Soon enough, Jamie rejects clone culture: “Weren’t there any real men left in New York City?” (42, emphasis mine).
Jamie’s idea of a real man is one for whom his phallus is the locus of his own power, not a symbol of it but an actual source of authority and command.
In Jamie’s world, the phallus is a literal object of worship; quickly, it becomes the cynosure, the sole reason, of his own existence: “I used to think men in leather and Levis were hot numbers only for weekends. I thought life was really about working, a career, making it after a week climbing the ladder of success.
Now I know that success is Mr. Benson’s cock, however and whenever I can get it” (1–2). Tellingly, Preston avoids any overt description of Mr. Benson’s physique; Jamie considers him “handsome,” but never directly describes him (3). Of course not; for Jamie, there is nothing beyond the phallus. Once he rejects clone culture, the body is no longer a text for him to read; for him, there is only the penis.
166
Of Muscles and Men
In moving his character beyond the body, Preston rejects the clone reading of the male physique as signifying masculinity. To him, the fashioned physique is more a sign of weakness, an indication of a detriment, of something missing, seemingly focused on the phallus. Rather than suggesting the phallus or hiding the phallus, the enlarged male form reveals it, and it is lacking. Schwenger suggests that within such exaggerated masculinities there is “a despairing sense of sterility beneath the richness and the vigor” of the hyper-developed muscular form (631). In this reading, slavish devotion to the body suggests a conscious desire to fashion a subjectivity that insinuates phallic power, but, in reality, obfuscates the truth. This hearkens back to Butler’s assertion that the body is a performative signifier, and, in this case, what is posited is only a simulacrum — and not a reality — of phallic authority. Adam Isaiah Green argues that “the gay clone ... [is] more masculine than his heterosexual counterparts” (535). This overt devotion to masculinity was fashioned as a rejoinder to homophobic constructions of gay masculinity, which until that time had been viewed as an aspect of Butler’s “failed gender.” The cloned nature of this constructed masculinity, however, suggests that the “failed” view of “gender”
was shared by the gay clone himself, not as an internalized form of homophobia but rather as a redaction of and reaction to heteronormative social mores.
This enabled the subculture to create a specific construction of masculinity, based on tropes that existed, and to exaggerate them. However, this also suggests not only a predisposition towards the phallus, but also a natural anxiety of it: anxiety because of the abject yearning for the phallus and anxiety created by wondering how heterosexual men would judge the masculinity of the male who desired it. Thus the phallus as a source of anxiety is, in many ways, overtly reflected by clone culture. Embracing the male physique, while still sexually charged, allows for the successful transaction of the male gaze, heterogendered (through admiration) and homogendered (through desire). Yet making the phallus the object of the male gaze renders the gaze untenable for heteronormative society; this creates further tension in the gazing male.
Thus clone culture shifts emphasis away from the phallus and towards the body itself. As with He-Man and the other Masters of the Universe, all are allowed to openly admire the physique of the clone; and yet, when we pull back his
“shaggy underwear,” we wonder if the clone is as lacking in that department as the doll.
Masters of the Masculine Universe: Obtunding the
Hyper-Muscular Form
If the body could achieve perfect, non-individual harmony then it would be possible to shut individuality up for ever in close confinement.
— Yukio Mishima
Beefy Guys and Brawny Dolls (Cornelius) 167
In clone culture, the male form can be seen as a source of erotic desire, but rarely is it sexualized. While the sexuality of the bearer is signified by his musculature and other cultural markers, sex remains obscured, if not outright hidden. At its heart, Levine’s “‘butch’ rhetoric” rejects outright sexualization, at least in public; in aping the trappings of traditional heteronormative men, gay clones create a type of masculine “bluff ” when it comes to their sexual behavior. Though they act as overtly “gay” as their culture allows, by mimicking heterosexual males and rejecting the traditional, more “sissified” roles previously allotted to gay men by society, gay clones hide their own sexuality in favor of outward displays of masculinity. Levine notes this by describing the tension that existed between the gay clone and the “feminized” homosexual.
He writes: “To the feminized homosexual, what mattered was that one was a homosexual who happened (however inconveniently) to be a man. To the butch
[clone], by contrast, one was a gay man — neither was inconvenient, and both were necessary to create gay male identity” (57). Levine here is correct in asserting that clones did not hide the nature of their sexuality; however, whereas the
“feminized” homosexual was a constant reminder to heteronormative society of his sexuality (and of male-male sexual behaviors) through his inability to obscure his “feminized” self, the clone’s adoption of stereotypically heteronormative masculine behaviors suggests more than a fleeting notion at the construct of “passing.” This is not to say that gay clones were interested in being perceived of as “straight”; however, by choosing to adapt the mannerisms and modes of heterosexual men, the appearance and behavior of the gay clone made his sexuality “less” obvious to heteronormative society while making it “more” obvious to those within the subculture itself. Thus camouflaged, the gay clone remained perhaps more palatable to dominant heterosexual society, if only because he recognized constructions of social behaviors within the subculture that he had created. Clone culture thus remains in some ways, on its surface, a very homoerotic world, though not as homo sexual as other gay subcommunities, such as the leather world Jamie discovers in Mr. Benson, or even the “feminized” homosexual Levine disparages in his study.
Homoeroticism is not lost on He-Man and other sword-and-sandal sagas; any work parading that much naked or nearly-naked man flesh is sure to be aware of the self-referents it is making. Yet most works in this genre are highly heteronormative; the presence of women as objects of sexual desire ensures that no disquieting questions are asked about the barbarian sexual identity.
Conan had his lovers; their presence not only demonstrated his virility, but also his dominance:
She was untamed as a desert wind, supple and dangerous as a she-panther. She came close to him, heedless of his great blade, dripping with blood of her warriors. Her supple thigh brushed against it, so close she came to the tall warrior. Her red lips parted as she stared up into his somber menacing eyes.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “By Ishtar, I have never seen your like, though I
168
Of Muscles and Men
have ranged the sea from the coasts of Zingara to the fires of the ultimate south.
Whence come you?”
“From Argos,” he answered shortly, alert for treachery. Let her slim hand move toward the jeweled dagger in her girdle, and a buffet of his open hand would stretch her senseless on the deck. Yet in his heart he did not fear; he had held too many women, civilized or barbaric, in his iron–Chewed arms, not to recognize the light that burned in the eyes of this one.
“You are no soft Hyborian!” she exclaimed. “You are fierce and hard as a gray wolf. Those eyes were never dimmed by city lights; those thews were never softened by life amid marble walls.”
“I am Conan, a Cimmerian,” he answered.
To the people of the exotic climes, the north was a hazy half-mythical realm, peopled with ferocious blue-eyed giants who occasionally descended from their icy fast-nesses with torch and sword. Their raids had never taken them as far south as Shem, and this daughter of Shem made no distinction between AEsir, Vanir or Cimmerian.
With the
unerring instinct of the elemental feminine, she knew she had found her lover, and his race meant naught, save as it invested him with the glamor of far lands.
“And I am Belit,” she cried, as one might say, “I am queen.”
“Look at me, Conan!” She threw wide her arms. “I am Belit, queen of the black coast. Oh, tiger of the North, you are cold as the snowy mountains which bred you.
Take me and crush me with your fierce love!” [Howard, “Queen”].
In the story “Queen of the Black Coast,” Conan’s love for Belit fuels his rancor against the winged creature that kills her, causing him in turn to destroy the monster. The loss of a man’s love is a common trope that can often impel the peplum adventurer to act; both Maximus in Gladiator and Spartacus in Spartacus: Blood and Sand fight their epic arena battles for the love and honor of their missing spouses, in case we had any doubts about the orientations hidden beneath their leather chest straps and peplumic skirts.
The juvenilization of the sword and sandal epic, however, creates the interesting sub-affect of bringing forth the homoerotic nature of the genre. Juvenilizing the peplum means reducing both the levels of violence and sexuality inherent to the genre; for such a testosterone-fueled narrative, then, eliminating the female sexualized presence creates a condition wherein the eroticized masculine form and traditional levels of sexual energy must be channeled elsewhere.
The end result is often a homosocial and at-times homoerotic male grouping, wherein play and practice for battle replace the more aggressive actual combat, thievery, and sexuality that abound in sword and sandal epics. He-Man is a prime example of this, as Anderson notes:
The best part about rewatching He-Man, after the initial nostalgia-burst, was tracking the show’s hilarious accidental homo-eroticism — an aspect I missed completely as a first-grader. In the ever-growing lineup of “outed” classic superheroes, He-Man might be the easiest target of all. It’s almost too easy: Prince Adam, He-Man’s alter ego, is a ripped Nordic pageboy with blinding teeth and sharply waxed eyebrows who spends lazy afternoons pampering his timid pet cat; he wears lavender stretch pants, furry purple Ugg boots, and a sleeveless pink blouse that clings like saran wrap to his pecs. To become He-Man, Adam harnesses what he calls “fabulous secret
Beefy Guys and Brawny Dolls (Cornelius) 169
powers”: His clothes fall off, his voice drops a full octave, his skin turns from vanilla to nut brown, his giant sword starts gushing energy, and he adopts a name so absurdly masculine it’s redundant. Next, he typically runs around seizing space-wands with glowing knobs and fabulously straddling giant rockets. He hangs out with people called Fisto and Ram Man, and they all exchange wink-wink nudge-nudge dialogue:
“I’d like to hear more about this hooded seed-man of yours!” “I feel the bony finger of Skeletor!” “Your assistance is required on Snake Mountain!” Once you start thinking along these lines, it’s impossible to stop [Anderson].
In Anderson’s critique, both Prince Adam’s sartorial choices and musculature act as a signifier of a “hidden” sexual desire. As with the gay clone, for He-Man, clothing and physique are designed to relay a message that otherwise can not be sent. In the late 1970s gay men were still socially and legally ostracized in most communities; though clone culture existed in particular ghettoized urban areas, where being openly gay was safer (though not normative), as I have already noted, clone guise and clone physique, derived from traditional aspects of the dominant heteronormative culture, allowed the gay clone both to advertise and to camouflage his self and his intent.
Anderson concludes that He-Man’s homoerotic underpinnings reveal “a prime example of how easily an extreme fantasy of masculinity can circle back to become its opposite” (Anderson). To Anderson, homosexuality exists as Butler’s failed heterosexuality, its literal “opposite”; too much masculinity, in Anderson’s mind, becomes oppositional to the “real” thing, as if He-Man and gay clones are trying too hard to be something they are so obviously not. Yet Anderson here is ignoring both the genesis of each figure and the replicable nature of his masculinity. He-Man and gay clones were not fashioned in opposition to, or as exaggerations of, existing late 1970s tropes of heteronormative masculinity (which, as Butler has pointed out, are only socially fabricated “performances” anyway) (237). Rather, both are fashioned from earlier, more traditional forms of masculine behavior:
In the traditional male role, masculinity is validated ultimately by individual physical strength and aggression. Men are generally expected not to be emotionally sensitive to others or emotionally expressive or self-revealing, particularly of feelings of vulnerability or weakness. Paradoxically, anger and certain other impulsive emotional expressions, particularly toward other males, are expected or tolerated.
The traditional male prefers the company of men to the company of women and experiences other men as the primary validator of his masculinity. Though bonds of friendship among men are not necessarily emotionally intimate, they are often strong. In the traditional male role in marital and other relationships, women are seen as necessary for sex and for bearing children, but these relationships are not expected to be emotionally intimate or romantic, and often seem only pragmatic arrangements of convenience. The traditional male expects women to acknowledge and defer to his authority. There is also a strong adherence to a sexual double standard that views sexual freedom as appropriate for men but not women [Pleck 140 –141].
Joseph Pleck argues that by the late 1970s a “modern male role” has developed alongside this more traditional mode, not fully supplanting but altering the
170
Of Muscles and Men
ways in which society views the role of men within its social milieu. In this new “modern male role” masculinity is validated “by economic achievement and organizational or bureaucratic power” (141). In this instance, “the modern male values the capacity for emotional sensitivity and self expression” (141). As regards to the opposite gender, “women, rather than men, are experienced as the primary validators of masculinity” (141). What Pleck is describing here is a wholly paradigmatic shift in social constructions of masculinity; however, both He-Man and clone culture are dependent upon older methodologies of masculine fashioning. Thus clones are not the opposite of heterosexuals, and He-Man is not “gay”; it is just that their notions of masculinity are out of date.
Socioculturally speaking, both heterosexual and homosexual men are raised in the same way; in essence, they both receive the same fashioning as impressionable youth. Levine raises this point when he writes, “Gay men undergo essentially the same enculturation as heterosexual males” (15). Green agrees: “Hegemonic constructions of masculinity are internalized in early phases of socialization that comes to structure the erotic practices and ideation of straight and gay men” (534). Thus at some point gay clones, if they are perceived to be different from the heterosexual men around them in ways beyond sexual activity, must veer off from this social ideation. This difference occurs because clones make the decision to fashion themselves against and along more traditional forms of masculine behavior; their ideas of masculinity were thus not oppositional to the heterosexuality of the day, but rather derived from older forms of the same construct. He-Man works in the same mode; once the wholesome values of juvenile popular culture are imbued with the sword and sandal genre, the character reflects a type of extreme manliness that hearkens back to a prior generation. In both instances, the group nature of clone culture and the Masters of the Universe microcosm works to emphasize and escalate this point.
According to Jay C. Wade and Chris Brittain-Powell, men are “dependent on a male reference group for [their] gender role self-concept” (323). The authors continue: “The gender role self-concept is one’s self-concept with regard to gender roles and includes one’s gender-related attributes, attitudes, and behaviors” (323). As such, “males identify with other males to the extent that they feel psychological relatedness to a particular group of ma
les or to all males”
(324). This reflects Pleck’s outmoded construct of masculinity being largely validated by other men; the “modern” male finds his masculinity validated by women, but for the gay clone and for He-Man these women, for the most part, do not exist, and their brawny physiques exist to be gazed at and admired by men.3
Such group-think reflects what Wade and Brittain-Powell refer to as “Reference Group Dependent status,” which “is characterized by feelings of psychological relatedness to some males and not others, a conformist ego identity, dependence on a male reference group for one’s gender role self-concept, and thereby rigid adherence to gender roles, stereotyped attitudes, and limited or
Beefy Guys and Brawny Dolls (Cornelius) 171
restricted gender role experiences and behaviors” (325). In such a group, a man would base his construct of masculinity as Pleck suggests the “traditional” male did — on perceptions, instructions (both conscious and subconscious), and validations received from other men:
He would define his maleness or masculinity based on other like males or his peer group, which would tend to be homogeneous in character. For example, such feelings and beliefs may be present in a man who is a member of a college fraternity, who will only socialize and be friends with other men in his fraternity, and incorporates the fraternity’s image of masculinity as his own; or a man who has sexist and prej-udicial attitudes because this is what he has learned from other males in his environment with whom he identifies, and to have such attitudes is consistent with being a part of “the group” [Wade and Brittain-Powell 325].
Of Muscles and Men Page 28