"What is the most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine"
About this Quote
Sontag is poking a thumb in the eye of the tidy gender binaries that culture treats as natural law. The line is built like a compliment, but it’s really a critique: if we find “the most beautiful” parts of masculinity and femininity in their supposed opposites, then the whole system of hard-edged categories starts to look less like biology and more like bad staging.
Her word choice matters. “Virile” and “feminine” are not neutral descriptors; they’re loaded ideals, almost costumes. Sontag’s point isn’t that everyone is secretly androgynous in some bland, kumbaya way. It’s that what reads as compelling in a man often involves permeability: softness, receptivity, aesthetic attention, emotional intelligence - traits policed as “feminine.” And what reads as compelling in a woman can involve force: authority, self-possession, desire that doesn’t apologize - traits policed as “masculine.” Beauty, in other words, shows up where the performance slips and the person exceeds the role.
The subtext is also about power. Gender norms don’t just classify; they discipline. By framing cross-coded traits as the peak of attractiveness, Sontag flips the moral accounting: the very qualities society punishes or calls “confusing” become the ones that signal depth, freedom, even modernity.
Contextually, this tracks with Sontag’s broader project: taking the things culture labels “deviant,” “camp,” or “too much” and showing how they reveal the machinery of taste and identity. She’s not erasing gender; she’s revealing it as artifice - and insisting the most alive moments happen at the seams.
Her word choice matters. “Virile” and “feminine” are not neutral descriptors; they’re loaded ideals, almost costumes. Sontag’s point isn’t that everyone is secretly androgynous in some bland, kumbaya way. It’s that what reads as compelling in a man often involves permeability: softness, receptivity, aesthetic attention, emotional intelligence - traits policed as “feminine.” And what reads as compelling in a woman can involve force: authority, self-possession, desire that doesn’t apologize - traits policed as “masculine.” Beauty, in other words, shows up where the performance slips and the person exceeds the role.
The subtext is also about power. Gender norms don’t just classify; they discipline. By framing cross-coded traits as the peak of attractiveness, Sontag flips the moral accounting: the very qualities society punishes or calls “confusing” become the ones that signal depth, freedom, even modernity.
Contextually, this tracks with Sontag’s broader project: taking the things culture labels “deviant,” “camp,” or “too much” and showing how they reveal the machinery of taste and identity. She’s not erasing gender; she’s revealing it as artifice - and insisting the most alive moments happen at the seams.
Quote Details
| Topic | Deep |
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