Letters to the Editor
J.C. Miller
Published Letters: 366 Editor's Choice: 36
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Actually,
[Read the article: How Obama learned to be a natural]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]wasn’t “uppity” the perfect, if unintentional, challenge to readers to get past the nonsense around the meaningless construct of “race” that’s been driving these threads?
A Rorschach test that illuminates more about what the reader carries around “race” than about history or etymology?
What would it mean if this candidate did, in fact, behave in ways accurately described as “uppity”? Does the hysterical reaction, reflexively framed in terms of race, say more about the schemas and anxieties of the reader, or about the intent of the writer?
The reactive outrage expressed as, “Uppity! How dare you! Don’t you know what that means?” might more productively be channeled into a self-reflective, “Why does it mean so much to me?” Answer carefully.
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painful sex
[Read the article: Sex, or chocolate?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Anonymous – there is a condition, vaginismus, which is not necessarily related at all to abuse or past sexual history, is fairly common, and is often effectively treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy. You would want to first rule out the possibility that your discomfort is related to a medical condition.
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Sex, or marriage ?
[Read the article: Sex, or chocolate?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I’m not sure I would dismiss as “reverse prudery” the view that sexual intimacy may have important psychological and other health benefits. There seems to be strong evidence that sex, like other forms of emotional and physical intimacy, may provide the emotional benefits that accrue from secure attachment.
Your Ph.D. psychologist friend, on the other hand, is full of shit and a credit to his gender. Most are.
Barriers to intimacy are real, understandable, and can be addressed without the need to blame or pathologize. Unfortunately, we resist and are only now waking up to the fact that marriage itself (as sbg noted) and certainly the arrival of an infant provide barriers to intimacy. Louann Brizendine (The Female Brain) addresses the latter point from a biological and neurophysiologic viewpoint.
Because sex partly serves to bond a couple for procreation and parental care, we would expect that its appeal and intensity might become less important (adaptive) once a pair bond is formed. Serial or multiple intimate relationships (disallowed by the marriage vow) would logically keep sex more rewarding and interesting. Less obvious but possibly equally important barriers imposed by marriage on sexual intimacy involve the effects of loss of autonomy and control, inherent in a binding contract, on trust, anxiety and vulnerability. We know that, psychologically, loss of control and of autonomy elicits resistance and anxiety. Whatever functions marriage has served, and whatever value is placed on sexual intimacy, it may be time to give up the myth that contractual monogamy can be supportive of sustained libido.
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Dr. Paglia's Insight
[Read the article: Camille's back!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dr. Paglia’s musings seem to be either comforting or infuriating for readers with little between. Her primary interests in the meaning of contemporary culture and politics are a good fit for Salon and certainly worth not ignoring, given the size of her following and as powerful as political and cultural discourse seem in constructing social reality.
The spontaneity and opportunity for feedback allowed by a Salon column may provide an effective medium for better understanding such a polarizing writer. What is it, really, that Dr. Paglia endorses, champions and represents that pushes so many buttons? She seems to be telling us, if we will look behind the intellectualism and noted self promotion.
She is, for example, “…thrilled with …impuden[ce]” – “impudence” understood as a contemptuous or cocky boldness or disregard for others. She “whooped and applauded as [a protester publicly humiliated a female political candidate]”. Contest, rivalry, defeat, status, and victory over competitors seem central to her world view. Who the “…laurel [an award for victory] belongs to…” ; who is up and who is defeated. Aggressive male traits which lead to victory over and humiliation of a rival are valued, exalted, as when a woman is “decisive and tough-talking” ; while more feminine traits of emotional communication, hesitation and “listening” may constitute a deficit, a weakness.
Thus John Edwards may be approvingly intelligent, but his “femme and foofy” hairstyle is a warning sign – he may be so compromised by feminine traits that he would hesitate to humiliate a rival, as Obama admiringly dissed Hillary Clinton. He may not be “brass knuckles” enough to “put the shiv in”. His “femme” qualities compare unfavorably to a Guliani, who would “…roll like a juggernaut into the White House on the strength of his macho authoritarianism…”
Dr. Paglia’s ability to admire a woman seems dependent on power, strength (“big, strapping”, “strong-jawed”) and . . . . . well, on ideations of a woman wielding a “shotgun” or a “shiv” (blade). Cultural figures who lack “raging energy”, propulsion”, “guts and gumption” are to be disdained as “simpering” and ineffectual. Apart from her images of someone shotgunned or stuck with a makeshift blade, Dr. Paglia seems most enlivened (“I was in stitches.”) when she listens to male radio hosts publicly humiliate other public figures.
Her expressed orientation toward what might be aspired to and what is adaptive in human behavior and social intercourse seems at the very least coherent. Decisive, aggressive action to humiliate and defeat rivals and establish status is strength and achievement. Hesitation, contemplation and empathic relating are weakness.
The personality traits and values Dr. Paglia champions and identifies with may be legitimately debated and contrasted with alternatives. Most importantly, we might reason about their adaptive value in various contexts.
We might begin, for example, by asking how Dr. Paglia’s traits and values do or do not align with the forces which drove us to what has been committed in Iraq.
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Morissette, you said that
[Read the article: Fighting words]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"No sentient adult in 21st century America can not know the baggage that the word "uppity" carries especially when used to describe a black man." (p. 3)
Words do not voluntarily or otherwise carry meaning or baggage. Sentient adults do.