Saturday, September 25, 2010

Notes on the Testicular and Penile Theories of Talent


Jackie Wang, for HTML Giant, has an entertaining essay about literary talent and gender.

From the story...

The winners of the Norman Mailer Nonfiction Writing Awards were just announced. A lucky college student will be now be $10,000 richer. Since the awards are intended to honor the legacy of Norman Mailer, now seems like an appropriate time to defame his name by remembering what a sexist asshole he was. Thinking about Norman Mailer’s legacy, I am reminded of the way in which he advanced what I call the Testicular Theory of Talent (TTT).

I remember when I was in high school, my friend read me a quote from Dali’s Diary of a Genius about how genius was only contained in the balls, which was a claim Dali used as a way of discouraging a woman—who was likely Amanda Lear—from being a painter. Later, I discovered that there is a whole discourse and articulated thread of ideas attributing talent and genius to the balls or the fluid that comes from the balls. Surprisingly, this discourse actually has a sprawling history. Galen, a medical researcher of Greek Antiquity—thought that seminal fluid contain the “vital spirit.” Teddy Roosevelt was paranoid about masturbating too much because he thought that loss of seminal fluid would trigger a loss of “nerve force”—the force that gives us “courage, ambition, personality, character, mental powers and energy” (Paul Von Boeckmann, 1921). Norman Mailer said that, “that a good novelist can do without everything but the remnant of his balls.” (Although, regarding another aspect of Mailer’s comment, I admit that maybe I am somewhat “dykily psychotic.”) Jodorowsky’s cinematic talent apparently sprung from his balls. Balls balls balls. Bad news for me, I guess. Good thing I’m not very invested in the concept of “genius” anyway.

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