Sunday, August 23, 2009

White Male Sexual Anxiety

So I've been thinking about the men who came to meetings with President Obama with rifles (see my previous post). I believe the reason why they do it is the deep-seated white male sexual anxiety that is activated by seeing a very attractive and powerful black man. In this sense, a rifle serves as a huge phallic symbol that is aimed at reducing their sexual anxiety.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The pictures in the previous post do not show most of the time, but when they show, there seems to be a black guy with the rifle in the first of them. I admit, he looks like some kind of a security guard to me, but if that is true - where is the "anxious white male with the rifle"?
:) :)
V.

Anonymous said...

OK, he is in the second picture...
V.

Clarissa said...

It's hard to see the pictures, especially from some computers. My home computer doesn't show them at all for some reason.

Anonymous said...

Dear Madam,

I've been reading a lot of feminist writing lately, and have found much of it refreshingly reasonable.

I cannot say the same for this post. To assume that men subconsciously attribute a rifle as a remedy for being sexually inferior is absurd. That you would actually post such a claim with absolutely no evidence aside from wild speculation is a shock to me, considering you call yourself an 'academic.'

M

Clarissa said...

Dear Sir,

I have to say that I find your way of address refreshing.

I don't call myself an academic, it's just who I am. :-) There is a type of analysis and criticism that's called psychoanalytical criticism. Accoring to its tenets, a gun (and sometimes also a car) serve as a symbolic substitute for a penis. This is the kind of analysis I attempted in this post. Each phenomenon can be analyzed from different points of view. If this type of analysis is not your thing, that's perfectly ok. I find it useful on certain occasions, not always.