The "onanism of poetry"

Abstract

Lyric is onanistic: masturbation is the latent content of lyric poetry. This article counters queer theory with a turn to onanist theory, pointing out the centrality of masturbation to the work of Jacques Derrida, and suggesting that rather than consider masturbation the supplement to sex, we might consider the opposite. Modern man (the gendering is deliberate) has, according to Derrida, been mistaken in his metaphysics by a deluded fidelity to presence, an ontological error to which he has been attached as though to a lover; instead, modern man is guiltily onanistic. This article argues that the apostrophic intimacies of lyric and the longings held therein are masturbatory. To do so it reads Rob Halpern's Music for Porn as a deconstructive reading of Walt Whitman's Civil War poetry.