From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Camille Paglia on "Men"  
Date: Thu, 09 Apr 92 05:08:22 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Keywords:     Any Comments??


             CAMILLE PAGLIA  on "Men"
             (Esquire, October, 1991, p. 138)

             (She is the author of "Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence
             from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson.)"


             Thinking  about  sex  as the century closes,  we  must  give
        the  question of homosexuality centrality.  Modern  homosexuality
        is,  in  my  view, a product of  the  intolerable  pressures  and
        repressions of the affluent ambitious nuclear family, marooned by
        the  breakdown  of the vast multigenerational,  extended  family,
        still powerful only among the working class.
             The fate of masculinity is intimately tied to homosexuality.
        Worldwide,  in  Greece and Rome as in the Near East,  China,  and
        Japan,  pretty boys have usually been considered by men to be  as
        sexually desirable as women. This seems to me perfectly  natural.
        Judeo-Christianity is unusual in finding the practice of boy-love
        abhorrent.
             Exclusive  sex or love affairs between adult men is  another
        matter. This phenomenon is so rare, when we consider history as a
        whole, that it requires explanation. I see two principal kinds of
        male  homosexuality.  The  first and most ancient  is  rooted  in
        identification  with  the  mother, perceived as  a  goddess.  The
        castrated,  transvestite priests of Cybele, honored in  discolike
        rites   of  orgiastic  dance,  survive  in   today's   glamorous,
        flamboyant drag queens.
             The  second kind of homosexuality represents a turning  away
        from  the mother and a heroic rebellion against her  omnipotence.
        Such  homosexuality  disdains femaleness  and  esteems  perfected
        masculinity,  which  it  symbolizes  in  the  hunk,  the   tautly
        muscular, arrogantly architectural male form first fully imagined
        by the Greeks. Greek athletics were a religious spectacle of  the
        beauty of masculinity, formalized in the _kouros_ sculptures that
        began the Western high-art tradition.
             There  is  nothing  deviant or effeminate in  this  kind  of
        homosexuality.  On  the contrary, I view the modern gay  male  as
        occupying   the  ultimate  point  on  a  track  of   intensifying
        masculinity shooting away from the mother, who begins every  life
        story. Gay men and straight men have much more in common than  do
        gay men with lesbians or straight men with straight women.  Every
        man must define his identity against his mother. If he does  not,
        he  just  falls back into her and is swallowed up.  This  is  the
        agonizing myth-pattern in the comic, matricidal _Psycho_, one  of
        the hauntingly emblematic films of our time.
              Contemporary feminists, who are generally poor or  narrowly
        trained  scholars, insist on viewing history as a weepy  scenario
        of  male  oppression  and female victimization. But  it  is  more
        accurate  to  see men, driven by sexual anxiety away  from  their
        mothers,  forming group alliances by male bonding to  create  the
        complex structures of society, art, science, and technology.
             Every  gay man pursuing another man is  recapitulating  that
        civilization-forging movement away from the mother. Lesbians,  in
        contrast,  refuse  to  leave the mother. Gay  men  may  seek  sex
        without  emotion; lesbians often end up in emotion  without  sex.
        Male  homosexuality, pushing outward into risky alien  territory,
        is   progressive   and,  overall,   intellectually   stimulating.
        Lesbianism,  seeking  a  lost state of blissful  union  with  the
        mother,  is  cozy, regressive, and, I'm sorry to say,  too  often
        intellectually enervating, tending toward the inert.
             Male  lust,  I  have written elsewhere,  is  the  energizing
        factor  in culture. Men are the reality principle.  They  created
        the  world we live in and the luxuries we enjoy. When  women  cut
        themselves  off      from men, they sink into  psychological  and
        spiritual  stagnancy.
             When  I  was  young, I thought teenage boys  were  the  most
        awkward,  miserable, antsy, bratty, scuzzy, snickering  creatures
        on      God's green earth. Now at midlife and, as it were,  _hors
        de  combat_, I see them quite differently. Watching them  rampage
        on  the  street      or  at  the  shopping  mall,  I  find   them
        extraordinarily  moving,  for     they  represent  the  masculine
        principle  struggling  to  free itself      from  woman's  cosmic
        dominance. Teenage boys, goaded by their     surging hormones (at
        maximum strength at this time), run in     packs like the  primal
        horde.  They  have only a brief season  of  exhilarating  liberty
        between control by their mothers and control by     their  wives.
        The agon of male identity springs from men's humiliating sense of
        dependence upon women. It is women who control the emotional  and
        sexual realms, and men know it.
             One of the problems that has most vexed me in my  meditation
        on  sex  is the promiscuity of gay men. Again and  again,  I  was
        astonished  to learn from gay friends of hot spots  in  notorious
        toilets at the diner, the bus terminal, or, Minerva help us,  the
        Yale     library. What gives? Women, straight or gay, do not make
        a      lifestyle  of offering themselves without cost  to  random
        strangers     in sleazy public settings.
-- 
  
        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
  
 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!

     "In the 1970's the world will undergo famines - hundreds of millions
     of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs 
     embarked upon now ... in 1985, when it is calculated [under the most
     optimistic scenario] that the major die-back will be over, ..."
       
                       Dr. Paul Ehrlich, "The Population Bomb," 1968

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