"Just Getting Off": The Inseparability of Ejaculation and Hegemonic Masculinity

This paper offers the notion of the “ejaculation imperative” to describe the
theoretical and pragmatic processes by which physiological ejaculation becomes
intrinsically inseparable from discourses of time, sexual performance
and social expectations. By applying theories about male bodies originated by
Susan Bordo and Lenore Tiefer and while expanding on Judith Halberstam’s
concept of “queering” repronormative time, I illustrate the complex negotiations
social actors play in the development of hegemonic notions of masculinity
through the ejaculation response. By offering this critique, this paper
attempts to complexify the seemingly “natural” relationships drawn about
physiological sexual performativity and what it means to be male in contemporary
US society.