I started the process of Talking about Keith (2012) by exploring semen and my

relationship to it through the self-reflexive abject-gaze that was defined in the

previous chapter. The memory that was chosen as a starting point for this
project took place sometime between my eighteenth birthday and going to
university. It was a memory that I experienced with a woman of a similar age
to me, who in the back of my car asked me to give her a pearl necklace.
Some ten years later, when reflecting upon this memory, what I found
interesting was that despite being a bodily fluid neither of us seemed to be
disgusted by my semen being on her body, there was something un-polluting
about the erect, ejaculating penis and its product. Yet, outside of
heterosexual relationships I still felt that semen seemed dangerous and
threatening to ones identity.

This cultural paradox seemed worthy of further

exploration.

Semen
The importance placed upon semen can be traced back to an
Aristotelian perspective, in which semen was seen to turn matter into form. It
was therefore assumed that semen held the properties needed for humans to
be conscious subjects, whereas menstrual blood provided the anatomy
(Aristotle, 2013, para. 4.5).

In order to achieve this position Aristotle

emphasised its celestial properties, fresh semen was seen as white-hot,

foamy, and as light as air (Aristotle, 2013, para. 2.1). This somewhat elevated
perception of semen supports Julia Kristevas claim that culturally semen is
less abject than other bodily fluids, and is in fact more closely aligned to tears
than menstrual blood, which has excrement as its polluting equivalent
(Kristeva, 1982: 71).
The representation of semen as being not abject is also prevalent in
twentieth century science textbooks at the level of the germ cell, particularly
when sperm is compared to eggs that are produced in the ovaries. Some
textbooks depict the ovaries as having a stock of two million eggs at birth, but
most of these are destined to die in the ovaries (Martin, 1991, p. 487). Whilst
the female germ cell is linked to loss, waste, and in turn abjection, the male is
celebrated as continuously producing fresh sperm, despite wasting well over
two trillion sperm in his life time (Martin, 1991, pp. 488). The gendering of
cells is further demonstrated at the point of reproduction, where the egg and
sperm are defined through their interaction. In the past, sperm has been
described as penetrating the egg, and burrowing down into it (Martin, 1991, p.
489). In more recent research though it has been portrayed as innocent and
unaware of being caught in the zona and guided towards the centre. This
research does grant the egg an active role, but only in the sense that it is a

dangerous unknown entity; a type of femme fatal waiting quietly in dark

treacherous places preparing for attack (Martin, 1991, p. 491).
In some instances Western art practices have also associated semen
with non-polluting properties and in some instances going as far as aligning it
to the brain. Leonardo da Vinci, for example, famously created over 200 pages
of notes and drawings on the anatomy of the body, of which some are
remarkably intricate. Yet there are also some inaccuracies in these drawings,
which seem to be based upon culturally constructed pre-conceived ideas, the
most problematic being that of the male penis (Morris, 1986, p. 510). On a
page depicting the Genito-Urinary System, da Vinci provides a cross section
of the male penis. Whilst it is roughly accurate in its externalisation da Vinci
inserts two pipes along the length of the penis in order to separate semen
from the polluting urine (Morris, 1986: 512). Furthermore, the pipe carrying
semen could be traced back to the testes, which are then linked to the brain
via the spinal cord (Vinci, 2004).
In addition to becoming socially gendered, ejaculate is also considered
as an iconic reference to male pleasure (Zizek et al., 2006). However, in
pornography, merely ejaculating is not an assurance of masculinity, instead it
is the demonstration of endurance and skill, which is only then followed by
ejaculation (Aydemir, 2007: 94). In these erotic films, then, the male performer

is portrayed as a machine that functions emotionlessly and effortlessly only to

give pleasure (Garlick, 2009, p. 608) There is then a sense phallic power and
control associated with the image of the ejaculating penis in these male
performances, but as Linda Williams outlines it can also be viewed as a
perversion (Williams, 1989, p. 95). It is possible to read Williams observation
through Lacans concept of jouissance, a term which in his earlier works was
associated only with extreme pleasure and disappointment in the form of
phallic jouissance (Lacan, 1998b), but which was later developed upon in
relation to feminine1, or supplementary, jouissance (Lacan, 1998a). The latter
refers to a jouissance that belongs to she (elle) that doesnt exist and
doesnt signify anything (Lacan, 1998a, p. 74). What Lacan means by this is
that because the feminine in part exists outside of the phallic, she is notwhole and therefore feels an intense jouissance that exists outside of the
symbolic (Lacan, 1998a, p. 74).
This supplementary jouissance might be seen in the female orgasm,
which Catherine Waudby describes as an erotic destruction[] the
temporary, ecstatic confusion wrought upon the everyday sense of self by
sexual pleasure [] (Waldby, 2002: 266). However, this intense pleasure can

1 It is important to remember, that as Chapter 1 outlined, the terms feminine and masculine for Lacan are never
anatomically defined, but rather articulate the position the subject is in relation to the phallus. In this respect,
feminine jouissance can be experienced by the male, but only when he assumes the position of the phallic object.
Submissive men in sadomasochistic relationships might experience such experiences of feminine jouissance, see
Bob Flanagan for more information on this.

only destroy ones self because it exceeds description, because it is more than
the symbolic can hold. There is an assumption that this is achieved through
vaginal or clitoral stimulus, but it is more than this as pleasure exceeds
outside of the primary sexual organs (Lacan, 1998a: 75). Therefore because
it exceeds the symbolic there is no signification for it, even the quivering
feminine body is not secure because that can be faked. In this respect by
ejaculating on to the body of the feminine semen becomes a signifier for her
pleasure, yet despite the female performers request for it in hardcore
pornography it is not for her eyes, rather it is for the eyes of the male
performer and those watching at home (Williams, 1989, p. 101).
In this respect the ejaculating penis is both spectacular and also
helplessly specular for whilst it aims to mark her pleasure it never does
(Williams, 1989, p. 93). In this respect there is a type of failure associated
with semen, as it simply cannot be the celestial celebrated object that
historically men have positioned it as. Following on from this, as a result of
feminine jouissance, phallic jouissance appears, for whilst there is an attempt
to control and signify her pleasure within the symbolic, ejaculate fails to do this
and as such disappointment ensues (Lacan, 1998b, p. 7). This is why in
pornography the camera stops just after the point of ejaculating onto the body
of the female performer, for if filming continued it would be possible to see the

ejaculate being mopped up and disposed of (????, ????: ??). This resonates
with Elizabeth Grosz who questions why semen does not qualify as the objet
petit a? (Grosz, 1994, p. 199). She continues to note that:
Phenomenology is generally displaced in favor of externalization,
medicalization, solidification. Seminal fluid is understood primarily
as what it makes, what it achieves, a casual agent and thus a thing,
a solid: its fluidity, its potential seepage, the element in it that is
uncontrollable, its spread, its formlessness is perpetually displaced
in discourse onto its properties, its capacity to fertilize, to father, to
produce an object. (199)