualpursuitsin the realms of "girl" on the streets, phallogocentrism. Although I don't want to theorize lesbian sexualityas the privileged site of genderfuck and feministpolitical practice, I understand genderfuck most clearly within the context of butch/femmerole playing.Butch/femmeoffersa rich history fortalkingabout bodies, identities, and agential politicsin a way that hopefully furthersthe work of breaking down multiple oppressions.
114 Butch/FemmeHistory:Condensed
Discourse 15.1
Butch/femmehas been a recognizable lesbian practice fora verylong time. Masculine and femininewomen couples historically have been recognized as lesbians when less conspicuous or unnoticed) on the streets.Consesisterspassed (as straights, because of their visual butch/femme recognizability, quently, codes have enjoyedvarioussociopoliticalmeanings.In the 1950s, withunderground lesbian social organizations (like the Daughters of Bilitis) and publications beginning surreptitiousdiscussions about sex, butch/femme was often criticized for not fashion. withmainstream Joan Nestle has eloquently conforming documented the 1950s as, among other things,assimilationist timesforlesbians: Butch-femme was an eroticpartnership servingboth as a and as an intimate conspicuous flagofrebellion exploration ofwomen's Itwasnotan accident that butch-femme sexuality. the moststreet abuse and provoked more couples suffered assimilated or closeted Lesbianstoplead with themnottobe so obvious.. . . The butch-femme otherLesbians couple embarrassed madeLesbiansculturally visible, (and still does) becausethey a terrifying actforthe1950s.. . . The desireforpassing, combinedwith theradicalwork ofsurvival thattheLadder[publishedfrom1956 to 1972] was undertaking, was a paradox createdbytheAmerica ofthefifties. . . . To survive meantto takea publicstanceof societalcleanliness. Butin thepages of the journal itself, all dimensionsof Lesbian life were butch-femme The Ladder exploredincluding relationships. broughtoffa unique balancingact forthe 1950s. It gave nourishment to a secretand subversive lifewhileitflewthe of assimilation. (101-02) flag Nestle's essay,which she saystook forty yearsto write,is part of a huge body of literatureand sweat that foregrounds the conflictsbetween lesbianism and feminism.In Daring toBe Bad: Radical Feminism in America , 1967-1975 , Alice Echols argues that lesbianism from the beginning constituted a "problem" for feminism": Untillate 1969,opponentsof women'sliberation were more apt to raise the issue of lesbianism thanwere many - manyofwhomwere radicalfeminists befuddled initially the by conjoiningof these seemingly disparateissues. Of did allude to sexual prefercourse,some radicalfeminists
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enee, if onlyobliquelyin the contextof sexual liberation. While mostearlyradicalfeminists believedthatthe sexual revolution ofthe'60swasin many moreexploitative respects than liberating, nonetheless feminism disenvisioned they the edifice of sexual . . . mantling repression. But manyradicalfeminists, thosewho viewed especially and sexualliberation as mutually women'sliberation excluifnothostile skittish lesbianism. wereoften toward Most sive, lesbianism as sexual ratherthan commonly, theydismissed Thus RoxanneDunbarof Cell 16 [an early radical political. feminist was to get group] arguedthatthetaskoffeminism womenout of bed ratherthanchange the genderof their ... A number ofradicalfeminist partners. agreed [also] that lesbians to sex roles,in theform weretoo attached ofbutchfemmeroles,to be likely or desirablerecruits to feminism. alsofeared that lesbianism couldbecomea refuge from Many feminist activism. But at the same timethatmanyradicalfeminists were to disassociate feminism from othlesbianism, rushing many - werediscoverers- bothpoliticoes and radicalfeminists feltsexually attracted toward one another. ... ing thatthey (211-12) Eventuallya strain of feminismand lesbianism cohered to become a lesbian-feminist movement(part of culturalfeminism, which eventuallysuperseded radical feminismas a mainstream . This of course is not the end of the story(I political institution) stillhaven't entered the lesbian- feministdebate or even come out yet). Butch/femmecontinued to be disparaged, throughthe seventiesand eighties,especially,in what has come to be known as the "sex wars" (see, for example, Vance). Arguing that was "heteropatriarchal" and oppresbutch/femmerole-playing sive to women, cultural feminists began a campaign of sexual censorship, based on a philosophy that sexual representations and sex itselfwere transparentagents of women's oppression (rather than complex cultural expressions). Butch/femme became to some symbolicextentmore dangerous than it had in the fifties,at least in terms of feminist debate: role-playing became s&m (a conflation that distortsa continuum of sexual practices), and s&m was vilified.But by this time, the pornographic and erotic works of lesbians, and discussions of their meanings and values, became more public; and in the 1980s popular criticaltheoriesbyand fora sophisticated"queer" audience began popping up, so thatthe semioticsof fashion and sex codes, postmodernism, and a host of other topics enjoyed a vogue that is stillprevalent. (I came out by thistime.)2
116 Framingthe Phallus
Discourse 15.1
I begin mytheoryof genderfuckwiththe dildo. It is, in fact, , my personal philosophy,akin to religion. But my raison d'tre theoreticalvein,I would like to before I followthisall-important frame the phallus in its psychoanalytic(Lacanian) and literary in order to engage the slipperytheoreticalpraccontexts,briefly, the body. tice of reading and writing The phallus, broadlyspeaking,forcesa subject into the Symand culture.In theory bolic, the realm oflanguage, signification, it is not an object, or an organ, but an experience of difference a sub(even, or especially,primarysexual difference),initiating ject into desire, which is an experience of lack. The phallus, as determines meaning by "point zero" in psychoanalytic theory, fillingin absences, covering over the split it creates between demands that a object and concept. The logic of signification concept and object be identical to one another. And yet the like a zero, phallus, as the determiningfigurein signification, does not reallyexist.The zero institutes the process of numerical that1=1 progression,but itsignifies nothing.It assures,however, because of its place/functionas zero (1+0=1; but 1 is, nevertheless, the 2nd point on the number line, and is thereforealways already displaced) (Miller; for more on "suture," see also Heath). Through a theoretically analogous process, the phallus signifiesa pretended or fantasmaticunity, suturingobject and concept in a dialectical relationshipwitha subject. Unitycould be thoughtof as a consensus of meaning, or of In the traffic of signifiers and signifieds,there is referentiality. unlimited that potentially play preventsmeaning fromsettling into one cozy,specificdefinition. But, as the process of interpretationforcesan inevitablerestat signified, political interference at the point of representationis critical.The phallus has fortoo long been associated withbeing or not being the penis (this is and often heterosexism), even in abstractmathematicaltheory, most vehemently when thisconnection is being disavowed (see Gayle Rubin's critique of psychoanalysis in "The Traffic in into Women"). In thisrespect,the phallus can deconstructitself total nothingnesswithoutupsettingsex/gender binarismsand male constructions of desire. If itis possible, through privileging to of the phalgenderfuck,however, interruptthe referentiality a of and desire could be lus, theory subjectivity expounded without makingphallogocentrisman accusation of exclusive (that is, male-centered) practice, but one process (among many) that produces meaning and knowledge.Because, as I hope to expose,
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women alreadypossess the phallus, though how,where,why, and to what extentwe do is hotlycontested. The Dildo* (*Dildos are measured fromtheirbases to theirheads, making allowances forslightloss in lengthiftheyare to be used with a harness. I would appreciate if this system were applied to my Please measure concepts essaywhen determiningitsdesirability. frombase of page to header, and observe safe reading practices when moving fromone section to another. Borders are permeable.) The question fueling this investigation of genderfuck is: "What is the differencebetween a woman witha strap-onand a man?" Assuming that the symbolicman wants to fuck and not be fucked (which I would assume makes him femme), I would argue that in a libidinal economy there is no structuraldifference. Butch/femme relations are constructed around differif you like (though this is not to say ence, or hetero-sexuality, "straight"sex). "Subject positions" have consumed much recent feminist and ideological critiques in theory,building on psychoanalytic order to elucidate a point fromwhere women can act without being erased or posited as non-subjects,or the negative of the "masculine." Sue-Ellen Case, in "Toward a Butch-FemmeAesthetic,"argues thatbutch-femme subjectpositionsallow an articulation of agency in a wayheterosexual female positions fail to. Beginning with Teresa de Lauretis's "feminist subject," who at the micropolitical accomplishes a "sense ofself-determination level" (282), Case proposes forfeminismcoupled butch-femme subjects that "do not impale themselveson the poles of sexual difference or metaphysical values,but constanyseduce the sign flirtation and system, through inconstancyinto the lightfondle ofartifice, the Lacanian slashwitha lesbian bar" (283) . replacing Case's aesthetic Taking up argument,I would like to forwardthe butch-femme coupled subject into the explicit realm of the phallic. Case's aesthetichinges on artifice and the discourse/performance of camp. She argues first that psychoanalysis has to a passiveperformanceof hegemonicallyconsigned femininity "masquerade," a position that is purelynegative excess. Then, offeminist building upon the history masquerade theoriesthemselvesbased on Joan Riviere'swatershedreading of a frigid intel-
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I & II and AdamI 8cII byScorpio.On Our for Advertisement Jupiter Backs 8.6 (1992): 2.
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lectual woman patient, Case maintains that feminine masquerade remainspassive onlywithinthe constructof assumed heterosexuality. Riviere's argument is this: the intellectual frigid castratedher fatherbyvirtueof her woman, having symbolically intellectual acumen, assumes feminine behavior as a reaction4 formationagainst this taboo. Riviere notes that 4 heterosexual women don't claim possession [ofthe penis] openly,but through reaction formations;whereas the homosexual women openly display their possession of the penis and count on the males' recognitionof defeat" (Case 291) . Case maintainsthatthisopen roles": displayis "consciously played out in butch-femme The butchis the lesbianwomanwho proudlydisplays the takeson the compossessionof thepenis,whilethefemme ofwomanliness. The femme however, pensatory masquerade her to a butch, another foregrounds masqueradebyplaying womanin a role; likewise, the butchexhibits her penis to a woman who is playingthe role of compensatory castration. . . . [Because] thereis no referent [forthe penis] in the fictions of penis and castration become ironized sight, and "campedup.". . . Thesewomenplayon thephalliceconthanto it. (291) omyrather Heterosexual masquerade theories stabilize the feminine=passive/masculine=activeequation in biological terms,so that "women" are only able to assume an active position by takingon a male perspective.This has proven to be problematic forfeminist who have been forcedto argue, as a logical theorists, that active consequence, pleasure can only be taken by men or women acting like men. A way out of this bind has been to foreground,by "camping it up," the ironyof the masculine and femininepositions themselves, so thatthe culturalconstructions of gender are highlighted.Case maintainsthatin butch=femme because the penis is concamp, both partnersare performers, absent and women are spicuously playing to each other. And while she maintains,rightfully so, thatthismove both highlights and subvertscultural constructsof gender, it does not alter the between a performer masquerade, which necessitatesa distance herself (whateverthat is - even if it is argued that there is no essential self) and the constructshe performs. While the players have shiftedfrommale-female (penis present) to butch-femme (penis absent), the distance between the gendered body and sexual role playinghas remained structurally equal. I would like to argue that foregroundingthe distance between the phallus and itsperformanceas penis or dildo would ironize the prescrip-
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Discourse 15.1
tiveconstructsof femininity and masculinity withoutnecessarily the in perfrom its sexual distancing gendered body materiality formance.This strategy reinstates an embodiment that hopefully is sorelylacking in currentdeconstructive and performative theories. Case's definitionof the butch-femme subject position bears because it is at this repeating here, juncture thatI would like to some of its "These are not split subjects, push consequences: the torments of dominant suffering ideology.They are coupled ones thatdo not impale themselveson the poles of sexual difference or metaphysicalvalues . . ." (283). For one thing,her definition assumes an awareness about butch-femme relations that is necessaryforcamp but not always the livedexperience ofmany butch and femme women. I find it interesting that most butch women I've talked with knew themselvesas lesbians firstand women second, while many femmes understood their identity foremostas womanlyand most often tried on hetero relationships before acting on theirlesbian desires. Case's couple dances around penetration,the Furthermore, act excellence. She has ignored the dildo, and whatour phallic par duo be for a micropolitically safe dynamic may doing offstage, outside I am not that this doesn't space ideology. arguing space exist or isn't useful (it's essential) for political change, but I wonder about what is glossed in the theoretics,specifically conthe of cerning symbolic politics penetration, fucking,phallic aggression,etc. As a prosthesis, the dildo has oftenbeen accused ofbeing the literalizationof women's lack, a substitutepenis, the object of women's desire. Desire foran other is confused withheterosexualityso-called3when the penis is the referentfor the phallus, and the dildo becomes a subordinateand stand-in forman. Conlesbian is confused with heterosexual sosequently, penetration called practice, rather than being constitutedas a unique, or instance of meaning. This misunderstanding different, not only fuelsstraight of lesbianism but has led to censormisconceptions within the feminist Lesbian ship community, mostlyby Separatists who outlaw s&m practices at women-onlyfunctions,and who claim in various degrees that feminists, anti-pornography sex hurtswomen. The dildo is a sutured phallus. Quite literally. Symbolically, however,it could be conceived of as thephallus. The dildo, by is a funny-looking itself, piece of molded silicone or rubber.But in context,itis a powerfulfucker. It is thelaw ofthe Daddy Butch. As a phallus, it assures difference withoutessentializinggender.
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And, I would argue, it could irreparablyalter any inter-sex(or gendered) relationswhen the libidinal paradigm is shiftedfrom to sexuality-performance. gender-identity When we inspect the dildoed-girl and the dicked-boyfor I mustinsistthatthere is some substanmeaningfuldifferences, tive differencebetween them (there is a preference in who we take to bed, forinstance). The consequence of thisdifferenceis the gendering of desire,since in structural termsthe twofigures are the same. So I mightofferthe hypothesisthat "boys" like to fuckand "girls" like to be fucked and situatethese two positions,masculine and feminine,as extremes or poles of a gender/sexuality spectrum.The anatomical binarismmale-femalefigureshere as a kind of limit-text, one which worksto undermine genderfuck ifwe insiston recognizingbiological "realness" ("naturalness") on the one hand, but which genderfucks if "realness" (as defined in Paris Is Burning) works strictly at the level of the of dominant without performance stereotypes "corresponding" genitalia revealed. To my mind, these two situationsfigurethe extremesof the anatomical axis. A word about transsexuality: it works to stabilize the old on the dominantcorrespondence sex/gender system byinsisting between gendered desire and biological sex. The feelings of acute discontinuity thatlead to cosmetic alternationneed theofrom rizingapart genderfuck.Pepper LaBajia, reigningMother of the House of LaBajia and somewhatof a superstarbecause of the box-officesuccess of Paris Is Burning , described the politics of anatomybest when she said she neverwanted a sex-change.A or happiness. vagina is no guarantee of security The consequences of the dildo-as-phallusare potentially far for from the to Truth. At reaching emancipating theory appeal the veryleast, the dildo schema announces the arbitrariness of the hegemonic phallus=penis construction,while attending to the rigid logic of the phallic economy. At its most radical, the dildo, as an equal-opportunityaccessory,and as a simulacrum (an object circulatingwithoutorigin), undermines the penis as a meaningfullystable organ, denaturalizing the body without erasing its materiality. as well as a sexual device Using the dildo as an interpretive the field of identification to all sorts of contradictory conopens structions.My femininity, for example, is an instance of drag performance (that is, genderfucked). Not only are there positions for feminine women and masculine men, manly women and womanly men (these can be accomplished through mas-
122
Discourse 15.1
butch querade theories), thereis also space forqueer or straight and femme identitiesthat traversethe theoretically spacialized continuummore than once. For instance,I knowa butchwoman who likes to be penetrated bya butch lover,pretendingtheyare both gay men. Whyshould thatbe perverse? Camp: "A Holiday for ConsentingAdults"5 It's embarrassing to be solemnand treatise-like about Camp. One runs therisk ofhaving, oneself, produced a very inferior pieceofCamp. - SusanSontag(277) has me questioning the self-conMy genderfucksensibility scious performance of virtually everyoneI see on the streetsor on the bus, although I am aware that not only are not many of these folksqueer, gay,or straight, theyprobablyhave no notion of how radicallydifferent the economy of theirdesireswould be in a relation of dildoic-phallicsignification. In an effort to keep thisparadigm in perspective, fromthe then,I willattempta shift of the body.Both are discursive acts,public reading to thewriting in nature but privatizedideologically.Reading practices generally are used in performative theories, but I think writing demands a specificity that makes generalizing the body more difficult. It also constructs the micropolitically safespace needed forpositiveagential politics. I will contextualize reading/writing by utilizing butch/ femme relations once again. As a femme,I am in a privileged position in relation to dominant culture because, while my object-choice may be thoughtto be perverse,myperformance of myself is allied withdominant notions of femininity. Mybutch on the otherhand, constructs herselfas a boy.To reconcile lover, this dominant contradictionI would insistthat she is a boy,in bed, and perhaps in varyingdegrees on the streets.This turns upside down not only cultural binarismsof sex and gender in sexual relationships,but also the dominant assumptionsof who has the power to inscribemeaning on the bodies of others.As a and I read, insuringnot only myown femme,I do the writing, non-erasure but also authorizing the noncontradiction of a butch's gender/sexual performance. Yet performative politicsare cooptable, or at least subject to How is myfemininity different than that easy misinterpretation. of the straight woman withlittleself-consciousness of her gen-
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de red construction;or, for that matter, what differencedoes it make ifdominant culturecan read her and me as essentially the same? The language of performance, critical to the theoreticsof subject and object as specpostmodern bodies, usuallyconstructs tator (reader) and performer (read) in a dualism that either forecloses or negativizesagentic possibilities.Without an alternative criticallanguage, however,theories of performance are The crux of agentic possibility stillpreferableto those ofidentity. in performativelanguage could be thought of as "presence," where the apparent paradox of mimesis,or the representation of the construction of representation (a self-consciousperformance) is worked out withinthe limitsof "verisimilitude,"or what I have been calling "realness." Mimicryproblematizes the real by representingboth the presence and absence of a construction.It's hard to keep itup, though,as meaning is an excess, an effectthe performercannot control. An aesthetics of pleasure, more precisely, offersno guaranbut involvesa "leap of faith,"a reading and writing teed effects, that must take place with the consent of subjects. The dildo performance is "queer" not because it is part of gay or lesbian sex but because it doesn't respect the distinctions of a hetero/homosexual dichotomy.What limits an anything-goesin is a politicsof radical materiality, where however, interpretation, the constructionof the semioticsystem on the body is accounted for. Does the genderfuckperformance,a mimicry, unmask the constructions of feminine and masculine sexualpsychoanalytic The it relies on the referential answer, seems, ity? position of the At the the least, phallus. very repositioning phallus as dildo radalters the of and ically meanings "being" "having" in such a way that the constructionsof sexualitycannot be reducible to anatomy, even though we can acknowledge primarysexual difference. The point is thatdifference, in itself, signifies nothingbut needs an interpretation to effect meaning. To ask,once again, some rude but importantquestions: does the site of woman's primarysexual differenceconstitutea lack or is itjust a vagina? What does a woman witha vagina and with a dildo represent?A man, a masculine woman, the denaturalization of masculinity? If phallic homosexual practice were a mimof heterosexual icry genital-to-genital practice (and it could be conceived this waywithoutbeing derogatory), its perversion is not the performative act but the subversionof the construction that naturalizes or normalizes heterosexual so-called practice.
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Sexual practices are mimicry, differencedfrom themselves as and We are sutured,dildoed folks. concepts objects. is the celebration of Camp passionate failures.The triumph of theatricality over substance, it is cynical,ironic, sentimental, More imporinnocent,and corrupting. pleasure-seeking, naively it more than mere inversion and tantly, accomplishes duplicity; it alters traditional sensibilities altogether. In "Notes on " 'Camp,' Son tag fingersa fewreallyinsightful aspects of camp, which I would sum up ifI were only as erudite: 34. Camptaste turns itsbackon thegood-bad axisofordinary aesthetic It doesn't judgment.Camp doesn'treverse things. that the is or the bad is itdoes What bad, argue good good. - a supplementary is to offer forart(and life)a different [!] - setofvalues.(286) 55. Camp tasteis,above all,a mode ofenjoyment, of appre- notjudgment. ciation Itwants toenjoy. Campis generous. It onlyseemslike malice,cynicism. it's (Or ifit is cynicism, nota ruthless buta sweet doesn'tprocynicism.) Camp taste pose thatit is in bad tasteto be serious;it doesn'tsneerat someonewho succeedsin beingseriously dramatic. Whatit does is to findthesuccessin certain failures. passionate 56. Camp tasteis a kindof love,love forhumannature.It rather than and awkward relishes, judges,thelittle triumphs intensities of "character.". . . Camp taste identifies with what itis enjoying. are notlaughPeople whosharethis sensibility label as "a camp," they're it. ing at the thingthey enjoying (291-92) Camp is a tender feeling. so, it Camp is also veryhomosexual; while it's not exclusively was, as Case says,born in the closet (287). Where Sontag failsto ofcamp, manygaytheorists have grasp the political ramifications it I picked up. hope genderfuckwillbe seen as another quixotic incarnation. In formulating mygenderfucktheoryI had threeoptions,as I saw it, in camp territory: (1) the dildo most certainlyis camp. this led me smack into Sue-Ellen Case's lap Following argument a bad to I should be, (not think). The dildo is nothing if place not pure artifice,a "supplement" to the "natural" body. With of appearances replaces a claim to butch/femme, "a strategy truth.Thus, butch-femme roles evade the notion of 'the female body' as it predominates in feminist theory,dragging along its Freudian baggage and scopophilic tran substantiation. These roles are played in signsthemselves and not in ontologies. Seduc-
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all of these seeming realition, as a dramatic action, transforms tiesinto semioticplay" (297) . However,I wanted to reclaim some body (anybody) and also challenge lesbianism as theory.So the dildo as camp isn't the whole picture,as I see it. This brings me to (2) the penis as a camp object. As a dyke withno grudge againstboys,I have litde troublewiththisdeduction. Byarguing thatthe dildo is more phallic than the penis, the male organ (to use a SenateJudiciary Committeeturn-of-phrase) is somewhat depleted of itspowers. In the lightof the dildo it is not hard to see the penis as another masquerade of the phallus, ready-madewith a "dildo envy" complex, and to subsequently foregroundculturalconstructionsof masculinity. And (3) the phallus itselfmust be camp, in relation to the dildo and in relation to itself.Here is the triumphof "instant character" over content, and also passionate failure.When the dildo denudes the penis it reincarnatesthe phallus in its image, not vice versa.Dildo phallocracymaintainsthatdildo, penis, and phallus are all camp entities. Genderfuck Genderfuck could be said to be the effectof unstable signifying practicesin a libidinal economy ofmultiplesexualities.The production of a recognizable genderfuckparadigm, effectedby camp "realness," altersthe contextualprocess of signification by foregroundingthe gap between sex and gender and producing different models of interpretation through different writing/reading practices.Genderfuck,as a mimetic,subversive performance, simultaneously traversesthe phallic economy and exceeds it. This process is the destabilization of gender as an analytic the signal of the end of category,though it is not, necessarily, I binarisms have gender (whose grown quite fond of in some The of masculine and feminine, on the body respects). play as the "lesbian the and/ (note text,subvertsthe possibility bar") of possessing a unified subject position. Once woman, a symbol and construction,no longer equals female in any meaningful way- that is, once the splitbetween anatomyand the semiotic - the is recognized in the process of interpretation economy of desire foran Other does not have to followa heterosexistmatrix. The ambiguityof the system is itsinterplay and constantnegotiation between the meaningfulproductionsofsex/gender,on the one hand, and gender/sexual performance,on the other.It is a
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Discourse 15.1
discourse of pleasure, producing desire in a subject who is able to get over herselfand have it make a difference. What is a genderfuck body? It is, to steal a phrase from Roland Barthes,a "drag anchor" (65; emphasis added). Drag: a the circulationof the phallus in its performance thatinterrupts A drag anchor, far to that is, anchor, signification. attempt fix, fromcenteringa soul, casts a body loose in a queer sea of love. Notes I would like to take thisopportunity to thanka fewfolks: Judith MichelleLekas,Carol Mason,Kitty Halberstam, Millet, JohnMowitt, and Paula Rabinowitz. and encouragement, David Also,forhisinterest from the"Flaunting It" conference, Halperin,and myfriends Cheryl Kaderand ThomasPiontek. It's been a ball. 1 This was recently advanced by Sedgwick, argument especially 1: "Ultimately, I do feel, a great deal depends- for allwomen, chapter forlesbians, forgaymen,and possibly forall men- on thefostering of our ability to arrive at understandings ofsexuality thatwillrespect in itto theterms a certain and relations ofgender"( 16). irreducibility 2 I don'tknow whenexactly "queer theory" began,butthedistinction"queer," as opposed to "lesbian/gay," marks in theory. a shift 3 I have borrowed the idea of the hyphenated soheterosexuality called from Abelove.He talks about "cross-sex intercourse" as genital "sexual intercourse so-called ." This makesapparentthe constructednessof sexualintercourse or heterosexuality, whendominant culture wouldhaveus believeitsbeingis natural ornormal, or that itsmeaning is clearand uncontested. 4 ParisIs documents (1990), a filmbyJennieLivington, Burning theballsofNewYork's blackand Latinogaymale underground. 5 "CAMP RULES" 7. WorksCited on the History of Sexual InterAbelove,Henry."Some Speculations courseduring theLongEighteenth in England."Genders Century 6 (Fall 1989): 125-30. Roland. ThePleasure Trans.RichardMiller.New Barthes, oftheText. York: 1975. Noonday, Susie. "A Staris Porn." On OurBachsOct.-Nov. 1989:8-9. Bright, Boston:Alyson, Califia,Pat. "The Calyxof Isis." MachoSluts. 1988. 84-176.
Fall 1992
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: TheLie ThatTells the Truth. NewYork: "CAMP RULES." Camp Delilah, 1985. Aesthetic." a SpectaCase, Sue-Ellen."Towarda Butch-Femme Making Ed. LyndaHart. cle: Feminist onContemporary Women s Theatre. Essays AnnArbor:UMI, 1989.282-99. toBeBad: Radical Feminism inAmerica Echols,Alice.Daring , 1967-1975. ofMinnesota Press,1989. Minneapolis: University TermsofAnalysis, PartI." Screen Heath,Stephen."Filmand System: 16.1 (1975): 7-77;"Partii." Screen 16.2 (1975): 91-113. AJournal Carol. "S/M and theViolenceofDesire." Trivia: LeMasters, 15 17-30. Ideas (Fall 1989): of "Suture (Elementsof the Logic of the SigniMiller, Jacques-Alain. 18.4 (1977-78):24-47. fier)." Screen Sexual Courage in the Nestle,Joan. "Butch-Femme Relationships: 1950s."A Restricted Ithaca:Firebrand, 1987. 100-09. Country. Dir.JennieLivingston. ParisIs Burning. Off WhiteProductions, 1990. Rubin, Gayle. "The Trafficin Women: Notes on the 'Political Feminist Ed. , Class , and the Economy'of Sex." Women Imagination. KarenV. Hansen and lleneJ.Philipson. Philadelphia: TempleUP, 1990. 74-113. Eve Kosofsky. TheEpistemologa U of Sedgwick, oftheCloset. Berkeley: California P, 1990. " New York: Sontag,Susan. "Notes on 'Camp.' Against Interpretation. 1966. 275-92. Farrar, and Danger: Female Vance, Carole S., ed. Pleasure Exploring Sexuality. London: Pandora,1989.

Genderfuck The Law of The Dildo

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Genderfuck: The Law of the Dildo Author(s): June L. Reich Source: Discourse, Vol. 15, No.

116 Framingthe Phallus

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