Trunov, D. G. Identity Against Sexuality: the Four Male Complexes (Essay)

Abstract: The given essay describes male characters Othello, Arbenin, Karandyshev, Bluebeard, Stenka Razin and Perseus. These characters illustrate the conflict between the need in sexual identity and sexual desire when the identity eventually prevails. It is proved by the fact that all of them killed women who were sexually attractive for them (a few women were even their wives and loved ones) just because those women harmed their male identity. Their stories are viewed as some kind of ‘psychological complexes’, metaphors or prototypes repeated in real relations between men and women (even without such a dramatic ending). Men with such a complex omit a ‘symbolic murder’ when they humiliate, assault or ignore women threatening their male identity even if they feel sexual desire towards these women. In the described situations sex as a physiological category is governed by the ‘gender’ as a socio-cultural phenomenon.

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