No Sex Please, We’re Middle Class

[Sanguine]

NYT:

Op-Ed Contributor
No Sex Please, We’re Middle Class
By CAMILLE PAGLIA
Published: June 25, 2010

WILL women soon have a Viagra of their own? Although a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recently rejected an application to market the drug flibanserin in the United States for women with low libido, it endorsed the potential benefits and urged further research. Several pharmaceutical companies are reported to be well along in the search for such a drug.

The implication is that a new pill, despite its unforeseen side effects, is necessary to cure the sexual malaise that appears to have sunk over the country. But to what extent do these complaints about sexual apathy reflect a medical reality, and how much do they actually emanate from the anxious, overachieving, white upper middle class?

In the 1950s, female “frigidity” was attributed to social conformism and religious puritanism. But since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, American society has become increasingly secular, with a media environment drenched in sex.

The real culprit, originating in the 19th century, is bourgeois propriety. As respectability became the central middle-class value, censorship and repression became the norm. Victorian prudery ended the humorous sexual candor of both men and women during the agrarian era, a ribaldry chronicled from Shakespeare’s plays to the 18th-century novel. The priggish 1950s, which erased the liberated flappers of the Jazz Age from cultural memory, were simply a return to the norm.


Nor are husbands offering much stimulation in the male display department: visually, American men remain perpetual boys, as shown by the bulky T-shirts, loose shorts and sneakers they wear from preschool through midlife. The sexes, which used to occupy intriguingly separate worlds, are suffering from over-familiarity, a curse of the mundane. There’s no mystery left.


Furthermore, thanks to a bourgeois white culture that values efficient bodies over voluptuous ones, American actresses have desexualized themselves, confusing sterile athleticism with female power. Their current Pilates-honed look is taut and tense — a boy’s thin limbs and narrow hips combined with amplified breasts. Contrast that with Latino and African-American taste, which runs toward the healthy silhouette of the bootylicious Beyoncé.



Pharmaceutical companies will never find the holy grail of a female Viagra — not in this culture driven and drained by middle-class values. Inhibitions are stubbornly internal. And lust is too fiery to be left to the pharmacist.

Camille Paglia, a professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts, is the author of “Sexual Personae.”
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on June 27, 2010, on page WK12 of the New York edition.

I find this fascinating because I think it is such a clear expression of the stupidity of the current "cultural elites". I think Camille Paglia is, generally speaking, intelligent and well educated in the current sense of education, but she is unable to look past the thick lens of contemporary leftism. I frequently enjoy her biting humor and occasional willingness to bite the left, but she just can see a sacred cow for the herd.

Camille obviously has not spoken to many "middle class whites" in a long time, and hasn't a clue as to what they're all about. Not letting that stop her here, she blames the current cultural malaise on them - not the "elites" who are really to blame.

All that being said, she is right on target with the perpetual boydom of many American men. I sat behind an older (like 60's)man at church today, and he was wearing sandals, ill fitting shorts, and and AC/DC t-shirt. What's up with that?

[Valin]

WILL women soon have a Viagra of their own?

 

Keep a good thought!

[pollyannaish]

Great article Sanguine. Thanks for posting it. This is the kind of stuff that Paglia does best. And I actually agree with her on many points. I also think that "elites" come in almost all social-economic groups. I know that sounds weird, but there are certain subsets of our culture that seem to wear their own lack of money as a badge of moral superiority as well.

 

In any case, I agree on the perpetual boydom. In a funny way, I think that is a weird unintended consequence of the 60s youth movement combined with the feminist movement. They vowed to never trust anyone over 30 which quickly becomes a self-defeating meme, and women voluntarily took on more and more of the families responsibilities, slowly shoving the traditional male role to the side. I often wonder if Baby Boomers actually ended up where they thought all their radicalism would take them.

[Valin]

WILL women soon have a Viagra of their own?

 

Keep a good thought!

 

 

addendum:

 

Just in case any ladies here do get their hands on some.....

 

 

I am both easy and cheap....Think about it

[Sanguine]

 

In any case, I agree on the perpetual boydom. In a funny way, I think that is a weird unintended consequence of the 60s youth movement combined with the feminist movement. They vowed to never trust anyone over 30 which quickly becomes a self-defeating meme, and women voluntarily took on more and more of the families responsibilities, slowly shoving the traditional male role to the side. I often wonder if Baby Boomers actually ended up where they thought all their radicalism would take them.

 

Exactly! What you said!

[Argyle58]

Great article Sanguine. Thanks for posting it. This is the kind of stuff that Paglia does best. And I actually agree with her on many points. I also think that "elites" come in almost all social-economic groups. I know that sounds weird, but there are certain subsets of our culture that seem to wear their own lack of money as a badge of moral superiority as well.

 

In any case, I agree on the perpetual boydom. In a funny way, I think that is a weird unintended consequence of the 60s youth movement combined with the feminist movement. They vowed to never trust anyone over 30 which quickly becomes a self-defeating meme, and women voluntarily took on more and more of the families responsibilities, slowly shoving the traditional male role to the side. I often wonder if Baby Boomers actually ended up where they thought all their radicalism would take them.

 

I think that a large part of the "perpetual boydom" comes purely out of a moral laziness, which liberals tend to fall into. It is much easier to allow the burdens of adulthood be shouldered by others than by oneself. It is a pity that those who allowed themselves to fall prey to this syndrome have denied themselves of the personal satifaction of fulfilling this primal duty.

 

Pollyannish.....meme......I had to look it up. Thanks for the education.