NotNormativelyHuman 243
masculinity and the degradations of male aging" (Segal 84) present
themselves in the format of aBildungsromanmanqué.The eponymous
protagonist dazed by the realization that "his health began giving away
and his body seemed threatened all the time" (71), embarks on a series
of frantic but ultimately futile sexual conquests. Regarding women his
ageasundesirable,a"heavy,sepulchral,stonelikeweight"(119)likehe
first saw in his dead mother's body, he begins to ogle young women on
thebeachoutsidehishome:"Hedidhisbesttoconcealhisanxiety,and
with it... the craving for just one such body" (133). But in vain, "his
longing for the last great outburst of everything" remains unfulfilled
(134).
Roth's Everyman has to make do withoutViagra; even so,the novel
chronicles in an unrelenting way how "the sexual imperative" issued by
U.S.-American culture interpellates men into a frantic but ultimately
futile performance of genital maleness, the "final kick of the prostate,"
as Nadine Gordimer puts it in her review of the novel in theThe New
YorkTimes(n.pag.).^79 The"sexualimperative,"whetherornotbasedon
Viagraassexualprosthesis,does,however,dovetailnicelywithpopular
discoursesabout"newaging,""positiveaging,"aformoflatelifethatis
based on continued activity, and sustained by the consumption of
products and procedures. Such visions of post-age may be attractive for
some people but they are also putting pressure on older people to
intensify their participation in the market. These pressures are not
always imposed on senior people "from above" but have also become
part of the agenda of old age advocacy groups such as the American
AssociationofRetiredPersons(AARP).
The new, often technologically assisted utopia of "post-age" is thus
not only a new realm of freedom; it is also—dialectically to be sure—
the realm of new necessities, as Fishman's choice of the word
"imperative" also suggests. In other words, there is a strong likelihood
that the post-age made possible by new biotech anti-aging technologies
will not overcome, rather reinforce the cultural ambiguities attending
senescence. When human life-in-time has entered the domain of
intervention and choice, this is likely to increase the pressure on people
(^79) My reading of the novel is based in part on the reviews by Gordimer and
Nussbaum,andonLynneSegal'sdiscussioninherPleasuresandPerils(84-86).