The message here is that real human beings, even those who match the dominant template of muscular masculinity, are characterized by something less than perfect harmony. They are subtly off-center. An ideal, harmonious human cannot be found any more than an ideal, harmonious city can (or even a harmonious chameleon). Immanuel Kant was surely closer to the truth when he wrote, three centuries later: “Out of such crooked wood as the human being is made, nothing entirely straight can be fabricated.”
