Introduction

The sexual dimension of Man, as seen by Western traditional philosophy, is often times marginalized as if it dealt with a petty, unessential, or shameful aspect of human existence. Illustratively enough, the authors that attempted to repair this omission are partly ignored or, at best, the sections in which they deal with sexuality as a natural part of reality are put aside as is they did not exist. This would be the case of Montaigne whose frank discourse puts to test our prudish manners: [] what has the act of generation, so natural, so necessary, and so just, done to men, to be a thing not to be spoken of without blushing, and to be excluded from all serious and moderate discourse? (418) Not only him, but other notable philosophers1 have plunged into the mucky waters of speaking publicly about human sexuality, however, it was undoubtedly Freud who started what we may safely call a revolution. Still, outside the seemingly scientific discourse, sexuality remains a taboo and even modern philosophers2 are reticent to speak naturally about it, if not exhibiting plain hostility. Until recently, and even nowadays cutting edge discoveries, be it philosophical, scientific, or new theological theories, are explained through anecdotes, fables, parables or allegories; and mythology is a never-ending spring of stories that help temerarious savants and thinkers to explain their findings. Since the beginning of times, in order to reach every level of education or for mere discourse embellishment, abstract knowledge was explained by stories that had no apparent connection with the initial message. Such is the case of the Christian theories transfigured so majestically into parables from the Gospels, or the epideictic oratory that we find in Greek Rhetoric. Nonetheless, due to the prominent role it plays in modern Western culture and to the shifts of focus that social studies altered in traditional discourse, sexuality is no longer referred to as a conspicuous, indisputable hypostasis fulfilled by two dialectically opposed concepts. During its evolution, the concept evolved from the male-female bipolarity (with
1

One of the most influential voices that declaimed the hypocritical attitude towards sexuality was Schopenhauer when he boldly states that: [] no one can doubt either the reality or the importance of the matter; and therefore, instead of wondering that a philosophy should also for once make its own this constant theme of all poets, one ought rather to be surprised that a thing which plays throughout so important a part in human life has hitherto practically been disregarded by philosophers altogether, and lies before us as raw material. (Schopenhauer, 1909: 338) 2 In recent years, poststructuralist and Feminist studies have had notable representatives, such as Michel Foucault, Simone de Beauvoir, Elaine Showalter, Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, etc., that established a niched territory in which discussions on sexuality are the main topic. Among these thinkers sexuality is re-established as an essential aspect of human development keeping the interest alive on what Freud argued in the beginning of the 20th century, yet with a focus on its social implications.

obvious superiority of the male concept over the female) to the present day tendency towards an unclear sex. Moreover, since sex is usually employed to allude to the biological differentiation, and thus rendered obsolete, modern scholars prefer the term gender. This is to say that a persons affiliation to one of the sexes, or both at the same time, should be a matter of decision, as opposed to the anachronistic way of assigning ones sex from the birth or even prior to that. Contemporary debates over gender assignment raise the question of the interchangeable sexual paradigm within which one has the potential to be man, woman, or both. (Irigaray, Butler, Wittig) According to Butler, gender is an open assemblage that permits of multiple convergences and divergences without obedience to a normative telos of definitional closure. (1999: 22) In layman terms, anyone can choose to be man or woman according to his or her mental and/or affective disposition. In recent years, however, gender possibilities have gone even further and a person does not even have to be very specific with their gender-related image they enact. The double sex bearer, while only recently accepted as a gender option, is an archaic notion as old as pre-systematic thought. The representation of the quasi-human being that possesses both sexes often fascinated humanity since its prehistoric existence, and to grasp the role it plays in Mans consciousness it is necessary to embark on a retrospective journey as far back as the first references to the entities that possessed both the masculine and the feminine principles simultaneously. A diachronic focus of the issue will enable us to better interpret contemporary views on sexuality and gender; it being the justification for an examination of what existed before and after the inauguration of a coherent representation although associated with magical elements of the perfect being, that is, the Androgyne. Consequently, I have chosen Platos Symposium as a point of reference in the evolution of the androgyne, as developed by the human psyche, via certain landmarks, such as English Decadentism, and concluding with the latest definitions formulated by some of the most influent thinkers on the subject.

The concept of androgyny emerges frequently in the history in European thought and can be traced back to the pre-Socratic philosophers and Neo-Pythagoreans, Cabbala and Gnostic thinkers, German mystics and even Romanticism. In Western literature, philosophy and religion it is represented chiefly as a state of perfection within a harmonious entity that has all dissonances resolved and the most famous formulation of said perfect unity is found in Platos Symposium. 2

The myth of the androgyne deals with the reintegration of the human being in the body of the Cosmos. Eliade analyses these ancient symbols and motifs from Oriental philosophy which were fundamental in the creative process of Western philosophy and conscience. Among them, the myth of the androgyne, that is, the concept of divine bipolarity, is perhaps the most fertile myth in European culture and at the same time, the trigger of Western mystical thought and Hegelian dialectics. Concretely, the androgyne has been seen in many ways: sometimes as a deity, other times as a humanoid being with two different parts, but most of the times, the human imaginary identifies the mythological being with the one that Aristophanes describes in The Banquet. Platos character narrates the legend according to which in the beginning of times the Earth was inhabited by androgynous beings only. They used to live as two humans joined together by their backs: a man and a woman, two men or two women. Aristophanes also tells us that our ancestors were sphere-shaped, and this is not a mere picturesque detail but purposefully employed to suggest the idea of a certain plenitude.3 The legend says they possessed an immense power: they could accomplish any whim they had. For this reason, the androgynes became the object of the gods scorn and fear, although the gods were also concerned they would lose the precious offerings that the androgynes made. As a result, Zeus decided to diminish their power by separating the two parts lest it would become an even greater threat for them.4 Thus separated, the androgynes were powerless. Many of them died of sadness and melancholia. They were useless this way, drifting aimlessly in the world, but the gods needed to be adored by their subjects. To give them back their will to live, Eros is created to bring love to the new creation just stripped out of their divine nature. With this new order of things, the humans spent their lives in search of their other halves. Mircea Eliade thought that myths, such as the myth of the androgyne, functions as a generator of models for human behaviour and of religious experiences. Myths have always existed in all cultures, big or small, and the one we study here makes no exception. Given that
3

The sphere as an allusion to the perfection of the Universe is a common motif in Western culture, especially in classical philosophy. The use of geometrical figures in Pythagoras philosophy is already a topos; however, Parmenides, another famous exploiter of geometry, argues that: Since, then, it has a furthest limit, it is complete on every side, like the mass of a rounded sphere, equally poised from the centre in every direction; for it cannot be greater or smaller in one place than in another. (Fragment 8). 4 The fear that other non-Olympian might try to overthrow them is not singular since there have been threats that the gods needed to avoid before. For instance, the Giants attempt to invade Mount Olympus by piling mountain upon mountain in order to reach the top; or the (THE MYTH TO TWO BROTHERS THAT BUILT A MOUNTAIN TO REACH Zeus in heavens.)

allusions and sometimes even identical representations of the same idea can be traced in most of the worlds cultures, we can say that the myth of the androgyne is a universally extended archetype. (Eliade, 1967: 23) Moreover, as strange as it may seem, androgyny is mentioned even in Saint Thomas Gospel5, a fact which illustrates the importance it played in Christianity, especially since it was in its embryonic form. In this sacred, but prohibited writings, Jesus tells his disciples that no one will rightfully reach total redemption until the differences between men and females will have been annihilated. However, we can also find references to sexual ambiguity as a means of absolution among the pages of the official selection of the Scriptures. Saint Paul and John the Evangelist believed androgyny to be among the characteristics of spiritual perfection. (Eliade, 1995: 98) Indeed, to simultaneously be man and woman, or neither man, nor woman, are illustrative expressions through which one would try to explain the Greek metanoia a very popular term among the Gnostics along with apokastasis (reconstitution, restitution, or restoration to the original or primordial condition). The analogies between the myths of different cultures (and how they evolve in time, for that matter) and this myth in particular, have been copiously demonstrated by modern ethnographers, historians of religion, psychoanalysts, philosophers, etc. however, the intercultural influences of mythology is not the object of this study. Mythology aside, Platos parable actually alludes to a most primitive human desire: the need to conciliate different opposing aspects of our existence or, as Eliade puts it, coincidentia oppositorum. The myth of the androgyne is par excellence the myth of the lost unity or, in other words, the nonmythical testimony of the impossible harmony. Apart from mystic philosophy, alchemy, and Christian medieval mysticism the concept of androgyny did not receive a lot of attention in art until the 19th century, when the French and English Decadents developed a cult for the obscure mythological half-man-halfwoman being. The interest that the Decadents manifested towards this topic is partly the result of the previous artistic movement. Romanticism had made Swedenborgs philosophy and mysticism popular in Europe since the dawn of the 1800s and it paved the way, as a consequence of the epochs artists fancy for occultism, magic, esoteric theories, for the reanimation of the Platonic androgyne. During the English and French Decadentism we observe a revival of the theme of the androgyne as a result of psychological investigation of

Eliade mentions the Saint Thomas Gospel in his Mephistopheles and the Androgyne, p. 92.

human bisexuality; nonetheless, it is always represented as a brooming and gloomy, even a satanic hermaphroditism, as in the case of Aleister Crawleys androgynes. Furthermore, in tune with great European crises, during Decadentism we witness a degradation of symbols (Eliade, 1995: 92), that is, the spirit is no longer capable of perceiving the metaphysical significance of a certain symbol, and thus, the symbolic paradigms are stripped off of their figurative and sacred connotations only to become plastic, concrete meanings. With the Decadent writers the androgyne is merely a hermaphrodite in which the two sexes coexist anatomically and psychologically6, and the Platonic prototype does not represent the completeness as a result of the fusion of the sexes, but as a plethora of erotic possibilities. In contrast to the first German Romantics that believed androgyny is destined to the future man (Libis: 84) this androgyne is not burdened with the evolution toward a new type of humanity in which the fusion between the two sexes may lead to a higher conscience, freed from the limits of manicheistic dichotomies. For the first Romantics, androgyny was something to aspire to, however, it was left to the humans of the future. The mainstream androgyne in this epoch is embodies the so called sensual perfection that results from the active presence of both sexes. The outset of this perception of the hermaphrodite had probably been encouraged by the close examination of certain Greek and Roman sculptures. Nonetheless, Decadent writers may have ignored the fact that archaic societies revered the androgyne as an ideal situation that people strived to constantly upgrade it spiritually by means of their rituals. (Eliade, 1995: 93) but if an actual being turned out to have both sexes s/he was vanished from that community or even killed by its own parents. Concrete androgynes were seen as anomalies or as a representation of the Gods wrath, and consequently, the communitys attitude towards them should not be a surprise to us. On the other hand, androgyny within religious manifestations was viewed as something to aspire to because it did not imply a mere cohabitation of genital organs, but symbolically, the totality of the magical-religious powers corresponding to both sexes. (Eliade, 1995: 93)

The concept of dandyism is, from a historical viewpoint, obviously linked to that of late Victorian decadence.7 However, it is considered a reaction against popular social, literary
6

There are, however, few exceptions that processed, in their stories, the sacred implications inherited from Antiquity. These authors owe their androgynical models chiefly to Swedenborg, the revivalist of the archaic imago, in the 18th century. Some of the followers of this subtle difference are Balzac, Wilde, Beardsley, Baudelaire, Swinburne, etc. 7 Degeneration .

and philosophical conventions. Redefining the literary male archetype, destabilizing traditional models of male identity is a deviation from the normative aesthetics of the 19th century and it emerged as a venomous reply to realist and naturalist artistic tendencies. Accordingly, Wilde undermines sexual and textual conventions by challenging social and artistic norms through the incorporation of features considered, until then, exclusively feminine, and thus, compelling orthodox views to backpedal gender identities. After all, as dAurevilly argues, a Dandy is a woman on certain sides. (121) and the attraction androgyny exercises on the decadents is merely an expression of the profound anxieties, about both gender and class, that we find the tireless rejection of an outworn aesthetics of unrestrained sentimentality. Thus, femininity is now appropriated by the male artist as emblematic of the modern, rather than as standing in opposition to it. What Baudelaire considered absolute modernity of beauty (14) is the incorporation of effeminate characteristics and manners of the dandy lifestyle. The exaggerated care with which they revealed themselves to society was considered unnatural. For instance, Dorians narcissistic dimension (overtly described by the author himself) is suggested by the androgynous features evoked by his curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair. (19) However, the fact that dandies savour their feminine dimension does not mean that they want to become women or they admire women in some way. On the contrary, the stance a dandy haughtily assumes when he is suspected of such weakness is bluntly expressed by Dorian: They [women] are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is no mystery in any of them. () They have their stereotyped smile, and their fashionable manner. They are quite obvious. (51) The aversion to some typically feminine traits is further supported by the protagonist when he emphasizes the distinctions between the androgyne-like dandy aesthete and women. The controlled and rational dandy is juxtaposed to the depersonalized, excessive and hyper-emotional sentimentality that women are naturally endowed with: They [women] lived on their emotions. They only thought on their emotions. (89) Adversely, a man Dorian argues, should not be at the mercy of his [my] emotions. He should want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them. (105) and thus, he defines his identity by assuming a rational and overtly scientific rhetoric contrasted by what is universally considered to be exclusively feminine. Just as in Platos ideal society, Wildes novel advocates the superiority of homoeroticism over heterosexual relationships. In whatever way we look at this inclination of the dandy toward some womanly characteristics we inevitably discover that we are dealing with a paradox: the traditional 6

dandy appears to be misogynistic, but at the same time he defines himself by appropriating female traits. In fact, the dandy challenges the male/female dichotomy, and thus Wilde eludes the confinement imposed on him by the stiff reality of Victorian social conventions by giving us a dialectical representation of the dandy. A similar attitude of demonic rebellion against anything more or less universally acceptable is the basis of dandyism apology. The distinctive mark of this exceptionality is the refusal to be assimilated, the thirst to escape from the mundane reality in a parallel universe, built artificially, using the limits of its exponents goals. But an unbalanced internal dualism deprives them of the elasticity necessary for the fight against the social conventions surrounding the dandies. These maladies of the characters in The Portrait of Dorian Gray emerge from the fundamental disagreement of the masculine and feminine principles, each of them affirming its despotic ruling successively over their spiritual existence. When he regains himself, author or character, he reintegrates, thus, in the haughty tribe; he recuperates his proud air and the hero appears as bearer the of power, par excellence, masculine; at least, within the common existential patterns of mans universe. The idealized projection of oneself is far more real than reality since It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection; through art and art only that we shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence. In most of Oscar Wildes works, the issue of perfection or of moral perfection does not show itself to the consciousnesses of his characters whom are part of the same family of spirits as the author. The aforementioned issue is quartered in the aesthetic stage of existence. Nonetheless, regardless the relationships maintained by the aesthetic consciousness with ethics, their lives are determined from the depths by the same fundamental impulses that guide the human psychic: leaving its structuring mark on the actions and representations about the existence that each individual has. Is the feminine principle Anima a separating or a unifying factor of personality? The concept of duality refers to the feature of a certain concept that has a double nature, as a consequence of the coexistence of two principles or elements that are different or opposed. As it emerges from duality, dualism uses two irreducible principles, heterogeneous sometimes in conflict, other times complementary in order to analyse the process of knowledge (epistemological dualism: existence and thought; subject and object; etc.) or in order to explain reality in its totality, or some of its general aspects (metaphysical dualism: good and evil; God and the world; the body and the soul, etc.). A fusion between duality dandyismdecadence is encouraged by the aestheticism of substance, agent of transformation 7

of the human personality, in a work of art, by defying moral constraints and adopting beauty as sole apology. The notion of fusion of the opposites is necessary in approaching the present theme; the more so as it is so relevant in Oscar Wildes The Portrait of Dorian Gray. This territory of dandyism, masculine by definition in its original form8 but already identified by its sexual vagueness towards the end of the 19th century, is an institution beyond the law; vague. Equally queer as the duel used to be - but full of its own laws , facilitates multiple perspectives in approaching it: social, aesthetic, philosophic, psychoanalytic. It signals a deeper reality that demands to be deciphered, paradoxical and very difficult work that comprises an extremely bizarre type of humanity, an existential typology. Narcissistic modulations, the voluptuousness of moral solitude, power to fascinate, congenial adherence to the spirit of his time underlined by the conscience of his exceptionality and uniqueness, real or feigned split from contingency, cold arrogance and Freudian thwarting, are all part of the dual dimension of dandyism. As actors caught in the constraints of some roles they play, dandies enter an aesthetic game in which apparel, physiognomy, voice and passions complete each other in their imperative necessity and will to confess the supremacy of artificial over natural. In a subtle analysis of the effects consisted by the game of these masks, Adriana Babei refers to the voluptuousness of travesty, at the whole spectacle of every fragment of mundane life, as A staging, of which the dandy is responsible as a demiurge. (58) Essentially, according to one of Wildes infamous aphorisms, Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life. Albeit, Wildes aesthetics may be delineated in a clear enough model: his confession of faith towards aesthetics coincides with that of la belle poque, in which the supremacy of aesthetics is celebrated. To Wilde, art can solve anything, bringing harmony and wiping the painful human contradictions. Dorian Gray may indeed be the embodiment of the ritualic reenactment of the androgyne from antiquity. The Portrait is the pithy illustration of his ideological and aesthetical principles, which derive from the doctrine called art for arts sake,9 and from the reputation of a true spirit of aesthetics acquired during the time spent at Oxford. It is there where he studied the Classics and the resemblance between Wildes depiction of beauty and the same concept from the Greek epoch did not go unnoticed by critics. There are myriad of references to sexuality in Greek philosophy and literature,
8

The dandys homosexuality was not a prerequisite in its beginnings. For Beau Brummell and his acolytes at least it was not about changing the normative male appearance into effeminate dandyism and homoeroticism. However, after Wildes trial in 1895, the dandy prototype was to suffer s erious mutations, linking it forever to homosexuality. 9 Walter PATER, (1839-1894) English essayist, critic and literate. The most important personality in English aesthetics during the 19th century. Supporter and initiator of the art for arts sake theory.

especially in Sapphos poems and Platos dialogues, which refer to same-sex desire as the closest way to go through a second-hand androgynical experience. Wilde uses this Greek looking-glass over sexuality to give authority to his views on homoeroticism and often creates connection with Greek culture: Dorian Gray stepped upon the daisies with the air of a young Greek martyr (18) / a small Greek head (47) / Like the gods of the Greek (96). It is true that collective mentality of Victorian England did automatically associate homoerotic allusions with Greek aestheticism and, to go even further with this conceptual metaphor, with the wholeness presented by androgyny. Nonetheless, there are constant suggestions to Dorians sexual ambiguity in Wildes story to suggest that androgyny was used as a model to create the protagonist. For instance, if we were only to analyse the protagonists name we find an evident reference to historical events that allude to his palimpsestic formation. The event that transformed Greek civilization from its roots were the Dorian invasion. The Dorians, also Hellenic people, invaded Greece but they not only changed religious practices that they found, overthrew the social norms and law system; they are also thought to be responsible for the decadence that brought Greek state-cities to their knees. The real reason for the fall, according to the invaded, was the moral degradation and Wilde overtly uses this reference to allude to the reasons of his protagonists destruction. In addition, his last name, Gray, is assigned to him in order to refer to his multifaceted way of life. In fact, this is probably trying to create an underlying meaning for the moral degradation attributed to his downfall. Or perhaps, the colour grey actually refers to the vagueness surrounding his sexuality. Accordingly, he is neither man, nor woman he is something in between or both. Furthermore, Dorians yearning for luxury, his extravagant collection of exotic items of domestic embellishment, confirms another aspect that could identify himself with the archaic concept of androgyny: the longing for the lost wholeness or eternity. His hyperrefined collection may be interpreted as an intent to escape from the prison of Time, to break the chains of History itself, and by acquiring exquisite and rare objects from various other epochs Dorian betrays an obsessive drive to reconfigure the temporal perspective of his environment or, in other words, to reintegrate into Wholeness. Therefore, the narrator does not fail to observe that For these treasures, and everything that he collected in his lovely house, were to be to him means of forgetfulness, modes by which he could escape, for a season, from the fear that seemed to him at times to be almost too great to be borne. (134) This desperate consumerism of fine objects is understandable since he was in search for

sensations that would be at once new and possess that element of strangeness that is so essential to romance (118) An interesting argument about human consumerism and attachment to things past that echoes the above idea is backed by Bourdieu in his Distinction:
To possess things from the past () is to master time, through all those things whose common feature is that they can only be acquired in the course of time, by means of time, against time, that is, by inheritance or through dispositions which, like the taste for old things, are likewise only acquired with time and applied by those who can take their time. (Bourdieu, 71-72)

Nevertheless, the philosophy of the dandy is not founded on the mere possession of material objects or, as many misinterpreted dandyism, on physical appearance. 19th century dandyism was much more complex and profound, reason for which it became so influential, especially in art. As Baudelaire argues, Dandyism does not even consist, as many thoughtless people seems to believe, in an immoderate taste for the toilet and material elegance. For the perfect dandy these things, are no more than symbols of his aristocratic superiority of mind. (27) The haughtiness they exhibit is only a medium, not the end of the dandy paradigm; and the existential excellence they so proudly refuse to conceal, flanked by the difficulty to compress what they represent into a pre-existent pattern, is precisely the thing that draws the attention upon them because what is most seductive is often what is most repressed:
Most of us feel trapped within the limited roles that the world expect us to play. We are instantly attracted to those who are more fluid, more ambiguous, than we are those who create their own persona. Dandies excite us because they cannot be categorized, and hint at a freedom we want for ourselves. They play with masculinity and femininity; they fashion their own physical image, which is always startling; they are mysterious and elusive. They also appeal to the narcissism of each sex; to a woman they are psychologically female, to a man they are male. Dandies fascinate and seduce in large numbers. Use the power of the Dandy to create an ambiguous, alluring presence that stirs repressed desires. (Greene,

41)

In dandyism, the dialectical oscillation between the two apparently opposing principles is obvious and there have been studies that, if not dealt with sexual ambiguity as a general characteristic of Dandyism, they at least analysed the odd sexuality of some protagonists. In addition, these studies suggested a different masculine paradigm; one that audaciously, contemptuously even, incorporated feminine models. These outrageous manners, considering 10

the historical context of the first dandies, inevitably raises another question into discussion: the tendency of those peculiar men to opt for an even more peculiar ontological model. With these writers, we witness as M. Eliade showed the degradation of the myth of the androgynous the perfect being, the primordial Adam the disparagement of its initial purity, through a pathological, satanic elation of this duality. The focus is on the tragic schism of the human being, on the fundamental filth of the human consciousness, contemplated with satanic voluptuousness. For the 19th century Decadence androgyny changes from hermaphrodism into morbid complacency, even perversity, which is considered a protest of the exceptional individual against the norms of common existence. Still, the legacy of the decadent dandy is recognized in theories of contemporary feminists who argue that gender is socially constructed and the dandies were early deconstructors of the sex/gender system. (Feldman, Showalter, Irigaray) The Greeks, the medieval mystics and alchemists, and the Romantics understood that real androgyny and all its implications cannot be actually obtained. The Greeks accepted it only as an allegory in the Orphic rituals but, as Pliny reminds us, the biological androgyne is stigmatised and shun from their community for being a reminder of the Gods wrath. Similarly, the Romantics left the privilege of encompassing the binomial opposites in one entity to the man of the future. Consequently, as would happen within the Ancient Greek paradigm, Dorian Gray is the victim of his own hubris for which the gods do not hesitate to punish. The image of the androgyne emerges in an equally strong manner in the 20th century through Jungs theory of animus/anima developed, of course on the foundation already set by Freud, which is an important acknowledgement of the bisexual nature of man. According to Freud, the human libido is essentially bisexual and people are, within certain unmeasurable limits, attracted to people of their own sex: There is only one libido and it could just possibly be called neuter: neither masculine nor feminine. (Freud quoted in Irigaray, 1985) However, social constraints that varying from one culture to another and from one historical period to another, ostracise these impulses although C.G. Jung asserts that psychism, as a human development, is originally androgynous. (42) Thus, Sigmund Freud urges us not to overlook a persons structural bisexuality. One needs a certain period of time to succeed in taking a final decision as to the sex of the erotic object and of oneself. Nonetheless, psychoanalysis does not solve the sex/gender problem. It can only reveal the psychic mechanisms that lead to the decision of the erotic object, and 11

from there on, follow the way to the distributions of the impulse. Starting from the premise of the individuals (and animals) original bisexuality, psychoanalysis cannot explain it. Nor can it reveal the essence of what it is, conventionally or biologically. Furthermore, it is impossible for psychoanalysis to give a clear-cut explanation of what is called masculine and feminine or the condition invoked by a well-defined psychosomatic hermaphrodism. The explanation that masculinity has volatilized in activity and femininity in passivity is too weak. Freud formulates the hypothesis of a third sex a disposition of a special nature, in which the transformation of the objects libido in narcissism is connected by a certain desexualisation, an abandonment of the special sexual object. (Freud, 1964) Is this individual a sexual introvert or a hermaphrodite inside whom the masculine and feminine principles collide without being able to neutralise each other? Is s/he the androgynous, the embodiment of the primordial perfection, situated beyond the tragic schism of the flesh, or is it just a simple lunatic, roaming in the night, ignoring his tragic duality? Simone de Beauvoir argued in The Second Sex that one is not born a woman, but rather becomes one. We cannot but wonder at the lack of pragmatic support had we tried to tackle this phrase. Indeed, extrapolated from context, it apparently makes no sense since everybody knows that no one can become man or woman if one was not a man or a woman all along. This problematic ambiguity inevitably raises a number of important questions: can anyone become other gender then the one assigned in the beginning? Were the discoverers of their own genders, genderless before the discovery?, Is there a more or less standard quest for ones own gender? Furthermore, in her highly controversial work, Gender Trouble - Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Butler, 1999: 162) asserts that the identity of each of us is a show played and directed by ourselves, in conformity with a number of criteria and norms which we receive or accept from the society in which we carry our existence. However, we are not compelled to adhere to those standards. The true making of a gender, the plenary manifestation of identity requires subversion, mockery of trends and of already established norms, and contempt for dogmatic patterns. Nevertheless, the act of subversion remains a personal issue instead of a group issue. According to Butler, we decide what we are (as far as gender is concerned), not the others since separatist prescriptivism is surely no longer viable. (162) Judith Butler continues her demonstration and ultimately arrives to these conclusions concerning gender: sex is the cultural interpretation of gender gender is constructed culturally. In such a case, it is not biology that becomes destiny, but culture.

12

In an attempt to overcome the binary and unitary, gender represents as it is shown by recent and extensive research on the subject a physical and/or cultural designation of the self, a complexity whose wholeness is permanently delayed; it never reaches its absolute of what it is in any given moment in time, at least, not for now, as we will see later. Gender is approached as an open coalition, as an open ensemble that allows multiple convergences and divergences, without the blind submission to a normative telos of the closed definition. What being a woman or man means is not yet clarified by a phenomenological description (Butler) since the entity that possesses the gender is an effect, the object of a genealogical investigation that only draws the parameters of its ontological construction. From one point of view, it is better to say what gender is not in the present analysis: gender is not a concoction of ones imagination; it does not have an illusory or artificial character; it is not opposed to real or authentic dichotomy; it is not a binary plausible structure; it does not suggest that certain cultural considerations of gender replace reality. In fact, gender

strengthens and expands its hegemony through a self-examination and it takes us closer to what many human beliefs, or religions and mythologies, for that manner, defined as androgyny. That is, a conceptual representation of human perfection imagined as a dual nature. Nowadays, androgyny no longer serve to legitimize so-called sexual deviance or the attacks upon normative masculinity and femininity; at least, not entirely. In recent years, the theme around which this paper revolves around is dealt with from three main standpoints: medical and sociocultural ethics, queer and feminist studies and fashion. Therefore, a number of present-day theorists agree on the fact that the proportion in which masculine and feminine are mixed in an individual is subject to quite considerable fluctuations. (Freud, 1964: 114)
the psychological, psychiatric, medical category of homosexuality was constituted from the moment it was characterized () less by a type of sexual relations than by a certain quality of sexual sensibility, a certain way of inverting the masculine and the feminine in oneself. Homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy onto a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphrodism of the soul. (43)

Moreover, there are societies, organizations, foundations, etc. that deal with androgyny from a sociological point of view and dedicate this concept numerous studies. Mostly, they define androgyny to encompass all those who share characteristics of male and

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female, which really include every human (ISNA10). These studies express their discontent relating the lack of social awareness and the absence of legislative negligence concerning this natural phenomenon. To be concise, these studies argue that the binary gender system classifies all people into either female or male, man or woman. However not everyone fits neatly into these categories. Some people do not feel comfortable when assigned a traditional gender. Whether owing to choice or chance, many of these people are not readily gendered by others, and thus, individuals owning both sexes simultaneously should be able to live as comfortably as traditionally gendered male or female, in all societies. Also, social and legislative practices should adapt themselves in order for androgynes to be considered not exceptions, but a sort of third sex with equal importance as the first two. This view is easily observed in fashion nowadays. Male models reveal an overtly androgynical apparel and look very introspective. They are no longer mere soulless dummies left on the catwalk to be admired, that is, objectified beings, but they communicate what dAurevilly and Baudelaire stressed when they spoke of the dandy prototype in relation to clothing: what actually matters is how one wears ones clothes, not what. Accordingly, during the Grunge era in the 90s, the androgyne started being more and more present on the catwalks. Both men and women adopted sexual vagueness in their looks, making it the chief characteristic of what they were trying to convey. A modern topos of androgynical manifestation, as far as image is concerned, although adorned with other different embodiments of the philosophy he is trying to represent, is signer Marilyn Manson. The arch dandy of the era, as he dubbed himself fashion-wise, revels in the scandalous reactions that his grotesque appearances produce among his audience. He actually admitted in an interview that he likes to adopt an often shocking style and manner of dress which is often androgynous, as an homage to the Decadents; reason for which, to young listeners of his music and admirers of his image he is the symbol of grotesque androgyny.

Conclusion What pertinent conclusion could we drawn from this brief journey in search of a meaning of the concept of androgyny? It would appear that it emerged at times when humanity was concerned with the unity and oneness of the two dialectical concepts. It was
10

ISNA is the acronyme for the Intersex Society of North America and is devoted to syst emic change to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with an anatomy that someone decided is not standard for male or female.

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stressed especially in pre-Socratic Greece, the decadent 19th century, and in recent years through the voices of Queer theories and feminists. With the Decadents it represents a process of rejection of traditional values and the emerging bourgeois beliefs, which triggered the need for new modes of experience and new symbols to define human existence. Together with other myths and mythological themes and motifs, such as the myth of Narcissus, of Faustus, the motif of the mirror, etc. the self-sufficiency of the androgyne is always at hand for those unhappy with the reality they have to live in. It emerges as the symbol of wholeness par excellence, far from the maddening distraction and restlessness of the monosexual individual. The androgyne is still nowadays a paradigm of the utopia, longed by men and women alike, where the soul finds its opposite within itself and is freed from the ontological anguish that sex separation implies. Through the assimilation of androgyny the dandy claimed a gnoseological superiority. They were not common, not as the other human beings that accepted the ontological patterns ascribed by religion, society, common knowledge, etc. They, as the Siberian shamans or as the primitive fortune-tellers, adopted a double manner, acting manly and womanly, to suggest that they own the secrets of both universes. This is to say that in mythical discourse androgyny is not a sign of absurd coexistence of the two sexes, but a conjunction of two specific powers. It grants the possessor of such quality an increased ability to exist; more specifically, it offers the possibility to elude the vicissitudes of desire encountered in a monosexuate being. As a result, it seems, an androgynical individual lacks the valve that allows great energy wastes in ordinary men and women, and makes it available for the absorption of knowledge. These sexually ambiguous beings escape the fraudulent disorientation of erotic fascination, the struggle to merge with the other sex and dedicate themselves to finding the harmonizing balance within. Along the pages of the mythical discourse related to the sexually ambivalent beings from the preceding pages we can conclude that the androgyne is depicted as bearer of predominantly positive features. On the other hand, when the issue becomes secular (or, according to Eliade, profane), when only the sexual component is left in the equation, there still exists a certain magnetism towards androgynism. When the androgyne abandons the realms of mythology and reveals itself within society, within the framework of an immediate reality, there seems to occur a major shift of values. What used to be the receptacle of extraordinary properties in the mythical-religious context is now violently reduced to a scandalous generator of social opprobrium, considered an anomaly of nature.

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The negative reaction when faced with the possibility of a cohabitation between monosexual and bisexual humans within the same community is not surprizing since the concept emerged as inescapably associated to a transgression.11 From the beginning of recorded history the testimonies show that societies feel they are better off people with unclear sexes and they are invited to leave the community by sea12. Although they were assigned with remarkable powers and even revered in the mythical references, in the profane reality, androgyny was thought to be a privilege of the gods, heroes, and thus, when revealed to plain humans, the androgyne was viewed as the result of an illegitimate transgression of the natural order. In recent times, however, scientists and philosophers tried to demonstrate that androgyny is a natural hypostasis of humanity and is should not be discarded as negative. Also, there are voices that still make the androgynes apology including toda y in various domains: social, philosophical, fashion, etc. Gender can be rendered ambiguous without disturbing or reorienting normative sexuality at all. Sometimes gender ambiguity can operate precisely to contain or deflect non-normative sexual practice and thereby work to keep normative sexuality intact.

Bibliography
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Whether we refer to Greek mythology or to the Judaeo-Christian religious universes, the androgyne ends up badly considering that both the antics, and the Christians, empirical realities were ruled by the inseparable Good-Bad / Divine-Evil manichaeistic dichotomies. That is, in Antiquity androgynes were thought to rebel against Zeus and in orthodox Christianity they were not a creation of God because He only created the two sexes of Adam and Eve. Also, see Leone Ebreos study Dialoghi dAmore in which he establishes a connection between Platos androgyne and the biblical tradition surrounding the original sin. 12 Libis is quoting Plinys testimony on the hermaphrodites which states that people banished them because of the horror they inspired.

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