Question and Answer
Frustration? Patience? Acceptance? Sometimes. Violence? Usually.
Which reservoir should you unleash when your man flirts with your best friend? What about when he says, "I love you, Betty," even though your name is Danny?
You women folk have a knack for filing and sharing man-lore with your sisters. Your sharing beats our male system of regurgitating "How-I-Scored" stories in locker rooms--our sadly-doomed attempts to demonstrate proud masculinity while wearing jockey shorts. You have the advantage of information--as if you needed an additional advantage above and beyond your boobies. So what's the problem?
You need a translator, that's your problem. Your magazines are top-filled with woman-written advice columns, then sprinkled with tell-her-what-she-wants-to-hear suggestions from vague, abstract men.
So here's your insider: bring on the questions; the Phallic Suggestion brings the real-deal bluntness that you need to hear.
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The Phallic SuggestionLabels: Longest Engagement, Q and A
The Erotic Triangle
Author: Joshua P. Suchman
Jorge Luis Borges, known best, perhaps, for his surface fascination with labyrinths both literal and theoretical, devoted his writings to the pursuance of desire, and the subjective reality that desire creates. His belief that desire pre-suggests reason, that desire colors and controls all elements of reasonâthat desire, therefore, is what alienates us from the universeâbecomes something of a mirror for Arthur Schopenhauerâs philosophy. Salvation can be found, says Schopenhauer, through the accumulation of philosophical knowledge, the contemplation of works of art, and sympathy for other human beings.
An essential function of Borgesâ writing style is to wedge open a dialogue across space and time. In a sense, his goal is to encourage the reader to feel the irony between what can be said, and what is not said. In such a world, the contextual limits of writing are always irrevocably isolated to a single, even immeasurably small moment in timeâsuch that every written sentence makes the previous sentence obsolete. And therefore, the way a reader interprets the temporal differentialâor, to restate, the way the reader intuits what would be said if the story had been written now, in the moment of the readingâbecomes the point. The readerâs desire to understand is the only way meaning can be created.
One startling feature of Borgesâ writing, then, is the glaring omission of ârealâ women, rounded female characters. If Borges believes that desire is the singular, fundamental gutrock of experience, then why does he refuse to treat the obvious subject within his stories? In many, no women appear at all. In a handful, they are mere apparitions of memory. And on the rare occasion that Borges suggests an active female characterâor even a passive, flat female character who plays some significant role in plot developmentâhe makes no attempt to experience some uniquely female perspective.
Letâs consider a story that hints at a possible explanation:
In âThe Dead Man,â BenjamÃn Otálera becomes a victim of a typical theme in the fictions of Borges. The young gaucho seeks to create his own life, to mark the world with his particular brand of valor; meanwhile, the machinations of fate have marked him for death. His ignorance of fate is not his only transgression: his desire to usurp the identity of Azevedo Bandeira stems from the masculine canonical tradition of one man replacing another man he previously worshipped (Collected Fictions). In his critical essay âThe Queer Use of Communal Women,â Herbert J. Brant suggests that Otáleraâs desire for Bandeiraâs woman is a function of the homosocial nature within the homosocial world of all gauchos. In order to usurp Bandeiraâs character, Otálera finds desire for Bandeiraâs objects.
âTriangular Desireâ is a model proposed by René Girard, and Brant uses Sharon Magnarelliâs summary in his essay: âDesire is dependent upon a triangular relationship: the object of desire (O) is desirable to one individual (A) to the extent that it is desired by another (B) . . . . The object of desire (O) is an empty receptacle needing to be filled with what is projected upon it by the subjects of that desire (A and/or B)â (Queer, 4). Brant additionally suggests that the rivalry between Otálera and Bandeira is not a matter of desire for the same object (in this case, the woman), but a transmutation of a desire for each other (4).
So:
On his way to meet Bandeira (B), Otálera (A) finds his way into a knife fight. He is attracted to the violence of the battle rather than any condition of morality, and parries a thrust that would have killed one of the menâthe man who later reveals himself to be Bandeira (Collected Fictions, 196-197). After joining the cattle drovers, âonly once does [Otálera] see Azevedo Bandeira, but he is always aware of his presenceâ (197).
At first, Otálera wants the boss to see that he is superior to the lot of drovers. When Otálera is asked to bring food and drink to Bandeira during his illness, he sets his eyes on âquirts and bullwhips, firearms . . .â (O) and then, only through a mirrorâs reflection does Otálera note the bare-breasted woman (198).
Now Otálera begins to covet the objects associated with Bandeira, such as the sorrel and its bridle, and the âwoman with resplendent hairâ (O), (199). Bandeira is known as âaccomplished in the art of progressive humiliationâ (199) and Otálera determines to use this method (O) to usurp Bandeiraâs position.
Borges permits Otálera to usurp the coveted persona, but only to the extent that the gauchoâs fate permits. Thus, in an âeffeminate, wheedling voice,â (200) Bandeira calls down Otáleraâs fateâa fate that had only temporarily been postponed. Now Otálera realizes he was allowed to be Bandeira, only because âso far as Bandeira was concerned, [Otálera] was already a dead manâ (200).
Throughout the fictions of Borges, characters are constantly attempting to usurp the place of their masters. The sorcerer in âCircular Ruinsâ usurps the role of the Divine; in âThe Makerâ Borges usurps Homer; and in âBorges and I,â of course, Borges usurps Borges. These enactors of this desirous coupling are always cases of one male supplanting another male. The socially acceptable party line labels this machismo, and associates machismo with vigilant heterosexuality. With regard to Borges, howeverâas is the case in âThe Dead Manââthe reader senses that the masculinity of the gauchos is simply the socially acceptable way of veiling what is in reality a homosocial tendency.
Copyright ©2005, ©2006 Joshua P. Suchman. All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2004, ©2005, ©2006 The Phallic Suggestion. All rights reserved.
-âPrinted in accordance with one-time, exclusive permission granted by Joshua P. Suchman specifically for display at The Phallic Suggestion. This article is intended for private use only. This article may not be quoted, copied, printed, or published in-part or in-full without the express written consent of Joshua P. Suchman. All The Phallic Suggestion Terms of Service apply. The Phallic Connection grants webmasters and readers the limited right to link to this article by way of a site link, and/or article title; reference to author is required. No other right to material is granted without express written consent.
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Works Cited
Borges, Jorge L.
Collected Fictions. Trans. Andrew Hurley. New York:
Penguin, 1998
Brant, Herbert J. âThe Queer Use of Women in Borgesâ âEl Muertoâ
and âLa Intrusaâ.â (from:
UTexas-Brant Project)Indiana
University-Purdue University, Indianapolis.
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