From: rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney)
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Keywords: Paglia (again!), rape
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 02:04:01 GMT

In article <1993Jan11.004401.12229@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>In article <1993Jan10.012031.15616@cheshire.oxy.edu> rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney) writes:
>
>>	How can knuckling under to a purported biological determinism
>>ever be empowering to anyone?
>
>Please cite the text in which Paglia suggests "knuckling under" to any
>"purported biological determinism." She certainly does not suggest any
>such thing in SEX, ART, AND AMERICAN CULTURE.
>

	Okay.  How about the following heap of assertions from SA&AC:

	"there are some things we cannot change.  There are sexual differences
that are based in biology.  Academic feminism is lost in a fog of social
constructionism.  It believes we are totally the product of our environment.
This idea was invented by Rousseau.  He was wrong.  Emboldened by dumb  
French language theory, academic feminists repeat the same hollow slogans
over and over to each other.  Their view of sex is naive and prudish.
Leaving sex to the feminists is like letting your dog vacation at the
taxidermist's.
	"The sexes are at war.  Men must struggle for identity against
the overwhelming power of their mothers.  Women have menstruation to tell
them they are women.  Men must do or risk something to be men.  Men
become masculine only when other men say they are.  Having sex with a
woman is one way a boy becomes a man."

	[...]

	"Aggression and eroticism are deeply intertwined.  Hunt, pursuit,
and capture are biologically programmed into male sexuality.  Generation
after generation, men must be educated, refined, and ethically persuaded
away from their tendency towards anarchy and brutishness. [...]  Feminism,
with its solemn Carry Nation repressiveness, does not see what is for men
the eroticism or fun element in rape, especially the wild, infectious
delirium of gang rape."

	[..]

	"There never was and never will be sexual harmony.  Every woman
must take personal responsibility for her sexuality, which is nature's red
flame."

	[...]

	"The Italian philosophy of life espouses high-energy confrontation."

	[...]

	"As a fan of football and rock music, I see in the simple, swaggering
masculinity of the jock and in the noisy posturing of the heavy-metal
guitarist certain fundamental, unchanging truths about sex.  Masculinity
is aggressive, unstable, combustible.  It is also the most creative
cultural force in history.  Women must reorient themselves toward the
elemental powers of sex, which can strengthen or destroy.
	"The only solution to date rape is female self-awareness and self-
control."

	I think these selections, even considering their possible
casualness, indicate a pretty strong belief in biological determinism,
particularly in male sexuality.

	Admittedly, "knuckling under" is not a term Paglia would be happy
with.  But it's the "common sense" reading of her position.  


>>Holding that men "just can't help themselves"
>>(which is precisely what Paglia's position amounts to) rather gives the
>>lie to Heather's putative liberalism (cf. the exchange with Steve Dyer).
>
>Paglia clearly doesn't think men "just can't help themselves"; if she
>did, there would be no point to anti-rape laws, yet Paglia
>enthusiastically supports punishing those who rape.
>

	Men, for Paglia, can't help but intertwine aggression and sex --
or perhaps even can't help but feel the "fun element in rape".  Men can,
however, be carefully housebroken away from their innate disposition for
"anarchy and brutishness" (i.e., jumping after a deliriously fun gang rape),
presumably by the fierce Italian justice (i.e., lynching) she espouses
elsewhere. 
 
	Everything I've read by Paglia, especially since her rise to 
fame, paints a picture of a crude purveyor of stereotypes, an academically
sloppy thinker, and an exceptional self-promoter.  That her views have
garnered the attention they have indicates not only the continuing backlash
against a carciatured "academic feminism," but also an intellectual
torpor which usually only comes after decades of inbreeding.  

Cordially,

Michael S. Rooney

"Sure, I'll buy Paglia's line that men are sexually violent toward women
 because they fear being dominated by women.  I fear being dominated by
 men.  So if a man is patronizing me, can I shoot him?  ("He led me on,
 officer.  What else could a red-blooded woman do?")"
                                                      -- Helen Cordes