The uniformly aggressive, anxious tone of many of the responses to this article indicates to me that maybe Moore is on to something about men feeling threatened. I was not concerned by the idea that a woman -- a lesbian even (gasp!) -- would be writing about this subject. Actually, I'm kind of touched that she would care so much.

I think it's an interesting idea for a book. There are no end of books and articles about phallic representations in cultures up to and including our own, and the history of those representations goes back a long way.

But sperm themselves are fairly recent up-and-comers as a symbol of masculinity. Anyone who's watched straight porn over the last 20 or so years has to recognize how the focus has enlarged to include not only the penis but the ejaculation. This is a symbol in the process of being created, and that's a fairly interesting process to watch, especially considering that the stuff has always been around, just not in a starring role.

Obviously some of the similarities to phallic representation are there -- the idea of bigness and strongness being associated somehow with virility, but what's more interesting to me is the differences. Here you have this one symbol of masculine sexuality which is hard, visible, and penetrating, being complimented by this other image of something kind of gooey, mysterious, watery, and vulnerable. And it's all happened since the 60s.

Coincidence? Well, maybe, but a fun one for seminal semioticists.

De-facto it seems that if you're reacting with such anger to Moore's theories, you feel threatened by them. That's not to say they're right or wrong, but if they carried no threat, you wouldn't give them any thought.

It also seems incontrovertible to me that changes in medical technology have made issues of reproduction, paternity and fatherhood substantially more complicated, and it is standard historical insight to understand that conceptions of reproduction paternity and fatherhood have played a significant role in the formation of the western world.

The standard story of reproduction -- the millions of little sperm competing to get to the passive egg -- is scientifically wrong on many levels, not the least of which is that the egg moves too, descending the fallopian tube. It is not too hard to draw a connection between ideas of masculinity and femininity, and the ways that these essentially sexless cells have been invested with a whole host of gender stereotypes.

The sturm und drang surrounding this particular interview looks like it rests upon one sentence: "[The fatherhood rights movement is] finding that incredibly threatening to their ability to maintain notions about the heterosexual-male-dominated family."

I also object to this sentence on the grounds that it's grammatically incorrect, but other than that, although I disagree with its premise, I don't find it threatening. And you do.

Apparently, you also find it threatening to have it pointed out that you find it threatening. And I wonder if you find it threatening to have it pointed out that you're threatened by having it pointed out that you're threatened.

I think it's unfortunate, but almost inevitable with short interview pieces like this, that what might be complex ideas get simplified. I think it's a mistake to conflate the fatherhood rights movement with who those who seek to maintain notions of hetero-male domination. Goodness knows there are a lot of misogynist reactionaries out there, but also a lot of decent, open-minded men who have been burned by the legal system and tarred and feathered by a culture that has just as much invested in certain damaging ideas of femininity (they're better at taking care of children, they're more important to the well-being of the child, they're guardians of the family, they should be "protected" at all costs, they're always victims and never agressors, etc.) as it does in certain ideas of masculinity.

Nonetheless, the bulk of Moore's discussion seemed reasonably erudite and thoughtful, so I'm willing to give her a pass on this one statement.