This chapter presents and discusses the theoretical framework of this book which consists of work on of fascism as well as on prejudice and character types. Klaus Theweleitâs Male Fantasies 1 and 2 were originally published in German in 1977/78 and in English a decade later (Theweleit 1987, 1989). Wilhelm Reichâs The Mass Psychology of Fascism was originally published in 1933 (Reich 1997). Both authors provide key insights into a critical, psychoanalytic analysis of fascism and the periods before Hitler came to power in Germany (Theweleit) and the time of Nazi Germany (Reich). Elisabeth Young-Bruehl (1996) makes up the third key theoretical element of this book. Her work is more fully introduced and applied in Chapter 5. Her landmark book on psychoanalytic conceptualisations of prejudice as something that latches on to and articulates itself in specific character types is significant for analysing the typical psyches of the men discussed in this book. I have argued in the Introduction that we are in the midst of an emergence of a particular masculinity which embodies a fascist state of mind. Such a state of mind has overlaps with historically earlier states of mind, which Theweleit and Reich present in their works. It is also intrinsically connected to sexuality, as Theweleit, Reich and Young-Bruehl show. While there are of course differences between the men of those historical studies (Young-Bruehlâs character types are more but not entirely ahistorical) and the men of the manosphere, there are also striking similarities. We could say that Theweleitâs work in particular anticipated the current authoritarian turn which has fuelled the manosphere. The three authors are crucial for understanding the mechanics of certain contemporary male fantasies, because they place an emphasis on questions of the body, the ego, sexuality, defense mechanisms and agency. Theweleit has provided an especially wide-ranging analysis of male fantasies that are embodied, defended against, and acted upon by proto-fascist men.
The chapter ends with a brief critical discussion of both Reichâs and Theweleitâs works. Theweleitâs book was written in the late 1960s, at the time of student protests and the so-called sexual revolution. I focus on a deeper discussion of the sexual revolution and its consequences for todayâs culture of digitally mediated and facilitated sexuality in the next chapter. The sexual revolution at least partly affected and perhaps triggered the contemporary misogynistic discourses that are at the heart of this book. The transformations of sexuality that occurred in and around the chiffre â1968â (the sexual revolution)1 seem like uninhibited forms of being and embodiment, something Wilhelm Reich had strongly advocated in his 1933 Mass Psychology of Fascism. For Reich, a key enabler of German fascism was the, in his view, suppressed sexuality and sexual morality at the time. Different sexual cultures and sexualities like the ones of 1968 were needed to liberate the people. At the same time, the sexual revolution of the late 1960s was far from unproblematic or truly liberating, as I discuss in Chapter 2. Todayâs sexual culture may seem even more liberated than that of 1968. However, this is not the case for everyone and we are, for example, today confronted with authoritarian-fascist developments in many countries which are specifically connected to a backlash against 1968 and the alleged contemporary disinhibited sexuality. It is essential to critically examine the sexual revolution of the late 1960s in order to analyse a different kind of sexual-authoritarian movement that articulates itself in diverse and disparate online communities as well as everywhere else today, as I do in this book. It is equally essential to analyse the wider historical precedents that help us understand such a movement today. We can do so through Theweleit by looking at the male fantasies of the last years of the German Empire leading to Weimar Germany and how they related to fascism. Given the current authoritarian turn in the legal, political and popular discourses of sexual freedom and the world in general, it seems pertinent to re-visit the work of Theweleit to explore how his insights into the growth of fascism might inform an understanding of the contemporary moment.
This chapter, then, presents some key ideas from Theweleit, Reich and Young-Bruehl which I take up in later chapters. They are organised here as four key themes that also run through this book as I return to them in my analyses in the next chapters. They are:
- The fascist character type
- Questions around sexuality and upbringing
- The absent presence of woman
- The body armour and the fragmented ego
My discussion of those themes culminates in my own theoretical development of the notion of dis/inhibition which is a key thread that also runs through the coming chapters as I analyse the fantasies and desires of the different men. Their bodies and fantasies are structured by states of dis/inhibition: contradictions of desire, affective forces and the push and pull of the unconscious. As I show in the coming chapters, the men are defensive-apathic and (symbolically) destructive-powerful at the same time. The notion of dis/inhibition thus enables me to conceptualise those men as contradictory and not just as those who claim to be victims and inhibited by others. They use their victim status to unleash new fantasies in which they are in control.
Following a brief, and by no means exhaustive, discussion of psychoanalytic literature on gender and sexuality as well as a section on racism and psychoanalysis, I devote the majority of this chapter to Reich, Young-Bruehl and to Theweleit in particular.
Sexuality, gender and psychoanalysis
Before presenting and outlining the wider theoretical framework, a general discussion on psychoanalytic conceptualisations of femininity and masculinity as well as sexuality are needed. Questions of sexuality, masculinity and femininity are at the heart of this book and of psychoanalysis as an epistemological paradigm in general. For Freud and the psychoanalysts who went on to develop, challenge or alter his ideas, sexuality is central to subjectivity and all aspects of human life. Like the unconscious, sexuality has a bearing on aspects of life where it would not seem apparent or visible at first glance (Giffney & Watson 2017). âIt was Freud who first bravely placed sex at the heart of psychic development and highlighted its destabilizing power in our psyche and hence the defenses brought into play to manage thisâ (Lemma & Lynch 2015, 3). As the next chapters show, I make a particular intervention in showing how sexuality is not only at the heart of right-wing populist tendencies today but specifically results in particular defenses as well as the creation of particular fantasies that seek to counter those defenses by some men.
On a more general level, Freud argued that there was no ânormalâ or ânaturalâ sexuality (such as biologically determined heterosexuality for example). At the same time he put forward theories of sexuality that were subsequently critiqued as sexist. There is one strand within Freud that operated on a âmore normative, developmentally oriented path towards reproductive heterosexualityâ (Giffney & Watson 2017, 26). This has been echoed by some psychoanalysts who thought (and sometimes still think) that queer, bi- or homosexuality is a pathology (ibid). Psychoanalytic views on sex and gender have been debated within and outside of the profession, particularly regarding transgender and transsexual issues in recent years (Frosh 2006; Elliot 2014; Gherovici 2017) and clinicians have sometimes held outdated and hostile views towards trans people for example. Indeed, Lemma and Lynch observe a âdisplacement or marginalisation of sex in some clinical practice where a focus on individual sexuality and conflict is replaced in favour of a focus on attachment, relationships and questions of mutual recognitionâ (Lemma & Lynch 2015, 4). At the same time, there is a long tradition beyond the clinic which has seen innovative works in feminist theory, queer theory and sexuality studies that have drawn on psychoanalysis to discuss trans and queer issues as well as wider questions on sexuality and psychoanalysis more generally (Rose 1986; Pollock 1988; Butler 1990; Sedgwick 1993; Copjec 1994; de Lauretis 1994; Grosz 1995; Dean 2000; Yates 2007; Bainbridge 2008).
As indicated in the Introduction, this book pays particular attention to the psychoanalytic idea of the phallus and also to castration (as well as to affect, fantasy and desire). In psychoanalysis, there are two thinkers in particular who are associated with both ideas: Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. The phallus (a term that Lacan in particular popularised) has some relationship to the penis, but it is not meant as a synonym (Lacan 2020).2 As mentioned in the Introduction, it comes to represent (as a signifier) male power, privilege and often dominance (Frosh 1995). It is also strongly connected to the Oedipus complex and the idea that the young girl realises she has no, or lacks, the phallus and turns to her father as an (unconscious) object of desire while competing with the mother for her fatherâs desire and possession. In turn, the young boy competes with his father for his motherâs desire and possession. For Freud (and Lacan), then, the phallus is âthe very emblem and embodiment of desireâ (Benjamin 1988, 85). In this sense, we could say that the men discussed in this book are very phallic; they desire a heteronormative and sexist logic of sexual difference. Unsurprisingly, Freud and Lacan have been critiqued by feminist and queer thinkers from the 1960s onwards as sexist and phallocentric (see Campbell 2000; Dean 2000; Luepnitz 2003; Huffer 2013; Preciado 2018; McKey Carusi 2020 for overviews and reflections). While criticising Freud, Juliet Mitchell (1974) has argued that we should nonetheless accept (but not affirm or reproduce) the centrality of the phallus as a symbol for desire and power (see also Butler 1990; Frosh 1995; Hsieh 2012). This allows us then to question the phallus, as many theorists have done (Irigaray 1985, 1993; Butler 1990, 1993; Kristeva 1982, 1998).
In acknowledging the real existing power of the phallus, we could nonetheless understand female submission as âthe deep psychic root of patriarchyâ (Benjamin 1988, 88). This would also mean that there is no symbol or organ âto counterbalance the monopoly of the phallusâ (ibid, 88). This points to the ideological status of the phallus, not any justification of it as such. Isolating the phallus as a symbol of power does not mean that one reproduces it as such; it is merely used for analytical purposes to inquire into its real existing status. Benjamin notes that common images, that go beyond the phallus, of the female only associate her with asexual motherhood or with the âsexyâ (ibid, 78) woman who is an object of the male gaze and male desire. In more recent years, postfeminism has also seen the emergence of the figure of the âphallic girlâ, who temporarily takes on male characteristics, in popular culture (McRobbie 2007; SaitĹ 2011; Renold & Ringrose 2012, 2017). I return to this point in the next chapter. In this book, I follow Jessica Benjaminâs critical arguments regarding the centrality of the phallus. The men of the manosphere precisely seek to reproduce or affirm a logic that grounds the phallus as the anchor of heterosexual power and desire for both men and women.
Benjamin (1988) has further developed the meaning of the phallus in a particularly useful direction. She notes that rather than only regarding the phallus as a symbol of male dominance and female submission, it can be seen as a secondary symbol of the fatherâs power because the child initially wishes to escape the powerful mother. It is first the mother, and fantasies of her vagina threatening to engulf the child for instance, and her power that the child experiences. The child subsequently turns to the phallus, as the psychoanalyst Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel (1986) also argued. The phallus is thus a response to maternal power, not lack.
However, Benjamin argues that such an account only serves to replace one type of dominance with another and is therefore unsatisfactory. Instead, she develops a theory of intersubjective recognition to move beyond the binaries of phallus â not-phallus, passivity â activity, subject â object, dominance â submission. I return to Benjamin in the Conclusion of this book. Her work is useful for introducing a further dimension to my analyses and for thinking about what she calls âthe Thirdâ within the narratives that I analyse (Benjamin 2018). However, before doing so, I wish to hold onto the centrality of the phallus for the same arguments that both Mitchell (1974) and Benjamin provide: the phallus, both in reality and fantasy, serves as an instrument of dominance, both sexually and via other means, that mobilises vivid fantasies within the men discussed in this book. It is for those reasons that my theoretical framework places some importance on the phallus, not least because the narratives of the men are so phallic in themselves. I do not mean to be phallocentric or to elevate the phallus to a kind of symbol of sublime power. It serves as an analytical prism, amongst other concepts from psychoanalysis and media studies.
This (Oedipal-phallic) Freudian account of psychosexual development as well as the broader categories of femininity, masculinity and sexual difference have been challenged and also developed by post-Freudian psychoanalysts, for instance by Karen Horney, Melanie Klein, Jean Riviere, Helene Deutsch and others (see Grigg, Hecq & Smith 2015; Lemma & Lynch 2015; Giffney & Watson 2017 for overviews). I cannot expand on those works further here. Due to limited space, I briefly discuss psychoanalytic work on masculinity that specifica...
