Free Women, Free Men

by Camille Paglia

  A rack of varied clothing was provided for a photo shoot with Steve Poole for the Daily Mail in London in January 1994. Paglia zeroed right in on a plush purple-velvet Moschino jacket adorned with gold buttons and cut in a piratical eighteenth-century style. It took a ship’s crew to get her in and out of those black thigh-high cavalier boots. (© Steven Poole)

  Another photograph from the shoot with Steve Poole for the Daily Mail in London in January 1994. The clever crew turned a black shawl into a seaweed-streaming rock.

  (© Steven Poole)

  Drawings by John Callahan, published in 1993 in Willamette Week, an alternative newspaper in Portland, Oregon. Gift of the artist.

  (© by John Callahan. Reprinted by permission.)

  “America’s Most Influential Women: 200 Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers,” Vanity Fair, November 1998. Vanity Fair invited Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Paglia to pose together for Annie Leibovitz. Friedan and Paglia agreed, but Steinem refused, so the magazine asked the great Robert Risko to do a group caricature. Headline: “REVOLUTIONARY.” Caption: “Friedan, Steinem, and Paglia are an influential triumvirate—just don’t put them in the same room.”

  (Robert Risko)

  “Attack of the 50-Foot Lesbian: Camille Paglia reigns as America’s most controversial, intellectual, and intimidating gay woman,” cover story, The Advocate, October 18, 1994.

  (© 1994 Here Publishing. All rights reserved.)

  “Paglia 101: Confessions of a Campus Radical,” cover story, Girlfriends, September 2000. Tagline: “Nobody is going to tell me I’m homophobic, okay? I will kick their ass!” Previously published in Girlfriends magazine. Reproduced with the permission of Diane Anderson-Minshall and Heather Findlay.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As always, my deepest thanks go to LuAnn Walther, who has been my editor since 1990, when she acquired the paperback rights for my first book, Sexual Personae, for Vintage Books. It was her bold idea to separate the most representative of my articles and lectures on sex, gender, and feminism from the mass of my other writings on culture and society. (Material since my last essay collection in 1994 will appear in a future volume.) I am profoundly grateful for her decades of unflagging support, understanding, and advice.

  Catherine Tung smoothly coordinated all in-house aspects of the intense preparation of this book. Her admirable precision and tireless help, particularly during the thorny permissions phase, were absolutely indispensable to the timely completion of this project. Altie Karper, Cat Courtade, and Maria Massey oversaw the production process with superb attention to detail. It is a distinct privilege to be a beneficiary of Michael Lionstar’s wonderful author photos. For many years now, I have been most fortunate to enjoy the master strategies and witty conversation of two ace publicists at Knopf Doubleday, Josefine Taylor Kals at Pantheon and David Archer at Vintage.

  My heartfelt gratitude goes to the visionary editors who commissioned many of the controversial pieces in this book, when it was often risky for them to do so. Leading the list are Herbert Golder and Nicholas Poburko at Arion; David Shipley, then at The New York Times; Max Boot, then at The Wall Street Journal; Alexander Kafka at The Chronicle of Higher Education; Ryan Sager, then at Time; and David Daley, then at Salon.com.

  My agent, Lynn Nesbit, has been a near-oracular source of advice and guidance for a quarter century now. Dorothy Vincent at Janklow & Nesbit Associates remains a paragon of wise counsel. Finally, fervent thanks are due to my friends, allies, and family members (in alphabetical order) who have been so loyal and supportive over the decades: Gunter Axt, Glenn Belverio, Robert Caserio, Lisa Chedekel, Kent Christensen, John DeWitt, Matt Drudge, Kristoffer Jacobson, Ann Jamison, Mitchell Kunkes, Kristen Lippincott, Alison Maddex, Lucien Maddex, Lenora Paglia, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Francesca Stanfill.

  INDEX

  Page references in italics refer to illustrations.

  abortion, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9

  Abzug, Bella, ref1, ref2

  administrators, campus, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12

  Aeschylus, ref1

  Age-21 law, ref1, ref2

  Aguilera, Christina, ref1

  AIDS, ref1, ref2, ref3

  Akhenaten, ref1, ref2, ref3

  Albany, State University of New York at, ref1, ref2

  Allen, Tim, ref1

  Andress, Ursula, ref1

  anorexia, ref1, ref2

  Anthony, Susan B., ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

  Antin, Eleanor, ref1

  Aristophanes, ref1

  Aristotle, ref1

  Asher, Jane, ref1

  athletics. See sports

  Augustine, Saint, ref1

  Austen, Jane, ref1, ref2

  Avedon, Richard, ref1

  Bach, Johann Sebastian, ref1

  Bachelet, Pierre, ref1

  Bailey, David, ref1, ref2

  Bankhead, Tallulah, ref1, ref2

  Bara, Theda, ref1

  Barrymore, Drew, ref1

  Baudelaire, Charles, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

  BDSM. See sadomasochism

  Beardsley, Aubrey, ref1

  Beatles, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

  Beauvoir, Simone de, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8

  Bechdel, Alison, ref1

  Beijing. See United Nations Conference on Women

  Bellini, Giovanni, ref1

  Benatar, Pat, ref1, ref2

  Bennington College, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

  Berkeley, University of California at, ref1, ref2, ref3

  Beuys, Joseph, ref1

  Beverly Hillbillies, The, ref1

  Beyoncé, ref1, ref2

  bibelots, porcelain, ref1

  Binghamton, State University of New York at. See Harpur College

  Black, Cilla, ref1

  Blahnik, Manolo, ref1

  Blake, William, ref1, ref2, ref3

  Bloom, Harold, ref1, ref2

  Bogarde, Dirk, ref1

  Botticelli, Sandro, ref1, ref2

  Bourdieu, Pierre, ref1

  Bourke-White, Margaret, ref1, ref2

  Bow, Clara, ref1

  Bowie, David, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

  Boxer, Barbara, ref1

  Boyd, Pattie, ref1

  Brahms, Johannes, ref1

  Brecht, Bertolt, ref1

  Bronte, Charlotte, ref1

  Bronte, Emily, ref1

  Brooks, Mel, ref1

  Brown, Helen Gurley, ref1

  Brown, Norman O., ref1

  Brown, Rita Mae, ref1, ref2

  Brown University, ref1, ref2, ref3

  Bruce, Lenny, ref1

  Buck, Pearl S., ref1

  Buñuel, Luis, ref1

  Burchill, Julie, ref1

  bureaucracy. See administrators, campus

  Butler, Judith, ref1, ref2, ref3

  Campbell, Joseph, ref1

  Candomblé, ref1

  capitalism, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11

  Capp, Al, ref1

  Carlisle, Belinda, ref1

  Carlson, Katherine, ref1

  Carter, Dixie, ref1

  Cavani, Liliana, ref1, ref2

  Chanel, Coco, ref1

  Charlie’s Angels, ref1

  Cher, ref1

  Chisolm, Shirley, ref1

  Choo, Jimmy, ref1

  Chopin, Frédéric, ref1

  Christie, Julie, ref1

  Cixous, Hélène, ref1, ref2, ref3. See also poststructuralism

  Clark, Kenneth, ref1, ref2

  Clinton, Bill, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6

  Clinton, Hillary, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7

  Cohen, Andy, ref1

  Colbert, Claudette, ref1

  Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, ref1, ref2

  Collins, Gail, ref1

  Columbia University, ref1, ref2

  Coughlin, Deborah, ref1, ref2

  Coulter, Ann, ref1

&nb
sp; Crane, Hart, ref1

  Croft, Lara, ref1

  Crowley, Monica, ref1

  Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, ref1

  Darwin, Charles, ref1

  date rape. See rape

  Davis, Bette, ref1

  Day, Doris, ref1, ref2, ref3

  DeBarge, Flotilla, ref1

  Debussy, Claude, ref1

  Delius, Frederick, ref1

  De Man, Paul, ref1. See also poststructuralism

  DeMille, Cecil B., ref1

  Deneuve, Catherine, ref1

  Diana, Princess of Wales, ref1

  Dickinson, Emily, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

  Didrikson, Babe, ref1

  Dietrich, Marlene, ref1, ref2

  Disney, Walt, ref1

  Dixon, Willie, ref1

  Dole, Elizabeth, ref1, ref2

  Dowd, Maureen, ref1, ref2

  Dworkin, Andrea, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7

  Dylan, Bob, ref1

  Earhart, Amelia, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7

  Eliot, George, ref1

  Eliot, T. S., ref1

  Emerson, Ralph Waldo, ref1

  Euripides, ref1, ref2

  Faithfull, Marianne, ref1

  Faludi, Susan, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6

  Fassbinder, Rainer Werner, ref1

  Faulkner, William, ref1

  Feinstein, Dianne, ref1, ref2, ref3

  Ferber, Edna, ref1

  Ferenczi, Sándor, ref1, ref2, ref3

  Ferraro, Geraldine, ref1, ref2

  Fiedler, Leslie, ref1

  Fifth Dimension, ref1

  Fiorina, Carly, ref1

  Flax, Jane, ref1

  Fontenrose, Joseph, ref1

  football, ref1, ref2, ref3

  Foucault, Michel, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15

  Franco, James, ref1

  Frazer, James George, ref1

  Free Speech Movement, ref1, ref2, ref3

  French, Marilyn, ref1

  Freud, Sigmund, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12

  Friedan, Betty, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10

  Fulani, Lenora, ref1

  furniture, zebra Naugahyde, ref1

  Fuss, Diana, ref1

  Gaga, Lady, ref1

  Gallop, Jane, ref1

  Gardner, Ava, ref1

  Gaultier, Jean Paul, ref1

  Gilbert, Sandra, ref1, ref2

  Gilligan, Carol, ref1, ref2

  Gimbutas, Marija, ref1

  Ginsberg, Allen, ref1

  gizzards, turkey, ref1

  Goffman, Erving, ref1

  Grable, Betty, ref1

  Graham, Ellen, ref1

  Graves, Robert, ref1

  Gray, John, ref1

  Green, John D., ref1

  Greer, Germaine, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7

  Gubar, Susan, ref1, ref2

  Haley, Bill, ref1

  hams, scorched, ref1

  Harlem Renaissance, ref1

  Harlow, Jean, ref1, ref2

  Harpur College, ref1

  Harrington, Anna Short, ref1

  Harrison, Jane, ref1, ref2, ref3

  Harry, Deborah, ref1

  Hartman, Geoffrey, ref1

  Harvard University, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7

  Harvey, Laurence, ref1

  Hauser, Arnold, ref1

  Hawthorne, Nathaniel, ref1, ref2

  Hedren, Tippi, ref1

  Hefner, Hugh, ref1

  Heilbrun, Carolyn, ref1, ref2

  Hellman, Lillian, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

  Hemingway, Ernest, ref1

  Hepburn, Katharine, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6

  Heracleitus, ref1

  Herrmann, Bernard, ref1

  Hill, Anita, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9

  Hitchcock, Alfred, ref1, ref2

  Hobbes, Thomas, ref1

  Hollander, Xaviera, ref1

  Homer, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

  Hopkins, Miriam, ref1

  Horney, Karen, ref1

  Huysmans, Joris-Karl, ref1

  Hynde, Chrissie, ref1

  Independent Women’s Forum, ref1

  Ingraham, Laura, ref1

  Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique, ref1

  Irigaray, Luce, ref1, ref2

  Isherwood, Christopher, ref1

  Jack the Ripper, ref1

  James, E. L., ref1

  Johns Hopkins University, ref1

  Johnston, Jill, ref1

  Jolson, Al, ref1

  Jones, Grace, ref1

  Jones, Paula, ref1, ref2

  Jordan, Reenie, ref1

  Joyce, James, ref1

  Jung, Carl, ref1

  Kafka, Franz, ref1

  Kennedy, John F., ref1

  Kidman, Nicole, ref1

  Kimball, Roger, ref1

  King, Billie Jean, ref1

  Knight, G. Wilson, ref1

  Koop, C. Everett, ref1

  Krafft-Ebing, Richard von, ref1

  Lacan, Jacques, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9. See also poststructuralism

  Lawrence, D. H., ref1

  Lenya, Lotte, ref1

  Lewinsky, Monica, ref1, ref2, ref3

  Limbaugh, Rush, ref1

  Lindbergh, Anne Morrow, ref1

  Lindemann, Danielle J., ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5

  Locke, John, ref1

  Lopez, Jennifer, ref1

  Louboutin, Christian, ref1

  Lucci, Susan, ref1

  Luce, Clare Boothe, ref1, ref2

  Lulu, ref1

  McCarthy, Mary, ref1, ref2, ref3

  McDaniel, Hattie, ref1

  McElwee, Ross, ref1

  MacKinnon, Catharine, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8

  Madonna, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10

  Malanga, Gerald, ref1

  Malkin, Michelle, ref1

  Manet, Èdouard, ref1

  Manning, Kenneth, ref1

  Mansfield, Jayne, ref1

  Mapplethorpe, Robert, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6

  Marxism, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ref1, ref2

  Matisse, Henri, ref1

  Merkel, Angela, ref1

  Mew, Charlotte, ref1

  Michelangelo, ref1, ref2, ref3

  Miles, Sarah, ref1

  Millay, Edna St. Vincent, ref1

  Miller, Henry, ref1

  Millett, Kate, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7

  Mills, Donna, ref1

  Mills, Hayley, ref1

  Mimieux, Yvette, ref1, ref2

  Mississippi, University of, ref1, ref2, ref3

  Mitchell, Margaret, ref1, ref2, ref3

  Monroe, Marilyn, ref1, ref2

  Moore, Henry, ref1

  Moorehead, Agnes, ref1

  Moran, Caitlin, ref1

  Morrison, Jim, ref1, ref2

  Mötley Crüe, ref1

  Mott, Lucretia, ref1

  Ms. (magazine), ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

  Nation, Carry, ref1, ref2, ref3

  National Organization for Women, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8

  Navratilova, Martina, ref1

  Nefertiti, ref1, ref2, ref3

  New Haven Women’s Liberation Rock Band, ref1, ref2

  Newmahr, Staci, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6

  Newton, Helmut, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

  Nietzsche, Friedrich, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

  Obama, Barack, ref1

  Olmsted, Frederick, Law, ref1

  Olson, Barbara, ref1

  Palin, Sarah, ref1

  Paltrow, Gwyneth, ref1

  Pankhurst, Emmeline, ref1

  Parker, Dorothy, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5

  Pater, Walter, ref1, ref
2

  Pelosi, Nancy, ref1

  Pennsylvania, University of, ref1

  Perón, Evita, ref1

  philistines, drab, ref1

  Picasso, Pablo, ref1, ref2

  Plath, Sylvia, ref1, ref2

  Poe, Edgar Allan, ref1

  Pope, Alexander, ref1, ref2

  pornography, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14

  poststructuralism, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20, ref21, ref22, ref23, ref24, ref25, ref26, ref27, ref28, ref29, ref30, ref31, ref32, ref33, ref34. See also Cixous, Hélène; Foucault, Michel; Lacan, Jacques

  potato, hot, ref1

  President, woman, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4

  Presley, Elvis, ref1

  Prince, ref1

  Princeton University, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6

  prostitution, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6

  psychosis, academic, ref1

  Puccini, Giacomo, ref1

  Quant, Mary, ref1

  Rabelais, Francois, ref1

  Racine, Jean, ref1

  Rainey, Ma, ref1

  Rampling, Charlotte, ref1, ref2

  rape, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20, ref21, ref22, ref23, ref24. See also sexual harassment

  Réage, Pauline, ref1

  Real Housewives, The, ref1, ref2

  red, seeing, ref1. See also throw, stone’s

  Redgrave, Vanessa, ref1

  Reynolds, Debbie, ref1, ref2

  Richards, Keith, ref1, ref2

  Richter, Gisela, ref1, ref2

  Rigg, Diana, ref1, ref2

  Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai, ref1

  Rivers, Joan, ref1

  Roiphe, Katie, ref1

  Rolling Stones, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9

  Roosevelt, Eleanor, ref1

  Rosin, Hanna, ref1, ref2

  Rossetti, Christina, ref1

  Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8

  Rózsa, Miklós, ref1

  Rubens, Peter Paul, ref1, ref2, ref3

  Sacher-Masoch, Leopold von, ref1, ref2

  Sade, Donatien Alphonse Francois, comte de, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10. See also sadomasochism

  sadomasochism, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6. See also Sacher-Masoch, Leopold von; Sade, comte de

  St. Pauli Girl (beer), ref1

  Salvador da Bahia (Brazil), ref1

  Sanger, Margaret, ref1, ref2

  Sappho, ref1

  Sassoon, Vidal, ref1

  Satie, Erik, ref1

  Saussure, Ferdinand de, ref1, ref2. See also poststructuralism