Archive for the 'Penis' Category

Humiliation and becoming human: how erectile dysfunction made me a better man, husband, and person

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 14, 2008
in Body, Favorite Posts 2008, Memories, Men and Masculinity, Penis, Relationships, Sexual ethics and transformation and Sexuality
. 31 Comments

I count fellow Angeleno and men’s rights advocate Glenn Sacks as a friend, even though he and I are likely to disagree on virtually every issue. I winced a bit, however, at his rather snarky linking to my re-post in praise of erectile dysfunction. Glenn writes:

I guess if it’s humiliating to men, it must be good. Feminist professor/blogger Hugo Schwyzer recently wrote a blog post “in praise of ED.” Schwyzer writes:

“In my Humanities class on the ‘body’ yesterday, I noted in passing that there was much to be said for erectile dysfunction. I have always maintained that men would be far more insufferable than they otherwise are trained to be if the penis was, in fact, a muscle entirely under their control….ED literally softens the penis; it can also figuratively soften a man by forcing him to rethink his allegiance to a cruel and unattainable standard.”

In light of this, it kind of reminds me of an odd interaction I had with Hugo when he was on my radio show a couple years ago. We were discussing something related to sex–I can’t remember what–and I said something like “Of course, Hugo, men’s perspectives change as they get older. Like me, I’m sure you’re not quite the stallion you used to be.”

Hugo is a very nice guy, and it’s hard to get him angry over anything, but he was not happy over this remark. I was surprised, and didn’t quite know what to make of it. Any amateur psychologists out there have any ideas?

Uh, amateur psychologists? Leave your remarks over at Glenn’s place, please.

But my praise of periodic bouts of ED is not rooted in the internalized misandry of which I — and all other male feminists — are regularly accused. It’s rooted in many things, not least my own experience, about which more (because there’s a fair amount of TMI) below the cut. Continue reading ‘Humiliation and becoming human: how erectile dysfunction made me a better man, husband, and person’

Shame, mystery, and vulnerability: a very long post about the penis and the longing for acceptance

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 6, 2008
in Body, Favorite Posts 2008, Men and Masculinity, Penis and Sexuality
. 38 Comments

As I’ve mentioned before, this semester I’m teaching my Humanities course on “Beauty and the Body in the European-American Tradition” again. I’ve only taught it once before, four years ago, and frankly, it feels as if I’m teaching it for the first time. I always love the rush of a new course; as much as I enjoy my core Western Civ and Women’s Studies courses, the material is so familiar to me that I long for new challenges from time to time. “Beauty and the Body” certainly brings that.

We’re using a variety of texts in the course, including Susan Bordo’s The Male Body. Her first full chapter, famously, is about the penis. Not the phallus, mind you, that phantom symbol of patriarchy that haunts courses in psychoanalysis and literature. (In the underworld, I will be forced to sit in a Lacan seminar for four hours on Friday afternoons. Ask me how I know that this constitutes hellishness). Bordo is talking about the “real” penis, that flexible appendage which is a source of so much desire, anxiety, pleasure, distaste, and sheer bafflement. And so yesterday afternoon, we had what I rather roguishly enjoy referring to as “penis day # 1″. (My lecture schedule calls for two more over the course of the semester.) More below the cut (hah), and though there are no images, the topic is obviously a, uh, sensitive one. Continue reading ‘Shame, mystery, and vulnerability: a very long post about the penis and the longing for acceptance’

Pilates and perfomance anxiety: of penises and the pelvic floor

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 28, 2007
in Body, Men and Masculinity and Penis
. 16 Comments

Last night I did my regular Tuesday night Pilates workout. I’ve been working out with Stephanie, for my trainer, for nearly two years. Slowly but surely, I’ve gotten more and more advanced.

Pilates is all about training the body’s core. And while I’d spent years doing crunches and side bends, it was only when I started doing Pilates that I began to discover a whole set of muscles that I had never imagined existed. Until 2005, I never knew that we all have something called a “pelvic floor”. I didn’t know about my transverse abdominus, or my psoas. And I certainly didn’t expect my strongest muscles to become those below my navel, above my pubis, and between my pelvic bones. I can say that after a couple of years of serious work, I’ve developed some pretty strong lower abs.

As I was talking with Stephanie last night, we discussed how few men do Pilates (even though Pilates is named for its male founder.) Our conversation turned, and it occurred to me how very few men I know (particularly young men) feel a sense of connection with their own bodies. We are trained in American culture to think of the male body as a performance machine; men evaluate their body’s worth based less on aesthetics than on functionality: does the body have the strength to lift heavy objects? Does the penis perform on command? Men call their arms “guns”; they refer to their penises as “rods” and “pistons” that “screw”. It’s the language of war, of car repair, of carpentry.

Many men are intensely anxious about their bodies. Though an increasing number of men struggle with eating disorders and a culturally imposed pressure to have perfect abs, even more men worry about their sexual performance. We live in a culture of epidemic male anxiety about erectile “dysfunction”; three hours watching commercials during a football game or fifteen minutes reading the ads in the sports section will make it clear that the worry about “getting it up” is nigh on universal among sexually active men. (I posted a bit about erectile dysfunction in May of last year.)

But the paradox is obvious: we live in a society where there exists tremendous male anxiety about sexual performance (as measured by drug company profits alone). At the same time, very few men bother to connect their sexual function with the health, strength, and well-being of the rest of their body. It’s as if they think of the penis as quite literally “standing alone”, like a house without a foundation. And in the rush to seek medical solutions to impotence and poor sexual control (premature ejaculation, weak erections), they ignore the very basic reality that strengthening the muscles of the lower core, particularly the pelvic floor, can have a dramatic and powerful effect on one’s sex life.

There’s a line between candor and gross “TMI” (what my cousin Dinah calls an “over-share”), and I’m not going to cross it in this post. I will say, however, that my sense of myself as a sexual person has been radically reshaped by an intense commitment to Pilates! My wife (who has also beecome an active and advanced Pilates practitioner) has noticed the difference, and our intimate life has deepened and intensified as a consequence. Though we’ve both been athletic for years, like most Americans we didn’t connect our sexual lives to our entire bodies. Too often, we thought of sex as involving primarily the brain, the genitalia, the heart. Committing to Pilates has been revelatory in more ways than one.

My core exercise is running, and as long as my hips and knees hold up, I’ll keep doing that. But I’ve decided to drop the boxing component of my work-out rituals; I’ve been training thrice weekly at a local boxing gym since January 2006. I’ve certainly learned a lot about the sport. But while my upper body is stronger, and my shoulders broader, I can’t say I feel as if I feel fundamentally transformed by the discipline of learning to hit things well. (Heck, I’m pretty ambivalent about hitting things to begin with; my neo-Anabaptist pacifism makes me question the whole world of amateur boxing.) Working out on the “reformer” and on the balls and mats with Stephanie not only tones and shapes me, it teaches me about the profound interconnectedness of my body and my soul.

In developing my core muscles as they’ve never been developed before, I begin to understand that though my body is indeed mortal (as opposed to an eternal soul) it is not(as so many of my brothers believe) a “machine to be maintained.” It is not a bag of bones and muscles and fat that carries my brain around. In my younger years, and even until recently, I had a sense that my body was always betraying me. It would get sick at the least opportune time. It would fail to do as I wanted it to, particularly early on in certain intimate relationships. It would suddenly overwhelm me with its imperious demands for food, sleep, sex. I felt as if I alternately indulged and disciplined my body, as if it was some sort of hyper-active child who needed to be placated, monitored, and periodically spanked.

My spiritual growth, my commitment to doing “deep work” on masculinity and pesonal transformation, my adoption of a vegan diet, and my now two-year long commitment to Pilates are all connected. I’m a fierce (and to many readers, tiresome) proponent of the idea that everything matters. What we put in our mouths matters; what comes out of our mouth matters; how we make love matters; how we spend matters; how we treat our bodies matters. Every action we take, no matter how small, is a vote — it either builds a more just society and helps us become the person we are called to be, or it takes us further away from those goals. Pilates doesn’t make me a more generous person per se; it does teach me (like nothing else) of the profound interconnectedness of my physical, psychological, sexual and even spiritual well-being.

I write from a place of profound privilege. I can afford a vegan diet. I can afford private Pilates training. I am not smugly demanding that others do as I have done. But there are inexpensive alternatives, and I ought to do more on this blog to publicize those. And it’s worth pointing out that we spend a fortune in this country on pharmacological treatments for erectile dysfunction (I know men whose spending on Viagra or Levitra would pay for a number of Pilates classes). Only a fraction of the men pumping these drugs into their system have no alternative. Most cases of erectile dysfunction, particularly in otherwise healthy men, are connected to performance anxiety rather than a genuine organic malfunction. And a huge part of the problem for many, many American men is that they are ignorant of the reality of how their penis works. It rises up from a man’s core, and as I (and anyone else who does serious Pilates or yoga work) can attest, it functions in harmony with the muscles of the lower core and the pelvic floor. The link between strengthening the deep core muscles of the body and enhanced sexual pleasure for both parties in a relationship is obvious and dramatic. And too many men are fundamentally ignorant of this basic physiological truth.

There are some good books out there on male bodies: David Friedman’s fine A Cultural History of the Penis and Susan Bordo’s The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and Private. (I use both in my men and masculinity humanities class — I’ll be teaching it in the fall!) But as I advance as a Pilates student, my own sense of the male body is being transformed. And there’s a need out there for some good writing that synthesizes the wisdom of Pilates (and its companion discipline, yoga) with solid contemporary research on men and masculinity. Most men who lead lives of quiet desperation feel some of that despair because of the perceived failures of their flesh. Reaching them is vital.

Foreskins and fidelity

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 6, 2005
in Circumcision, Faith, Marriage, Penis and Sexuality
. 30 Comments

Still feeling poorly, I’m taking another day off from working out.  It’s always hard to stay away from the gym and the trails — my fears about losing fitness can become overwhelming.  But where in my younger years I might have staggered through a workout, wheezing and sneezing, I’ve become far wiser in my old age.

I am not feeling so poorly as to avoid the task of taking down the Christmas tree. It is Epiphany, after all, the day by which all good Mennoscopalians ought to have all holiday decorations taken down.  Given that the tree is now tinder dry, leaving it up a moment longer would be a fire hazard…

Anyhow, among the many topics in debate here is circumcision.  In particular, whether any serious comparison can be made between male circumcision and what is sometimes called female circumcision, but more often referred to as female genital mutilation.

Yesterday, I tried to make the case that in gender studies we needed to avoid competing in the "suffering Olympics", with each sex trying to make the case that their pain was greater than the other’s.  I stand  by the argument I made.  But I must confess that as a a pro-feminist, I was deeply and profoundly troubled by the equation of the removal of the foreskin of the penis with female genital mutilation as it is practiced in Africa and elsewhere.

For information on female genital mutilation (usually abbreviated FGM, or FGC), see the Female Genital Cutting Education and Networking Project.  More can be found here.

I’m not a cultural relativist.  I have no problem dismissing FGM as barbaric, and no problem seeking to have all varieties of female genital mutilation banned.  The near-universal purpose of FGM seems to be control of women’s sexuality, and there can be little doubt that the vast majority of FGM practices (as detailed on the sites above) are intended to make sex less pleasurable for women.

On the other hand, there is no hard evidence that male circumcision reduces male sex drive or pleasure.  Indeed, if that were so, we would be hard-pressed to explain the tremendous interest in sex that millions of circumcised American men display! 

But I’m not entirely untroubled by male circumcision, either.  Even if the physical repercussions are negligible for circumcised men, it is difficult to defend the involuntary imposition of real surgery on defenseless infant boys.  In the men’s movement, we must guard against the notion that boys are somehow tougher and more resilient than girls.  Boys can be victimized and wounded too!

In my Western Civ courses, we briefly cover the Abrahamic covenant, which is where male circumcision first appears in the Torah.  I offer my students three ways to think about male circumcision in this context, suggesting that elements of truth may be found in all three.

1.  Circumcision was intended to ensure male domination in Hebrew culture.  If only men have foreskins, and the removal of the foreskin is a mark of God’s promise to the Hebrews, than only men can "sign" the covenant.  Women, in this sense, are like minors in our culture — needing a parent or guardian to legitimize contracts.  If God had told Abraham to pierce his nose or his nipple, then women could have done that as well; male circumcision is virtually the only requirement that every man could meet and than no woman could.

2.  Alternatively, circumcision is intended to honor women.  In order for the "chosen people" to go on, women will have to give birth.  They will give birth in pain, and they will give birth in blood.  But that pain of childbirth is fundamentally productive; it is a sacrifice that leads to new life.  Requiring male circumcision means that men (or in most cases, infant boys) will also experience (though only once) pain and bleeding from the comparable part of their own bodies.  In some sense, circumcision may be men’s way of saying to women:  "We too will sacrifice, we too will bleed, we will honor (or appropriate) your pain by wounding ourselves in solidarity with you."  Just as the human race can only continue through childbirth, so the "chosen" can only continue through circumcision.  Both sexes will sacrifice together.

3.  But perhaps, circumcision is really about obedience and fidelity in the most private sphere of our lives.  It is axiomatic that nothing is more "personal" to a man than his penis.  In strictly religious Western cultures,once he hits adolescence, few people (if any) other than himself will hold his penis and look at it, with the exception of his wife (and in the modern world, his physician).   Many men in many cultures struggle with sexual fidelity; they struggle to honor their commitments (to chastity or to marriage).  Circumcision is a visceral, visual, tactile reminder that even in this most private area of a man’s life, God is still present.  Circumcision is about dedicating one’s body to God, and in particular, dedicating the very part of the body most renowned for inspiring men to act selfishly and destructively.   Our ancestors were well aware of the calamity and destruction that sexual infidelity could bring to the community; they may well have intended circumcision as an important token to remind every man of the colossal importance of his commitments.  (Of course, in modern culture where circumcision has lost its religious meaning, it’s difficult to imagine that most circumcised men would have this reaction to an absent foreskin!)

This is hardly an exhaustive list of all of the possible "reasons" for male circumcision.  But I must confess (without sharing any details of my own body — that would be far too much information) that I am immensely sympathetic to this third way of thinking about the meaning of the removal of the male foreskin.