This is reprinted from Unapologetic: The Journal of Irresponsible Gender #3. Written by Anne Tagonist.

In 1999, Riki Wilchins offered the organizers of the Michigan Womyn’s Music festival a compromise that would effectively shred whatever respect she’d earned among young hip trannies. Trans people would be allowed on the land so long as they did not have penises. Aside from the obvious question (what’s a penis and who decides), the compromise offered such blatant classism and such a level of genital constructivist hubris that Camp TRANS has never even considered going back to it. Ironically, the Michigyn womyn were OK with it at the time.

Why? Because its all about dick.

Yup. Animal (of Bitch &) says he’s okay with excluding trans people other than himself because womyn’s space is actually “creatures with cunts” space. The island at Plan Z is for conference-goers only so that people won’t have to see any naked weenies in their “womyn-and-trannie” space (this was a misperception, by the way, though one voiced by at least one organizer). Dykes’ll say Bois are hot boy Boys are the enemy… and they’d never sleep with a trans woman (or at least none of the one’s they know). Why?

Because its all about dick.

Its the one “male characteristic” still forbidden. Beards? Hot. Muscles? Hot. Flat chests? Deep voices Daddy role-playing? Plastic weiners Hot hot hot hot hot. But this wasn’t supposed to be a rant. Feminism has provided a space and a language for removing the phallic stigma from any number of supposed manifestations of patriarchal oppression (remember punk music?) and maybe its time to turn that laser on penises.

A few definitions first: phallus and penis are two different things. Penises are small protrusions of sensitive erectile tissue. Phallus is the image of the penis in the social imagination. Its kind of one of those sex/gender things. For instance, a man with his pants on may or may not have a penis. He may have had cancer or some accident or been born intersexed or he may be FTM. Provided he meets the special criteria for manhood, however, he does posses a phallus. Which is the assumption of the power accorded in patriarchal society to adult men of unquestioned masculinity to deminate others. Signs of this phallic entitlement may refer to penises (skyscrapers, neckties) but are not actually genitalia.

My project here is to see if there’s a way to reinvision penis is a way that it is not a phallic reference (or referent). This sounds ridiculous, but think of all the other things that were once seen as inescapably congruent with phallus that have, well, escaped.

Plastic dick, for instance. Not so long ago, the idea that a dildo could be a totem of feminist empowerment was seen as laughably self-contradictory. Dildos aren’t just phallic references, they’re outright representations! But ultimately we live in a world where plastic is eroticized. Why? Because dick-shaped or not, dildos are artifacts of women’s sexual culture, implying a lack as much as a dick. Because a dyke in a harness does not gain access to social power and privilege (outside a play party - ha!!!).

Working the same kind of sea change for flesh penises is going to be harder, because penis and phallus definitions are so thoroughly intertwined. For instance, the following definition, though made up, is a plausible example of a phallic definition of a penis:

PENIS: The male copulatory organ used to penetrate and deposit sperm in the female vagina.

Okay, so what’s fucked up here? Well, for one thing the first word of the definition is male. Which not all penises are. The rest of the definition doesn’t describe penis so much as heterosexual sex, and unprotected sex at that. The definition automatically defines a penis in terms of what it does to someone else in a particular (heteronormative) context.

Consider all the analysis that’s been done of MtF genitalal surgery. What most surgeons create is a non-sensitive hole the size of an (average) penis with the most sensitive parts of the woman’s skin tucked up into a cervix. In other words, an organ designed and defined entirely within the context of hetero penetration and male pleasure.

What definitions like the one above do though, with less tissue drama, is mutilate penises in the exact same way. And while I did make that definition up, I’m sure its not too far from the dictionary.

(*note from vegankid* The American Heritage Dictionary’s definition is:
1. The male organ of copulation in higher vertebrates, homologous with the clitoris. In mammals, it also serves as the male organ of urinary excretion.
2. Any of various copulatory organs in males of lower animals.)

So what elements make up a non-phallic definition of a penis? For one thing, not “male.” For another thing, not “copulatory” (unless we start defining hands the same way). Obviously not all penises are hetero (or…shit, there aren’t words here…procreative?) so the whole sperm thing can go by the wayside.

What should be included is the idea that penises are a major means for their possessors to receive sexual pleasure. Other words like “extremely sensitive” might also be appropriate.

The definition in the dictionary isn’t what’s important here. What matters is the definition we carry around in our heads. A phallus is a weapon, any way you (ha!) slice it, but it is so because of a massive and intricate process of social and political practices, not because of any objective physical trait of penises. No matter how feminist, penises are still vitally important to their possessors in terms of developing and maintaining a sexuality, which is not male but human. It is a tragedy if stripping dick (and culture) of phallic pretensions and violence means stripping roughly half the population of its sexual receptivity.

The alternative seems to be this sort of reconception, which shouldn’t be too hard for a community that has expanded sex to include anal fisting and male to include “bonus boy holes.” The problem is feeling like its even appropriate to bring it up in a feminist context. So once again, here’s Unapologetic coming through with total tactlessness for the revolution.

Flesh dick is feminist! Dammit! Yay!