From: uunet!infmx!hartman@ncar.ucar.EDU (Robert Hartman)
Subject: Re: Mythopoetic ritual (a possibly Very Weird topic)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.
Date: 17 Dec 92 17:54:07 GMT

In article <1g969kINN9vv@agate.berkeley.edu> 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
>Men have raised a Great Phallus farther up the river. ... I'd
>show you, but it's off limits to the Women...."  When I read
>that, I shuddered.  Even though I'm generally sex-positive, and
>even though I believe in the power of dopey-seeming rituals to
>change our consciousness, this was creepy -- that these Men's
>Movement men seemed to be getting into "phallus worship" with
>no sign of consciousness of how much damage has been done to
>women through "cock supremacy".  For a moment there, the idea
>of a Great Phallus felt about the same to me as if he'd said
>Great Swastika.

The "women aren't allowed" comment seems quite childish, and sadly,
quite in character for Bly.  There was no point in telling her about
it if she wasn't invited to participate.  But that's so typical of
him.

Everything I've heard or read about Bly would seem to indicate that he
is a woman-basher of the first order.  It's really too bad that his
style has come to epitomize that of the men's movement.  In another
article someone said that feminism needs to come to terms with it's
own lunatic fringe.  I believe that the men's movement needs to do
this too.  I see Bly's perspective as just that.

>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.

Well ... I understand the sadness over all the destructive things that
have been attributed to the phallus, primarily by men, but also by
women.  This is _not_ my "gun," and I'm not a "depraved monster" for
having it, or for wanting to enjoy it.

>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 very sad.  This from a male perspective.  The thought occurs to me
that the defensiveness men display whenever the topic of rape comes up
might also be due to the fact that men feel this sadness and don't
know how to acknowledge or express it.  That's certainly been true for
me in the past.  Even when men aren't being deliberately shamed, they
can still feel the guilt by association that is implicit in the
culture, and the sense of helplessness and loss that go with it.  But
male socialization dictates that personal losses are not to be
suffered or accepted, and that grief is to be defended against at all
costs.

I think that there is a lot of grief over this among men.  But since
men can't really deal with it in a culturally acceptable way, the
walls build up, and they are awfully hard to break through.

>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.
>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
>talked about how they've found standard models of masculinity
>separating them from their fellow men?  What if they declared,
>as part of proclaiming the sacredness of their sexuality,
>that they weren't going to stand for masculinity being identified
>with the role of victimizer anymore, and they pledged themselves
>to fight against attitudes that encouraged men to take the role
>of victimizer?  What if they mourned the way that rape defiles
>male sexuality?

Sounds good to me.  I would hope that they did this, and they may
well have.  But then there's Bly with his little backhanded jabs,
and the impression this gives to women that the men's movement is
more of the same, only worse.  I've heard comments from women of the
following sort regarding the men's movement:

	Well, begged asked men to tell us about their feelings and
	they've told us.  What _were_ we thinking about?

I find that very sad as well.  It's almost as though women couldn't
believe that men might have legitimate long-standing grievances with
them.  Perhaps these aren't as extreme as women's grievances, but that
doesn't mean they aren't valid.  (I know, this is soc.feminism, and the
so-called dialogue in soc.men doesn't speak too well of the legitimacy
of men's issues.  Neither does Bly.  Damn.)

>For those of you who aren't into dancing around trees, this may
>be way too far out in the ozone to make sense.  But my basic
>point is, there are ways of celebrating ourselves, our gender,
>our genitals, and what have you, that include _resisting_
>the cultural baggage we've got, rather than just perpetuating
>it.

Yes indeed.  How sad it would be if men ended up ritualizing their
defenses, rather than using ritual to legitimately express their sense
of grief and loss over the innocence and enthusiasm that fuel an
unblemished male sexuality.

Sometimes I think that if we could just teach men how to grieve, a
lot of our other problems would start to resolve themselves.

-r

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