Performing the Penis

This book will be the first collection that offers an overview and case studies around understandings and manifestations of penises and phalluses in the early twenty-first century. It examines how penises and phalluses are experienced and represented, drawing on examples from pornography, stripping, music video, film, surgery, and comedy. The penis-along with its twin the phallus-has been used to symbolise strength, fertility, and power but also bestiality, violence, and the 'savage'. It has been worshipped, feared, and mocked. With contributing authors deploying conceptual frameworks based in philosophy, cultural studies, gender studies, affect theory, film theory, feminist theory, art theory, sociology, history, medical anthropology and media studies, this volume will appeal to a broad range of scholars and all who are interested in bodies, genitals, gender, and contemporary cultures.

Meredith Jones is Director of the Institute of Communities and Society at Brunel University London, UK. Evelyn Callahan is a Research Fellow at The Open University.

Introduction 1. The Phallus: Power and Vulnerability 2. The Foetus Phallus Studio 3. Knowing, Visibility and A Comedic Penis 4. 'The Easy Way Out': Vasectomies in Sociopornographic Magazines 5. Hung Jury: Queer Verdicts of Sex Reassignment Surgery Versus Trans Men's Surgical Journeys 6. The Penis in the Medical Imagination 7. Playing with Penises: Gigantic and Miniature Phallic Performances 8. 'I Do What I Know How To Do': Performing the Penis in Key West*