Phallophobia

Alternative terms for this condition include ithyphallophobia{{Cite web |last=Morley |first=Nicole |date=2015-06-02 |title=10 phobias you didn't know existed |url=https://metro.co.uk/2015/06/02/10-phobias-you-didnt-know-existed-5227127/ |access-date=2022-05-23 |website=Metro |language=en}} or medorthophobia.{{Citation|title=Medorthophobia|url=http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Medorthophobia|work=The Free Dictionary|access-date=2018-06-25}} An individual who has the condition is a phallophobe.{{cite book|author=Center for the Study of Popular Culture|title=Heterodoxy: Articles and Animadiversions on Political Correctness and Other Follies, Volumes 1-2|date=1992|page=219}}{{cite book|last1=Scott|first1=Jay|title=Midnight matinees: movies and their makers, 1975-1985|url=https://archive.org/details/midnightmatinees0000scot|url-access=registration|date=1987|page=[https://archive.org/details/midnightmatinees0000scot/page/124 124]|isbn=9780804468480}} The term is derived from the word phallo in Greek meaning penis and at times denoting masculinity, coupled with the suffix phobia.{{cite book|last1=Kirkpatrick|first1=Kathryn|title=Animals in Irish Literature and Culture|date=2015|page=5}}{{Cite book|url=http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199534067.001.0001/acref-9780199534067-appendix-0001|title=Phobias and phobic stimuli - Oxford Reference|language=en|doi=10.1093/acref/9780199534067.001.0001|access-date=2018-06-25|year=2008|isbn=9780199534067|last1=Colman|first1=Andrew M.}} Medomalacuphobia, the fear of losing an erection or acquiring erectile dysfunction, is its antonym.{{cite news|last1=Semua|first1=Lihat|title=9 Fobia Seksual yang Bikin Orang Takut dengan Hubungan Intim|url=http://health.liputan6.com/read/560050/9-fobia-seksual-yang-bikin-orang-takut-dengan-hubungan-intim|access-date=21 January 2016|work=Liputan 6|date=12 April 2013|quote=Medomalacuphobia ... the opposite of medorthophobia}} At its most extreme, phallophobia when coupled with a psychiatric condition may result in issues such as Klingsor Syndrome or ederacinism.Schweitzer, Isaac. "Genital self-amputation and the Klingsor syndrome." Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry 24.4 (1990): 566-569

In its broadest sense, the term can be used metaphorically.{{cite book|last1=Duke|first1=Michael|title=Modern Chinese Women Writers: Critical Appraisals|url=https://archive.org/details/modernchinesewom00duke|url-access=registration|date=1989|page=[https://archive.org/details/modernchinesewom00duke/page/253 253]}} However, in its narrower sense it has been described as a symptom that is more likely to be exhibited by women.{{cite book|last1=Goldblatt|first1=Howard|title=Worlds Apart: Recent Chinese Writing and Its Audiences|date=1990|page=56}} In sources that appear to use it in the original sense, it is sometimes nuanced as a byproduct or hyponym of an aversion, dislike or fear of the protruding appendage resemblance of the male erection, and how this symbolizes an accompanying aggression or assertiveness. This may occur in an aesthetic setting,{{cite book|last1=Calenza|first1=A|title=Erotic revelations: Clinical applications and perverse scenarios|date=2014|page=7}} or in a sociological setting.{{cite journal|last1=Corbett|first1=K|title=Shifting sexual cultures, the potential space of online relations, and the promise of psychoanalytic listening|journal=Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association|volume=61|issue=1|pages=25–44|date=2013|doi=10.1177/0003065112470562|pmid=23269855|s2cid=24974370}} Such an aversion is sometimes extended to an unattributable cognitive process while at other times men's self and own experience.{{cite book|last1=Kahn|first1=Ada|title=The Encyclopedia of Phobias, Fears, and Anxieties, Third Edition|date=2009|page=308}} In such a scenario, due to the essentiality of such reflexes for men, some correspondents have posited the feasibility of such a diagnosis if a man has relatively frequent nocturnal penile tumescence since he will probably not notice his erections then.{{cite book|last1=Cutler|first1=Tom|title=Slap and Tickle: The Unusual History of Sex and the People Who Have it|date=2012}} In cultures that discuss the male genitalia as a singular unit, the phenomenon of castration anxiety may overlap with phallophobia from a linguistic standpoint.{{cite book|last1=Campbell|first1=Jill|title=Natural Masques: Gender and Identity in Fielding's Plays and Novels|url=https://archive.org/details/naturalmasquesge0000camp|url-access=registration|date=1995|page=[https://archive.org/details/naturalmasquesge0000camp/page/260 260]}} Although usually referring to ordinary erections, the term has also been used in toxicological and therapeutic contexts.{{Cite news|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/brazil-the-world-champion-of-creepy-crawlies-1402345845|title=Brazil: No Fun for Arachnophobes|last=Davies|first=Will|date=2014-06-09|work=Wall Street Journal|access-date=2018-06-25|language=en-US|issn=0099-9660}}

Sigmund Freud has footnoted the possibility that this fear may be derived from a lack of ingenuity allowing one to ornamentally distance the copulatory organs from the excretory organs.{{cite book|last1=O'Neill|first1=John|title=The Domestic Economy of the Soul: Freud's Five Case Studies|date=2010|page=54}} Such a condition can affect both men and women.{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}} For others, symptoms include what characterizes a panic attack. It does not necessarily have to be induced by an uncovered penis, but may also result from seeing the manbulging outline or curvature of the penis, perhaps through clothes consisting of thin fabric. In more extreme cases it has been likened to the fight or flight response ingrained within the human body wherein an individual ceases to be intimate with their male partner and is unable to visit mixed gender establishments where people are likely to wear more revealing clothing, such as a gym, beach, cinema or living rooms with a switched on monitor. The fear can recur through any of the senses including accidental touch, sight, hearing the word penis or thinking about an erection. The phobia may have developed from a condition such as dyspareunia,Reamy, Kenneth J. "Meeting Sexual Dysfunction Again for the First Time." Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy 27.2 (2001): 197-201. a trauma (usually sexual) that occurred during childhood, but can also have a fortuitous origin. In literature covering human sexuality, it is used as an adjective only to negatively allude to penetrative sex acts.{{cite book|last1=Whitechapel|first1=Simon|title=Intense Device: A Journey Through Lust, Murder & the Fires of Hell|url=https://archive.org/details/intensedevicejou0000whit|url-access=registration|date=1997|page=[https://archive.org/details/intensedevicejou0000whit/page/29 29]|isbn=9780952328896}} Men who have the phobia may try to avoid wearing sweatpants and other light fabrics, especially in public. Some analysts have purported that the condition may be inherited or may be a combination of genetic inheritance and life experiences.{{cite news|title=Cele mai ciudate fobii sexuale|url=http://www.ele.ro/sex/viata-sexuala/cele-mai-ciudate-fobii-sexuale-25004|access-date=21 January 2016|work=Ele.ro (Comunicat de Presă)}} For men with the condition, one of the byproducts is difficulty consummating with a partner due to a sense of vulnerability. This vulnerability may have developed during childhood if they grew up being told by their parents that sex and its physiological functions are evil, sinful and dirty, but were subsequently unable to detach such shameful feelings nor reverse it upon reaching adulthood, even when romantic initiatives were subsequently approved of or encouraged by their parents.{{Cite news|url=http://www.merdeka.com/sehat/9-fobia-seksual-teraneh-yang-pernah-ada.html|title=9 Fobia seksual teraneh yang pernah ada {{!}} merdeka.com|last=Adnamazida|first=Rizqi|work=merdeka.com|access-date=2018-06-25|language=en}}{{Cite news|date=2014-12-25|title=Waduh, Banyak Wanita Gemetaran saat Melihat Mr P Ereksi! - Tribun Lampung|language=id-ID|work=Tribun Lampung|url=http://lampung.tribunnews.com/2014/12/25/waduh-banyak-wanita-gemetaran-saat-melihat-mr-p-ereksi|url-status=dead|access-date=2018-06-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180625185514/http://lampung.tribunnews.com/2014/12/25/waduh-banyak-wanita-gemetaran-saat-melihat-mr-p-ereksi|archive-date=2018-06-25}}

Sometimes the word is used in a sense wherein it is metaphorical and unrelated to its etymological origins, as in for instance when a man sees another man as a rival and a potential source of infidelity for his spouse.{{cite journal|last1=Balbert|first1=Peter|title=From Panophilia to Phallophobia: Sublimation and Projection in D. H. Lawrence's St. Mawr|journal=Papers on Language & Literature|volume=49|issue=1|pages=37|date=2013|url=https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-323260121/from-panophilia-to-phallophobia-sublimation-and-projection}} Other reviews have applied the term as a euphemism or allegory to indicate that society is in contemporary times less willing to be objective and straightforward in discussions of the physiological aspects of the young male body in general due to prudery, or a celibacist and puritan standpoint that in particular targets men and boys. For instance, Ken Corbett has theorized the fact of widespread absence of the penis as an object of discussion in children's books and parenting books as evidencing that "a kind of phallophobia has crept into our cultural theorizing".{{cite journal|last1=Lubart|first1=WD|title=Can We Speak of the Penis?|journal=Contemporary Psychoanalysis|volume=47|issue=3|pages=447–454|date=2011|doi=10.1080/00107530.2011.10746470|s2cid=143553452}} In other writings it has been used as an epithet to describe the lesbian or female asexual aversion to male sexuality.{{cite journal|last1=Keesey|first1=D|title=Intertwinings of death and desire in Michele Soavi's Dellamorte Dellamore|journal=Horror Studies|volume=2|date=2011|doi=10.1386/host.2.1.105_1|citeseerx=10.1.1.1014.6473}}{{cite book|last1=Hetchegoyen|first1=Horacio|title=The Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique|date=2005|page=194}} Author Fawzi Boubia defines phallophobia as a hostility towards the stronger male gender.{{cite book|last1=Boubia|first1=Fawzi|title=Hegal's Internationalism: World History and Exclusion|date=1997|quote=All of this leads to the belief that Hegel is haunted not only by the monstrosities of this “Feminine State,” but equally, by this “phallophobia,” this hostility declared toward its “strong” sex.}} The term has also been used as a substitute to indirectly express an aversion to procreation.{{cite book|title=The Cincinnati Lancet-clinic - Volume 76|date=1896|page=446}} In criticisms of anti-male sexism, phallophobia is used as an epithet to deride double standards and hypocrisy in the legal system, all down to the set of genitalia one possesses.{{cite book|last1=Barnes|first1=Alexander|title=The Book Read Backwards: The Deconstruction of Patriarchy and the Wombanization of Being|date=2000|page=430}} One of the byproducts of this phobia among women is that it may result in them faking an orgasm to mask their feeling of revulsion around their male spouse.{{Cite news|url=http://banjarmasin.tribunnews.com/2015/06/04/ithyphallophobia-fobia-melihat-penis-yang-ereksi|title=Ithyphallophobia, Fobia Melihat Penis yang Ereksi - Banjarmasin Post|date=2015-06-04|work=Banjarmasin Post|access-date=2018-06-25|language=id-ID}} Forms of treatment may include intensive counselling and therapy sessions.{{Cite news|url=http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/saturday/A-most-unusual-phobia/1216-3366898-xnx1sdz/|title=SEXUAL HEALTH: A most unusual phobia|work=Daily Nation|access-date=2018-06-25|language=en-UK}} Phallophobia has also been used as an algorithm in studies of heuristics in robotic decision making in themes related to sexual temperance.

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Category:Body-related phobias

Category:Penile erection

Category:Prudishness