Dick and no dick: both cannot be true at the same time

At the end of January, Frascati maker Just van Bommel presented the performance DEAR FRAIL MALE: on how it sucks for men (that they suck) at Frascati. Simon(e) van Saarloos, writer, philosopher, and curator, attended the performance and wrote a column as a reflection on the work.

Dick and no dick: both cannot be true at the same time

By: Simon(e) van Saarloos

It’s easy to take “dear frail male” personally if you’ve recently started transitioning, and you’re suddenly being addressed as “man” everywhere you go. It’s easy to feel aimed at when “he” and “sir” are everywhere. It’s easy to feel under attack when legally only two genders are permitted, when you’re not allowed to compete at sports, when you can’t get a house because your assigned sex on paper doesn’t match your appearance when meeting the landlord, when the algorithm and the newspapers are obsessed with transphobia, when they won’t let you through passport control, when Zionists enjoy imagining you being thrown off a building while they can’t see a genocide. It’s easy to lose sight of the difference between taking it personally and being attacked. It’s also entirely possible that this difference really is gradually getting smaller .

Recently, in the MALE locker rooms at the gym, I was talking to another athlete after we came out of the showers. When I told him I teach philosophy, he mentioned Jordan Peterson. I almost dropped my towel: you mean the misogynist Jordan Peterson? 

He quickly considered this and suggested: Maybe he’s more of a psychologist than a philosopher, then? 
I just know him as a fascist, I replied.

This fellow athlete then whipped out his phone and searched for my name, adding me in his reading list on Goodreads. A generous gesture, showing interest. The next week I met him again: this time, he hardly even said hi, and when I left and wished him a good evening, he replied, “Bye Simone”. Everyone at the gym calls me Simon. Was it an innocent mistake, caused by him now knowing how my name is spelled, or was it hate? Was he just being polite, or was it a sneak attack?

Just van Bommel’s production DEAR FRAIL MALE On how it sucks for men (that they suck) starts off with a classic moment of interpellation: a call that lands in public and shared space, but which at the same time makes an urgent, personal appeal. An identity label or social norm, for example, that may not be directed to you specifically, but which nevertheless lures many different people to exhibiting the same, singular behaviour. The philosopher Louis Althusser (who murdered his wife by strangulation) demonstrated the power of interpellation using the example of a police officer shouting, “hey, you!” Even though you may not be the “you” meant by the officer, you’ll still feel and absorb it as an address. You’ll stop what you were doing and stay still. Althusser’s analysis is a blunt instrument, as anti-Black police violence, patrols through neighbourhoods where many migrants and Muslims live, and the stop-and-frisk of men of colour of course mean that the “hey, you!” of Althusser’s general example does in fact have a specific slant. A white man in a suit may well ignore the officer completely. Even if he’s just parked his Tesla on the curb, it could be that he simply doesn’t even register the officer’s call. 

DEAR FRAIL MALE starts with a call. Performer Just van Bommel walks past a group of boys, hanging out at a playground. The boys start to call out. Just is wearing headphones and doesn’t hear the shouts, but “gay” and “faggot” break through any noise-cancelling device. The boys ask Just whether they have a dick or not. The question is repeated, menacingly: only two options are possible, dick or no dick, yes or no. Just asks why it matters. “It just does,” one of the boys replies. “It doesn’t,” Just responds, less elegantly than they would have liked, catalysing an exhausting yes/no argument. They become caught up in a slanging match in which it’s hardly possible to distinguish the positive (it does) from the negative (it doesn’t). 

Like in an action film, when time is paused so that the character can carry out a secret task that will change everyone else’s course and fate, Just embarks on their dreamed retort. They break out of the yes/no loop with a long summary of things men are missing. Such as purposeless phone conversations about feelings, deodorant that doesn’t smell of pine needles, tobacco or rum, simply hugging friends, or a sense of your own style and taste. DEAR FRAIL MALE doesn’t so much reveal what men go through, but rather highlights what men do not get to experience, and what is missing from their life. At the same time, this also paints an extremely clear picture of everything men are allowed to do and enact, what he has access to, what he claims and causes. For example, a man could experience what it is like to not try and win every conversation by citing a great philosopher such as Hegel. 

Hegel is, as far as I’m concerned – or maybe this is me mansplaining? – not just a random mention. Hegel is seen as the founder of German dialectics. He concluded that every thesis, every declaration, gives rise to a reaction and a negation. Development is only possible by means of debate, in which thesis and antithesis succeed one another. Arriving at truth therefore always consists of a dialogue between the positive and the negative, the yes and the no, the cons and the pros. And this back-and-forth never ends. Because whatever emerges from such a discussion, produces yet another thought that deserves an argument for and against. In this way, debate, discussion, conversation, the exposing of contradictions and the eternal response, has become associated with an idea of progress. Because, according to Hegel, without this back-and-forth between declarations, no development can occur. This dialectic is driven by unease and discomfort, arising in white, western individuals when contradiction occurs (though these feelings of unease are not limited to white western individuals, but rather a structure and a way of thinking that also influences larger society). Dick or no dick? Dick and no dick cannot both be true at the same time. 

Eventually, Just lays down a challenge to the boys, whispering: “Fight or fuck? Both are fine. It’s all the same to me.” This invitation exactly expresses the tedium of the never-ending dialectic: in a language and thought where everything is argument and counterargument, a reaction to a reaction to a reaction, no existence is possible outside of the familiar rhythms and frameworks. Even though Just is perfectly able to explain why “Have you got a dick?” is an unnecessary question, their response is also a confirmation of the question itself. Even when you wish to refute an idea or a declaration, this refusal perpetuates the existence of the expression you are responding to. We are all stuck in an infinite circle of what is already known and apparent. It’s thus impossible for faggots and queers to exist freely and differently, because every form of defence also confirms that the attack is meaningful and real. 

Professor and writer Marquis Bey explains why they are no longer interested in gender, even though they work in Gender & Women’s Studies. Imagine a package is delivered to your home, Bey says in a public conversation with Jack Halberstam, but this package is not intended for you. Bey would leave it at the front door, assuming that someone would come and pick it up. When that doesn’t happen, Bey takes it to the post office, but there they won’t take the package back, because they say the package is addressed to Bey. Frustrated, Bey tries to abandon the package on the street, but someone calls after them that they’ve forgotten something. When Bey again tries to leave the package behind, the police appear and mark this behaviour as suspicious. If Bey doesn’t take the package with them, they can be arrested. Bey is stuck with the package. Or: the package clings to you, like gender does. You can’t get rid of it, even if you didn’t order it. 

Just leaves the group of boys behind: “I’m so scared of you, I say out loud, to no one in particular.” The interpellation of gender needs to reach no one in particular: the words are said, and without any specific person being addressed, the words start to constitute a conversation, forming a mould and template. Ultimately, DEAR FRAIL MALE is neither a defence nor a manifesto, but a visualisation of perseverance. For fifty minutes, Just is borne by two performers. In the beginning, when the lights have just come on, it seems like a fun mess of entangled bodies. Fortunately, Just is not alone; they are supported by these men. But, when it transpires that Just never touches the floor at all, the playground where the yes/no discussion inflamed, seems to be the only space where Just can exist. Outside of this, there are other possibilities, ways of existing that do not respond to a ridiculous call – dick or no dick? But that playful space is far out of reach.