Fear of the Talking Asshole
My last essay discussed anal eroticism through an artistic and philosophical lens. That analysis was universal, unmoored from identity markers like sex, gender, and sexual orientation. Everyone has an anus, after all; any serious attempt at anal philosophy should apply universally. Having laid this broad framework, however, we can begin to narrow our focus. The purpose of this essay is to acknowledge the fact that the anus is strongly associated with queerness—male queerness, in particular. And, given our current political climate, this makes the anus a profound source of anxiety and moral panic.
The Ground Zero of Gayness
Cultural anxieties about the queer anus are nicely summarized in a letter to popular sex advice columnist Dan Savage which has been the subject of academic scrutiny by Jonathan Granfman and Susan Ekberg Striritz, later summarized in Jonathan Allan’s Reading from Behind. In the letter, a reader named Drew describes his newfound interest in anal penetration. Drew enjoys having his girlfriend to fuck him with a dildo; however, these pleasurable experiences have provoked uncomfortable questions concerning his sexual orientation. “I still don’t have any desire to be with a man sexually,” he explains, “but I love having my ass pounded. Does that tip the scale toward homo?”
Savage’s reply to Drew is straightforward: “If a man and a woman are doing it—whatever it is—it’s a heterosexual act.” For Savage, the anus is not inherently queer; it’s simply a body part some folks like to play with. Although Savage is certainly correct, this quotation gives little insight into how the dominant culture understands the anus. After all, if Savage’s perspective was universal and obvious, Drew wouldn’t need a stranger to reassure him about his own identity in the first place, would he? So why do so many people understand the male anus as the “essence of homosexuality, the very ground zero of gayness,” as Jeffrey R. Guss puts it?
Like many young straight men, Drew has internalized a very narrow perspective of what it means to be a “real” man: dominant, aggressive, heterosexual, masculine in presentation, interested only the penetrative role during sex, etc… This construct of “real” manliness is extremely rigid and inflexible which, in turn, makes it brittle. Cracks form easily, spiderwebbing out from the weak points, threatening to shatter everything. To question even the smallest facet of normative masculinity is to question the entire narrative.
The penetration of the anus threatens normative masculinity in a profound way. According to Foucault: “…it should be remarked that in the practice of sexual pleasure two roles and two poles can be clearly distinguished, just as they can be distinguished in reproductive function; these consist of positional values: that of the subject and that of the object, that of the agent and that of the patient—as Aristotle says, ‘the female, as female is passive, the male, as male, is active.’” To surrendered the penetrative act in favour of being penetrated is, therefore, to “renounce one’s masculinity,” as Allen puts it.
Drew’s interest in being penetrated is not particularly rare. But it is taboo—something to be secreted away. Queer men stand out from their straight brethren in that they are popularly understood as willing to “renounce their masculinity” in that particularly way. And so it is that Drew—having publicly acknowledged his desire for penetration—finds himself in strange company, uncertain of his identity.
We can find a comically exaggerated version of Drew’s anxieties in the many stories of men on the internet who are apparently afraid to wash themselves properly. A surprising number of dudes believe that touching an anus—even their own!—will magically compromise their status as big tough manly man. Yet again, the mere act of touching an anus seemingly has the power to transform one’s identity…
It must be understood that we are dealing in pseudo-logic here. The normative definition of “a real man” conflates entirely distinct identity markers. Submission, femininity, queerness, preference for the receptive position during intercourse, etc… These have nothing to do with one another! Indeed, the implication that queer men are all feminine submissive bottoms is absurd. However, from the perspective of the dominant culture, these distinct identities blur together—all part of the same unexplored territory lying beyond the borders of normative manhood.
For many men, it seems, the anus has a quasi-mystical power, a symbolic meaning which vastly exceeds its utilitarian role in waste management. The anus is not merely an organ with a bunch of nerve endings. And the penetration of the male anus is no ordinary sex act. In the popular imagination, anal penetration is fundamentally transformative—a gateway to new sexualities, new genders, new erotic experiences.
The Talking Asshole Routine
An interesting version of these anal anxieties can be found in the infamous “talking asshole routine” from William S. Burroughs’ controversial novel, Naked Lunch. This short comedic monologue tells the story of a man who trains asshole to talk as a ventriloquist act. Unfortunately for him, the asshole soon develops a will of its own, getting drunk, speaking out of turn, angrily demanding “equal rights” and to be “kissed same as any other mouth.” Soon the asshole grows teeth and learns to eat, rendering the man’s head redundant. In the end, the asshole completely takes over, disconnecting the man’s brain from the rest of the body. “Finally,” we’re told, “the brain must have died, because the eyes went out, and there was not more feeling in them than a crab’s eyes on the end of a stalk.”
Given the association between the anus and queerness, this seems very much like the story of a man struggling against his own queer desires. In this reading, the anus gives voice to the man’s latent homosexual identity; the head represents the heterosexual mask he wears in polite society. Like many closeted folks, the man starts out by playing at queerness. He frames his talking asshole as a joke—a vaudeville performance—in order to maintain a shield of plausible deniability while he tests the waters of queerness. But the man does not realize how difficult it will be to undo this process once it has begun. Even a small taste of living authentically is enough to threaten the mask of straightness. With this interpretation in mind, the asshole’s demand for “equal rights” takes on a very different character, doesn’t it? So, too, its desire to receive affection just like everyone else…
What’s fascinating about the talking asshole routine is how succinctly it encompasses the themes of this essay. This is a horror story and, as such, it speaks to the anus/death connection I discussed previously. But the threat of annihilation posed by the anus is also intimately tied to identity. The anus is transformative. It gives voice to another version of the self and, through its quasi-mystical power, it remakes the man into something new.
In some ways, Burroughs’ talking asshole routine is way ahead of its time. This is a rudimentary body horror story, anticipating the queer associations of that genre many decades before queer folks began flocking to David Cronenberg films. At the same time, however, the most striking aspect of the talking asshole routine is how politically regressive it feels…
Fear of the Talking Asshole
Some readers may have already found it odd that Burroughs—an out queer man—constructed the talking asshole routine with a conservative/heterosexual perspective in mind. The asshole is the villain of the story, after all; most readers will come to the conclusion that things would have been better if that disgusting creature would just shut up and stay in the closet. Burroughs frames coming out as the endpoint of a grotesque parasitic infection, rather than as empowering. It should go without saying: this is not how a well-adjusted person talks about their sexuality.
I don’t want to get too carried away with this line of analysis. Naked Lunch is a satirical novel, after all. Moreover, the narrator of this routine is the villainous Dr. Benway, rather than Burroughs’ self-insert character, William Lee. To some extent, Burroughs probably meant to lampoon the homophobic society he inhabited. But humans are complex and contradictory beings. Burroughs’ status as a queer icon notwithstanding, it’s likely he had internalized much of the very same homophobia he sought to critique…
To my mind, Burroughs’ writing is dripping with internalized homophobia. Consider, for example, Naked Lunch’s Mugwumps: hideous creatures who secrete an addictive fluid from their erect penises, forcing their suitors to debase themselves in search of the next fix. As a metaphor for homosexual desire, the Mugwumps are not particularly subtle. Nor are they particularly flattering. I think it’s telling that Burroughs described both his sexuality and his junk addiction using the same language…
Another example comes from Burroughs’ autobiographical novel Queer. The author-insert protagonist describes his sexual awakening as follows: “I shall never forget the unspeakable horror that froze the lymph in my glands […] when that baneful word seared my reeling brain: I was a homosexual. I thought of the painted, simpering female impersonators I had seen in a Baltimore night club. Could it be possible that I was one of those subhuman things?”
Burroughs’ stories are obviously not meant to be aspirational. Quite the opposite, in fact. But in my reading, at least, Burroughs’ tendency to describe other queer folks—especially those he perceived as more feminine than himself—using terms like “simpering” and “subhuman” is indicative of an inner turmoil that followed him throughout his life. I think the talking asshole routine is a manifestation of that same turmoil. And I think that story’s implicit conservative bias is very much the point, whether or not the author himself understood that to be the case.
We must bear in mind that Burroughs was a profoundly broken man. Naked Lunch is essentially the diary of an unstable junk addict—a text composed entirely of disjointed thoughts and comedic routines, scribbled down while high, and mailed off to his friends with no intention of ever compiling them into a novel. It is very reasonable to interpret the talking asshole routine as emanating directly from Burroughs’ troubled subconscious.
The Contradictions of Desire
We all have an anus. The anus is the most normal thing in the world. At the same time, however, it remains taboo and, as such, acquires an alien character. Many folks have never seen their own anus, nor are they likely to look closely at anyone else’s. To study the anus feels perverse. To gaze too long at the anus risks stirring feelings of disgust or—even more frightening—arousing forbidden desires.
We are dealing in contradictions. The anus is at once natural and alien, ubiquitous and forbidden, revolting and tantalizing. But the contradictions of sexual desire are nothing like contradictions of logic. The contradictions of desire do not negate—rather often, they reinforce. Filled with shame, we sometimes find ourselves driven to forbid that which is desired, precisely because it is desired. And, in turn, we are often inflamed by that which is forbidden, precisely because it is forbidden. The cycle reinforces itself, not in spite of being absurd, but because it is absurd.
Burroughs’ talking asshole routine seems to apply this contradictory logic both to the anus as a literal organ and also to the symbolic meaning of the anus as a gateway to queerness. The narrative is simple, but it admits radically different (and contradictory) interpretations. If we read the story through the lens of straightness, we find the man’s final state horrifying. But we can also broaden our perspective, reevaluate our biases. If we we read the very same story from the perspective of the anus, it suddenly becomes something quite different. This is no longer a horror story at all; rather, it is a celebration of queer liberation.
The Queer Anus
The anus exists at an intersection of cultural taboos. On the one hand, the anus is associated with death. At the same time, the anus is queer-coded. The eroticization of the anus is therefore complex, inheriting a quasi-religious character from the former association, and a unique capacity to reshape identity from the latter.
In the cultural imagination, the anus seems to occupy a role similar to the Philosopher’s Stone. That mythic alchemical object was imbued with the power to transform base metals (such as lead) into precious metals (such as gold). The anus acts similarly on identity, transforming straightness into queerness. Unlike the Philosopher’s Stone, however, the anus is not some long-lost relic—it is forever bound to us all. Whatever anxieties we associate with the magic of the anus are amplified by its omnipresence.
The anus speaks, also. Even before it has been taught to speak aloud, the anus mumbles through the body, a distant voice gurgling from below, resonating inside the skull. It speaks of the contradictions of desire, of spiritual transformation, of death’s looming spectre… For some of us, the voice of the anus is louder than for others. Many will embrace it, gleefully allow it to subsume one identity in order to give birth to another. Others will ignore the voice altogether, shove it down into the recesses of their trousers. And there are still others, like Burroughs, who will live forever on the threshold, forever in the contradiction, as tantalized by the talking asshole as they are terrified that it might one day consume them.