Arnold Zwicky's Blog

(Men’s bodies, frankly and openly presented as both objects of desire and objects of pride — but it is definitely Art. Use your judgment.)

Passed on by Arne Adolfsen on Facebook, this work by noted São Paulo artist Francisco (Chico) Hurtz, with accompanying (often baffling) text from philosopher Marilyn Frye — on heterosexual masculinity as male bonding, Bros Before Hos on a grand scale — supplied by Hurtz:

(#1) Untitled, ink on paper 2018 (here, and below, his men are faceless, but decidedly embodied)

” to say that a man is heterosexual implies only that he maintains sexual intercourse exclusively with the opposite sex, i.e. women. Everything or almost everything that is of love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men. The people they admire; they respect; they worship and worship; they honor; whom they imitate, worship and with whom they create deeper ties; to whom they are willing to teach and with whom they are willing to learn; those whose respect, admiration, recognition, honor , reverence and love they wish: these are, mostly overwhelming, other men. In their relations with women, what is seen as respect is kindness, generosity or paternalism; what is seen as honor is the placement of the woman in a dome. Of women they want devotion, servitude and sex. Male heterosexual culture is couples; she cultivates love for men.” – Marilyn Frye

The artist and his art. Hurtz demonstrating for his art:

(#2) His work is playfully or intensely homosexy, fiercely political, and pointedly socially critical

More male bonding (consider Michael Kimmel on the construction of masculinity):

(#3) Study the hands

The dick drawing:

(#4) Both adoration of the penis and proud wielding of it

Marilyn Frye. From Wikipedia:

(#5) Not your stereotypical humorless, charmless feminist dyke: (sturdy) feminist yes, (public) dyke yes, but far from humorless or charmless

Marilyn Frye (born 1941 in Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an American philosopher and radical feminist theorist. She is known for her theories on sexism, racism, oppression, and sexuality. Her writings offer discussions of feminist topics, such as: white supremacy, male privilege, and gay and lesbian marginalization. Although she approaches the issues from the perspective of justice, she is also deeply engaged with the metaphysics, epistemology, and moral psychology of social categories.

Frye received the BA with honors in philosophy from Stanford University in 1963 and received the PhD in Philosophy at Cornell University in 1969, writing a dissertation titled “Meaning and Illocutionary Force,” under the supervision of Max Black. Before coming to Michigan State University in 1974, she taught in the Philosophy Department at the University of Pittsburgh. From 2003 until her retirement, Frye was [a] University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University

Frye on the problem of male homosexuality. That’s her topic in the passage Hurtz appends to his drawing of men contemplating their cocks, but the text is painfully non-native English and occasionally incomprehensible. That’s because it’s a translation, from Portuguese, by a native speaker of Portuguese:

(#6) The Portuguese original, from which you can work out that the she in the baffling last sentence of the quote accompanying #1 refers to male heterosexual culture

And the English original of that, from Frye’s The Politics of Reality, pp. 134-5:

To say that straight men are heterosexual is only to say that they engage in sex (fucking exclusively with the other sex, i.e., women). All or almost all of that which pertains to love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men. The people whom they admire, respect, adore, revere, honor, whom they imitate, idolize, and form profound attachments to, whom they are willing to teach and from whom they are willing to learn, and whose respect, admiration, recognition, honor, reverence and love they desire… those are, overwhelmingly, other men. In their relations with women, what passes for respect is kindness, generosity or paternalism; what passes for honor is removal to the pedestal. From women they want devotion, service and sex.

Heterosexual male culture is homoerotic; it is man-loving.

Aha!

This entry was posted on August 1, 2018 at 8:16 am and is filed under Art, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Masculinity, Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.