Abstract
This final chapter shifts the focus to extimate (partial, intimate, external) organs (such as penises and breasts) which, standing out from the rest of the body, indicate gender identity, but may (for various reasons) seem unconvincing, detachable or misplaced. Surgical practices have evolved which aim to alter erogenous bodily parts, adapting them to societal expectations or individual desires, fuelled by the conviction that such partial objects can be refashioned, restored or remade. This will be addressed from an oblique perspective, focussing on three key sources, namely a famous tale reported by Plato, a Victorian case history analysed by Michel Foucault and a novel entitled Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.
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- 1.
Tardieu was a famous, albeit controversial, author in his own time. One of his earlier publications (1857) is generally regarded as the first scientific forensic report of child abuse. According to Masson (1984/2003), it served as an important source of information for Freud’s ‘seduction theory’ (regarding sexual abuse during early childhood as causal factor in hysteria), which he later replaced by the conviction that most of these reports by patients during therapeutic sessions actually build on phantasies.
- 2.
“L’hermaphroditisme n’existe pas chez l’homme” (Goujon 1869/1978, p. 150).
- 3.
“I may become the most famous hermaphrodite in history. Alexina Barbin, becoming Abel. Michel Foucault discovered her autobiography in the archives of the French Department of Public Hygiene. Her memoirs, which end shortly before her suicide, make unsatisfactory reading, and it was after finishing them years ago that I first got the idea to write my own” (p. 19).
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Zwart, H.A.E. (2019). Encore: Middlesex and the Re-makeable Body. In: Purloined Organs. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05354-3_22
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