To the Editor:
Re “No
Sex Please, We’re Middle Class” (Op-Ed, June 27):
The sexual malaise described by Camille Paglia is just a symptom of a
broader malady among the middle class: the confusion of “standard of
living” with quality of life. My demographic is obsessed with work to
the point that we don’t take the vacation we’re entitled to. We are
willing to sacrifice hours each day to our commutes in order to live in
big houses, where we paradoxically spend few of our waking hours.
And we often spend so much time on “activities”—ours and our
children’s—that at the end of the day, we are too tired to enjoy one
of the greatest benefits of a healthy marriage.
Ms. Paglia is quite correct that no drug will ever cure this ailment.
Happiness in life will always be reserved for those who care more about
being happy than about being “successful.”
Daniel Dickinson
Mountain View, Calif., June 28, 2010
To the Editor:
Could it be that white middle-class women suffer from low libido not
because they hope to be treated as equals in the workplace but because
of the stress and exhaustion that accompany family-unfriendly work
policies, the ceaseless task of finding adequate schooling for their
children, the ever-present fear of losing one’s job in the “flexible
work force” and men’s persistent reluctance to shoulder their share of
the responsibility in the home?
By the way, does Camille Paglia have any evidence that working-class
women and women of color are more sexually alive (and immune to the
ravages of contemporary economic conditions) than white middle-class
women?
Julia Rothenberg
New York, June 27, 2010
The writer is an assistant professor of sociology at St. Joseph’s
College.
To the Editor:
While I admire Camille Paglia, I believe that she misses the culprit
when she blames middle-class values for today’s sexual torpor in
American society.
The underlying problem is not middle-class values, but rather that the
middle class is the victim of politically correct American-style
feminism, which is both overly legislated and utterly lacking in
subtlety or humor of any kind.
Having successfully big-brothered flirtation out of practice, and
legally erased any differences between the sexes, a result is what we
have today: men who are terrorized into the self-ghettoed adolescence of
sports bars, and women who are not entirely sure what their gender is.
J. J. Gross
Jerusalem, June 28, 2010
To the Editor:
I’m not sure if there is a sexual malaise gripping the country, as
Camille Paglia asserts, but if there is, it has little to do with gender
equality in the workplace—which, by the way, doesn’t exist. More
likely causes would include declining testosterone levels in men
(perhaps caused by rising obesity rates, or by increased toxins in the
environment) and rising rates of narcissistic personality disorder and
autism spectrum disorders.
Cultural trends come and go, but a decline in sexuality can be caused
only by more serious biological, environmental and genetic problems.
Anne Rettenberg
New York, June 27, 2010
The writer is a psychotherapist.
To the Editor:
Recently you published two articles related to sexual expression in
women: one from Kelly Blanchard cheering the birth control pill (Op-Ed,
June 22) and the other by Camille Paglia on the subject of female lack
of desire.
The hormonal manipulation of the birth control pill reduces sexual
desire in women; this has been proved. When it is introduced in any
relationship, a subtle change takes place. Now, we have a sort of stale
situation where women are undervalued for a quality deemed passé: their
fertility. Likewise men.
We can share within a relationship everything except our fertility, give
everything to our spouse except our fertility. There is no
communication about this; it falls to the woman to take the pill. In a
more natural situation, both partners need to negotiate in this most
intimate area, and sex becomes more appreciated.
Leaving to one side all the other things that can be said about this
subject, I think that the only problem today is that we have divorced
fertility from lovemaking. All for convenience and to have our own way.
Nandarani Evans
Honolulu, June 27, 2010
To the Editor:
We really are drenched in prurience, not sex. The difference is vital.
The mass media have trivialized eroticism, and replaced it with
titillation, and a kind of coarse, juvenile sensitivity, as the mass
media do with everything.
Tom Tillinghast
San Francisco, June 27, 2010
To the Editor:
As much as I enjoyed Camille Paglia’s article, I think she has
overanalyzed the sexual malaise of middle-class women. It is not caused
by “bourgeois propriety,” the lack of mystery in men or representations
in popular culture. We are just plain tired!
We work outside the home and inside, we are caring for children and
aging parents, we are probably underpaid and most certainly overworked.
When we get in bed at the end of the day? We sleep.
Kinnan O’Connell
Larchmont, N.Y., June 28, 2010
Note from KBJ: Leave it to Camille Paglia to stir up trouble! The best letter of this lot is the one by J. J. Gross. You?
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 