The Shemale As A Figure in Art

A consequence of displacement and its multivalent associations is the masculinization of the female form and the feminization of the male dorm, or, as Beyst phrases this dual transformation, "the emergence of the phallic woman and the vaginal man" because "under displaced form, the genitals are no longer bound to a sexually determined body, since "a woman has fingers, toes, arms, legs and a nose, and . . . a man has a mouth, folds and hollows, and a back."

Paradoxically, the eye's attempt to prolong its visual enjoyment of the female body's beauty not only delays but misses orgasm and its release, Beyst argues: "When lovers are kissing each other, they close their eyes, but the eyes wants to continue enjoying visual beauty: the lovers want see the exalted face instead of feeling it with the lips. And when the hand begins to touch, the eye only grants it its pleasure because new signs of exaltation on the body are elicited. The greedy eye then scans the body, until it finally comes to rest at the sight of the erect penis or the aroused vagina, the ultimate signs of exaltation. Stubbornly clinging to its desire for visual pleasure, the eye would like to witness even the merger of the genitals, but when these are allowed to do as they please, the penis inevitably will disappear in the vagina. When the eye is not prepared to give up its pleasure, it will have to prevent such merger and the impending advent of orgasm" so that "Such seizure of power trough the eye comes down to a veritable 'castration': seeing forbids genital feeling."

According to Beyst, the eye's refusal to grant orgasm results in the transformation of the lovers into a hermaphrodite, or "a being that possesses both sexual organs." (In place of "hermaphrodite," we can substitute "shemale.") One result of this confusion of sex and gender is that "the phallic body" succumbs "to the temptation of penetrating itself," and the voyeuristic viewer witnesses "all the forms of masturbation."