Gerhard’s Reviews > Reading from Behind: A Cultural Analysis of the Anus > Status Update

Annie Potts has observed that “there exists a synecdochal relationship between the man and his penis” and that “the penis stands in and up for the man.”

David M. Halperin in How to Be Gay asks, “Why would we [gay men] want Edmund White, when we still have The Golden Girls?”

'I am postmodern enough to think that the “political unconscious” is not just a product of postmodernism and so-called late capitalism. All texts reflect the social and political unconscious of their given time.'

On Brokeback Mountain: '...we would imagine that Alma’s ass becomes a conduit through which Ennis can play, once more, with Jack’s ass. But we need to think carefully about what it means to ask, is Alma’s ass a substitute for the real thing?'

'The anus is remarkably rich with hermeneutic potential, and critical theory has done a disservice to its complexity by privileging the phallic referent.'

'The question of femininity, in many ways, especially the feminized position of being penetrated during anal sex, deserves attention, especially when it collides with questions of race.'

'Masculinity is committed to paranoia and fear, which flutter around the potential for masculine failure, the revelation that one is never—and can never be masculine enough.'

'And what happens when the anus is freed from its association with male homosexuality?'