This is an accepted version of this page
Aphallus (pl.:phalli orphalluses) is apenis (especially whenerect),[1] an object that resembles a penis, or amimetic image of an erect penis.[2] In art history, a figure with an erect penis is described asithyphallic.
Any object that symbolically—or, more precisely, iconically—resembles a penis[3] may also be referred to as a phallus; however, such objects are more often referred to as beingphallic (as in "phallic symbol"). Such symbols often represent fertility and cultural implications that are associated with the male sexual organ, as well as the maleorgasm.
The term is a loanword fromLatinphallus, itself borrowed fromGreekφαλλός (phallos), which is ultimately a derivation from theProto-Indo-Europeanroot *bʰel- "to inflate, swell". Compare withOld Norse (andmodern Icelandic)boli, "bull",Old Englishbulluc, "bullock", Greekφαλλή, "whale".[4]
The Hohle phallus, a 28,000-year-old siltstone phallus discovered in theHohle Fels cave and reassembled in 2005, is among the oldest phallic representations known.[5]
The phallus played a role in the cult ofOsiris inancient Egyptian religion. When Osiris' body was cut in 14 pieces,Set scattered them all over Egypt, and his wifeIsis retrieved all of them except one, his penis, which a fish swallowed; Isis made him a wooden replacement.
The phallus was a symbol of fertility, and the godMin was often depicted as ithyphallic, that is, with an erect penis.
In traditionalGreek mythology,Hermes, the god of boundaries and exchange (popularly themessenger god), is considered to be a phallic deity by association with representations of him onherms (pillars) featuring a phallus. There is no scholarly consensus on this depiction, and it would be speculation to consider Hermes a fertility god.Pan, son ofHermes, was often depicted as having an exaggerated erect phallus.
Priapus is a Greek god of fertility whose symbol was an exaggerated phallus. The son ofAphrodite andDionysus, according to Homer and most accounts, he is the protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens, and male genitalia. His name is the origin of the medical termpriapism.
The city ofTyrnavos in Greece holds an annualPhallus festival, a traditional event celebrating the phallus on the first days ofLent.[6]
The phallus was ubiquitous inancient Roman culture, particularly in the form of thefascinum, a phallic charm.[7][8] The ruins ofPompeii produced bronze wind chimes(tintinnabula) that featured the phallus, often in multiples, to ward off theevil eye and other malevolent influences. Statues of Priapus similarly guarded gardens. Roman boys wore thebulla, an amulet that contained a phallic charm until they formally came of age. According toAugustine of Hippo, the cult ofFather Liber, who presided over the citizen's entry into political and sexual manhood, involved a phallus. The phallic deityMutunus Tutunus promoted marital sex. A sacred phallus was among the objects considered vital to the security of the Roman state, which was in the keeping of theVestal Virgins.Sexuality in ancient Rome has sometimes been characterized as "phallocentric".[9]
.jpg)
Shiva, one of the most widely worshiped male deities inHinduism pantheon, is worshiped much more commonly in the form of thelingam. Evidence of the lingam in India dates back to prehistoric times. Although Lingam is not amere phallic iconography, nor do the textual sources signify it as so, stone Lingams with several varieties are found to this date in many of the old temples and in museums in India and abroad, which are often more clearly phallic than later stylized lingams. The famous "man-size"Gudimallam Lingam inAndhra Pradesh is about 1.5 metres (5 ft) in height, carved in polished black granite, and clearly represents an erect phallus, with a figure of the deity in relief superimposed down the shaft.[10]
Many of the earliest depictions of Shiva as a figure in human form are ithyphallic, for example, in coins of theKushan Empire. Some figures up to about the 11th century AD have erect phalluses, although they have become increasingly rare.
According to the Indonesian chronicles of theBabad Tanah Jawi, Prince Puger gained the kingly power fromGod by ingesting semen from the phallus of the already-deadSultan Amangkurat II of Mataram.[11][12]
Thephallus is commonly depicted in its paintings. Wooden phalluses, with white ribbons hanging from the tip, are often hung above the doorways of houses to deter evil spirits.
The Mara Kannon Shrine (麻羅観音) inNagato,Yamaguchi prefecture is one of many fertility shrines in Japan that still exist today. Also present in festivals such as theDanjiri Matsuri (だんじり祭)[13] inKishiwada,Osaka prefecture, theKanamara Matsuri inKawasaki, and theHōnen Matsuri (豊年祭, Harvest Festival) inKomaki,Aichi Prefecture, though historically phallus adoration was more widespread.
Kuker is a divinity personifying fecundity, sometimes inBulgaria andSerbia it is a plural divinity. In Bulgaria, a ritual spectacle of spring (a sort ofcarnival performed byKukeri) takes place after a scenario of folk theatre, in which Kuker's role is interpreted by a man attired in a sheep or goat-pelt, wearing a horned mask and girded with a large wooden phallus. During the ritual, various physiological acts are interpreted, including the sexual act, as a symbol of the god's sacred marriage, while the symbolical wife, appearing pregnant, mimes the pains of giving birth. This ritual inaugurates the labours of the fields (ploughing,sowing) and is carried out with the participation of numerous allegorical personages, among which are the Emperor and his entourage.[14]
InSwitzerland, the heraldic bears in a coat of arms had to be painted with bright redpenises, otherwise, they would have been mocked as being she-bears. In 1579, a calendar printed inSt. Gallen omitted the genitals from the heraldic bear ofAppenzell, nearly leading to war between the two cantons.[15][16][17]
Figures ofKokopelli andItzamna (as the Mayan tonsured maize god) inPre-Columbian America often include phallic content. Additionally, over forty large monolithic sculptures (Xkeptunich) have been documented from Terminal Classic Maya sites, with most examples occurring in the Puuc region of Yucatán (Amrhein 2001). Uxmal has the largest collection, with eleven sculptures now housed under a protective roof. The largest sculpture was recorded at Almuchil measuring more than 320 cm high with a diameter at the base of the shaft measuring 44 cm.[18]
St. Priapus Church (French:Église S. Priape) is a North American new religion that centres on the worship of the phallus. Founded in the 1980s in Montreal, Quebec, by D. F. Cassidy, it has a following mainly amonghomosexual men in Canada and the United States. Semen is also treated with reverence, and its consumption is an act of worship.[19] Semen is esteemed as sacred because of its divine life-giving power.
The symbolic version of the phallus, a phallic symbol, is meant to represent male generative powers. According toSigmund Freud's theory ofpsychoanalysis, while males possess a penis, no one can possess the symbolic phallus.
Jacques Lacan'sEcrits: A Selection includes an essay titledThe Signification of the Phallus in which sexual differentiation is represented in terms of the difference between "being" and "having" the phallus, which for Lacan is the transcendent signifier of desire. Men are positioned as men insofar as they wish tohave the phallus. Women, on the other hand, wish tobe the phallus. This difference between having and being explains some tragicomic aspects of sexual life. Once a woman becomes, in the realm of the signifier, the phallus the man wants, he ceases to want it because one cannot desire what one has, and the man may be drawn to other women. Similarly, though, for the woman, the gift of the phallus deprives the man of what he has and thereby diminishes her desire.
It should be remembered that thephallōs was asymbol ofthereal penis in its erectimaginary form.[20]
— Michael Lewis
Norbert Wiley states that Lacan's phallus is akin to Durkheim'smana.[21]
InGender Trouble,Judith Butler explores Freud's and Lacan's discussions of the symbolic phallus by pointing out the connection between the phallus and the penis. They write, "The law requires conformity to its own notion of 'nature'. It gains its legitimacy through the binary and asymmetrical naturalization of bodies in which the phallus, though clearly not identical to the penis, deploys the penis as its naturalized instrument and sign". InBodies that Matter, they further explore the possibilities for the phallus in their discussion ofThe Lesbian Phallus. If, as they note, Freud enumerates a set of analogies and substitutions that rhetorically affirm the fundamental transferability of the phallus from the penis elsewhere, then any number of other things might come to stand in for the phallus. In further critiques of thephallus, Lili Hsieh reverted Judith Butler'smetaphysics of the phallus in psychoanalytic feminism, proposing that "feminism will also inspire psychoanalysis to rework its metaphysical theory of femininity" by equating vagina to Freud's notion of "penis envy", with referral toMichel Foucault's criticism that psychoanalysis normalizes and objectifies modern sexuality.[22]
The phallus is often used for advertisingpornography,[citation needed] as well as the sale ofcontraception. It has often been used in provocative practical jokes and has been the central focus of adult-audience performances.[23]
The phallus had a new set of art interpretations in the 20th century with the rise ofSigmund Freud, the founder of modernpsychoanalysis ofpsychology. One example is "Princess X"[24] by the Romanian modernist sculptorConstantin Brâncuși. He created a scandal in the Salon in 1919 when he represented or caricaturedPrincess Marie Bonaparte as a large gleaming bronze phallus. This phallus likely symbolizes Bonaparte's obsession with the penis and her lifelong quest to achieve vaginal orgasm.[25]
As I read Lacan, the first signifier (his ambiguous 'phallus') or entry into the universe of public meaning is the same as Durkheim's 'mana' (see Levi-Strauss, 1950/1987, pp. 55-56 for the idea of mana as the "floating signifer;" and Mehlman, 1972, for an attempt, not completely successful, to integrate the semiotic meanings of Levi-Strauss's mana and Lacan's phallus).
Media related toPhallus at Wikimedia Commons| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
