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Now, to save the modern world, these sorts of women need a Viagra-like pill ? New York Times' Camille (I'm a Feminazi!) Paglia...

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. [emphasis mine -.ed]

OK, so if the problems with Al Gore's and Bill Clinton's wives not giving them any more 'happy moments' (directly leading to embarrassing incidents such as Monica playing the skin flute under Bill's desk at the Oral Office, and Al Gore mad in lust after a frightened masseur...see video below) is 'burgeois propriety', what exactly is it, and will the proposed female Viagra pill cure it?

Googling of  'burgeois propriety' gets me lots of links to scholarly journals that aren't so much available without subscription, and this gem...

In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie (adjective: bourgeois) describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late eighteenth century to now, the bourgeoisie is a social class characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture. A member of the bourgeoisie is a bourgeois or capitalist (plural: bourgeois; capitalists).

They are a part of the middle or merchant classes, and derived social and economic power from employment, education, and wealth, as distinguished from social classes whose power came from being born into an aristocratic family of titled land owners granted feudal privileges by the monarch. The bourgeoisie emerged from late feudal and early modern towns, through the control of long distance trade and petty manufacture. Bourgeois and bourgeoisie originate in the French language, meaning "city-dweller" (from bourg, cf. German Burg).

Addition of 'propriety' gives more than just a faint sheen of Marxist putdownism. Of which I think Camille approves, she being a dirty socialist leftist feminazi and all. Digress I will no further. More Camille...

In the discreet white-collar realm, men and women are interchangeable, doing the same, mind-based work. Physicality is suppressed; voices are lowered and gestures curtailed in sanitized office space. Men must neuter themselves, while ambitious women postpone procreation. Androgyny is bewitching in art, but in real life it can lead to stagnation and boredom, which no pill can cure.

And we have who to blame for this 'male neutering' of which you speak, Camille? Got a damned mirror?

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.

The elemental power of sexuality has also waned in American popular culture. Under the much-maligned studio production code, Hollywood made movies sizzling with flirtation and romance. But from the early ’70s on, nudity was in, and steamy build-up was out. A generation of filmmakers lost the skill of sophisticated innuendo. The situation worsened in the ’90s, when Hollywood pirated video games to turn women into cartoonishly pneumatic superheroines and sci-fi androids, fantasy figures without psychological complexity or the erotic needs of real women.

It's beginning to sound as if Camille is ready to return to the heady days of Gone With the Wind, with Rhett Butler exclaiming "No, I don't think I will kiss you. Although you need kissing badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how." Well, maybe, but seeing Camille Paglia's mugshot, I volunteer someone else. Elfie, you still lurking around somewhere ?

Camille Brillo...Frank Zappa would've hit it.

More Camille...

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.

Like this, then, Camille? Thin and amplified? Androgynous?



Hmmmmm...no foolin'.

Camille, the reason men won't hit on feminist women (read: you) so much anymore is that you've screwed the pooch (maybe literally, maybe not). You feminists have made it so freakin' hard (well, not literally) to successfully pick one of you up without worrying about the consequences; lawsuits, sexual harassment complaints &c. Men are neutered. Well, many of the big-city-dwelling New York upper east side sorts of metrosexual men (you know if it's you of whom I speak, you out there serenading your cat) are useless twibbons. And Camille knows who are the exceptions...

A class issue in sexual energy may be suggested by the apparent striking popularity of Victoria’s Secret and its racy lingerie among multiracial lower-middle-class and working-class patrons, even in suburban shopping malls, which otherwise trend toward the white middle class. Country music, with its history in the rural South and Southwest, is still filled with blazingly raunchy scenarios, where the sexes remain dynamically polarized in the old-fashioned way.

There you go. Country music gives us hope that our 'real men' traditions will live on, feminism be damned. Camille, you should put on a wet t-shirt and visit a NASCAR venue somewhere; maybe your luck will change.

Oh, and here's the result of anxious, overachieving, white upper middle class women who won't put out: Al Gore, manbearpriggish~!

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