From: dsoconne@midway.uchicago.EDU (Daniel S OConnell)
Subject: Re: Mythopoetic ritual
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Reply-To: dsoconne@midway.uchicago.EDU
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: 17 Dec 92 18:22:39 GMT

vanhoek@bend.UCSD.EDU (Karen van Hoek) writes:

>Me again, on the subject of reclaiming sexuality.  In the book
>"Women Respond to the Men's Movement" p. 4, Ursula LeGuin writes
>about a gathering she was at where Robert Bly told her, "The

As someone who has been rather extensively involved in various
men's groups, I have to say that the book you are quoting from
seems to take the perspective that the "men's movement" is
dangerous, and then uses various essays to show what a wierdo
and creep Bly, Keen, et al, are in order to discredit the idea
of men's groups in general.

No doubt any religious moment, or epiphany when taken out of
context seems deviant, wierd, strange, alien, Other. Your
paragraph above makes clear (to me) that what we do not know
or understand is scary (death is another example).

I don't think anyone in the "men's movement" would say that
it is about phallocentricity: certainly the history of culture
has had enough of that kind of appropriation and commodification.

If a perceived incident is skewed by presuppostion and then
interpreted and extrapolated to provided a general picture
from a specific incident, well, any conclusion is possible.

>I have two comments to make.  One is that I hope that there
>are some men who would -- rather than feeling attacked and
>getting defensive -- feel for a moment how _sad_ it is that
>rape and sexual abuse are so pervasive that even a woman
>who generally likes male anatomy and heterosexual relations
>would still feel frightened by the thought of men
>celebrating their maleness by celebrating their genitals.

From personal experience I can say that men attempting
to reclaim or discover what masculinity means to them,
stripped of cultural condescenions and imperatives,
have to go "deep", to get past the paradigms we have all
been force-fed since birth. Of course this is a scary
process.

More to the point, I would argue that it is important
we all learn how to celebrate our sexuality, whether
gay, lesbian, bi, tv, straight, etc. I would agree with
you that this is a sensitive issue.

>It does seem very sad that the notion "phallus" has become
>so strongly identified with "weapon" that the thought of a
>men's movement which emphasizes celebration of the phallus
>is scary.

And what about the patriarchal notion of the vulva being
all-engulfing and castrating? Should that thought prohibit
celebration of female sexuality? Note that I am not arguing
for celebration of body parts -- just that it is important
(IMO) to determine what is useful and what isn't.

>My other comment is that still, you can imagine a way that
>men could celebrate in that way _and_connect with women
>rather than alienating them.  Probably many of you in this
>group aren't into dancing around maypoles or beating on
>drums, so I may've lost you as soon as I mentioned ritual.

Well, you haven't lost me. I've danced in the woods and
beat on drums and I heartily recommend it for anyone --
regardless of gender.

>But take this as a suggestion towards an _attitude_, a way
>of trying to bridge the male/female gap, rather than just a
>comment on how to make a new and improved ritual.  What if,
>as part of the Great Phallus celebration or whatever, the men
>took some time to mourn the way that the penis has been
>identified as a weapon, and how that way of thinking about
>masculinity has separated men from women?  What if they

Yes, yes, yes. The word "mourn" and `grief' has perhaps
a significance for men that is analogous to `anger' for
women.

Dano

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