Exposing Phallacy: Flashing in Contemporary Culture

by Kate Gould

A sexual climate consumed by display ought to be ideal for flashers, yet their actions are taboo and illegal. While others flirt with the accoutrements of romance and sexiness for lovers, flashers confront the spectator with sex organs. They ask no consent, baring the genitals of which they are so proud, convinced their spectators will desire them. But they rarely do. Instead, they are more likely to object to the imposition of the male flasher and leer at the female flasher. While softcore porn is fashionable and ubiquitous, the flashers public full frontal display is still forbidden.

Genres: Feminism, Sexuality, Nonfiction

74 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2012

About the author

Writer, PhD student, insatiable reader, tattooed lady, and dog devotee. I've worked as an editor, book critic, columnist, slush pile reader, writing competition judge, hotel critic, magazine editor, English teacher, and research assistant.

My book on flashers, Exposing Phallacy, was published by Zero Books on August 31st 2012.

Reviews

[Kate Gould · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are reviews from readers and authors who've read Exposing Phallacy: Flashing in Contemporary Culture.

Exposing Phallacy has a lightness of touch one would not expect in a treatise on sexual deviancy. It is a page turner. A read-in-one-go work on flashing and flashers that will one day become a standard work. In her fascinating study of the mindset of the flasher – both male and female – Kate Gould uses the English language like a surgeon’s knife, the blade travelling at a steady clip, cutting, lifting back flaps to peer beneath the surface. Gould’s exercise of assembling facts, examining them at close range, interviewing offenders, and approaching psychiatrists, lawyers and members of the police force, are of interest not just to the academic but to the average reader – the cliché man in the street. People exposing their genitals in public is a subject not lightly to be approached, yet grim though such a subject is, the effect of Gould’s writing is infused with humour. She seems to walk a tightrope between mirth and enjoyment on the one hand and outrage and despair on the other. What, she asks, is going on in the mind of the flasher? Who is he/she? Why do they flash? Is flashing for the male some kind of evolutionary display of violence? Does it make evolutionary sense? Does the male expose himself to show dominance or simply to arouse himself sexually? Does exposing him/herself give the flasher an ego boost? Does enjoyment come from occasioning shock in the beholder? Where does shame come in? Are all males inherent flashes? How is non-threatening exhibitionism physically expressed? Does the flasher suffer some sort of psychological warping of his/her sexuality? These and other questions are posited by the gimlet-eyed Gould in Exposing Phallacy, a book to delight and surprise her admirers, a book that tells us things about ourselves, the world, and the way we are. ~ Mary D'Arcy, Author of Way to Go and Checking Out and Other Tales

Titillating literary overexposure. A confluence of entertainment and academia - an enthralling read that maintains credibility to the end. I arrived with a `C'est quoi ce bordel?' attitude toward flashers and left with an explanation. I have long believed that even stupid people have their reasons. Don't know why I never made such allowances for the seriously deviant. Maybe the case wasn't made until now, or not as compellingly. I highly recommend this book. ~ Marc Phillips, Author of The Legend of Sander Grant

A compelling, insightful and superbly written in-depth analysis of a subject matter that is rarely mentioned outside the parameters of a giggle. ~ Louisa Achille, Award-winning Documentary Filmmaker of The Naked Feminist

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written and the Author gives you much to think about. The book is written to cover male, female, psychiatric, and perspective from the Law. I enjoyed her research as much as her opinion on the subject. This is not a subject I've thought about much in my life, but I'm very happy this book was written and I had the chance to read it. I give her a five star and recommend reading it if you have a need to educate yourself. Knowledge is power as the saying goes.

[Shulamith Farhi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting discussion of the difference in motivation between male and female flashers. A highlight is the criticism of behavioral approaches where deviant behavior is disciplined by prescribing pornography meant to normalize heterosexual misogyny.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll start off by saying that I quite liked this essay. Flashing isn't something that I have ever read about before. However, there were a couple of things that jumped out at me as I read this book.

First, Gould discloses in the beginning that she has been flashed twice in her lifetime (in fact, her grandparents were actually even brought together by a flasher). While this isn't inherently problematic, I will just say Gould does not come off seeming unbiased in her writing...there are a lot of value judgments placed on flashers. Honestly, I agree with many of these value judgments, but I'm just pointing out to not expect an objective academic study here.

Second, flashing is only examined within a second-wave feminist viewpoint, and is entirely considered to be a heterosexual enterprise (aka she only talks about men flashing women, and women flashing men) and the power dynamics associated with such. It would be interesting to find out what presence flashers have in the queer community.