From wizzard1@earthlink.net Thu Sep 24 00:45:19 1998 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by scratchy.cs.wisc.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id AAA12990 for ; Thu, 24 Sep 1998 00:45:16 -0500 (CDT) Received: from scaup.prod.itd.earthlink.net (scaup.prod.itd.earthlink.net [207.217.120.49]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id AAA12023 for ; Thu, 24 Sep 1998 00:45:15 -0500 (CDT) Received: from flatland (pool035-max1.ds8-ca-us.dialup.earthlink.net [207.217.235.185]) by scaup.prod.itd.earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA02049 for ; Wed, 23 Sep 1998 22:45:12 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199809240545.WAA02049@scaup.prod.itd.earthlink.net> Reply-To: From: "Kevin Wilson" To: Subject: Adam's Piece. Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1998 22:44:40 -0700 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1155 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: R The first thing we have to make clear is that history -- HIS story -- is bunk. HIS story insists on documentation, discarding oral history in favor of the phallogocentric written word; the symbolism of selecting the product of the phallic pen over the vaginal mouth could scarcely be more obvious. Even on a non-symbolic level, literacy was in its initial stages restricted to males, and not just males but a particular group of males who took it upon themselves to actively shape the tales of the past to suit their purposes in their typical hegemonic manner. And the hegemonic discourse in the case at hand is sadly telling. We have a king -- the personification of the exalted father, possessor of the all-powerful phallus -- assembling an army whose weapons consist of arrows and swords: phallic weapons all. Now, many have commented on the fact that supposedly arrayed against them are a legion of "ratlings," as if it were somehow noteworthy that the hegemonic class, then as now, manipulated the masses into thinking of other races as inhuman so as to perpetuate their relegation to slave status. We KNOW that the ostensible "battle" at Konifer Pass was really a slave revolt violently put down by the mon(patri)archy. What is remarkable is the way that the early scribes from which historians draw their accounts of the massacre imprinted it with their own psychosexual neuroses onto the scene. Note, for instance, that the winged men cannot make an appearance until the wisps are all dispatched. Wisps, of course, are defined by their lack of substance; in a battle where the men are denoted by the type of phallic weapons they carry, can there be any question what type of lack is REALLY being discussed? It is, of course, the old patriarchal phallogocentric notion of "female lack": but this is lack that is not lack, for the wisps can continue to inflict casualties despite their lack of phallic substance. Through a simple thanatos -> eros transformation, infliction of pain refracts into production of pleasure, and wisps clearly refer to that site of pleasure which lacks a phallic morphology; every wisp, in short, represents the clitoris. And it is no accident that the winged men cannot make an appearance until the wisps are all wiped out (with enchanted (read "erect") blades (read "penises")): their domination put at risk by the existence of the clitoris, which allows the female orgasmic release with no phallic involvement whatsoever, the male authors of these documents emphasize that these threatening phallus- free creatures must be taken out of the equation before any other concerns can be addressed. The elimination of the clitoris sets the stage for the arrival of the men with the "flaming swords": once again, we have yet another tale in which masculinity is secured and reaffirmed only by the suppression and eradication of the feminine.