The object and the phallus

This election season has been more than educational; at the minimum the rivalry between Hillary and Barack has illustrated the sexist underpinnings in our political power culture, that mainly go ‘unseen,’ or in Freudian terms, either ‘denied’ or ‘repressed.’   The sexism of the campaign had to go way ‘over the top’ for some to ‘get it.’  
 
The question I will address in this essay is, why wasn’t our first credible female candidate for president of the United States greeted with a warm welcome, and why instead she was ‘characterized’ by the media and by her Democratic rivals with sexist smears.
 
The questions asked by the media have been, was she defeated because of sexism, did sexist smears play no part in her ‘defeat,’ and was it ‘really’ sexism and not just a ‘fair’ smear attack against one women who is  sui generis, and so uniquely deserved ‘what she got.’   
 
It’s clear that the many men and women who voted for her have no problem with the idea of a female president. It’s also clear that the DNC was never behind her candidacy, and even politicians at the highest level, which one would have thought would welcome the chance to elect the most qualified and prepared candidate who also happened to be female, instead backed a rank novice, with little relevant experience and even less clarity about what he planned to do, as president.
 
Some viewed this ‘contest’ as one serious candidate running against one motivational speaker. Some viewed it as an uppity woman trying to cash in on her marital connection.

Some viewed it as a power struggle over who ends up with the most influence in Washington, with ambitious legislators preferring a weaker president over whom they could likely exercise most influence.
 
While Hillary carried resentments some held against her husband, it was widely recognized that she was, factually, the most qualified candidate; even those who didn’t back her saw her as the most intelligent, prepared and competent of all the candidates, Democratic and Republican alike. While polls showed that many Americans found her “untrustworthy,” at the same time those polled trusted her ability, to lead the nation and the military, and to accomplish her goals, which were clear and which conformed to what most Americans claim to want.  
 
Now that she has suspended her campaign and Barack is all but our official candidate, many who voted for him, either out of the ideals he seemed to profess or those they projected onto him, are experiencing buyer’s remorse.
 
Still it’s highly unlikely that the DNC will reverse itself and give us the most competent candidate with the best chance of winning the presidency for our party, and who also happens to be a woman.
 
The fact that much must be accomplished in order to reverse Bush’s disastrous acts is undisputed, and yet the campaign rhetoric between Barack and his RNC rival John focuses on pandering to ‘one-issue’ voters, and hardly at all on our frightening problems, our unique but limited opportunities, and what must be done to make things right in Washington toward guiding our nation to greater freedom, prosperity, health and safety.  
 
So, what happened?  Why, even though enough of the ‘people’ voted for ‘the girl,’ did the ‘powers’ in our party deliver us a less qualified and less prepared man?  
 
One thing noticed was that Barack got nearly all the African American vote, while many women voted for one of the men, rather than Hillary. Had nearly all the women voted for Hillary, she would have won in a landslide.  But, their so-called reasons proved plastic.
 
In the beginning many women claimed a woman couldn’t get elected and that they wanted someone who could win. When Hillary’s support waxed while Barack’s waned, some of these women did cross over to Hillary, but there were others who stayed relentlessly negative toward her, blaming her for her own ‘inability’ to catch up with Barack, even though Barack got away with claiming early victory while she continued to beat him in big primaries and closed in on his early lead.   
 
He was objectively bored and cranky with the primary campaigning and clearly wanted it over. She remained enthusiastic and energized by the primary, which she characterized as a very long job interview.
 
And that was the main difference between their campaigns, Hillary saw ‘president’ as job, where the best-qualified applicant should be ‘hired,’ while Barack continues to see it as a contest, with a ‘whoever runs the cleverest campaign will win’ ethic.    
 
She used goals, plans, staffing recommendations and solutions, while he used strategies resplendent with obfuscation and character smears.   
 
She obviously prepared before she started her run, while he hasn’t yet shown any need to prepare, and seemingly plans to ‘get started’ only after he ‘gets elected.’
 
She trusts experts, professionals and work, sets goals, names her ‘lines in the sand,’ and promises to do her best. He trusts his own instincts and his ‘unique’ yet unproven ability to lead.    
 
This ‘difference’ mirrors, amusingly, one of the those ‘differences’ we can find between males and females seeking power positions in large businesses.  Women who get ‘hired’ for top jobs in business first prepare themselves, and they work their way up, garnering experience and learning how to garner allies and accomplish goals. They present themselves as most qualified, which they can back up.
 
Men often aspire to jobs they haven’t prepared for, and expect to be selected because of ‘potential,’ or supposed ‘leadership’ talents, and thus learning ‘on the job’ isn’t considered by them to be a deficit.  
 
Some newspapers, such as the New York Times, were ‘compelled’ to endorse Hillary, after lengthy ‘job interviews’ with all the candidates, because she knew her stuff and she had clear, concrete and practical plans to carry forward her goals.  
 
To look at it from such a ‘girl, boy’ angle, however, one must start by looking at the ‘masculine,’ as different from the ‘feminine.’ This is also referred to in psychoanalysis as the difference between the phallus and the object.
 
Of course the phallus isn’t the penis, even though it’s represented by the penis; the phallus is what no one has, but which, were it ‘had,’ would guarantee that the holder of ‘it’ could fill the ‘appetites’ of the Other (one’s mOther in the first place).  
 
When someone chooses the phallus over the object, it’s like holding onto ‘potential’ over settling for what you might get, the unlimited promise over the limited actuality.  Gore was a good example of this, he preferred his high mindedness and delight in his own personal ethics over landing the job, and so we may say that those like Gore can only ‘get’ what’s given to them by the Other, they can’t ‘take’ anything, probably because it wouldn’t be enough.    
 
Original trauma means that moment in which a young child first notices his or her mother isn’t entirely satisfied, and therefore must lack ‘something.’
 
The fear is that the child must provide his or her mother with whatever ‘it’ is she lacks, which is the definition of ‘the phallus.’  Often boys mistake their penises for what she lacks, and come to ‘value’ their penises as a sign of their worth, as well as a source of anxiety that they may lose ‘it.’   
 
Little girls know that, like their mother, they also ‘lack’ a penis, and consequently girls suffer far less from that fear that their mother may ‘emasculate’ them.    
 
But this doesn’t mean the little girl doesn’t know ‘the phallus,’ that she doesn’t think she may also have to ‘provide’ what her mother lacks, it only means that she’s far less likely to delude herself into thinking she really has ‘it,’ or, for that matter, that anyone else has ‘it’ either.
 
That she doesn’t view little boys as in unique possession of ‘something’ marvelous and sought after by moms doesn’t mean that she isn’t at all interested in his penis, it just means she isn’t awed.     
 
There are cultural differences between what societies see as ideals of masculinity and femininity, which depend on how the roles are divided between the sexes, but some things are constants, and these ‘constants’ generally involve the expression of sexuality.   
 
Penises are the source of much interest and great pleasure for those who have one.  Little boys typically react with horror to their first glimpse of naked girls, at first either denying or repressing the ‘information’ that there are seeming human counterparts who don’t have one, as if those without one must have been mutilated.  
 
One need only think of the common reaction of small children to real mutilation, for example when a young child sees someone who’s missing a limb or part of a face, to get a sense of the little boy’s shock.  
 
A little girl has no similar shock, she immediately perceives that boys have something she hasn’t, and she may feel interested or curious or whatever, but she won’t feel any horror.  
 
Freud saw this ‘question’ of sexual difference for children as the start of scientific curiosity, because you can’t explain to young children the real story, which is that humans come in (at least) two sexes, and that both are complete.  This isn’t a credible explanation to a child, who can see for his or herself that the two sexes may dress differently, may have different roles, may behave differently, and are clearly judged differently.  
 
Although all societies treat each sex differently, depending on the societal ideal for each sex, boys are often encouraged to explore, and to be fearless and take risks, while girls may be encouraged to stay close to home, and to be careful and cautious.  
 
And of course girls are at more real risk than boys, and do require societal protection. One only need consider the vast numbers of girls and women who are sexually abused and mistreated to admit girls need protection, and this truth isn’t diluted by the fact that all children need protection from predatory adults, whatever their sex.   
 
And one may here point out that men are predominately the sexual abusers.  Even those few grown women, who garner headlines through sexually inappropriate behavior with miner males, don’t use force, and most of their male ‘victims’ feel glad about this abuse and may even ‘fall in love’ with their abusers, which is a stark contrast to how most males feel about sexual abuse from older males, which one could argue is at least as traumatic for them as it is for girls.  
 
Across societies violent criminals are mainly men, and violent sexual predators are exclusively male.  
 
And over all societies most men are proud of their penises, and glad to be men, while most girls don’t know what the ‘big deal’ is all about. (An ancient Greek saying goes something like, praise to the gods I’m not a slave, a non-Greek or a woman. I’m sure that even in ancient times that line made women chuckle.)   
 
Little girls may be praised for being ‘tom boys,’ but little boys may be tormented for having perceived ‘feminine’ characteristics.  
 
Lucky is the little girl who is reared in a home where her parental figures appreciate girls as much as boys, and where her father likes her mother, however ‘different’ her mother may be from him.  And lucky is the little boy who is simply accepted and not required to ‘pretend’ to some masculine ideal that doesn’t suit his inclinations.  
 
But, outside having a ‘naming’ penis, what is it to be a man? No one can fully answer such a question, but whatever answers are offered, they will always come with a requirement for a measure of prestige and contain the ‘rights’ to respect.
 
Whenever anyone is at the mercy of needing respect to feel his or her worth, he or she will necessarily experience frustration and be vulnerable to humiliation and mortification.  
 
This is because human subjects are filled with desires and wants and demands that overflow any possibility of being fully satisfied. We’re each of us lucky to get much satisfaction at all, and luckier still to accept what we can get and be glad.   
 
For all children and for many adults frustration is the punishment for not having enough of ‘whatever it may be’ that ‘causes’ others to respect and, why not, to love us, to overlook our shortcomings and to enjoy our talents and achievements, big or small.
 
A man also has his penis, big or small, and he’s either lucky or unlucky when it comes to having a love object that respects his ‘manhood,’ and will enjoy and participate in his phallic sexual desire.  

As men grow older their sexuality becomes that ‘thing’ that can get in the way of normal satisfactions.  Perfectly ordinary seeming men may harbor fantasies, or even engage in secret acts, that those who ‘know’ them would never imagine.  Many men are unable to overcome the impulse to ‘misbehave’ when an easy and seemingly safe opportunity for sexual ‘acting out’ presents itself.  The examples are too numerous and too ubiquitous to require listing.  

There is therefore a ‘normal’ variety of misogyny that is experienced by any heterosexual man whose sexual satisfaction depends on his ‘acceptance’ by some woman, who can ‘judge’ him to be either sufficient, or wanting.  
 
To marry, and thus to try to overcome the normal ‘anxiety’ between the sexes, men and women make compromises.   
 
The man accepts that he can’t have ‘all the women,’ and agrees, at least publicly, to settle for one (or however many the law allows him), who confirms he is a man by the fact of her.  The woman in turn agrees to accept his offer (submit to the law), or to believe his promise (which may be kept or broken) that he will protect her from the sexual appetites of other men, if she gives herself over to him.
 
This ‘arrangement’ in its varied forms has been going on as long as there have been humans on earth.  And back when sex roles were clearer and ‘universal,’ (meaning within a closed society) we suppose there were few overt ‘problems’ between the sexes, as each ‘knew’ his or her role and each was given community respect for fulfilling his or her role.  
 
Ah, but then came the concept of human rights, and the consequent one of women’s rights, and all hell broke loose.  
 
When a woman isn’t required by law to ‘submit,’ she may not. When a man can’t ‘enforce’ his sexual rights, he may not get any.  
 
But it seems this was not such a disaster, as men and women adapted, mainly by way of their fantasies.  They could then happily ‘misunderstand’ each other, bridging their sexual divide with fantasy, and life went on.   This was likely the birth of ‘romantic love,’ the best example of which is courtly love, which is all fantasy.
 
Some say the most successful marriages take place when the woman plays the role of ‘mother’ to her husband; she looks out for him as if he were a child, and she ‘protects’ his ‘male ego’ by pretending he isn’t lacking (that he has the phallus).  
 
Some others say the most successful is the opposite, where the man takes on the ‘father’ role, and his word is the law, and is respected.
 
But neither of these roles is our 21st century ideal. We now want it all, we want to stay ‘in love’ forever and never ever ‘doubt’ that we made the best choice with our forever ‘romantic’ or forever ‘sexually desirable’ partner.   We want to ‘make love,’ not ‘have sex’ or we want to have ‘hot sex’ and never ‘make love,’ plus we all want to ‘want to,’ no one wants to ‘have to,’ either out of duty or compassion.  
 
So the ‘mommy wife’ may still take care of things at home, keep to her own ‘objectives,’  but she can refuse to f–k, or at least mostly refuse.  Our ‘daddy husband’ can’t get anyone to obey him anymore, and he thus lives in constant frustration, which can make everyone at home miserable. Frustrated ‘wives’ may turn to drink, and frustrated ‘husbands’ may act out sexually.  
 
This state of affairs is likely to keep marriage counselors and divorce lawyers in their booming businesses for the foreseeable future and may also be an underpinning for the increase in addictions, if the ‘substance’ acts both as the phallus that only completes and needs no completion of its own, and as a disguise.   It may also account for the emergence of religion in what was once a mainly secular nation, in that religions are the most clear about laws regarding marriage and differential sex roles.  
 
Into this ‘situation,’ comes Hillary Clinton, first credible female running for president of the greatest nation on earth, for now anyway, and a woman who ‘doesn’t get what the big deal is all about.’
 
She followed the women in business model, which is to prepare first and then ask for the job.  She presented what she would do, not what she is.
 
To her great and naïve surprise she was told that her confidence, competence, enthusiasm, and enjoyment in campaigning was somehow ‘emasculating’ Barack.
 
She was ‘too confident,’ plus ‘too competitive,’ and she made him look unprepared during those debates, by knowing all the answers, and having the best-crafted plans, and responding first to everything, and by ‘forcing’ the media to compare the two of them she somehow diminished him, which must have been what she really wanted to do all along, to emasculate, to castrate, to ruin, to withhold, to be a bad ‘mom’ who didn’t ‘need’ a man.  In other words she didn’t pretend he had the phallus, and she didn’t even seem to know she was supposed to.  
 
Some of his most ‘manly’ supporters behaved as if the simple fact of ‘her’ running against ‘him’ was a big slap in their faces (how dared she!) and this is still demonstrated by the ‘boos’ that greet her name at Barack festivals.    
 
Hillary never ran as a phallic model, someone with whom lesser folk could elevate themselves through, by way of identification with her ‘phallus’; she followed the ‘object’ model, in it’s business form, she ran on objectives, who could best meet them.   
 
Barack is running on the phallic model, he ‘has’ what the rest of us lack, and need, hey, if you don’t believe me just ask him, or better, ask his wife.
 
To Hillary, Barack’s campaign seemed bizarre, how could he think to simply waltz in and expect he already knew enough to do the job, with his slim resume, and lack of relevant experience, without any ‘work’ to show what he’d already accomplished, and with his claimed superior judgment called so consistently into question?  
 
She wondered how it was he didn’t seem to ‘understand’ how complex, how vast, how varied, just how damn hard the job of president of the United States really is, not to mention just how important these times are and how many lives depend on our next president doing the job superlatively.  Like, even with his male ambition, didn’t he know it really wasn’t about him, but about all of us?    
 
This clearly demonstrates the difference between the sexes, this complete lack of mutual understanding, this complete difference in fantasies. She’s imagining every child with health care, and he’s imagining sitting in the oval office getting all deferred to.   
 
Hillary didn’t understand that Barack hadn’t prepared himself for the job in the same time-honored way that men aspiring to power jobs never do, because he’s running as a man, the one we’ve all been waiting for, our ‘leader.’  
 
He’s been rather amusing about it too, which makes me wonder if he’s a lot smarter than he pretends, but a lot less responsible. He responded to Bill Clinton’s friendly challenge to a ‘dance contest’ with, ‘he’d have to see Bill’s “stuff.”’  Only some girls failed to understand what Barack was really saying, and since Jennifer Flowers has already described Bill’s “stuff,” it was a joke that made his male supporters proud.
 
And Barack did the now famous hot and tired ‘jeans’ pose, that some likened to Bush’s codpiece in the ‘mission accomplished’ video.  (Barack does play it like comedy, from time to time, just think of his presidential seal.)
 
I mean, Barack doesn’t even try to ‘know’ what he’s talking about, because he knows he’s running on being the ‘man for the job’ and not as the ‘person who can actually do the job.’     
 
He played his ‘manhood’ less amusingly by claiming victim to the ‘castrating’ woman, and we can now see why this worked, why this got him sympathy from women and unleashed unbridled fury at Hillary and her supporters rather than making him look unprepared and ridiculous.  
 
Many men want a leader who ‘has it,’ so that, by extension, they can identify with his ‘phallus,’ (and let their mothers want that guy, give their own sorry selves metaphorical freedom from mom’s metaphorical demand).  
 
Plus, it heartens some to see a man slap a woman down, (like movie theater audiences cheering when Sharon Stone got knocked down in that Mars film with Arnie), this …  this …  this … woman who denies him her respect (and very likely her true-desiring pu–y).  
 
Every man who has felt the sting of humiliation after some real woman judged him ‘inadequate’ thrilled to Barack’s put downs, the loudest of which has been the unmarried (and reportedly sexually dysfunctional) Keith Olbermann. Keith played to cheers from his largely male audience. (Here one must note that Keith’s biggest sponsor is a company that manufacturers meds for erectile dysfunction.)     
 
And those women who were equally ‘furious’ with Hillary, what’s with them? These are those women who continue to ‘prop up’ the non-existent ‘male’ phallus. They know better, but they can’t admit what they know, as if they fear their best-loved man (usually their sweet and dearest father) could never survive the knowledge of ‘castration,’ meaning his own inadequacy.   (Is it possible that married women who backed the best prepared girl for president have unusually confident husbands, who don’t mind not always being highly ‘potent?’)  
 
You may say, what’s new? You’re saying, encore encore, if that is your name, that males have fragile egos and can’t bear the knowledge that they aren’t ‘superior’ beings, born to greatness?  Ho hum to that? And you’re saying that women may be our own worst enemies, may chose to back any man over letting one of our own prove it’s no big deal, it’s just a job, and the most qualified is always the best choice?  So, what’s your point?  
 
My point is, this is really f–ked up.  Okay, we need fantasies to bridge divides, but there are real problems right now, and we need leaders who get that what’s most important is solving them way more. We had a chance to elect someone both capable and responsible for that job, enough of our people were ready, but our party leadership and media power holders weren’t.  So now we’ve got two guys running, Mr. Phallus vs. Mr. Phallus, totally unprepared vs. maybe even worse than totally unprepared, and this is not the time to throw dice with our universe.