Masculinity on Trial: Penises, Hermaphrodites and the Uncertain Male Body in Early Modern France
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Abstract |
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The early modern male body has traditionally been seen as a fixed, stable and dominant norm against which the imperfect female body was measured. By contrast, this paper examines the equivocal male body through a close reading of four cases of alleged hermaphroditism spanning the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It argues that the embodiment of masculinity was as ambiguous and culturally resonant as its female counterpart. The early modern male body was replete with uncertainties that were deeply connected to anxieties about paternity, legitimacy and patriarchal society. Measuring and defining the male body was a difficult task and the male body could prove to be as opaque and secretive as the female.