The fetishization of masculinity in science fiction: The cyborg and the console cowboy

Drawing on pop-culture images of hypermasculine cyborgs and cyberpunk's 'ja cked-in' console cowboys, this paper will argue, by foregrounding a fetishi zed technomasculinity, that these images suggest a critique of the rigid ge nder dichotomy of orthodox theories of fetishism in which the fetishist is always masculine and the fetishized subject is always feminine. It argues t hat, despite their differences, these two models of cybermasculinity sugges t a technofetishization of the white, heterosexual male body in a discourse of postmodernism where the privilege of that identity is purportedly under siege, experiencing itself as relative, rather than universal, partial rat her than complete. In these texts, technoparts function as fetishes by disa vowing male lack and the feminization of the male subject in postmodern dis course. Thus these fetishistic fantasies can be seen, to some extent, to re cuperate patriarchal authority in a posthuman context. On th other hand, th ese fantasized fetishized masculinities are transgressive of gender norms. Both fantasies confirm that masculinity is not natural, but is performed an d constructed through technological props, and both types of masculinity--o ne hypermasculine and the other feminized by technological prosthetics--are in excess of traditional notions of masculinity. This paper traces both th e transgressive and conservative dimensions of popular images of fetishized technomasculinities and suggests how a postmodern technofetishism might pr ovide new possibilities for breaking down old cultural hierarchies.