Op-Ed Contributor – No Sex Please, We’re Middle Class – NYTimes.com.
Sometimes the lib-lady gets it, but this time it’s a total miss. Ms. Paglia tackles the flibanserin, female viagra pill issue, and concludes that middle class white values and ambition are a major factor in killing the sex drive.
Apparently she thinks that need to work for a living, is bad for a woman’s libido, and she’s finding the main work place with which she is familiar, to be stifling the desires of women.
Now hear this, Camille……. the PILL (in general) stifles sex drive, and legions of couples have been leaving it behind for just that reason. Pharmer chalks a good deal of trouble to fooling with the chemistry, as well as culturally marginalizing manhood.
In addition……. those dastardly incurable STDs have been ruining the romantic weekends and setting people off schedule. Yes……. a hot and steamy cruise is planned, and what happens??? A condylomatous bloom or herpes outbreak puts a big un-kink in the vacation!
The weekenders only appear spontaneous in the movies, for your troops, Ms. Paglia. And any actor will tell you, that’s the farthest thing from reality.
Pssssst…… Doesn’t it all make you want to move Down on the Pharm? 😉
What are you trying to say? That sexual steam is just about getting it on (a little of the in out in out)?
And STDs put a damper in those plans?
Her "article" addressed exactly that point. Black women work for a living too. So do poor women.
She didn't say women who earn a living have lost sexual adventure, she said TOTAL CAREERISTS (as in, fight for every promotion and kiss up to every boss as hard as possible for MAXIMUM profit, and never EVER do anything except worry about that, with occasional interruptions of crappy music and movies).
What exactly is it you (and all the other bloggers) don't "get" about her rather simple, easy-to-understand, no big revelations op ed piece?
Let me guess… you all DO get it, you're just a lot of bitter feminazis who are even more off the radar these days than Paglia herself.
The definition of feminazi, (coming from from he who coined the word), is a woman who never met an abortion she didn't love. It is therefore descriptive of an extremist view.
Conversely, this blogger is somewhat notorious as a pro-lifer.
Probably a rereading might reveal that this blogger mentioned three of the possible reasons for decrease in female sex drive.
The need to work is not race related, nor is the "need" always economically related. There exists the premise that Ms. Paglia as generated her observations from "the main workplace with which she is familiar" and this likely excludes people whose need to work is survival driven.
Therefore the preceding comment appears not to be well related to the blog post above it.
Oh, I see. I was expecting the blogger to be ironic, as in the irony that is so ubiquitous in today's cultural "attitude", which is more of a sarcasm than an irony, as in,
"oh sure, the NEED to WORK for a living …. that crazy lady is accusing poor inner city black women of being guilty of working when they should be at home cooking", that sort of thing. Which is what I found on liberal blogs (on many issues).
On rereading I am clearly corrected and well put in my place.
It does indeed seem that the editorial position on this blog post is, "people should realize that enjoying sex is only okay if you're ready to have a baby from it" and "modern life is a moral cesspool for all but pure fundamentalist Christians and it's all Hollywood's fault". That sort of thing.
Thanks for clearing it up for me. Although I can comprehend both sides, I'm not always a careful reader (so here, amusing to only myself, I mistook a hard right twerp for a cliquish lefty wacko).
But a feminazi is not a woman who never met an abortion she didn't like (despite it's creator's definition, it has entered into common language with more meaning than it's inventor gave it, if -as I doubt- that's the only meaning he gave it).
It's a woman who accuses any woman who questions abortion (among other things) of being anti-woman. You will find there are women who are just fine with pretty much ANY abortion but they don't throw fire upon those who have qualms and they don't feel any desire to do so. Those are not feminazis despite being strictly pro abortion.
And I wasn't all that off mark. I pointed out that sexual intercourse (because we're into clinical vocabulary here) was not what paglia was promoting but rather sexual suggestiveness. As in "romance" and "flirtation" and "seduction" and "temptation".
What are puritans to conclude when all those evils are promoted as ends in themselves that stop short off unmarried copulation?
The issue of STDs becomes a moot point.
I suppose you could insist that those things lead to the final act of copulation. You could also mention that, despite being a puritan, non copulative activities like mutual masturbation are promoted by some factions in the puritan movement. But that too is so wonderfully infantile and clinical that it seems and is inferior to actual copulation. How odd that all efforts to stamp out non procreative sex are centered on making penetrative genital intercourse the highest and most vaunted, most desired act that only a married couple have the right to enjoy. In cartoonishly tripping form, the puritans promote sex more vigorously than even Babylon.
Do they ever wonder if that can backfire in a society where they can't completely cut off the pill and condom supply? Doing hollywood's bidding for free, no?
Also I'm not a woman, despite my name. So don't be too nice.
The need to pigeonhole individuals persists despite the 180 degree swing in evaluation.
How is the significant health problem of STDs rendered moot? Not understanding that postulation at all.
At issue in Paglia's article was the cause of waning sex drive.
The drive itself depends largely upon good health to power it, and and it feeds the myriad expressions of physical intimacy.
The love of abortion is what drives the behavior to accuse all who question it of hating women, hence the original definition of Feminazi stands as the most precise.
All studies, which evaluate using the actual outcome, show strong association between abortion and suicide in women.
The religious personal drive is to mitigate and prevent human suffering, with willful killing EXcluded from the tools used for accomplishing this.
You pigeonhole yourself (as I do myself, as too many? people do themselves). You can unpigeonhole yourself in a world where perceptions by others count more than what we know of ourselves (sadly, yes).
The religious personal drive is many things to different believers in different religions. I am NOT anti religious.
What I spoke of was puritanism (NOT necessarily religious), puritanism as an anti-sensual, principle above practical approach. There is willpower to admire in puritanism just as there is a kernel of idealism to admire in it. But these are abstract things which can be found in varying degrees everywhere (example, to never miss a day of work, to always stop and smell the flower, to always be kind, or conversely, to always be nasty because if you can't be kind to all, then you shouldn't favor a few, etc etc).
But puritanism can not "handle" the pagan erotic, which isn't always about procreating. It isn't merely that puritans (both religious AND secular) reject sex in its myriad manifestations, they can't even perceive it as anything but penetration. Consequently, what you call a "myriad" of manifestations is to puritans always basically just one way or another of manifesting sexual intercourse, the act that, in the absence of birth control, usually leads to conception (barring fertility questions and coincidences of rhythm timing to avoid it). In any case it's the only way to conceive.
But a truly "myriad" manifestation of sex would include actions that are incapable of resulting in conception: flirtation by itself, fantasy by itself, dancing by itself, fighting by itself.
Any church marriage counselor worth their advice knows that the difficulties couples face are very often psychological and mundane, day to day rapport. They are not always about producing or avoiding the production of a baby by "doing it" more or less often per week.
Paglia's article was about "steam". I don't know how many old hollywood movies you've seen, but there's lots of steam, heat, electricity between men and women who don't have any chance in the plot of having some time to "do it". There's lot of spontaneous romance that does NOT result in intercourse in those old movies. Just the desire to interact that they share is something a lot more erotic than what exists between good friends or business partners.
When everything becomes efficient, even married couples start to seem like a baby factory and nursery, a business, not a relation of choice and desire.
Since she wasn't saying, "Americans need to perform more genital penetration" but rather that Americans need to practice the art of enticement and fantasy to get more erotic energy (libido is NOT the act of sex but an erotic drive, desire), whether or not they are actually having sex, that DOES make the question of STDs moot, within her argument. It does not deny that STDs are an issue of concern when the act of sex occurs. But since her argument is for DESIRE, NOT NECESSARILY ACTION, the question of transmissible disease is not pertinent.
This is what puritans can't understand, that the human mind can fantasize and enjoy sex without actually performing the physical act.
Which I find shameful and stunning among christians more so than among ignorant seculars, because there is so much talk in christian theology of transubstantiation and passion.
Any woman in a relationship can perform sex. The pharmaceutical product in question would not make her more or less ABLE to have sex but more WILLING. It's a psychiatric drug for DESIRE, NOT FOR ACTION.
And paglia's point was that this is just a form of conformist mind control and that people who want to "feel" more sexual ought to look at how they think about their life, how they express themselves, what they know. Before they pop one more pill to try and force happiness, maybe they should try and find happiness by questioning their humdrum, workaday, workaholic, puritan dullness.
Since you haven't yet pinned down the pigeonhole which the Pharmer occupies all by herself, then it's inapplicable for all practical purposes.
There are some pagan religions meaning those outside of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which are astonishingly restrictive about sex, and eschew other attachments and pleasures as well.
Some people don't have a very strong sex drive. Some people like it morning noon and night, and snacks in between. The variability, as long as it does not interfere with necessary activities and interactions of daily living, is OK.
It is pretty interesting to see a non-female person addressing, in a public way, flirting and foreplay possibly as ends in themselves.
Variety is good.
Also, I'm not trying to enter into questions of blasphemy by suggesting transubstantiation and passion in christ are about sex. Rather, familiarity with those concepts ought to make a person a better maker of metaphor and symbol and proxy and vicarious sensation in any domain, including the domain of sex.