Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Camille Paglia on Rape Culture

Feminist rabble rouser Amanda Marcotte has encouraged young women to take naked selfies. It’s good clean fun, don’t you know.

Marcotte wrote:

It’s the nude photo leak version of blaming a sexual assault victim for a short skirt. It isn’t just that it shifts blame away from where it belongs, on the perpetrators. It’s not just because it’s the typical misogynist tendency to assume a woman is to blame for attacks on her. It’s because this attitude is anti-creativity, anti-fun, anti-sex and, in many cases, anti-love.

According to a leading feminist, love is sending naked pictures of yourself to … whomever.

By her lights, if anyone passes the pictures around in the locker room, if you suffer humiliation, you can console yourself with the idea that you are not to blame.

As though anyone ever believed such a thing. It is fair to mention that attorneys defending rapists sometimes try to exculpate their clients by saying that the woman’s attire was provocative, but you do better not to live your life preparing to testify against someone who assaulted you.

As every mother knows and as every mother tells her daughter, it is best to ensure that it not happen at all.

Marcotte, however, advises women to be reckless, irresponsible, incautious… because if anything bad happens to you, feminism will console you by saying that it wasn’t your fault.

Marcotte exemplifies a mindless feminism in which older feminists are willing to sacrifice, if not pimp out young women for the cause.

To counter this message, feminist firebrand and notable anti-prude Camille Paglia has offered a few words of sage advice for young women.

Beginning her Time column with a reflection on Hannah Graham-- the University of Virginia student who vanished a couple of weeks ago and who was presumably abducted, raped and murdered—Paglia responds that young people have been coddled into thinking that sex is just good clean fun.

They have not learned that sex comports serious risks and dangers, especially when you go out and have a drink with a stranger you met on the street in the middle of the night.

No one is saying or thinking that Graham is responsible for what happened to her, but it is worth pointing out that she seems to have behaved recklessly. There is no consolation is knowing that she was not to blame.

Paglia has no patience with the feminists who are railing about the rape culture on college campus:

Wildly overblown claims about an epidemic of sexual assaults on American campuses are obscuring the true danger to young women, too often distracted by cellphones or iPods in public places: the ancient sex crime of abduction and murder. Despite hysterical propaganda about our “rape culture,” the majority of campus incidents being carelessly described as sexual assault are not felonious rape (involving force or drugs) but oafish hookup melodramas, arising from mixed signals and imprudence on both sides.

Feminists who denounce the campus rape culture are failing to inform young women of the dangers that exist off campus. And they are lulling young women into believing that they can go where they want, when they want, with whom they want… without fearing any consequences.

Apparently, people believe that if everyone keeps saying that women are “strong” and “empowered” then women will become strong and empowered. In fact, women who buy into the incantations become deluded about their true strength and forget that they are vulnerable.

Paglia continues:

Too many young middleclass women, raised far from the urban streets, seem to expect adult life to be an extension of their comfortable, overprotected homes. But the world remains a wilderness. The price of women’s modern freedoms is personal responsibility for vigilance and self-defense.

If it’s all a social construct, evil exists only within the hearts and minds of those who belong to the ruling class. The oppressed of the planet will behave well if only we feel sufficiently guilty for their condition and show them sufficient empathy.

It’s reminds one of the Obama administration notion that if we reach out to Muslims with an open hand of friendship, terrorism will disappear. After all, terrorism is merely a just reaction to Western oppression.

Paglia writes:

The horrors and atrocities of history have been edited out of primary and secondary education except where they can be blamed on racism, sexism, and imperialism — toxins embedded in oppressive outside structures that must be smashed and remade. But the real problem resides in human nature, which religion as well as great art sees as eternally torn by a war between the forces of darkness and light.

She adds:

Misled by the naive optimism and “You go, girl!” boosterism of their upbringing, young women do not see the animal eyes glowing at them in the dark. They assume that bared flesh and sexy clothes are just a fashion statement containing no messages that might be misread and twisted by a psychotic. They do not understand the fragility of civilization and the constant nearness of savage nature.

Young girls are told that they can do what they want, that they can become whatever they want and that nothing can hold them back. They never learn that their attire, for example, is sending messages and that these messages might be misread by sociopaths. If Paglia is correct, many young women do not even understand what it is to be a sociopath.

Clearly, a woman is not to blame if she is assaulted by a sociopath, but how much of a consolation is that, really.

Today’s young intellectuals no longer believe in God. Perhaps that is why, as Paglia suggests, they fail to grasp the reality of an evil that is not a social construct:

Liberalism lacks a profound sense of evil — but so does conservatism these days, when evil is facilely projected onto a foreign host of rising political forces united only in their rejection of Western values. Nothing is more simplistic than the now rote use by politicians and pundits of the cartoonish label “bad guys” for jihadists, as if American foreign policy is a slapdash script for a cowboy movie.

The gender ideology dominating academe denies that sex differences are rooted in biology and sees them instead as malleable fictions that can be revised at will. The assumption is that complaints and protests, enforced by sympathetic campus bureaucrats and government regulators, can and will fundamentally alter all men.

And today’s therapy culture, as I would call it, is not doing any better.

In Paglia’s words:

But today’s therapy has morphed into happy talk, attitude adjustments, and pharmaceutical shortcuts.



13 comments:

Sam L. said...

"Marcotte exemplifies a mindless feminism in which older feminists are willing to sacrifice, if not pimp out young women for the cause."

They also tell young women to have intercourse and outercouse as a matter of course, that abortion is good, motherhood is bad, and on and on and on.

Baloo said...

You're writing some pungent stuff lately. Reprinted
http://ex-army.blogspot.com/2014/09/camille-paglia-vs-orthodox-feminism.html



Webutante said...

This is only tangential to your excellent piece, however, the most recent L.L. Bean Signature catalog cover shows a young, attractive white girl clinging to a handsome black man....call me racist or whatever you wish, I am writing the CEO of the company and will not buy anything from that catalog. Ridiculous and so uncalled for.

Anonymous said...

Feminists are right in principle but wrong in practice.

It's like anyone has the right to walk around safely in any part of America without being attacked, robbed, or killed.

No one should be attacked or robbed for walking around Detroit(even at night). But anyone who knows anything about reality would be irresponsible to tell kids that it's okay to go to Detroit and walk around like it's a safe neighborhood. And if something bad happens, it'd be disingenuous to say they don't deserve any blame for their stupid lack of regard for reality.

Another thing. Do feminists know what it means for women to flaunt their sexuality?
Sexuality, especially among women, isn't about promotion of female independence. Female sexuality isn't about female power independent of male power. It is about the power of female sexuality to attract and AROUSE male lust. Its value is totally linked to its effect on male psycho-sensuality.

After all, why are women proud of their sexuality? Ok, partly because women wanna look good and attractive. But then, to whom are women trying to look attractive? Men. The whole appeal of sexuality is to arouse the opposite sex. It is a game of turn-on and a come-on.
So, if a woman goes out of her way to look sexy, her body isn't saying "I represent female power independent of male power" but saying "I have the power to drive men crazy."
The point of sexuality is to turn men on, to get them horny and stiff, to make them drool and become 'hungry like a wolf', to make them feel like Beavis going 'boing!'(Paglia the lesbian knows this because she looks at women through men's eyes.)

So, if women really want power independent of men, they need to suppress their sexuality.
But if they choose to flaunt their sexuality, they should know they're attracting and inflaming the attention/passion of men.
If a woman lived alone on an island, would she bother to look sexy? No, a woman tries to look sexy because she wants to attract and arouse the attention of men. Sexuality doesn't exist in a bubble.

Anonymous said...

Also, women need to be mindful of the fact that displays of female sexuality can cause a great deal of discomfort in men. So, women should flaunt their sexuality ONLY IN FRONT OF MEN they wanna be with. Though no man should sexually assault a woman, a woman is taking a risk if she causes sexual discomfort among strange men by arousing them.

It's like dogs and food. If you hold out a piece of meat to a hungry dog, it will drool and wanna lunge at the meat. Even if the dog has been trained not to eat without permission, something inside that dog feels an almost uncontrollable urge to strike at the meat.

Most men have been morally and socially conditioned to control themselves even in the presence of women who dress and act like 'hos'. But there will always be men with less self-control out there. And if women dress and act in ways that virtually tease them into a tizzy, there can be trouble.

It's just a reality of biology.

PS. Would it be cruel to tease a hungry dog with a piece of meat that it can't have? I think most people would agree. Dogs shouldn't be emotionally/sensually teased that way.
It's true of people too. It would be mean-spirited for someone to go among hungry people and show them a piece of cake they cannot have. It would be mischievous and cruel.

Then, one could argue it's also cruel for women to go around flaunting their sexuality before strange men who are not allowed to have a taste of it. Her sexual style is a kind of tease that says, "see how sexy I am; you want me, but you can't have me."

Thankfully, most men are big enough to control themselves and obey the law even around hussies and tarts, but there are always gonna be bolder, wilder, more aggressive, and less self-restrained males who are gonna feel like a hungry dog teased with a piece of meat.

So, women mustn't tempt strange men with what they don't intend to give them. It's okay to dress attractively but don't dress and act like a whore among strange men. It's like mentally torturing hungry dogs with a piece of meat you don't intend to give them.

Anonymous said...

When Elvis and Beatles used music to arouse female sexual passion, Elvis-mania and Beatlemania were understandable. Crazy, deranged, ridiculous, embarrassing, and animallike(with women even wetting their panties), but understandable given the nature of human sexuality and biology.

It would have been unrealistic to expect Elvis or Beatles fans to sit quietly and control themselves while the loud-and-brash music played. If Elvis and Beatles made hordes of girls wanna rush the stage and rip the clothes off Elvis or the Fab Four, why is it so difficult for feminists to understand that if women flaunt their sexuality, some men are gonna go boing and wanna rip off clothes and have their way?
Ho-mania is like Beatlemania. If you arouse the animal nature among people, there’a chance that they might go ‘crazy’ and lose self-control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flm6_YpqDqI

Fans rush the stage and try to ‘rape’ the Stones. Gee, I wonder why.

Ares Olympus said...

Since hearing about the nudie photo thefts, I wondered about the etiquette of public nudity.

I mean like nude beaches have existed in Europe for decades, but I'd expect many nude people would prefer to not have their pictures taken, and so perhaps such beaches might have signs like "Absolutely no cameras" and that might help participants feel less permanently exposed? But even if so, this must get harder as cameras get smaller and high power telephoto lenses get cheaper.

On a different side, I've known of women over the years who attended New Orleans' Mardi Gras, and come back with dozens of beaded necklaces, apparently received in exchange for flashing their breasts. I've wondered again what etiquette there is over cameras. You'd think women would look down on cameras, and refuse to cooperate if there were cameras around, and you'd think the men themselves would police their "pervert" friends to keep the cameras out, to keep the "fun" going?

Maybe anonymity is what keeps such traditions alive as well, and so even if photos are taken and shared, you don't know who the women are anyway?

And that suggests something of the difference between personal humiliation of exposure and impersonal exhibitism?

Onto the risks of abduction, rape and murder, I certainly can understand sensible advice to women to not dress "provocatively", not travel alone, and all that, and I can understand some resentment at the implications, that a women merely existing in a public setting has a responsibility to not be attractive to someone she doesn't want to attract.

And I can see the end result of that serious paternalism is the Muslim cultures, where women are expected to not show any skin above the ankles, or any body hair, and they have to be escorted by a brother or husband anywhere they want to go.

AND in such a culture, you can even imagine a woman who disobeys these directives, she herself is responsible if she is assaulted or raped, and in fact in the most fundamentalistic cultures, she can be divorced or stoned to death for getting herself sexually assaulted.

So I have NO IDEA where the middle ground lies. In regards to attack by strangers, I'd think things like pepper spray and whistles are good defensive measures, along with some self-defense training. In regards to desired sexual relationships, like hookup culture, I think women should think things through BEFORE things happen, and know how to say "no" or "stop" and mean it.

Alcohol seems to be the biggest problem. If people who drink plan ahead to have "designated drivers", then perhaps woman could also use "designated mothers" at parties or clubs who don't drink, and can intervene, if they see a woman not in control, and being encouraged to drink more, or getting escorted out of public view when she looks wasted.

Perhaps some men would play white-knight for these vulnerable women, but I don't think that story ever works out well. Women must either find ways to police and protect themselves or men will do it for them, and women probably will like those results less.

n.n said...

While many, perhaps most, men and women will self-moderate their behavior, there is no reasonable expectation that all men and women will be moral. Proscriptive laws and tenets can only bind law-abiding and moral members of a society.

Life is an exercise in risk management.

That said, the prerequisite for liberty is men and women capable of self-moderating, responsible behavior.

Finally, pro-choice women and men have only themselves to blame for the general devaluation of human life. Human life evolves from conception to a natural, accidental, or premeditated (e.g. abortion) death. The latter is only tolerated in civilized societies in cases of self-defense. However, our society has deemed it proper to normalize elective abortion, grant women an extra-legal and moral right to commit or contract for murder, and the consequences of the fraudulent rationalization is clear and progressive.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

Normal, rational, commonsensical, clear thinking is news these days.

What is interesting is the statistical evidence of the huge benefits of living a traditional, moral life. Such numbers are rarely shared.

Instead, enormous time, effort and energy are being expended to end the moral outrage that homosexuals cannot "marry." Elective abortion has become a trivial "women's healthcare" transaction. STDs are rampant across wide swaths of our society, so we have a constant drumbeat about free condoms (as if access to condoms is a challenge).

Our media culture marginalizes traditional lifestyles, to the titillating delight of adult children everywhere. "If you're not living on the edge of cultural evolution, you just don't get it." Self-control is for suckers. So then we create a rape culture, and no one is responsible for themselves or anything else.

This is more of the bohemian bourgeoisie lifestyle. "As long as you don't get in the way of me getting my triple-shot soy latte with no whip in the morning, we're cool..."

Dennis said...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikki-gloudeman/vanessa-williams-sheds-li_b_5597721.html

http://world.time.com/2013/12/03/congos-forgotten-curse-epidemic-of-female-on-female-rape/

Much as most of this nation needs to open their eyes and see the extent to which women are the perpetrators of rape, et al so does Camille Paglia.

The sad part of this is that one could keeps presenting the evidence, but deep down we just cannot accept that women are, in many ways, just as bad as men are. I am not sure why when one sees the ease with which abortion is accepted at almost any time during and after a pregnancy or live birth.

Anonymous said...

Camille is our Cassandra. Has been for decades. We've had others, like Huntington, the Early neo-cons (not the new ones) Fitzpatrick, Kristol, Podhoretz Sr. who had more influence.

But nobody nowhere has willingly blighted their careers to speak the truth as she sees it. Without fear or favor.

In the 80s, I learned that most people are sheep. We had a potentially dangerous man in our building of 100+ people. They all feared him. I wrote a memo to warn the top boss. Nobody would sign it.

Somebody told the man what I did. People said, "Glad he'll kill you first, so I can run".

I took some heat from the boss, but the problem was solved. Sheep. -- Rich Lara

Dennis said...

Rich,

Isn't that the truth. This can be especially true in the officer corp. I had a Black NCO call me a racist. He was newly promoted to E-6 and I expected him to take on more responsibility. I pushed hard to have him punished because if it looked like I could be pushed around by pejoratives then discipline would become non existent.
I had the same thing happen with a woman who tried to use the fact that I was a male to get out of clean up details. My comment here was I would find a female NCO and we could come in on Saturday to finish her part of the clean up.
I won in both cases, but they eventually came after me later and that failed. That is when I realized that it was time for me to retire. When I retired I received the Meritorious Service Award for my actions as an NCO. Go figure.
Became a whistle blower in federal service as well so I am quite appreciative of people who are unafraid to tell the truth such as Paglia. I suspect you are in the same frame of mind.
The sadness here is that the military has become very PC to the detriment of accomplishing the mission. Far too many political officers and not enough officers who believe in the profession of arms. I guess that is why I find Ralph Peters, et al so refreshing. Just because I did not like playing politics does not mean I don't know how.

Anonymous said...

Dennis: US military innovators & geniuses don't make rank. John Boyd. Capt. Rochfort, who led the code breaking team that led to Midway. LTCOL Peters. The AF team that created the A-10 Warthog. Others.

Rumsfeld vetted & emasculated every officer up for Flag rank for years.

It's an astounding fact that virtually All Nazi military ground combat weapons, including tanks, were far superior to US counterparts. Max Hastings makes that clear w/o comment.

And so it goes. -- Rich Lara