Stonewalled II

Early feminists had railed against pornography and the objectification of women, but feminism was evolving and succeeding generations began to reevaluate the role of the women in the context of  Enlightenment notions of freedom and liberty. It would be hard to consider the famous Italian porn star and politician la Cicciolina, who was the wife of the sculptor Jeff Koons, to be an example of a woman who was exploited by men even though she might, in fact, be the object of their fantasies. Entrepreneurial personalities like la Cicciolina and Madonna marketed their own bodies without the need of exploitative male pimps and were in control of their own destinies. By the 1980's Vagina envy replaced penis envy as the manifestation of covetousness between the sexes. As Camille Paglia would point out in Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nerfertiti to Emily Dickinson women had superior powers, both physically (genitally) and metaphysically, of which men were in awe. Men’s need to compensate with increasingly violent pornography centering around the notion of submission, in particular gagging (deep throating) and defiling (facials), were signs of male jealousy rather than male desire (and ultimately exemplified the higher regard in which females were held by their male counterparts). Within the short period of time from 1969, in which the Stonewall riots occurred and gays had begun to assert their rights, heterosexual men and women had begun a journey of their own, characterized by a new dialectic in which self-realization and self-expression challenged both classical feminist and male chauvinist ideals.

Yes, I Can!

Rick Perlstein, in an op-ed in The Times following Betty Ford’s death (“Betty Ford, Pioneer,” NYT, 7/11/11), describes how the former first lady “volunteered in McCall’s that she had sex with her husband ‘as often as possible.’” Perlstein also notes that Ford had been a dancer with Martha Graham, so that may explain it. Dancers are always more comfortable with their bodies, unless of course they are mentally fucked up like the dancer in Black Swan, who also has mommy issues. But Ford, who did a lot to help a lot of people feel comfortable with a lot of things, particularly by talking about her own alcoholism, should go to heaven just for her pronouncement about her sex life. If she doesn’t go to heaven, then someone should open a First Ladies’ Hall of Fame, right next to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. The passage of legislation in New York legalizing gay marriage is a milestone, but marriage gay and straight needs all the help it can get. The cornucopia of choices open to couples through the information overload of modern life, with its viral Bovaryism, i.e., life-hating masking as desire, has got marriage by the balls. Every generation spawns pragmatic evangelists who preach the tenets of survival. Betty Wright, who sang “Clean Up Woman,” Arnold Stang, who apotheosized the Chunky Bar, and Camille Paglia, who wrote a book called Sexual Personae, which pointed out why men should have vagina envy, are examples of historical personalities who changed people’s lives. Yes, we all understand that no is a complete sentence. No one wants to encourage people to take advantage of their partners, but Betty Ford spoke for those men and women who kept marriage alive by saying “yes.” All this brings to mind the bestselling 18th century self-help tome, Yes, I Can, by Immanuel Kant.