The conceptual penis as a social construct

Lindsay & Boyle, Cogent Social Sciences (2017),

3: 1330439

https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2017.1330439

SOCIOLOGY | RESEARCH ARTICLE

Jamie Lindsay

* and Peter Boyle

Abstract:Anatomical penises may exist, but as pre-operative transgendered women

also have anatomical penises, the penis vis-à-vis maleness is an incoherent con-

struct. We argue that the conceptual penis is better understood not as an anatomi-

cal organ but as a social construct isomorphic to performative toxic masculinity.

Through detailed poststructuralist discursive criticism and the example of climate

change, this paper will challenge the prevailing and damaging social trope that

penises are best understood as the male sexual organ and reassign it a more ﬁtting

role as a type of masculine performance.

Subjects: Gender Studies - Soc Sci; Postmodernism of Cultural Theory; Feminism

Keywords: penis; feminism; machismo braggadocio; masculinity; climate change

1. Introduction

The androcentric scientiﬁc and meta-scientiﬁc evidence that the penis is the male reproductive or-

gan is considered overwhelming and largely uncontroversial. It is true that nearly all male-gendered

persons who were also male at birth have a genital organ that, among other purposes, carries the

duct for the transfer of sperm during copulation. This organ is usually identiﬁed as the penis, and for

many “males” it serves the role of their reproductive organ. There are, however, many examples of

persons with penises who will not reproduce, including those who have sustained injury, are unable

to coerce a mate, are uninterested in producing ospring, are medically infertile, or identify as asex-

ual. While these examples may still constitute “males,” it is distinctly fallacious to identify their pe-

nises as reproductive organs. Furthermore, there are many women who have penises. These are

speciﬁcally pre-operative transgendered women and chromosomal “males” who choose to identify

as women without indicating a desire to transition, and despite damaging cultural tropes against

*Corresponding author: Jamie Lindsay,

SEISRG – Southeast Independent Social

Research Group, 512 N. Central Avenue,

Knoxville, TN 37917, USA

E-mail: [email protected]

Reviewing editor:

Jamie Halsall, University of

Huddersﬁeld, UK

Additional information is available at

the end of the article

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Jamie Lindsay, PhD, and Peter Boyle, EdD,

represent a dynamic team of independent

researchers working for the Southeast

Independent Social Research Group, whose

mission is obvious in its name. While neither uses

Twitter, both ﬁnding the platform overly reductive,

they incorporate careful reading of the relevant

academic literature with observations made by

searching trending hashtags to derive important

social truths with high impact. In this case, their

particular fascination with penises and the ways in

which penises are socially problematic, especially

as a social construct known as a conceptual

penis, have opened an avenue to a new frontier

in gender and masculinities research that can

transform our cultural geographies, mitigate

climate change, and achieve social justice.

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT

Penises are problematic, and we don't just mean

medical issues like erectile dysfunction and crimes

like sexual assault. As a result of our research

into the essential concept of the penis and its

exchanges with the social and material world, we

conclude that penises are not best understood as

the male sexual organ, or as a male reproductive

organ, but instead as an enacted social construct

that is both damaging and problematic for society

and future generations. The conceptual penis

presents signiﬁcant problems for gender identity

and reproductive identity within social and family

dynamics, is exclusionary to disenfranchised

communities based upon gender or reproductive

identity, is an enduring source of abuse for women

and other gender-marginalized groups and

individuals, is the universal performative source of

rape, and is the conceptual driver behind much of

climate change.

Received: 17 April 2017

Accepted: 11 May 2017

(CC-BY) 4.0 license.

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their womanhood and femininity, these constitute critical examples of a human demographic for

whom their genital organ, while it may be utilized reproductively in some cases, is not best under-

stood as being a male genital organ (Hird, 2000).

In light of these important facts about the wide diversity of human expression, including when

speciﬁed to those humans bearing a penile genital organ, conceptualizing the penis as a speciﬁcally

male anatomical organ is highly problematic and in critical need of discursive revision. Indeed, the

penis vis-à-vis maleness is an incoherent construct. We argue that the conceptual penis is better

understood not as an anatomical organ but as a gender-performative, highly ﬂuid social construct.

2. The conceptual penis

The conceptual penis is the operative representation of the penis in society as it obtains via a variety

of performative acts and statements related to and concerning gender. Conceptualization is the best

way to understand the penis, as the notion of “penis as a male anatomical organ” suers typical

androcentric and meta-scientiﬁc limitations and errors as it is both overly reductive, in failing to

represent the full reality of penis-bearing human experiences, and incoherent, as the penis itself has

little or nothing to do with gender (West & Zimmerman, 1987). Consequently, what coherent role

can a monolithic concept like “the penis” hope either to achieve or to describe for pre-operative and

non-operative male-to-female trans women and post-operative female-to-male trans men who

choose to retain their identity as women? Likewise, what meaning can the anatomical penis as a

male organ possibly hold for gender ﬂuid individuals or certain other individuals within the queer

community? In the paradigm of the dominant penis-centered narrative, we ﬁnd these questions in-

trinsically unanswerable.

It is also factually incorrect to associate the anatomical penis with male reproductivity, as noted

above, and thus even with healthy male sexuality (as any expression should be deemed “healthy,”

while many other forms of male sexuality that are normative are distinctly problematic and un-

healthy; for example, Men’s Rights Advocates appropriating the legal “Not Voluntary but Still

Reasonable” standard for search and seizure to issues involving sexual consent [Simmons, 2005]).

That is, the conceptual penis is a performative social construct, and it is one that is isomorphic to an

especially toxic strain of masculinity.

Still, even as a social construct, the conceptual penis is hopelessly dominated by recalcitrant social

constructions that favor hypermasculine interpretations of the penis as a notion unjustly associated

with high male value (Schwalbe & Wolkomir, 2001). Many cisgendered hypermasculine males, for

instance, seem to identify those aspects of their masculinity upon which they most obviously de-

pend with the notion that they carry their penis as a symbol of male power, domination, control,

capability, desirability, and aggression (The National Coalition for Men “compile[d] a list of synonyms

for the word penis [sic],” these include the terms “beaver basher,” “cranny axe,” “custard launcher,”

“dagger,” “heat-seeking moisture missile,” “mayo shooting hotdog gun,” “pork sword,” and “yogurt

shotgun” [2011]). Based upon an appreciable corpus of feminist literature on the penis, this troubling

identiﬁcation results in an eective isomorphism linking the conceptual penis with toxic

hypermasculinity.

2.1. Machismo braggadocio

Inasmuch as masculinity is essentially performative, so too is the conceptual penis. The penis, in the

words of Judith Butler, “can only be understood through reference to what is barred from the signi-

ﬁer within the domain of corporeal legibility” (Butler, 1993). The penis should not be understood as

an honest expression of the performer’s intent should it be presented in a performance of masculin-

ity or hypermasculinity. Thus, the isomorphism between the conceptual penis and what’s referred to

throughout discursive feminist literature as “toxic hypermasculinity,” is one deﬁned upon a vector of

male cultural machismo braggadocio, with the conceptual penis playing the roles of subject, object,

and verb of action. The result of this trichotomy of roles is to place hypermasculine men both within

and outside of competing discourses whose dynamics, as seen via post-structuralist discourse

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analysis, enact a systematic interplay of power in which hypermasculine men use the conceptual

penis to move themselves from powerless subject positions to powerful ones (confer: Foucault,

1972).

Machismo is essentially aggressive male pride, whereas braggadocio is a quality of arrogant boast-

fulness. These together can be taken as a concrete description of the typical performative expres-

sion of maleness and hegemonic entrenched male power dynamics through the object of the penis,

as the socially masculine mind conceptualizes it and the heteronormative female mind too typically

has been socially indoctrinated to fetishize it. Through self-objectiﬁcation in the conceptual penis,

hypermasculinity, which abhors weakness in all its forms, seeks to reposition itself from a powerless

subject position to a powerful one. Often, hypermasculine behavior therefore centers upon boasting,

even if falsely, about size, potency, and desirability, and many socially problematic gender-demon-

strative behaviors deﬁning both toxic masculinity and rape culture emanate from the machismo

braggadocio isomorphism as a form of social staging applied to the objective conceptual penis

(Schrock & Schwalbe, 2009). These are precisely the “practices that systematically form the objects

of which they speak” mentioned by Foucault’s ﬁrst delineation of post-structuralist discursive analy-

sis (Foucault, 1972).

Nowhere more does this problematic construction compare than with the “hegemonic masculin-

ity and cultural construction” presented in the “essence of the hard-on” (Potts, 2000). Potts (2000)

illustrates that the functioning (or lack thereof) of the [conceptual] penis “demonstrates the inscrip-

tion on individual male bodies of a coital imperative: the surface of the male body interfuses with

culture to produce the ‘ﬁction’ of a dysfunctional nonpenetrative male (hetero)sexuality.” This is

clear power-dynamical repositioning to alleviate the internal psychological struggle of weakness via

hypermasculinity and an essential fear of weakness that characterizes hypermasculinity itself. We

therefore further agree with Potts that “by relinquishing the penis’s executive position in sex, male

bodies might become dierently inscribed, and coded for diverse pleasures beyond the phallus/pe-

nis,” and we insist that understanding the objective isomorphic mapping between phallus and (con-

ceptual) penis is a necessary discursive element to changing the prevailing penile social paradigm.

The constructed intersection of the anatomical penis and the performative conceptual penis deﬁnes

the problematic relationship masculinity presents for male bodies and their impacts upon women in

our pre-post-patriarchal societies.

In addition to self-objectiﬁcation, the conceptual penis can, intrinsically to the machismo bragga-

docio isomorphic map, express itself as the subject of toxic masculinity. The hypermasculine mental-

ity often conﬂates the socialized male individual as an inscribed and embodied extension of his

conceptual penis. Through this conﬂation, the hypermasculine male becomes the object to his con-

ceptual penis and expresses himself and his core sense of identity in terms of his conceptual penis-

as-subject. Paxton and Scameron (2006) illustrate this phenomenon clearly in the context of our

contemporary masculinely biased approaches to economic theory. They write, “The premise of neo-

capitalist materialist theory implies that sexual identity has objective value. Therefore, the premise of

postcapitalist sublimation implies that sexuality serves to oppress the underprivileged. Many dis-

courses concerning a self-justifying totality may be found” (Paxton & Scameron, 2006). This, they

argue, follows from Lacan’s incisive observation that, “Sexual identity is part of the economy of truth”

(Paxton & Scameron, 2006). The conceptual penis, taken as the subject, often has the consequence

of promoting oppression of the underprivileged by the misunderstanding that (male) sexual identity

has objective value, particularly in repositioning the powerless hypermasculine male subject as pow-

erful in and by means of his conceptual penis. This value is typically deﬁned by the machismo brag-

gadocio penile isomorphism between inscriptive object and discursive, thus prescriptive, subject.

When hypermasculine males see themselves as potent, dominant, controlling, or desirable, it is

often an artifact of the machismo braggadocio isomorphism acting to make the conceptual penis the

subject of their performed sense of identity. Cameron and de Selby (2004) note, “In a sense, the

subject is interpolated into a precultural deappropriation that includes sexuality as a reality.” This is

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clearly experienced via the machismo braggadocio constructural isomorphism between the concep-

tual penis and pervasive toxic hypermasculine mentalities and behaviors. For example, this can be

seen in male bragging about their sexual “conquests” and boasting about their sexual “perfor-

mance,” but also in male language with speech acts like, “I gave it to her,” and “She couldn’t get

enough of it” (In the latter cases, the noun “it” turns the objective conceptual penis into the per-

ceived subject of female experience, further objectifying the conceptual penis vis-à-vis male gender

performance). The conceptual penis thereby becomes a deappropriative tool through which the pe-

nis-as-subject makes the (male) sexuality a potent reality in the hypermasculine mind.

The ultimately performative nature of hypermasculinity via the machismo braggadocio isomor-

phism is most evident in “male” behaviors typical of many men to reject emotional expressions as

feminine. For example, compassion is generally avoided under machismo braggadocio subject

performances, as are emotional expressions other than dominant, aggressive ones like anger and

irascibility (Ben-Zeev, Scharnetzki, Chan, & Dennehy, 2012). As Sche (2006) points out, “The hyper-

masculine pattern leads to competition, rather than connection between persons.” The performa-

tive nature of male-on-male competition is reﬂected into the conceptual penis via the machismo

braggadocio isomorphism not only through the behavior, but additionally in phrases regarding toxic

hypermasculine competitiveness like “pissing contest,” in which winners are determined by which

hypermasculine person is able to project a stream of urine the furthest, often from a height, and

“dick-measuring contest,” which needs no elaboration to unveil the direct impact of performative

machismo braggadocio competitiveness.

We see further linguistic evidence for this phenomenon as hypermasculine men often use the

word “dick,” casual slang for the penis, as an actionable verb: to dick someone might mean to take

advantage of them or to have sex with them, depending upon the constructural context of the

application (The inherent connotations of “dicking” and “dicking over” to rape culture are, here, obvi-

ous but run too far aﬁeld to our purposes to develop independently). Hypermasculine tropes often

take advantage of this penis-as-verb surjection to express themes of male power and dominant

male sexuality (confer: the frequent use of the sexually objectifying hypermasculine phrase,

“I dicked her good”), allowing hypermasculine males to intuit the interplay of various discourses

behind their subject positions and to shift them accordingly within speciﬁc settings, especially imag-

ined and real sexual encounters with real and virtual women (or other men, as applicable). This they

also conﬂate with expressing power dynamics over other men, as exempliﬁed in the phrase,

“I dicked him over,” which presents iconic male hegemonic thinking, per Duncanson (2015).

This tendency is easily explained by extrapolation upon McElwaine (1999), who demonstrates

clearly that, “Sexual identity is fundamentally used in the service of hierarchy; however, according to

Werther (1977), it is not so much sexual identity that is fundamentally used in the service of hierar-

chy, but rather the dialectic, and hence the deﬁning characteristic, of sexual identity. The subject is

contextualised into a subcultural desituationism that includes sexuality as a reality.” It is by using

the conceptual penis as an actionable verb that hypermasculine men enforce the social hierarchy

that oppresses and deinstitutionalizes others, to the perceptual elevation of themselves. It is illus-

trated clearly by Kubrin and Weitzer (2009) in their analysis of misogyny in rap music, in which they

observe, “Content analysis identiﬁed ﬁve gender-related themes in this body of music—themes that

contain messages regarding ‘essential’ male and female characteristics and that espouse a set of

conduct norms for men and women.” It is also observable in the hypermale-performative behavioral

trope of “manspreading,” that is, inconsiderately spreading his legs too widely in public, for example

on public transport such as planes, trains, and automobiles, especially subways and buses. The usual

excuse given for manspreading is centered directly in the conceptual penis as a male social dis-

course: the (anatomical) penis and testicles are attributed as needing space in order to facilitate the

male individual’s “comfort.” This behavior, seen from the perspective of the (conceptual) penis as a

(performative) social construct, is clearly a dominating occupation of physical space, akin to raping

the empty space around him, that is best understood via the machismo braggadocio isomorphism to

toxic hypermasculinity (Perkins, 2015).

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Machismo is the hypermasculine essence, and braggadocio is the hypermasculine expression. The

penis as a conceptual element of contemporary thought is naturally isomorphic by notion of

machismo braggadocio to the most toxic and problematic themes in hypermasculinity. It is important

to be clear that none of these themes are applicable to the anatomical penis as they are incoherent

to many gender identiﬁcations that happen to present a penis as a genital organ. Similarly, none of

these themes are applicable to the reproductive penis as they fail to possess relevance for

non-reproductive or asexual individuals with a genital penis. The penis in the present context is thus

best understood as a constructed social object, a discursive conceptual penis, utilized for the enact-

ment of prevailing masculine social tropes, and that concept is isomorphic via machismo braggadocio

with many of the most problematic themes in toxic masculinity (Kubrin & Weitzer, 2009).

2.2. Climate change and the conceptual penis

Nowhere are the consequences of hypermasculine machismo braggadocio isomorphic identiﬁcation

with the conceptual penis more problematic than concerning the issue of climate change. Climate

change is driven by nothing more than it is by certain damaging themes in hypermasculinity that can

be best understood via the dominant rapacious approach to climate ecology identiﬁable with the con-

ceptual penis. Our planet is rapidly approaching the much-warned-about 2°C climate change thresh-

old, and due to patriarchal power dynamics that maintain present capitalist structures, especially with

regard to the fossil fuel industry, the connection between hypermasculine dominance of scientiﬁc,

political, and economic discourses and the irreparable damage to our ecosystem is made clear.

Destructive, unsustainable hegemonically male approaches to pressing environmental policy and

action are the predictable results of a raping of nature by a male-dominated mindset. This mindset

is best captured by recognizing the role of the conceptual penis holds over masculine psychology.

When it is applied to our natural environment, especially virgin environments that can be cheaply

despoiled for their material resources and left dilapidated and diminished when our patriarchal ap-

proaches to economic gain have stolen their inherent worth, the extrapolation of the rape culture

inherent in the conceptual penis becomes clear. At best, climate change is genuinely an example of

hyper-patriarchal society metaphorically manspreading into the global ecosystem.

The deep reason for this problematic trend is explained, in its essence, by McElwaine (1999), where

he writes, “Pickett suggests that we have to choose between capitalist rationalism and cultural sub-

capitalist theory” (Pickett, 1993). Contemporary capitalist theory, a.k.a. neocapitalist theory, derives

its claim on rationalism directly from the hypermasculine focus in science and society that can best

be accounted for by identiﬁcation with the conceptual penis. Paxton and Scameron (2006) seem to

agree, noting that, “neocapitalist materialist theory holds that reality comes from the collective

unconscious, but only if the premise of dialectic objectivism is invalid; if that is not the case, sexuality

has signiﬁcance.” Toxic hypermasculinity derives its signiﬁcance directly from the conceptual penis

and applies itself to supporting neocapitalist materialism, which is a fundamental driver of climate

change, especially in the rampant use of carbon-emitting fossil fuel technologies and careless domi-

nation of virgin natural environments. We need not delve deeply into criticisms of dialectic objectiv-

ism, or their relationships with masculine tropes like the conceptual penis to make eective criticism

of (exclusionary) dialectic objectivism. All perspectives matter.

One practical recommendation that follows from this analysis is that climate change research

would be better served by a change in how we engage in the discourses of politics and science,

avoiding the hypermasculine penis-centric take whenever possible (Kaijser & Kronsell, 2013).

3. Conclusions

We conclude that penises are not best understood as the male sexual organ, or as a male reproduc-

tive organ, but instead as an enacted social construct that is both damaging and problematic for

society and future generations. The conceptual penis presents signiﬁcant problems for gender iden-

tity and reproductive identity within social and family dynamics, is exclusionary to disenfranchised

communities based upon gender or reproductive identity, is an enduring source of abuse for women

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and other gender-marginalized groups and individuals, is the universal performative source of rape,

and is the conceptual driver behind much of climate change.

An explicit isomorphic relationship exists between the conceptual penis and the most problematic

themes in toxic masculinity, and that relationship is mediated by the machismo braggadocio aspect

of male hypermasculine thought and performance. A change in our discourses in science, technol-

ogy, policy, economics, society, and various communities is needed to protect marginalized groups,

promote the advancement of women, trans, and gender-queer individuals (including non-gendered

and gender-skeptical people), and to remedy environmental impacts that follow from climate

change driven by capitalist and neocapitalist overreliance on hypermasculine themes and exploita-

tive utilization of fossil fuels.

Funding

The authors received no direct funding for this research.

Author details

Jamie Lindsay

E-mail: [email protected]

Peter Boyle

E-mail: pboyl.seisr[email protected]

SEISRG – Southeast Independent Social Research Group, 512

N. Central Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37917, USA.

Citation information

Cite this article as: The conceptual penis as a social

construct, Jamie Lindsay & Peter Boyle, Cogent Social

Sciences(2017), 3: 1330439.

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