Zagrożona męskość / zagrożone męskości

The point of departure of the article is an analysis of medical discourse of the end of 19th century, which was concentrated on the symptoms of neurasthenia – a disease of men who were considered victims of civilisation, in contrast to women’s hysteria, regarded as their bodily affliction. The author notes a special status of this discourse which transcends the borders of medicine and diagnoses the whole social field: it becomes entangled in the relationships between sexes and genders, in class, ethnical and national stratification; expresses the traits of capitalism, democracy and its requirements, thus becoming a means of conveying contemporary ideas and phantasms concerning sexuality and its relation with subjectivity. The phantasmic projections of “endangered” masculinity, lined with panic and fear, constitute the main objects of reconstruction and interpretation.