Man-ipulated 1 (NSFW)

Proofs

A playful experiment in digitally amplifying my masculinity

In previous work I have frequently explored embodied gender ideals, predominantly the emphasised feminine but also the hyperbolic masculine. The ideal of the hyperbolic masculine is one which seems to have gained greater cultural traction in recent years with many men submitting themselves to the scrutiny and judgement of a notional “other” (a phenomenon with which women are all too familiar) and striving for a perfection according to those standards.

However, even prior to this proliferation of body fascism previously confined to a relatively niche group of men, there have been masculine body ideals which were culturally embedded. I myself for example am genetically and metabolically configured such that I was always a slight, slender child. Despite always being tall, my slightness, combined with my fine and straight blonde hair (often on the longer side) seemed usually to position me on the outer edges of what was acceptably masculine.

Now, as a grown man 6’2” tall and with a beard, my body seems to have converged somewhat with my unconscious idea of bodily masculinity that had been assimilated and internalised from culture since birth. Nonetheless, residual insecurities about the maleness of my body remain and this is despite contradictory evidence in the form of being a subject of physical desire to those with whom I have been sexually intimate. I may well be tall but with my fair, modestly-haired skin and asymmetrical Slavic features, I wouldn’t categorize myself as dark or handsome. Certainly, I don’t relate to my own notion of the hirsute, swarthy masculinity that is summoned by the aphorism “tall, dark and handsome”.

If the lean, toned and functionally redundant excess muscle of the hyperbolic male body is not the persistent, residual cultural template of bodily masculinity, then what is? For the answer to this I look to myself and by contrast to Author Fay Weldon’s theory that society wants women to be small. Not just slender, but small, so that they take up less space, inhabit the world less. We can see this as the female embodiment of women’s subordination within a patriarchal social dynamic. And if I return to my childhood, it was my slightness more than anything that seemed problematic. If a patriarchal social dynamic requires women to be small and physically ineffective, we could see that men might be required to be big, strong and solid, the solidity being congruent with the stoicism and emotional suppression we expect of men.

Of course, I must tackle the elephant in the room (if dear reader, you’ll excuse the pun), that of penis size. Although I have been fortunate enough to enjoy sufficient mutually enjoyable sexual experiences to feel adequately endowed, it would be remiss not to address the subject. Despite my experience and knowing that member size is not the only factor on which mutual pleasure is dependent, it remains a culturally imbued anxiety which haunts the psyche of at least Caucasian men. For evidence of this, one only needs to think of the racist way in which the black, male sex-organ is attributed a mythic status and the East-Asian member the opposite. I have no way of knowing if either myth is true and it seems to me just as likely they be founded at least in a residual post-colonial imperialism, but this does not diminish the actuality of an anxiety which has only been amplified by the proliferation of internet pornography.

This writing is a response to an image I made recently (below) which was done in the pursuit of finding knowledge through my practice as an artist. In the same way that in my last post I found the path to balance by getting my hands on my materials and practicing the art of making balance sculptures from stones, I decided to make myself the material for a brief exploration of my own masculinity. First by photographing myself in what could be described as a topographic way, then by manipulating the image to bring it closer into accord with an intuitive notion of what is expected of bodily masculinity. It is only an experiment, a sketch perhaps, but certainly it proved to be a useful, if playful exercise in interrogating my position.

Man-ipulated 1 XSK October 2020