«Comme ces casernes, que l’on croit vides et pures, quand elles grouillent de mâles dangereux». Nostra Signora e i figli-fratelli. Intorno a un paradigma mitico

This essay is an investigation into the imagery of male warrior communities through the lens of two unparalleled 20th-century parodies: that of Jean Genet's Notre-Dame des Fleurs and that of Marcel Proust's Le Temps retrouvé. The key to this parodic depictions is the reversal of male self-representation into nostalgia for maternal feminine that takes the form of homosexual and sadomasochistic desire.