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Posthuman Experiences of Men and Masculinities in Ian McEwan's Machines

Like Me

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 Masculinities Journal of Culture and Society
Autumn, 2021, 16, 59-72  Research Article

Posthuman Experiences of Men and Masculinities in Ian

McEwan’s Machines Like Me

Mustafa Büyükgebiz*
Alaaddin Keykubat University, Turkey

Received: 20.07.2021Accepted: 07.10..2021

Abstract: Post-war science fiction frequently urged to reconsider many
norms considered natural in society and introduced a diversity of taken-
for-granted norms, particularly gender norms. In this regard, cyberpunk,
for instance, offers a valuable resource in defining and analyzing diverse
sexualities in the tradition of speculative fiction. In this context, this
article aims to exemplify the posthuman experiences of men and
masculinities by focusing on Ian McEwan's novel Machines Like Me to
examine cyborgs the queer and fluid sexualities and explore posthuman
sexualities from critical studies of masculinities perspective. The
heteronormative society in which diverse and non-conforming sexualities
are perceived as queer necessarily regards cyborgs (and embodied
artificial intelligence) as queer and problematizes the fluidity of cyborg
sexuality, and Ian McEwan’s cyborg in Machines Like Me provokes the fear
of losing masculinity in such a society. In this context, this article aims to
exemplify the posthuman experiences of men and masculinities by
focusing on Ian McEwan's novel Machines Like Me to examine cyborgs
the queer and fluid sexualities and explore posthuman sexualities from
critical studies of masculinities perspective.
Keywords: Posthumanism, masculinities, queer, cyborg

*
School of Foreign Languages, Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University
E-mail: [email protected] ORCID 0000-0003-1911-1766
 Masculinities A Journal of Culture and Society

Introduction: Posthuman Masculinities and Cyberpunk

Post-war science fiction offers its readers a plethora of speculative

worlds and new discoveries, thus enabling them to reconsider societies'
normative experiences. Unveiling limitless possibilities and new
perspectives make it possible to deconstruct, criticize and even change
what is regarded as normal/usual in a society. In this sense, it may be
asserted that post-war science fiction presents a perfect ground to
redefine and criticize human sexuality and gender roles since “knowing
science fiction’s potential for using the future to explore contemporary
reality and its alternatives, one might think the genre ideal for the
examination of alternative sexualities” (Pearson, 2003, p.149). Despite
the fact that science fiction canon often reiterates heteronormative
sexualities and, therefore, reproduced patriarchal ideology in the
Western world, new forms of science fiction focused on creating new
worlds and offering diverse sexualities after World War II.

60 It can be claimed that scientific knowledge and practice have often

been characterized with building stones of masculine ideology such as
progress, producing and preserving knowledge, and technological
development. It is also reasonable to argue that Western civilization
substantially feminized all diverse ideologies, cultures, and practices. As
Peterson (2010) puts it, “diverse hierarchies are linked and ideologically
“naturalized” by feminizing those who are subordinated” (p.19). Thus,
feminine qualities are mostly attributed to those who are subordinated.
Along with the colonial period, Eastern cultures are subordinated by
Western culture, and all the values that represent them are feminized by
Western hegemony. In this regard, it may be asserted that science fiction
as a literary genre was heavily reflected in a masculine dictum,
emphasizing scientific knowledge and phallogocentric social structures.
However, post-war science fiction writers enjoyed the genre's limitless
possibilities and created diverse gender roles that will challenge the
heteronormative definitions of the West (Merrick, 2003, p.241). In this
context, queer identities suggested by science fiction are frequently
encountered in literature. Judith Butler (1999) refers to the limitless
Masculinities A Journal of Culture and Society

possibilities that non-heteronormative gender roles offer while

discussing Deleuzian perspective of diverse sex roles by asserting that

if the number of sexes corresponds to the number of existing

individuals, sex would no longer have any general application as a
term: one’s sex would be a radically singular property and would
no longer be able to operate as a useful or descriptive
generalization. (p.151)

Queer politics and identities, therefore, became an indispensable

component of post-war science fiction because both queer theory and
post-war science fiction cannot regard “sexual orientation as a fixed
identity, but describes bodies, genders, and sexualities as fluid” (Pearson,
2003, p.157). That is why science fiction, especially post-war science
fiction, broke loose from the strict boundaries of heteronormativity and
patriarchy, enabling the writers and the readers to examine and explore
diverse gender roles and queer identities.

Murat Göç-Bilgin (2019) describes the fluidity of queer by stating

61
that “queer basically denies any categories or definitions and rather
focuses on fluidity and performativity of gender roles by constantly
reinventing and reformulating itself and defamiliarizing, denaturalizing
and reifying all cultural and political codes and institutions” (p.164).
Accordingly, post-war science fiction and queer theory intersect to
produce, reveal and investigate diverse gender roles. Post-war science
fiction, especially cyberpunk, subverted and deconstructed patriarchal
norms and ideologies that relied on redefining, confining, and
disciplining the human body. On the other hand, cyborg bodies
highlighted fluidity, abnormality, and queer denial of all prescribed
definitions. Donna Haraway (2006) defines the term cyborg as “a
cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of
social reality as well as a creature of fiction” (p.117) in her Cyborg
Manifesto.

As indicated by Haraway, the cyborg can be defined as a 'social

reality' creature, as it turns these norms upside down and, in most cases,
has difficulty keeping up with these norms with regard to their essential
 Masculinities A Journal of Culture and Society

characteristics. The cyborg challenges all traditional notions regarding

the human body. “The posthuman perspective rejects uniformity and
universal definitions. It is based on an almost queer ambiguity with a
constant movement, a constant fluidity and renewal” (Göç-Bilgin, 2020,
p.46). In science fiction, the cyborg is designed or attributed to
heteronormative gender roles. Sara Cohen Shabot (2006) states that “the
figure of the cyborg, thus, turned out to be a challenging, transgressive
figure aiming at a subversion of the traditional divisions between human
and machine, between the self and the other, between inside and outside
and between nature and culture” (p.224). Therefore, cyborg challenges
all pre-defined categories of traditional Western masculinity, allowing us
to redefine and evaluate these categories.

Despite Western patriarchy's efforts to categorize the human

body, particularly its functions and public visibility, cyberpunk confronts
the notion of human beings as an embodied entity and challenges these
categorizations with its emphasis on indefinability. As Haraway (2006)
62 puts it, “The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not
made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust” (p.119). The
traditional concepts of gender, race, and class that are often considered
the products of patriarchy do not fit the cyborg universe that defies
heteronormative patriarchal order.

In this sense, the cyborg’s queer and fluid nature provides a

significant ground for research regarding the incompatibility of
individuals and cyborg bodies in a world where traditional social norms
and heteronormative ideologies are contested. It is expected that the
queer nature of the cyborg will inevitably come into conflict with
traditional patriarchal norms. In addition, it can be assumed that the
phenomenon of cyber 'fluidity', which poses a threat to masculine
hegemony and heteronormative understanding, also affects traditional
men and masculinities. The masculinity crises triggered by the cyborg
are also very exemplary in science fiction. Therefore, considering the
crises and conflicts of masculinities unveiled by the queer cyborg, it is
worth analyzing men and masculinities from a posthumanist
perspective. As Balmar and Mellstöm (2019) point out
Masculinities A Journal of Culture and Society

the metaphor of the cyborg works as an encompassing term for a

self-regulating system that transcends the organic and the
artificial, the ›machinic‹, and the ›non-machinic‹, which has been
so characteristic for the conceptual as well as biological evolution
of man and masculinity. (p.322)

Machines Like Me and Posthuman Crisis of Masculinity

Ian McEwan’s 2020 novel Machines Like Me offers such discussions and
reconsiderations of the confrontation between humans and cyborgs.
McEwan presents an alternative 1980s in an alternative universe in
which Alan Turing is still alive and pioneering the advancements in
artificial intelligence. In such an alternate reality, McEwan portrays a
love triangle among Charlie -also the narrator of the novel- in his 30s, a
young woman named Miranda and a robot with artificial intelligence
named Adam. Through this love triangle, McEwan questions the function
of cyborgs with queer bodies in human relations. As a tech addict, 63
Charlie decides to buy the cyborg as soon as it is on sale and considers
Adam as his prodigal son. On the other hand, Miranda is not as
enthusiastic as Charlie and treats Adam as a sex doll. Meanwhile, Adam
swings between being a docile boy and a sexualized machine that
characterizes his in-betweenness and causes a traumatic and painful
state of mind for all three of them. Charlie's attitude towards Adam,
especially towards the end of the novel, and his tendency to violence also
prove the problematic relationship between men and the cyborg.
Therefore, by creating such a contradictory environment, McEwan
scrutinizes the clash between masculinities and the posthuman.

At the beginning of the novel, McEwan portrays a highly

technologized alternative 80s, fully competitive with 21st-century
technology with high-speed trains, speech recognition software,
advances in artificial intelligence, renewable energy, and many more.
Charlie describes these advancements of the diverse universe as
 Masculinities A Journal of Culture and Society

By the early seventies, digital communication had discarded its air

of convenience and become a daily chore. Likewise, the 250 mph
trains – crowded and dirty. Speech recognition software, a fifties’
miracle, had long turned to drudge, with entire populations
sacrificing hours each day to lonely soliloquising. Brain-machine
interfacing, wild fruit of sixties optimism, could barely arouse the
interest of a child. (McEwan, 2020, p.5)

The alternative universe that McEwan has created certainly serves a

purpose. As Andy Duncan (2003) points out, “An alternate history is not
a history at all, but a work of fiction in which history as we know it is
changed for dramatic and often ironic effect” (p.209). It is possible to say
that McEwan managed to achieve such an ironic effect. An alternative
80s fictional world, where technology is much more advanced, highlights
a diverse cyborg image that threatens hegemonic masculinity. At the
beginning of the novel, this diverse universe created by McEwan offers
the reader a narrative in which the heteronormative understanding of
64 our time is relatively not dominant.

In the novel, the lack of communication despite advanced digital

technology urges people to build diverse companions, and McEwan
offers ‘buying’ an AI friend as a solution. The narrator of the novel,
Charlie Friend, is a lonely, middle-aged British man interested in
computers and artificial intelligence. He decides to buy a replicant with
the money he inherited from his mother. With an insurmountable desire
of playing God, he states that “Our ambitions ran high and low -for a
creation myth made real, for a monstrous act of self-love” (p.1). Such an
obsession is closely related to the superiority complex of men since
masculinity consistently has to prove itself over time. The need for proof
indicates that masculinity is not natural but just a production of
patriarchy built to serve it. So, it is impossible for an unnatural social
phenomenon to survive without reinforcement or repetition. Therefore,
the power of being a creator may be regarded as a suitable way to repeat
and prove masculinity. McEwan adds that “more practically, we intended
to devise an improved, more modern version of ourselves and exult in
the joy of invention, the thrill of mastery” (p.1). Production may be seen
Masculinities A Journal of Culture and Society

as a significant indicator of traditional masculinities and their

requirement of superiority and perfection. It can be thought that cyborgs
and cybernetic machines, like all other production models, should serve
masculinity to prove itself through production. However, Haraway
(2006) states that pre-cybernetic machines failed to serve this purpose
since they were “only a caricature of that masculinist reproductive
dream” (p.120) which should be seen as an extremely important dream
for masculinity since;

In the cyborg, the old human imperfections are prosthetically

corrected; psychotropic technologies reconcile the spirit that is
willing with the flesh that is weak. The loneliness and rigidity of
the humanist body are eased. (Jacobs, 2003, p.94)

However, the obsession with being perfect is also a collective fear of

humankind dominated by machines or artificial intelligence. When
Charlie unpacks Adam for the first time at home, he also refers to the fear
by saying, “before us sat the ultimate plaything, the dream of ages, the
triumph of humanism – or its angel of death” (p.4). As Gray (2000) puts 65

it, “an enhanced cyborg is one where the cyborgian technologies are used
to make the cyborg greater than the human in a specific domain: a better
soldier, a better lover, a superhero” (p.278). The fear of losing
superiority over other creatures is an ancient feeling. However,
cyborgism also generates some new fears and challenges. “We can see
and we can well imagine that cyborgism could be a bridge to different
types of posthumans, some with male bodies of some sort, some quite
genderless, some with new genders based on new sexes” (p.294).
Normalizing diverse gender roles is a significant challenge for hegemonic
masculinity, constructed on heterosexual relationships.

Charlie refers to the role of Adam by stating that “in a sense he

would be like our child” (p.22), so he wants to design Adam’s
characteristics not alone but with Miranda. Adam is Charlie’s fatherhood
ticket that Charlie is not brave enough to have a real child. Being
unemployed -in other words, not being enough to be the head of the
family according to patriarchal norms- stops Charlie from thinking that
 Masculinities A Journal of Culture and Society

he is eligible and ready to become a father because, as Seidler (1989)

puts it, “the visions of authority which we inherit within Western culture
are tied up with conceptions of the father” (p.272). That is why he thinks
that it is more suitable to have a replicant as a child with Miranda.

Now I had a method and a partner, I relaxed into the process,

which began to take on a vaguely erotic quality; we were making a
child! Because Miranda was involved, I was protected from self-
replication. The genetic metaphor was helpful. (p.33)

It can be asserted that such a paternity method creates a much bigger

crisis for the men and masculinities in the novel. Real or artificial, Adam
tries to prove himself both as an individual and a man. Adam is perceived
as a machine and emphasizes his existence, intelligence, and
consequently his masculinity at every chance since “a man needs to keep
repeating gendered acts to show that masculinity does in fact exist”
(Reeser, 2010, p.82). Adam has sex with Miranda and falls in love with
her, but Miranda treats him as only a "sex doll" and even calls him a
66 vibrator. Charlie is jealous of Adam at first and furious, but then he also
calls Adam a fucking machine. He says, “perhaps she was right, Adam
didn’t qualify, he wasn’t a man” (p.94). As the ultimate creation of
science, he performs the masculine qualities of producing and preserving
knowledge to prove himself by reaching out and analyzing the history of
philosophy and literature via the internet, and writing “2000 haikus and
reciting about a dozen, of the same quality, each one devoted to Miranda”
(p.145). He goes a step further and underestimates the world’s literature
by defining it as ‘the varieties of human failures’ such as “failures of
cognition, honesty, kindness, self-awareness; superb depictions of
murder, cruelty, greed, stupidity, self-delusion, above all, profound
misunderstanding of others” (p.149). With an embodied artificial
intelligence, the collective fear of creating artificial intelligence that may
pose a risk to humanity becomes even more complex and even terrifying
for men. As Carlen Lavigne (2013) puts it, “the embodied cyborg
provokes more questions about body, gender, reproduction, kinship and
cultural identity than does the artificial intelligence” (p.85).
Masculinities A Journal of Culture and Society

As a queer body, it is not surprising to define Adam’s masculinity

as toxic. Adam's tendency to violence arises from the necessity of
proving the masculine role attributed to him. The fact that those around
him do not regard him as a man and that he wants to prove it are
significant reasons for Adam's toxic masculinity. As Pearson (2109)
argues, “within the extremism discourse, ‘toxic’ men are often the most
marginalized, or subordinate, in terms of class or race, or both” (p.1257).
The violence as an outcome of toxic masculinity may also be observed in
Adam’s behaviors. He threatens Charlie to remove his arm if he tries to
reach his kill switch again. Adam says, “the next time you reach for my
kill switch, I’m more happy to remove your arm entirely, at the ball and
socket joint” (p.94). Adam does not hesitate to use violence on the
pretext of protecting Charlie and Miranda.

Although Charlie calls Adam a machine, he is deep inside jealous

of him. He sees him as an obstacle to their relationship with Miranda.
When he hears her and Adam having sex upstairs, he tries to stay calm,
but he says, “I badly wanted to shout. Atavistic masculinity urged it. My 67
faithless lover, brazen, with another man, within my hearing” (p.94).
Adam could not find a place in people's minds neither as a man nor as a
machine. In the case of falling outside the traditional patterns, Adam
tries to impose himself as an individual in the environment he lives in.
Adam is well aware that he is expected to conform to social norms.
Although he does not belong to any gender category as artificial
intelligence, he insists on proving his masculinity because the patriarchy
imposes traditional categories and nullifies other possibilities. As
Lavigne (2013) recommends, “patriarchal production systems cannot
allow for cyborg figures that do not embody biological gender
differences, because positing a future without gender difference means
positing a future without male privilege” (p.83). Even without biological
gender, patriarchal dominance must be maintained and regularly
reinvented.

In the novel, Adam is assigned not only gender but also exhibits
heterosexual proclivities and stereotypes associated with that gender.
He has the qualities of masculine physicality and a hyper-masculinized
 Masculinities A Journal of Culture and Society

body. However, Adam never escapes the fact that he has a queer body.
Still, he is not accepted as a man since he does not have a biologically
male body despite his hyper-masculine qualities.

Conclusion

The cyborgs that appear in literature, such as Daniel Suarez’s Daemon

(2006), Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984), or Martin Caidin’s Cyborg (1972),
do not revert the normative sexual identities. They even exacerbate the
heteronormative sexual understanding. McEwan’s Machines Like Me is
not an exception in this sense. Adam does not offer a diverse sexuality
and gender role.

Through an engaging story and narrative, McEwan has made it

clear that in a male-dominated society, being a woman, a man, or even a
non-human will not prevent being a victim of hegemonic masculinity. It
is clear in the case of Adam that without obeying its rules and shaping
68 your identity accordingly, it is almost impossible to be accepted in
society and even to survive. As Connell (2005) asserts

It [hegemonic masculinity] was certainly normative. It embodied

the currently most honored way of being a man, it required all
other men to position themselves in relation to it, and it
ideologically legitimated the global subordination of women to
men (p. 832).

As it is discussed above, science fiction, like the male-dominated science

it inspires, has a masculine nature and, as expected, will serve to
constantly prove masculinity. The cyborg phenomenon in science fiction
is no exception. In their earliest instances in popular culture and science
fiction, cyborgs are portrayed as destructive and dangerous beings with
hypermasculine traits. However, when the recent representations of
cyborgs in the post-war science fiction literature are examined, it is seen
that the cyborg has been stripped of its masculine identity and has
emphasized diverse gender roles more. These queer cyborgs, unlike
Masculinities A Journal of Culture and Society

their ancestors, have ceased to serve masculinity and its constant effort
to prove itself, and have begun to pose a threat to the patriarchal order.

All in all, McEwan has tackled one of the greatest fears of

humanity and, more importantly, of masculinity; losing power. Ian
McEwan’s new generation cyborg Adam, too, is a part of the threat in his
queer body and in an effort to find himself a place in society as such.
Braidotti (2016) states that “class, race, gender, and sexual orientations,
age and able-bodiedness are more than ever significant markers of
human ‘normality’ (p.24). Since Adam is not listed in any of these
‘normality’ conditions mentioned above, he provokes gender, body, and
identity questions. At last, Adam is killed by Charlie with an urge of his
atavistic masculinity. McEwan’s artificial intelligence in his diverse
universe well portrays the fear of masculinity. The fragile nature of
masculinity cannot adapt to new and diverse gender roles and ultimately
seeks solutions by trying to destroy them. Men's instinct to destroy is
exemplified very realistically in McEwan's novel Machines Like Me.
69

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Ian McEwan’ın Benim Gibi Makineler Romanında Erkeklerin ve Erkekliklerin İnsan

Sonrası Deneyimleri

Öz: Savaş sonrası bilimkurgu sık sık toplumda doğal olarak kabul edilen
birçok normu yeniden gözden geçirmeye olanak yaratmış ve kabul edilen
normların çeşitliliğini, özellikle de cinsiyet normlarını ortaya çıkarmıştır.
Bu bağlamda, örnek olarak siberpunk, spekülatif kurgu geleneğindeki
çeşitli cinsellikleri tanımlama ve analiz etme konusunda değerli bir
kaynak sunmaktadır. Farklı ve uyumsuz cinselliklerin kuir olarak
 Masculinities A Journal of Culture and Society

algılandığı heteronormatif toplum algısı, siborgları (ve cisimleşmiş yapay

zekayı) zorunlu olarak kuir olarak görür ve siborg cinselliğinin
akışkanlığını sorunsallaştırır ve Benim Gibi Makineler romanında Ian
McEwan’nın siborgu bu tür bir toplum içerisinde erkekliği kaybetme
korkusunu kışkırtır. Bu bağlamda, bu makalenin amacı, siborgların kuir
ve akışkan cinselliklerini incelemek için Ian McEwan'ın Benim Gibi
Makineler adlı romanına odaklanarak erkeklerin ve erkekliklerin insan
sonrası deneyimlerini örneklendirmek ve insan sonrası cinsellikleri
erkekliklerin eleştirel bir incelemesi perspektifinden araştırmaktır.
Anahtar kelimeler: Posthümanizm, erkeklikler, kuir, siborg

72

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