Audiences with Authors: ‘Rethinking the Psychoanalysis of Masculinity: From Toxic to Seminal

Aggressive, misogynistic masculinity has become a major topic in recent years, spreading throughout popular culture, the media and research. Often called ‘phallic’, it simmers in everyday life and hits the headlines for turning florid and violent in maintaining its dominance, especially towards women. At the extreme, phallic masculinity has recently crystallized as toxic masculinity, and ‘toxic’ has become the near-universal epithet for extreme destructiveness in a ‘toxic culture’. It has brought into focus, and named as masculine, an anxiety over toxicity in every corner of everyday life.

Karl has explored this concept in depth, drawing on a broad range of psychoanalytic, cultural and social influences. He traces its impact on nature, society and personal relationships. In doing so, he throws a sharp light on normal masculinity, drawing out a different, more positive alternative, with particular reference to underlying fears around fertility and reparation, which he gathers under ‘seminality’.