Hiya,
I am doing some more research into parturition envy, otherwise known as
a common male fantasy of being pregnant and giving birth to a child.
The term is psychoanalytic and relates to castration anxiety and was
coined by Klein (as far as I know) and is tied up with Lacan's theory of
language. That is, that the male child in the phallic stage gains access
to language by resolution of the castration complex with the signifying
bar being castration. To fail to overcome this phallic stage and become
fixated on castration is the suggested Freudian theory of homosexuality
in males. So we have a complex in which parturition envy as a fixated
resolution may be seen as the creation of language by male poets which
in turn is a flight from fixation on the phallic stage which is another
word, in Lacanian terms, for homophobia (homophobia in Lacan's terms is
castration anxiety which is to say a flight from a phobia). To
compensate for this anxiety, parturition is substituted as the phallic
object, which is to say the male gaze gives birth to the fetish object,
such as Marilyn Monroe's body and legs in Hollywood films, and this then
indicates that the fantasy of giving birth is a masculine economy of the
exchange of women (which also connects with Sedgewick's theory of
homosociality) and is the germinal male fantasy of a fascist future.
Anyways, with the above analysis (hope it makes sense, my Lacan is a
little rusty) I was wondering if anyone knows of any easily available
research articles on this topic or is able to comment further or perhaps
even suggest if I have some errors in my analysis, so far?
best
Chris Jones.
(ps this should go into my blog... I must get use to having one. Does a
blog substitute for castration anxiety?)
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