The conceptual penis as a social construct

Note from the editor: Every once in awhile it is necessary and desirable to expose extreme ideologies for what they are by carrying out their arguments and rhetoric to their logical and absurd conclusion, which is why we are proud to publish this expose of a hoaxed article published in a peer-reviewed journal today. Its ramifications are unknown but one hopes it will help rein in extremism in this and related areas.
—Michael Shermer

“The conceptual penis as a social construct” is a Sokal-style hoax on gender studies. ...

The Hoax
The androcentric scientific and meta-scientific evidence that the penis is the male reproductive organ is considered overwhelming and largely uncontroversial.

That’s how we began. We used this preposterous sentence to open a “paper” consisting of 3,000 words of utter nonsense posing as academic scholarship. Then a peer-reviewed academic journal in the social sciences accepted and published it.
This paper should never have been published. Titled, “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct,” our paper “argues” that “The penis vis-à-vis maleness is an incoherent construct. We argue that the conceptual penis is better understood not as an anatomical organ but as a gender-performative, highly fluid social construct.” As if to prove philosopher David Hume’s claim that there is a deep gap between what is and what ought to be, our should-never-have-been-published paper was published in the open-access (meaning that articles are freely accessible and not behind a paywall), peer-reviewed journal Cogent Social Sciences.
Skeptic » Reading Room » The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct: A Sokal-Style Hoax on Gender Studies

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Likewise, what meaning can the anatomical penis as a
male organ possibly hold for gender fluid individuals or certain other individuals within the queer
community? In the paradigm of the dominant penis-centered narrative, we find these questions intrinsically
unanswerable.

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Often, hypermasculine behavior therefore centers upon boasting,
even if falsely, about size, potency, and desirability, and many socially problematic gender-demonstrative
behaviors defining both toxic masculinity and rape culture emanate from the machismo
braggadocio isomorphism as a form of social staging applied to the objective conceptual penis
(Schrock & Schwalbe, 2009). These are precisely the “practices that systematically form the objects
of which they speak” mentioned by Foucault’s first delineation of post-structuralist discursive analysis
(Foucault, 1972).

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Nowhere are the consequences of hypermasculine machismo braggadocio isomorphic identification
with the conceptual penis more problematic than concerning the issue of climate change. Climate
change is driven by nothing more than it is by certain damaging themes in hypermasculinity that can
be best understood via the dominant rapacious approach to climate ecology identifiable with the conceptual
penis. Our planet is rapidly approaching the much-warned-about 2°C climate change threshold,
and due to patriarchal power dynamics that maintain present capitalist structures, especially with
regard to the fossil fuel industry, the connection between hypermasculine dominance of scientific,
political, and economic discourses and the irreparable damage to our ecosystem is made clear.
...
At best, climate change is genuinely an example of
hyper-patriarchal society metaphorically manspreading into the global ecosystem.

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An explicit isomorphic relationship exists between the conceptual penis and the most problematic
themes in toxic masculinity, and that relationship is mediated by the machismo braggadocio aspect
of male hypermasculine thought and performance. A change in our discourses in science, technology,
policy, economics, society, and various communities is needed to protect marginalized groups,
promote the advancement of women, trans, and gender-queer individuals (including non-gendered
and gender-skeptical people), and to remedy environmental impacts that follow from climate
change driven by capitalist and neocapitalist overreliance on hypermasculine themes and exploitative
utilization of fossil fuels.

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