The complete asshole

The inimitable Dominic Fox offers a clear conceptualization of a matter long of concern to many women--the complete asshole. In the comment thread he writes:

I'm in touch with my feminine side, and therefore able to manufacture my own assholeosity by feeding off my own independent source of emotional energy. This virtuous circuit of auto-parasitism suffices to make me a complete asshole.

What makes this formulation so compelling is that it includes contemporary, understanding, seemingly supportive feminist men, the kind that are maddening and nearly impossible to deal with because they think that they have already surpassed their nasty hairy-legged simian brethren and not only know what women want but actually care. So, unlike the unevolved who feed off women's emotional energy, secreting a deadly poison that damages and stain everything it touches, the complete asshole's self-righteousness is autonomous, or, in Dominic's words, auto-parasitic.

But, is such auto-parasitism possible? That suggests a completeness not unlike the images of self-fellatio that have circulated in years past all over the Web. And, here is the kick: insofar as these are images of self-fellatio we must also factor in the gaze. The camera sees, those of us hapless enough to click on the proffered link see the act; the fellatio, then, may be done by the self, but it is also done for another, for a gaze.

The complete asshole, then, is not as complete as he likes to think. His very sense of completion depends on acknowledgement, on a gaze. To be sure, this may well be the gaze of other men--I'm thinking of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady or Holmes and Watson. Indeed, homosociality may provide the proper environment for the complete asshole. Women are largely unnecessary. Although they may appear in the world of the complete asshole, they are unimportant, no more than furniture; after all, the asshole is complete and has not only no need for them but no lack for them to fill.

And this brings us to the point that the complete asshole actually has no hole at all. It's an asshole that is not one. And, if it has no hole, then it must be full of shit.

Comments

[patrick j. mullins]

This is pretty good, I'll vow. The ending is quite useful for us parasites who are not complete assholes (you should have realized that some of us would agree with Dominic's self-assessments, and that was the risk you took in your inhuman rigor, at floating this forth...), but who could self-fellate in high school (without needing the gaze, but I'd want it now if I could still do it, I'll grant you that) but who like to steal wordisms: 'An asshole without a hole' reminded me immediately of 'A house is not a home', but that's because I've had reason to think of Lucy Maud Montgomery's teenage books recently, and these have caused me to have alternating unusual moments of 'wholesomeness' interspersed with my usual overdone, but subtly degenerate Perv-Look. It's a most unusual sensation, and I think I am more sensitive to women than I ever have been before! Not that I really care to, but just that I am.

[patrick j. mullins]

One of the things that I have often thought after first being indoctrinated with 'a house is not a home' is that the same people (even Baptists and Methodists in Alabama, Lawd knows) like to drive through the new developments to look at the 'nice homes' and say things like 'there are some fine homes out that way too..' just so, so insufferable, like not sticking to 'one' instead of venturing forth with he, she and it.

[Jodi]

Patrick--in addition to the other tasty contributions in your comments, there is a particularly choice bit, one that adds quite nicely to the conceptualization of the complete asshole: "I am more sensitive to women than I ever have been. Not that I really care to..."

Now, I'm not at all calling you a c.a., but the addition of 'not that I really care to' is genius.

[Dominic]

cf this, from Burroughs's _Naked Lunch_: "The Buyer takes on an ominous grey-green color. Fact is his body is making its own junk or equivalent. The Buyer has a steady connection. A Man Within you might say. Or so he thinks. 'I'll just set in my room', he says. 'Fuck 'em all. Squares on both sides. I am the only complete man in the industry'.

But a yen comes on him like a great black wind through the bones..."

[patrick j. mullins]

'But a yen comes on him like a great black wind through the bones.'

Too true, but of course, Burroughs would write anything. The worst thing is that I've read almost all of the OTHER Burroughs novels, and although I own 'Naked Lunch', I placed it in my Cookbook Section and have still not gotten to it!

Burroughs had something with the 'death in centipede', but he couldn't quit repeating himself, so his whole oeuvre ended up being about how wonderful drug-taking was. Some of the images are good, though, but he's too hateful.

As far as being an a.c.a., I want to flesh this out fully (except for the 'no hole', since you cannot become the kind of Complete Asshole I have idealized if you have no hole), and then, as Mistah Jimmy Cart-uh might say, 'go on to great-uh thangs...'

[justaguy]

I'm not sure what to make of your comment. However, the guy I'm dealing with has got to be the worlds most complete self-fucked asshole. He actually thinks he is so evolved as to know what women want more than they do. His ideal relationship would be to have an equal say with his female counterpart. Anyone who knows the harsh reality of male/female dynamics knows that just cannot be without the female either taking control or losing respect for a man who does not assume his proper role in the relationship, or both.
I'm speaking of what the vast majority of women have said on the subject-I'm not sexist in any way.
That is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. This guy is an idealist of the sort that borders on the fanatical. He's so far out there from the actual reality for which he knows nothing about. And he insists on dominating every conversation even though it's blatantly obvious that he know's nothing about the topic of which he speaks. Whether he performs self-fellatio on himself is not my concern. I'm just sick with disdain for this individual, to the point I have almost a desire to put him out of his *[email protected]#@? misery. I can't stand anyone for that matter that thinks they know all the answers to life's questions, but it was an entertaining read none-the-less.