Camille Paglia - No Sex Please, We're Middle Class

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/opinion/27Paglia.html?src=me&ref=general

Amusing article. Smacks a bit of old fuddy-duddy bemusing the infamous "lack of eroticism" of modern media, and nostalgia the so-much-better bygone days when things were more prohibited.

"There’s no mystery left. "

Heard that before?



"...without an ounce of genuine eroticism. "

This quip about L. Gaga is not an insult at all. Her art transgresses the erotic norm, and you'd think Paglia would see that with in-your-face s&m dirty video imagery. I concur, that is not genuine eroticism, it's late century expressionism, like M. Manson and Nine Inch Nails.
It is so not what she's about.


Paglia even sounds chauvinistic, when as a spectator she wants women to be more erotic. I do agree that modern life de-sexualizes people for business purposes -- modern family can survive only in function of business (that's why they'll HAVE to let gays marry. It's practical business sense, although I don't believe marriage the way it's still set up like the middle ages makes any business sense either: obsolescent.) But if making a living in the real world means having to curtail a bit of your eroticism on the job site (!) then maybe you can lead a fulfilling career in some other field and then do or pay for your sexuality somewhere else intimately fulfilling, like guys do, and that might just be okay. Because you can.

In this following quote she's pretty much defining successful and ambitious women as reproductive ones. I have serious issues with that statement. There will be more and more women foregoing reproduction, you watch. Truth is, it's just not an essential/defining part of womanhood anymore. Sorry, just the way it is.

"Men must neuter themselves, while ambitious women postpone procreation".

But as women try to gain more life power -- as in jobs, cultural careers and options for life choices -- they can define their own kind of sexuality and eroticism. Hate pseudo-quoting Kissinger, but power is one of the best aphrodisiacs in my book, too.