Male Menstruation: A Ritual Alternative to the Oedipal Transition

The term 'male menstruation' often seems to elicit a reaction of disbelief bordering on shock, or a sense of having misunderstood. It does not refer to a phenomenon resembling hysterical stigmata but to a usage among at least three peoples—the Australian Aborigine, the Indigene of Papua/New Guinea, and the Mohave Indians. Here we shall examine its widespread practice in Australian New Guinea. We do not turn to the study of an esoteric ritual in a remote corner of the globe because of its curiosity, but because we believe it leads to some important insights into problems of sexual identity in the male and the relationship between masculine envy of women and the young boy's initial identification with his mother. These topics have aroused considerable attention in recent years both because of the psychoanalytically orientated studies of transsexuals by Stoller (1966), Greenson (1968), Socarides (1973) and others, and because of various challenges to the psychoanalytic emphasis on women's penis envy without a counter-balancing interest in men's envy of women's generative capacities (Bettelheim, 1971); (Greenson, 1966). It is evident from Jaffe's (1968) review of the psychoanalytic literature pertaining to masculine envy of women that the topic needs clarification. The examination of a way of life that differs profoundly from that of Western civilizations enables us to set aside some of our basic preconceptions and take a fresh look at some cardinal problems of human development. The material would seem to require a re-examination of the functions of the oedipal transition, the incest taboo and men's feelings of superiority to women.

We became interested in the topic of male menstruation while working with psychiatric patients in New Guinea several years ago. We were struck by the severe sexual anxieties of male patients. One believed that a girl to whom he was attracted was a witch who was seeking to seduce him in order to drain and kill him, and another feared