Giuseppe Burgio, At the edge of masculinity.
Hermaphrodites, transsexuals, bisexuals and erotic imagination

Gender Theories analyse a socially pervasive, male-female dichotomy. The historical existence of “hermaphrodites” has always fascinated and challenged the cultural development of this dichotomy. Transsexualism now occupies the place of hermaphroditism and is the theoretical problem (and erotic fantasy) of a gender hierarchy that our society would want stable and oppositional. A body at the same time male and female troubles us, also because it evokes a possible dual use: it evokes bisexuality. But hermaphrodites, transsexuals and bisexuals are not deviations of masculinity but its cultural margins. Perhaps we can learn more about masculinity if we study it from its gender and erotic margins.

Published on: The Wretched of the earth? N. 24 New Series – Year XII 2016