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Camille Paglia on "sperm, semen, ejaculate, seed, man fluid, baby gravy, jizz, cum, pearl necklace, gentleman's relish, wad, pimp juice, number 3, load, spew, donut glaze, spunk, gizzum, cream, hot man mustard, squirt, goo, spunk, splooge..."
Via Arts & Letters Daily comes (coff, coff) this Chronicle of Higher Education review-essay by Camille Paglia about three new books about male sexuality:
A welcome development of the past decade has been the expansion of the gender lens to include men, who were routinely stereotyped by women's-studies curricula as they took shape from the 1970s on.... despite their greater sexual sophistication, the three books under review still retain traces of the old archfeminist censoriousness toward men - or, more exactly, toward the majority of men in the world who do not happen to conform to the tidy bourgeois values of political correctness....
Gender studies, for all its trafficking with porn and pop, too often paints a bleak, condescending picture of ordinary human life. Alternate views (even from among dissident feminists) are not considered or evidently even imagined. When any field becomes a closed circle, the result is groupthink and cant. The stultifying clichés of gender studies must end. But in the meantime, all faculty members should vow, through their own scholarly idealism rather than by external coercion, not to impose their political or sexual ideology on impressionable students, who deserve better.
More here, including the circumscribed everlasting gob-stopping litany of terms cited in the title of this post.
reason writers on "the man who marketed sperm" and Impotence: A Cultural History.
reason interview (1995) with Paglia here.
|9.21.07 @ 10:36AM|#
Sheesh. I had totally forgotten about her. I read Sexual Personae back when I was in college (A long time ago). She is an awesome lady.
|9.21.07 @ 10:44AM|#
I hadn't heard "Number 3." I always thought a "Number 3" was when you sneezed while take a dump.
lunchstealer|9.21.07 @ 10:57AM|#
I get the impression that she's talking about evolution juice,
or what Gen. Jack D. Ripper (who'd kick Patreus's ass six ways from
Sunday, according to MoveOn.org) refers to as his 'precious bodily
fluids'.
Also spunk's in there twice, although that may just be for
emphasis.
VM|9.21.07 @ 11:01AM|#
Reinmoose | September 21, 2007, 10:56am | #
I already regret having read this thread :)
oooh!!! is this a contest???
lunchstealer|9.21.07 @ 11:08AM|#
Sheesh. I had totally forgotten about her. I read Sexual
Personae back when I was in college (A long time ago). She is an
awesome lady.
I've got to admit, while I by no means agree with all she says,
she's got a hell of a way with words, and always brings something
to her subjects that you'd never think of on your own.
I really miss her old Salon.com column, which was about the only
thing I consistently read there. I used to go to Salon once a month
or so, to check on whether she'd done another column, but when it
became clear that she wasn't returning, I mostly stopped going.
|9.21.07 @ 11:09AM|#
Has gender studies contributed anything of value?
Maybe. Probably? I can't think of anything but somebody will surely
point out something on this thread.
pistofnick|9.21.07 @ 11:15AM|#
12'-4"!!!!!!??????
Years of dedicated practice and I can't even hit the ceiling.
;^(
|9.21.07 @ 11:17AM|#
Has gender studies contributed anything of value?
Stripping as an empowering act?
ed|9.21.07 @ 11:18AM|#
Yuk. I was barfing halfway through that intro. Thanks for ruining my appetite.
RonPaul2008|9.21.07 @ 11:27AM|#
Regarding Headline, missed "Skeet." Popular with the hip-hop and porn set.
lunchstealer|9.21.07 @ 11:27AM|#
hot man-mustard
If it's a condiment, shouldn't it be Miracle-of-life Whip?
RonPaul2008|9.21.07 @ 11:30AM|#
...Miracle-of-life Whip?
Ooh, cleaver. And gross, already disliked mayonaise....
The Wine Commonsewer|9.21.07 @ 11:43AM|#
I always thought a "Number 3" was when you sneezed while
take a dump.
Thunk! Ow! That was me falling out of my chair on my shoulder
because I was LOL.
The Wine Commonsewer|9.21.07 @ 11:46AM|#
or Not Work Safe. Or Not Kid Safe. It's for the kids you
know.
I've always had a theory that if the university system was not tax
supported that Gender Studies would never have become a discipline.
Dude, he said discipline [smirks].
lunchstealer|9.21.07 @ 11:50AM|#
You're sure it's not "Now With Smurfs"? Because Smurfs make anything more ironically retro.
Xmas|9.21.07 @ 11:58AM|#
Wrong wrong wrong!
It's "Man Gravy" and "Baby Batter", not "Baby Gravy".
At least we aren't talking about corn butter.
|9.21.07 @ 11:59AM|#
I've always had a theory that if the university system was
not tax supported that Gender Studies would never have become a
discipline.
Huh? Wasn't Gender Studies incubated and hatched in the elite
all-girls private liberal arts schools?
But since you say "university system" I guess you mean the pubic
funds funneled to private schools are to blame. I don't think so. I
think over privileged debutantes determined to continue being
victims after the womens lib movement of the 60's and 70's would
have created this thing no matter who was paying the bills.
That's the problem with successful social movements. Nobody ever
declares victory and goes home.
|9.21.07 @ 12:07PM|#
Warren,
Or, in the case of prohibitionists, no one ever declares defeat and
just goes home.
|9.21.07 @ 12:28PM|#
Bundle this thread up and mail it to the English department at your local institution of higher learning! This in unquestionably a significant contribution to the study of liguistics/semantics. I had no idea there were so many synonyms for erupting love juice.
|9.21.07 @ 12:32PM|#
what about just "love?"
There's this glorious line in a really awesome funk song that goes
"I'm gonna squirt my love in your eye..." or something like
that.
ed|9.21.07 @ 12:41PM|#
I'm happy to see that Nick has read Peter North's
autobiography.
Wait, no I'm not.
|9.21.07 @ 12:56PM|#
Nick you once denied you were greek.
With that headline I think you ought to stop denying.
Maybe ethinically your not Greek*, but spiritually
definitely.
Since the Romans emulated the Greeks doesn't that mean there is a
little greek in all Italians?
|9.21.07 @ 1:04PM|#
My personally, totally biased opinion is that any university program with the word "Studies" in it is probably hogwash. Good indication of how prosperous we are, though, that we afford to have powerful minds fitter away their time on such things.
|9.21.07 @ 1:07PM|#
Good indication of how prosperous we are, though, that we
afford to have powerful minds fitter away their time on such
things.
People who take those kinds of courses don't exactly have powerful
minds. They also give real liberal arts disciplines a bad
name by association.
lunchstealer|9.21.07 @ 1:21PM|#
we afford to have powerful minds fitter away their time on
such things.
Keeps them out of trouble. Mostly they should be glad we don't burn
them at the stake.
|9.21.07 @ 2:02PM|#
Moore laments that sperm are portrayed as active, heroic protagonists with endearingly comic personalities, while the egg is lumpishly passive and boring. This "recurring narrative," she argues, fosters "male entitlement" and a sexist "superiority complex."
Well duh! Sperm are motile, eggs are not. It's not some patriarchal
conspiracy, it's real world biology. But in feminism's perfect
biology, I guess, eggs would be motile, and millions of them would
be released during orgasm to travel up the male's uretha to seek
out his single immotile sperm.
|9.21.07 @ 2:12PM|#
Years of dedicated practice and I can't even hit the ceiling. ;^(
I managed to hit my eye once by accident. At first I thought I
really had gone blind...
lunchstealer|9.21.07 @ 2:18PM|#
Rigid Scholarship on Male
Sexuality
Oh, just noticed the punchline in the article's title.
|9.21.07 @ 2:32PM|#
I think these gender studies classes are great. They get people to think about certain issues in critical ways, from different perspectives, etc. Getting a degree in gender studies is absurd.
|9.21.07 @ 3:06PM|#
"Since the Romans emulated the Greeks doesn't that mean there is
a little greek in all Italians?"
With the Greek's penchant for sodomy, I wouldn't doubt there's
quite a few Italians who've had a little Greek in them.
|9.21.07 @ 4:55PM|#
Lunchstealer, she is back on Salon, once monthly. I haven't
enjoyed the new column as much as the old. It seems really
offhanded and superficial compared to her previous column. It's a
bit like listening to my dad gripe about the news, only with much
more colorful language.
On the upside, the reader responses are a hoot. The regular Salon
readers absolutely loathe her. She always generates about 200
responses, about 95% of which are angry and scornful. Someone
always drags Joan Walsh over the coals for giving her a forum and
threatens to cancel their Salon subscription.
I liked her review & am glad to see that she hasn't totally
succumbed to a geriatric form of curmudgeonliness.
|9.21.07 @ 5:36PM|#
"Has gender studies contributed anything of value?"
Absolutely. Only someone completely ignorant of the subject and the
field would suggest such a thing. (although asking the question is
valid).
The entire discipline of history has benefited enormously from
gender studies. Analyses of gender have make profound insights into
studies of imperialism, colonialism, foreign policy, and of course,
social and cultural history. Its hard to imagine a complete picture
of the world without utilizing the category of gender in ones
analysis.
For a specific example, see this:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0300085540/reasonmagazineA/
Gender studies have given us profound insights into why the Mexican
American war was initiated.
|9.21.07 @ 6:37PM|#
There is breaking news relative to both gender studies and
"sperm, spooge, male milk, jizz...
Maureen McCormick, who played Marica on the Brady Bunch, privately
gender "studied" Eva Plumb, who played Jan on same show,
alot.
Maureen had a crush on Eva and they got it on.
Ohh...
She doesn't explain when, like early in the show when they were
"tweens" or later as teens.
But, well, the consequences is that they're will be alot, alot more
than average, "man fluid, baby gravy, load..." produced
tonight.
A real lot more.
ed|9.21.07 @ 8:17PM|#
I really really do want to study women. Both their minds and their juicy parts. But I cannot affort to attend a top-notch eastern school. Won't you help? Send contributions to "Save The Ed", PO Box 9859, Anytown, PA, 24680, or write to the link provided. I believe the women are our future. Or maybe the children. Whatever.
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