cover image The Hysterical Male: New Feminist Theory

The Hysterical Male: New Feminist Theory

Arthur Kroker. St. Martin's Press, $14.95 (272pp) ISBN 978-0-312-05297-3

A companion to the editors' Body Invaders , this book offers 16 pieces that range from the academic to the pornographic. Readers not yet seduced into accepting post-modern analysis--a prerequisite for understanding several of the works--may wonder if this emperor is wearing any clothes. In ``The Fetish in sex, lies & videotape ,'' Berkeley Kaite discusses ``Baudrillard's critique of the `metaphysic of alienated essence,' which . . . challenges the unyielding base-superstructure model whereby use-value . . . is a reflection of an anterior reality.'' Less obscure is Shannon Bell's ``Feminist Ejaculations,'' a politically oriented discussion of female secretions during sex, complete with a how-to guide and a ``pornographic, erotic, and educational'' photo of the author masturbating. Angela Miles's intriguing ``Confessions of a Harlequin Reader'' suggests that the macho male of pulp romance is actually a nurturing mother figure. In ``This Is Not a President,'' Diane Rubenstein suggests that George Bush is a living example of trompe l'oeil and, at times, resembles the 19th-century female hysterics studied by Freud. (Feb.)