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Disseminating Phallic Masculinity: Seminal Fluidity in Genet's Fiction

Disseminating Phallic Masculinity: Seminal Fluidity in Genet's Fiction Genet’s novels are pæans to phallic masculinity. Hailed by Philippe Sollers as ‘the most beautiful pages in literature on the male body’,1 his narratives are filled with rapturous descriptions of the muscular bodies of those he calls durs (literally, ‘hards’, or toughs). Such men are represented as the very embodiment of phallic privilege in Genet’s work. Stilitano, who has ‘the biggest and loveliest prick in the world’2 derives his authority directly from the beauty and vigour of his penis: ‘[a]ll his brilliance, all his power, had their source between his legs’ (JV, 19/25). Genet’s eroticization of the phallic body, and more specifically his rhapsodic descriptions of the penis, is an important part of his fiction because it provides what is a rare account of the corporeal and sexual specificity of this body. This is because, as men have traditionally been constructed as the subjects of desire rather than its object, there is a paucity of erotic writing on the phallic male body. Sollers argues: ‘Men are, in the end, the great unknowns of the novel (. . .) Their sexuality is rarely described’ (xxiii). For Sollers, this is one of the most important aspects of Genet’s work — http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Paragraph Edinburgh University Press

Disseminating Phallic Masculinity: Seminal Fluidity in Genet's Fiction

Stephens, Elizabeth
Paragraph , Volume 27 (2): 85 – Jul 1, 2004
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Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
© Edinburgh University Press
ISSN
0264-8334
eISSN
1750-0176
DOI
10.3366/para.2004.27.2.85
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Genet’s novels are pæans to phallic masculinity. Hailed by Philippe Sollers as ‘the most beautiful pages in literature on the male body’,1 his narratives are filled with rapturous descriptions of the muscular bodies of those he calls durs (literally, ‘hards’, or toughs). Such men are represented as the very embodiment of phallic privilege in Genet’s work. Stilitano, who has ‘the biggest and loveliest prick in the world’2 derives his authority directly from the beauty and vigour of his penis: ‘[a]ll his brilliance, all his power, had their source between his legs’ (JV, 19/25). Genet’s eroticization of the phallic body, and more specifically his rhapsodic descriptions of the penis, is an important part of his fiction because it provides what is a rare account of the corporeal and sexual specificity of this body. This is because, as men have traditionally been constructed as the subjects of desire rather than its object, there is a paucity of erotic writing on the phallic male body. Sollers argues: ‘Men are, in the end, the great unknowns of the novel (. . .) Their sexuality is rarely described’ (xxiii). For Sollers, this is one of the most important aspects of Genet’s work —

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Paragraph – Edinburgh University Press

Published: Jul 1, 2004

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