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R E C E N T L Y
The glories of male football and the limpness of female pornography The disintegrating public schools
Tragicomic Clinton deserves censure, not impeachment Men: Fair game for banal feminist office humor Out with self-esteem tutorials, in with standardized tests!
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A S K_C A M I L L E +|+ C A M I L L E+P A G L I A
Dear Camille:
The gender differences in the reaction to President Clinton have got me thinking
about whether there may be gender differences in attitudes toward lying. I
remember Sissela Bok writing that lying is a form of violence because society
cannot exist if it tolerates either one.
I have a bunch of speculative thoughts on this, but I will spare you them
except to say that it really does seem to me that it doesn't bother women as
much as it does men, or at least me, whom it bugs immensely. I would
appreciate your free associating about the subject in that clear-minded way
you have.
Doug Matthews
Dear Mr. Matthews:
While gender differences do seem marked in response to the White House sex
scandal, I must say I haven't noticed they focus on lying. Can it be that your
location -- cheek-by-jowl with ultra-liberal eastern Massachusetts -- has
something to do with the cavalier attitudes that vex you?
Lying is something that men in fact do very well and may have learned to
survive and thrive in the cut-throat primitive world. Homer's fierce
Odysseus, for example, is beloved by the goddess Athena for his verve and
facility in lying. My colleague, Jack DeWitt, has long regaled me with his
firsthand observations of the ingrained competitiveness of heterosexual
males, who from early adolescence on joust for supreme narrative position in
boastful tales of conquest -- asserting their fictitious prowess in landing the
biggest fish, slamming the biggest home run or scoring with the gal with the
biggest boobs.
What radio sultan Rush Limbaugh calls the "arousal gap" in reactions to
Clinton comes, I suspect, from women's half-conscious maternal indulgence,
which sees the president as a bumbling, puplike toddler needing petting and
pabulum. Clintonian sex is all about simpering smiles and sucking, isn't it?
Tit for tat, where's Hillary at?/In bimbo time, she's out with the cat!
Feminists should be mortified by the cover of the Jan. 23-29 issue of the
Economist, which shows how naive the United States looks from abroad. "Foolish Love,"
blares the headline over a news photo of a row of American women gazing raptly
up with flushed cheeks and goo-goo eyes at Clinton, invisibly orating on
a platform. The 19th century suffrage movement had to defeat the
argument that women are not rational enough to vote and that they would deform
the body politic by hysterical (literally, "womb-engendered") emotion. The
Clinton administration, for all its professed feminism, must have Susan B.
Anthony spinning in her grave.
Dear Camille:
Mick Jagger seems to be the most famous prankster so far, but there is a trend
in divorce these days: Trying to nullify a marriage on a technicality in order to save a few bucks. Regardless of whether feminism led
to this possibility, where is the moral outrage over this greed? Jagger may not want to pay, but to deny he was married is pathetic and wimpy at best. I
understand the money motivation, but how does a man justify this total lack of
moral judgment?
Ex-Stones Fan
Dear Ex-Fan:
Quite frankly, I've never understood what Mick Jagger saw in that buck-toothed
Texas nag, Jerry Hall, in the first place. I've always attributed it to
cultural slumming by the Stones, who began as blues archaeologists
passionately attracted to the American South. There are a thousand homegrown
Texas drag queens who could do Jerry Hall better than she does herself.
In ethical and legal terms, Jagger indisputably owes princely sums for the
support of his four children by Hall -- funds that he is not, I believe,
disputing. It does appear that the paperwork for Hall and Jagger's 1990 Bali
nuptials was not formalized -- for which Hall, as a mother with much more to
lose, deserves equal blame.
Jagger is a first-class cad and jerk if he fails to acknowledge how much Hall
sacrificed of her high-powered modeling career during her years of pregnancy
and child-rearing. On the other hand, it's kind of nice to see Jagger acting
like a lout again. Why should my haggard hero, Keith Richards, hoard all the
anti-establishment chits in the Rolling Stones?
Jagger, who briefly attended the London School of Economics, is the money and
management czar who held the Stones together during Richards' decadent heroin
days, at their nadir in the 1970s. What peeves me about Jagger is that,
although his skills are in lead vocals and harmonica, he often postures
onstage with a guitar -- Richards' epic symbol, which makes Jagger look like a schoolgirl.
No matter what, please don't let your disdain for the real-life shenanigans of
performers or artists affect your opinion of their art. The human side of most
artists is frail and pitiful, but the artwork itself, as Nietzsche would say,
is beyond good and evil.
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