The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

A Lesbian Theory of the Penis

Posted on | November 11, 2014 | 98 Comments

“Far from being ‘natural,’ phallic sexuality is a moral and political activity. . . . Men’s sexual behaviour is not caused by hormonal dictates. It is because the penis serves the ideological function of symbolizing ‘human’ status that it is so heavily charged with erotic energy, and not because it is driven by testosterone. Men must keep using it because they need to keep proving that they exist, that their ‘humanity’ is inextricably entwined with penis-possession; women must be constantly used by it to prove that men exist, that the sum total of a man is his penis. . . . Anything and everything must be subordinated to penile activity if men are to be what phallic ideology requires them to be.”
Denise Thompson, Radical Feminism Today (2001)

“That some men rape provides a sufficient threat to keep all women in a constant state of intimidation, forever conscious of the knowledge that the biological tool must be held in awe, for it may turn to weapon with sudden swiftness born of harmful intent. . . . Rather than society’s aberrants or ‘spoilers of purity,’ men who commit rape have served in effect as front-line masculine shock troops, terrorist guerrillas in the longest sustained battle the world has ever known.”
Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (1975)

When did I first encounter the feminist claim that rape is not about sex? It was during the 1980s, I’m pretty sure, and I recall being both startled and amused by this well-known element of feminist theory. Startled, I say, because rape so obviously is about sex, and amused at the naivete of anyone who could believe otherwise.

In the nearly four decades since Susan Brownmiller’s Against Our Will elaborated the rape-as-violence motif, it has become increasingly difficult to criticize that ideological claim without being accused of being “pro-rape.” Men who love women — not “love” as a matter of sentimental expression, but “love” as a consistent behavior of care and support — are required to be silent in reaction to the dishonest and deliberate insult that Brownmiller and other radical cadre have promoted as feminism’s truth. As males, we are not allowed to dispute feminism’s authority to speak on behalf of our wives and mothers, sisters and daughters.

As males, we are members of a demonized group of enemies, and everything we might say in our own defense is illegitimate. So when Brownmiller speaks scornfully of “the biological tool” — i.e., the penis — as also a “weapon,” when she implies that we as males derive a benefit from rapists who serve as “front-line masculine shock troops, terrorist guerrillas” in a war of all men against all women, we cannot dispute this hatefully insulting anti-male doctrine without being Kafkatrapped, where our claim of innocence becomes proof of our guilt.

Honest, decent and intelligent people rightly perceive feminism as a limitless doctrine of fanatical hatred. There can be no compromise with this totalitarian belief, nor can there be any “moderate” feminism. The problem, in the 21st century, is that the majority of Americans are neither honest nor decent nor intelligent. Barack Obama never could have been elected president twice in a nation of honest, decent, intelligent citizens. Clearly, our government now operates on behalf of the dishonest, indecent and stupid majority, and the consequences of this political reality should frighten us.

Feminism’s success in gaining hegemonic authority within academia — which the fate of Larry Summers at Harvard conclusively proved — has made it impossible to challenge the truth-making authority of these anti-male/anti-heterosexual ideologues. Every “educated” person under 40 has lived his or her entire life in a world where feminism controls our nation’s intellectual discourse about sex, so that to oppose feminism is to be “anti-intellectual,” no matter how fluent your argument or how prestigious your credentials. Deprived of intellectual prestige and institutional influence, direct opposition to feminism becomes first unfashionable and then nearly impossible.

You could probably count on one hand the number of university professors in America who have uttered a peep of criticism against feminism during the past decade, and the small number of anti-feminist books is buried amid the avalanche of feminist titles that spew forth from academic presses as commodities for taxpayer-subsidized consumption as textbooks in Women’s Studies courses.

So here we have Denise Thompson, author of the 2001 book Radical Feminism Today, a self-described “independent scholar” (meaning she never got a permanent professorship) in Australia, who worked for several years at the New South Wales Social Policy Research Centre. Now 74, Thompson could more logically be viewed as representing radical feminism yesterday, except for the fact that radical feminism is now what it has always been and must always be. While studying dozens of works of feminist theory, I have observed how the tone and terminology shift slowly over the decades. What was first termed “male chauvism” became “sexism” and more recently “misogyny.” What Adrienne Rich called “compulsory heterosexuality” in 1980 is now more commonly called “heteronormativity.” Criticism of “sex roles” or the “sex-caste system” has been superceded by talk of “gender,” and there are always little-noticed skirmishes around the periphery of feminism. What we might call “old-fashioned” radical lesbianism (e.g., Mary Daly, Julia Penelope, Marilyn Frye, Janice Raymond, Sheila Jeffreys, et al.) has for more than two decades been waging a counterattack against the insurgency of “French feminism” and poststructualism as represented by proponents of “Queer Theory” like Judith Butler (Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 1990).

Nevertheless, feminism remains what it has always been, and Denise Thompson’s Radical Feminism Today is a clear and thorough survey of this ideology. I ordered Radical Feminism Today from Amazon after seeing her books articles repeatedly cited in the notes and bibliographies of other books, including Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed, edited by Diane Bell and Renate Klein (1996) and Rethinking Sexuality by Diane Richardson (2000). I was particularly intrigued by an excerpt, in the latter title, of a 1991 book by Thompson, Reading Between the Lines: A Lesbian Feminist Critique of Feminist Accounts of Sexuality. Richardson cited Thompson while endeavoring to refute the longstanding criticism of “radical feminist analyses as biologically determinist/essentialist.”

Do I really need to wade into the eternal feminist disputes over “essentialism” here? No, it is not necessary to subject the reader to such internecine quibbling over theoretical details, except to say that in these fights among feminists, it is the radical lesbians who stand firm in defense of the idea that “female” is a matter of biology — a scientific fact involving anatomy and chromosomes — and in this particular matter, I find myself nodding in agreement.

Here I must remind readers of McCain’s Law of Feminism:

There are three kinds of feminism:

1. Feminism that is wrong;
2. Feminism that is crazy;
and
3. Feminism that is both wrong and crazy.

When in doubt, it’s usually Number Three.

Radical feminists are all crazy, but they are not always wrong.  The radical arguments of crazy lesbians expose the intellectual bankruptcy of so-called “pro-sex” (i.e., liberal heterosexual)  feminists.

If biological differences are irrelevant, after all, then there can be no basis for hating men and no way to identify “women” as an actual group suffering from oppression under male supremacy. Yet in order to avoid giving away the ballgame (because admitting that there are real differences between men and women undermines the androgynous egalitarian premise of feminism), radical feminists are required to tread a very narrow theoretical tightrope. With that in mind, here (from page 54 of Richardson’s Rethinking Sexuality) is the quoted excerpt of Thompson’s Reading Between the Lines:

To insist, as radical feminists do, that there are differences between the sexes, and that those ‘differences’ are the stuff of male domination, is not to appeal to ‘biology,’ nor to be pessimistic about the possibility of revolutionary change. In fact, it is to insist on that very possibility, else why would we bother? . . . Why is it not possible to argue both that female and male sexualities are different, or rather (to put it less essentialistically) that women and men have different interests, purposes, desires and needs in relation to sexuality, and that those differences are engendered by specific historical conditions, without positing any essential genesis or causality at all?

Thompson is splitting a fine red hair there, so to speak.

One gets the feeling that what Thompson wants to say is what all feminists really believe but cleverly refuse to say in so many words: Men and women are different — because men are inferior to women.

Anyone who believes feminism is about “equality” is so hopelessly stupid that I doubt they could read or comprehend this sentence.

Feminism isn’t about equality. Feminism is about hate.

As Jim Goad says, every word of feminist rhetoric is intended to “degrade, humiliate, and demoralize men,” and this is especially true as regards feminism’s deliberate demonization of male sexuality.

Thus do we return to Denise Thompson’s rant about “phallic sexuality” being “a moral and political activity.” It is certainly shocking to see a feminist speak of sexual morality, but in what sense do she mean that sexuality is political? Never mind how she might answer that question, however. Here she makes a categorical claim:

“Men’s sexual behaviour is not caused by hormonal dictates.”

The hell you say! Any teenage boy — or any man who remembers what it was like to be a teenage boy — can refute that bullshit. While it is certainly true that human beings are capable of rational action, and are not helpless slaves of biological urges, the hormonal influence on male sex drive is a scientific fact of biology beyond dispute.

Yet a fool believes what a fool believes, and there is no fool quite so foolish as a fanatical feminist fool. A man’s throbbing erection, according to Denise Thompson’s theory, has nothing to do with “hormonal dictates.” The boner is socially constructed, you see, and as Dr. Thompson insists “phallic sexuality” is not natural, there is neither a hormonal etiology nor a behavioral teleology to male sexuality.

C’mon, what’s the only reason any teenage boy ever learned to play guitar? Can I get a show of hands, guitar players? Rock-and-roll exists because of “phallic sexuality.” Wise parents understand this: Your daughter is never safe around a boy who plays guitar.

It’s not just guitars, either. Almost anything teenage boys do, they do as a result of “phallic sexuality.” They play football or they drive fast cars or they wear Abercrombie & Fitch — one way or another, it’s “phallic sexuality” that motivates their behavior. Anyone who doesn’t acknowledge this truth is living in an alternate universe. They certainly have never been a teenage boy or been the parent of one.

“Phallic sexuality” can be restrained and channeled toward constructive purposes, but it cannot be wished away by theoretical abstractions. Did I ever believe — has anyone with a penis ever believed — that his erection derived its “erotic energy” because it “serves the ideological function of symbolizing ‘human’ status”? Does my wife believe this? I’m afraid to ask. Her laughter would be embarrassing.

On the other hand, I must confess to being profoundly intrigued by Dr. Thompson’s Existential Theory of the Boner, whereby my humanity “‘is inextricably entwined with penis-possession,” so that I must keep using it to prove I exist: “I f**k, therefore I am.”

“Anything and everything must be subordinated to penile activity,” according to this feminist interpretation of “phallic ideology.”

Damn. If only some feminist had told me this when I was 14, it would have spared me all that time I spent learning to play guitar.

Brutal sarcasm aside, you see what results of feminism’s insistence that only feminist interpretations of sexuality are valid. Anything a man may claim to know about this own anatomy, his own beliefs and behavior, is unacceptable if it contradicts feminist theory.

Readers will excuse me if I end this article without offering any profoundly insightful conclusion. My 13-year-old son borrowed my old guitar — I have no idea why he wants to learn to play — but I think I might need to borrow it back, to serenade my wife. Maybe I’ll get lucky and my wife will let me prove my existence, IYKWIMAITYD.

 

 

This is the latest in the “Sex Trouble” series of articles about radical feminism’s war on human nature. Readers have urged me to produce a book on this topic; since July I have been publishing articles, based on my research and recent news events, as “draft chapters” of this book that I hope to finish compiling next month. Readers have generously supported this project with PayPal contributions, and it is with profound gratitude for this support that I once again remind you of the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!




 

Comments

98 Responses to “A Lesbian Theory of the Penis”

  1. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    November 12th, 2014 @ 12:19 pm

    Come on, the old bull was at least engaging in some planning!

  2. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    November 12th, 2014 @ 12:20 pm

    Slut cows give us all a bad name.

    Oh Jeez, now I will be blamed for opening up the war on women again!

  3. PeterP
    November 12th, 2014 @ 12:21 pm

    Doesn’t matter. It proves that rape is about sex.

  4. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    November 12th, 2014 @ 12:23 pm

    Feminists = Marxists = Dangerous Idiots

    Like Heinlien said, it you can’t put it in an equation, it is just opinion.

  5. kilo6
    November 12th, 2014 @ 1:36 pm

    Study the family backgrounds of these male monsters and you find over and over again the familiar story of “The Broken Home” (as social workers used to call it) …

    See also: Stanley Armour Dunham
    And Frank Marshall Davis (more at http://obamasrealfather.com )

    One was a known pornographer the other may have been quite abusive to family members (not the least of which was naming his daughter Stanley to express his extreme disappointment in her not being born with a penis). We all know where this ended up despite the hagiography surrounding their offspring and people they had influence over.

  6. Durasim
    November 12th, 2014 @ 2:08 pm

    Single-mother households are often toxic to children, but especially to male children.

    http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/31/opinion/la-oe-hymowitz-boys-and-divorce-20131031

    As for feminism being “a rationalization of women’s failures,” F. Roger Devlin pointed out how these “failures” are a deliberate and necessary basis for feminism’s propagation:

    “Indeed, the only people profiting from the imposition of the new standards are the feminists who invented them. The survival of their movement depends on a continuing supply of resentful women who believe their rights are being violated; one can only admit that the principles which undergird the date rape campaign are admirably designed to guarantee such a supply. Feminism is a movement that thrives on its own failures; hence, it is very difficult to reverse.”

    http://dontmarry.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/sexualutopia.pdf

  7. Phil_McG
    November 12th, 2014 @ 2:12 pm

    Anybody seen Zardoz?

    “The Penis is evil! The Penis shoots Seeds, and makes new Life to poison the Earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the Gun shoots Death and purifies the Earth of the filth of Brutals. Go forth, and kill! Zardoz has spoken.”

    Course, if they were remaking it today they might use “abortion” instead of “gun”.

  8. Phil_McG
    November 12th, 2014 @ 2:23 pm

    Worse. I’m fairly certain Stephen Hawking doesn’t hate and fear black holes, and spend all his time obsessing over how all the problems in his life were caused by black holes. Or try to indocrinate impressionable young students into sharing crazy delusions about black holes.

    Feminists talk of men the way Nazis did the Jews: simultaneously pathetic and yet also a terrible threat; inferior and yet part of a breathtakingly ambitious global conspiracy to oppress the volk.

  9. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    November 12th, 2014 @ 2:31 pm

    Adam, Eve and the Serpent? Enough said! The Patriarchy strikes again and Eve gets all the blame!

  10. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    November 12th, 2014 @ 2:51 pm

    Don’t even get me started on Lilith and her cheating with the angel. Hey, that could be a Rule 5!

  11. feminizing is hard
    November 12th, 2014 @ 3:42 pm

    While at University of Arizona in the early 1990s, trying to wrap up my undergrad degree in an actual scientific field, I had to take a class/ethnicity/race/gender class as part of the “humanities” requirement. So, I submitted to what I thought might be the least obnoxious one, and registered for “Womens Studies 101”.

    A response to the “rape is not about sex, it’s about power/violence” that came to my mind in that dungeon of forced indoctrination was this: “Of course it’s about sex; otherwise, that eliminates the major distinction between rape and bank robbery. I don’t pull out my penis during a bank robbery and say, ‘Back off, this thing’s loaded and I ain’t afraid to use it!'” Gasps all ’round.

  12. RKae
    November 12th, 2014 @ 4:12 pm

    I wish people understood the old line “Figures can lie and liars can figure.”

    Crime stats are a total joke.

  13. Zohydro
    November 12th, 2014 @ 4:27 pm

    That movie’s worth seeing just to behold Sean Connery leaping about in a bright red nappy!

    I denounce myself…

  14. Phil_McG
    November 12th, 2014 @ 4:54 pm
  15. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    November 12th, 2014 @ 5:16 pm

    Penis and Patriarchy…connect the P’s!

  16. Zohydro
    November 12th, 2014 @ 5:42 pm

    Ish dat a Webley in your nappy or are you jush glad to shee me?

  17. Fail Burton
    November 12th, 2014 @ 6:35 pm

    What do lesbian gender feminists think about blimps? Do they fuck the sky? Does the space shuttle fuck space?

  18. teapartydoc
    November 12th, 2014 @ 6:51 pm

    This is the funniest stuff have ever read. Keep finding more! It’s a treasure trove of comedy!

  19. Steve Skubinna
    November 12th, 2014 @ 7:04 pm

    Actually, many feminists look on science as a masculine act penetrating nature.

    No, I’m not kidding.

  20. Steve Skubinna
    November 12th, 2014 @ 7:07 pm

    As for which side of the road we drive on…

    “That some drive on the right provides a sufficient
    threat to keep all pedestrians in a constant state of intimidation, forever
    conscious of the knowledge that the automotive tool must be held in awe,
    for it may turn to weapon with sudden swiftness born of harmful intent.
    . . .”

    Yeah, makes just as much sense that way. Maybe even more.

  21. Dianna Deeley
    November 12th, 2014 @ 7:10 pm

    I am giggling so much that my assistant is a little disturbed!

  22. Dianna Deeley
    November 12th, 2014 @ 7:10 pm

    Pretty much.

  23. Steve Skubinna
    November 12th, 2014 @ 7:13 pm

    You will find this phenomenon in every university (Fill in the Blank) Studies program. Feminism is probably the most harmful however.

    When the Post Modern Lit Crit people spout wise sounding idiocy it affects nobody except other PoMo LitCrit buffoons who simply internalize and regurgitate the nonsense, patting each other on the back over their simulation of cleverness. Feminists have done, and continue to do significant damage to us all.

    These are grievously damaged people insisting that all of us become just as damaged as they are.

  24. STACY MCCAIN OFFERS A Lesbian Theory Of The Penis. “Anything a man may claim to know about this own… | CRAGIN MEDIA
    November 12th, 2014 @ 7:17 pm

    […] MCCAIN OFFERS A Lesbian Theory Of The Penis. “Anything a man may claim to know about this own anatomy, his own beliefs and behavior, is […]

  25. Fail Burton
    November 12th, 2014 @ 7:48 pm

    I’ve been reading some more from that Denise Thompson book. If I had only her to judge all women by then, yeah, woman could not vote due to non-sentience, feral aggressiveness towards strangers and needing to have a fence built around them.

  26. Fail Burton
    November 12th, 2014 @ 7:52 pm

    “The Eagle had landed.”

    MOON-RAPE!!!!

  27. Kaiser Derden
    November 12th, 2014 @ 8:08 pm

    I love these strong women how insist on keeping their male fathers last name in the name of feminism. If it was for individualism I’d buy it but its not. Its about fighting the male dominance …

  28. Guy Cocoa
    November 12th, 2014 @ 8:11 pm

    Since young males’ sexual drive is not biological, but is a social construct, then I guess we can send 65 year old women to fight our wars. That should work, unless the other side sends young males to fight.

  29. Don Meaker
    November 12th, 2014 @ 8:17 pm

    An young bull got into a habit of jumping a fence walking down a hill and servicing the cows who gathered at the creek.

    He did that for years, until old, and with a twinge of arthritis in his legs, and a bit of rain that made the usual track muddy, he didn’t jump quite high enough, and lost an important part of his anatomy on the fence. It hurt A LOT, but after a few weeks, he became more philosophical about it.

    One cow came up the hill, and asked him what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

    “I have considered that,” the old bull said, “and I have resolved that I will become a consultant.”

  30. Don Meaker
    November 12th, 2014 @ 8:23 pm

    The feminists use math as follows. They multiply male value assessments by zero, and add the product to their mix. If that isn’t enough they divide female value assessments as the limit approaches zero, and add that to their mix.

  31. Quartermaster
    November 12th, 2014 @ 9:06 pm

    and the limit of x/dx as dx approaches zero is undefined.

  32. dagwud
    November 12th, 2014 @ 9:27 pm

    The Garden of Eden was a combo-failure. There was a chick who didn’t know a line when she heard one, and a dude who didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.

  33. CountMeAmused
    November 12th, 2014 @ 9:43 pm

    I do not agree that rape is about sex. Yes, I am a male.
    1. Rape need not involve sexual intercourse (penetration, penetration with a foreign object, etc.). In these cases, it’s more obviously about the power stroke and proving who is really in charge. I don’t think modern Women’s Wellness get off the launch pad without this impetus.
    2.

  34. Edward Callahan
    November 12th, 2014 @ 9:45 pm

    No arguement, no fight, no debate. Just ignore them, then sit back and watch the real fireworks.

  35. RDG
    November 12th, 2014 @ 10:50 pm

    Can you think of anyone more irrelevant to the worldwide caliphate than these harpies? Don’t think there will be a worldwide caliphate? These fems are my proof there will be. It’s amazing this drivel passes as thought.

  36. Gert by Sea
    November 12th, 2014 @ 11:07 pm

    Someone should ask those East German athletes doped with testosterone whether they think their increased sex drive was socially constructed.

  37. ReindeerFlotilla
    November 12th, 2014 @ 11:14 pm

    Make sure the book ties in the “gender studies” majors at American Universities. As a taxpayer I’m tired of supporting an education in hate. Hate of men, hate of whites and hate of America in general.

  38. get2djnow
    November 12th, 2014 @ 11:17 pm

    I posted your comment on Instapundit @ http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/198161/#respond
    I credited you. It’s a brilliant comment. My feminist EX-wife enjoyed it immensely.

  39. theoldsargesays
    November 13th, 2014 @ 12:17 am

    …..” Yes, I am a male. “…..

    You sure?
    Are you one of those ” male feminists” we here about around these parts from time to time?

  40. Terenc Blakely
    November 13th, 2014 @ 2:51 am

    Feminist’s mantra that all men are rapists is as accurate and useful as rapper’s mantra that all women are whores.

  41. Aussieharleychick
    November 13th, 2014 @ 6:59 am

    Crack a fat..

  42. VESENG
    November 13th, 2014 @ 10:06 am

    Oh, the feminists are restrained. Get your theories too close to actual reality and watch what happens. Ask Professor Summers.

  43. Fit Forpost
    November 13th, 2014 @ 11:15 am

    “As males, we are members…” — Robert Stacy McCain, 11/11/14

    And as a male member I find this discussion valuable and timely, prior to having Hillary Rodham Clinton thrust upon us because she has lady parts.

  44. Joe Guelph
    November 13th, 2014 @ 3:11 pm

    I always thought it was a vision of the Sixties counterculture taking over a post-apocalyptic world: a three-tiered social hierarchy with Brutals (lumpen hippies), Exterminators (biker/gang enforcer-types), and Eternals (lighter-than-air wealthy New-Agers).

  45. Go, #GamerGate, Go! : The Other McCain
    November 13th, 2014 @ 11:00 pm

    […] Objectify them with the male gaze. This is my favorite method, because it’s so fun. Happily married for 25 years, I’m immune to shame. It’s not as if I’m “hitting on” a radical feminist when I call her “sweetheart” or tell her how much I’ve always been fascinated by butch lesbians. Oh, please, honey, tell me more about how I’m oppressing you with my phallic supremacy. […]

  46. Squid Hunt
    November 14th, 2014 @ 2:23 pm

    If we outlawed coffee (And by association, coffee shops.) I would venture to say liberalism would die out in a generation. The only way you can come up with this sort of stupidity is if you sat around for hours with your little echo chamber of friends and regurgitated each other’s thoughts over and over while sipping coffee and listening to terrible, whiney music.

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    November 16th, 2014 @ 7:42 pm

    […] A Lesbian Theory of the Penis Battleswarm Blog That Mr. G Guy Cragin Media Batshit Crazy News A View from the Beach Instapundit […]

  48. Schrijven, kunst, politiek en waarom er geen universele schoonheidsidealen zijn – Writings of Peter Kaptein
    November 18th, 2014 @ 3:25 pm

    […] response to this sort of rhetoric, Robert Stacy McCain writes “Anyone who believes feminism is about ‘equality’ is so hopelessly stupid that I […]