September 29, 2014

Camille Paglia on the campus culture of mixing up "felonious rape" and "oafish hookup melodramas."

"Real crimes should be reported to the police, not to haphazard and ill-trained campus grievance committees," she writes, then lambastes "middleclass women, raised far from the urban streets" who expect too much protection from the "wilderness" of the world. But isn't there a place for a campus with some disciplinary rules and procedures? That's my question.

Paglia's answer is not to trust those horrible academic leftists who purvey "illusions about sex and gender" and blame society for oppressing us with "racism, sexism, and imperialism," which they see as "toxins embedded in oppressive outside structures that must be smashed and remade." But — as she sees it — sex is Nature, and the evil part of it can't be fixed.
There is a ritualistic symbolism at work in sex crime that most women do not grasp and therefore cannot arm themselves against.
Do not grasp... does she mean cannot grasp? I'm going to guess that she thinks most women could grasp this truth of hers, but only if we break free of the lefties' illusions and come face to face with Nature.
Misled by the naive optimism and “You go, girl!” boosterism of their upbringing, young women do not see the animal eyes glowing at them in the dark. They assume that bared flesh and sexy clothes are just a fashion statement containing no messages that might be misread and twisted by a psychotic. They do not understand the fragility of civilization and the constant nearness of savage nature.
Paglia, talking about men, sounds like Werner Herzog, talking about the bears, in "Grizzly Man":
"And what haunts me, is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature.
ADDED: What's missing from Paglia's stark depiction of human nature is the middle — and I don't mean Paglia's cartoon idea of "middleclass," some bland place where everyone's safe and protected. I mean our communal spaces where we encounter a variety of people — work, campus, parties, restaurants and bars. Paglia veers from "middleclass" home life to the "wilderness," and doesn't account for the range of more or less normal people we run into when we're looking for friends and lovers.

These people are not raw nature, but some mix of nature and nurture, and the developing social norms affect what most of these people are willing to do and say. Of course, there are some monsters in amongst them, and we've got to think about protecting ourselves, but not to the point where we're crippled by fear and defensiveness. Most of the people we meet are human beings with their share of vices and virtues and the basic tendency to pursue self-interest.

Young people leaving home for the first time to live on campus enter a specific and special phase of their lives. It's an intermediate step away from home, and the schools have some responsibility and selfish interest in making the outside-the-classroom part of the experience a positive one. Between the "naive optimism... of their upbringing" and "the animal eyes glowing at them in the dark," there is the real world where most these young women will be living most of the time and where they have a decent expectation that life will be good.

You can criticize the rules and procedures that colleges are coming up with to help young men and women learn and grown and enjoy this transitional phase of their lives, but to me your criticism sounds weird and crazy if you won't acknowledge the vast social spaces where most of us live, especially the specific important one that is the college campus.

109 comments:

Witness said...

There is nothing wrong with campus rules about inappropriate behavior.

Of course, if a group keeps calling it "sexual assault" it should also come as no surprise that the rest of us end up suggesting that they call the cops instead of the campus administrators.

BarrySanders20 said...

You know who else is indifferent?

Insects.

Nonapod said...

Yeah, Ann missed a chance to use the "Insect Politics" tag.

FleetUSA said...

Yes, call the local cops not the campus police who are just excellent (?) at traffic and getting lost kids home.

chuck said...

horrible academic leftists

Excellent summary, and in your own words ;) You have had your consciousness raised.

Paglia is more the reincarnation of Emma Goldman than of Marx.

traditionalguy said...

Camille says it all.

The basic evil in men is the hunting of the female procreative force that makes a man his small tribe and then a bigger tribe as the band raids to kidnaps more women and female children for breeding and slave duties, but left the male settlers tortured to death.

Frontier Americans knew well what Camille knows, and this knowledge explains why the right to bear arms has always been basic to American survival. They lived near bands of roaming Redskins who were dedicated hunters of human prey.

Empire of the Summer Moon is a recently written history of the last one of 250 years of Indian wars. It tells the story of the savage Comanche Indians.

Krumhorn said...

Campus sex assault regulations and the sex tribunals that are associated with them are just horrible tools to use to address whatever the perceived problem is.

I say perceived because I don't view drunken sex as a social wrong. I regard forced sex as a social wrong. It's Paglia's point that women need to look after themselves and not rely upon the lefties to protect and insulate them from their own poor decisions.

Guys pretty much do not wake up the next day feeling debased. They may look over and wonder how miraculously those beer goggles worked since she seemed really awesome a few short hours ago.

If a girl feels debased, she shouldn't let it happen again. And she should tell her daughters about it too.

What is interesting is that most dad are stereotypically characterized as making sure that their daughters always know that boys only want one thing.

So I ax ya', who's looking out for who? It sure isn't the modern day leftie Victorians and social engineers.

-Krumhorn

RecChief said...

I expected Althouse to end this with "Just teach men not to rape"

RecChief said...

"What is interesting is that most dad are stereotypically characterized as making sure that their daughters always know that boys only want one thing."


My daughter gave me a shirt that reads,"Shoot the first one, and word will spread."

John said...

But isn't there a place for a WORLD with some disciplinary rules and procedures? That is my question?

Are not most on campus falling into the category of being adults? Do they really need 'special rules'? Maybe if the general rules of society were applied equally in all settings these questions would not need be asked.

Skeptical Voter said...

Ah shucks to Paglia and our host I guess as a 6' 5" tall male I'm just an old grizzly bear.

But seriously things have gotten way out of hand. Governor Moonbeam (D) here in California has just signed a law requiring all colleges--from junior college up to post graduate level to set up procedures and rules requiring affirmative consent for sexual contact among students. This brainstorm legislation came from California's wholly Democrat owned and controlled state legislature so old Jerry Brown is just going along for the ride.

I remember the day when the Democrats protested against the evil Rethuglicans and insisted that government should stay out of the bedroom!

These days Democrat voyeur-notaries will be on hand to ensure that such written affirmative consent is properly notarized just before the deed is done.

And just wait--since I see at least one news story a week when some female high school teacher has had sex with one of her 15 year old male students, there's going to be future employment at the high school level for Democrat voyeur notaries.

Brando said...

Can't seem to pull up Paglia's article, but usually she is spot on and demonstrates why she's the most essential feminist writer out there.

As to whether schools should be able to adjudicate rape as part of their "disciplinary processes"--absolutely not. That's like asking your dog to handle the family finances. They are simply not equipped for serious crimes--schools can handle academic discipline ("did Johnny cheat on his exams"; "did Suzie plagiarize in her paper"; "did Stu miss too many classes to get course credit") but they simply cannot properly handle a rape allegation. They don't have the resources to investigate, they don't have the legal background that judges/prosecutors/defense cousnel have to adjudicate with due process protections--and for schools to take this on is arrogance.

Schools don't want to appear callous of sex crimes taking place on campus, understandably--so they should do what they actually can do. Provide on campus counseling for victims, and cooperate with the authorities. If the local authorities aren't doing their jobs, that's something to take up with your local government. Setting up a kangaroo court that will (depending on whose side you ask) railroad the accused with a rape determination or not take the investigation seriously (resulting in that girl carrying her mattress around campus all year) is just asking for trouble and additional liability.

YoungHegelian said...

They assume that bared flesh and sexy clothes are just a fashion statement containing no messages that might be misread and twisted by a psychotic

Paglia isn't stating that all men are like this, just that there is indeed a percentage of the male population who do have big problems with sexual self-control. When women broadcast their sexual charms to men who they'd like to meet, they invariably broadcast to this less desirable sort also.

It's often difficult for women themselves to tell the difference. The drunken bum in the park who grabs your butt as you walk by is an easy case. The well-connected functional sociopath who uses everyone in his orbit is not only harder to spot, he also seems to enjoy a ready fountain of indulgence from many women.

Brando said...

"The well-connected functional sociopath who uses everyone in his orbit is not only harder to spot, he also seems to enjoy a ready fountain of indulgence from many women."

They also sometimes get twice-elected to the presidency.

David said...

"haphazard and ill-trained campus grievance committees . . ."

And that is the heart of the problem, though I might snark that instead of being ill trained, at least some of these people are very well trained in what they are supposed to be doing, which is find violations of the rules and enforce a politicized standard of justice.

Badly hidden agendas apart, this is also why Althouse's faith in having some rules and improving procedures is debatable. You do not get effective fair rules out of an organization that does not care about the fairness, or is cowed into accepting unfair procedures and biased tribunals. Also most of the proposed rules severely limit the right of the alleged rule violator to obtain and present evidence or to confront his (and theoretically her) accusers.

The Salem witch trials, in which some of my ancestors participated as prosecutors and others as defendants, have long been an interest of mine. There was plenty of procedure in these tribunals but very little fairness. The modern campus is following the same well worn path. A sham is a sham and right now its sham I am.

MikeMangum said...

Paglia, talking about men, sounds like Werner Herzog, talking about the bears, in "Grizzly Man"

No, Paglia is talking about psychopaths.

Anonymous said...

It always troubles me to see how so much of our society can be blind to the facts of nature.

Sometimes I think of feminists as yelling at the sky and insisting that gravity quit acting as it does. Then they keep falling and getting hurt.

I'm going to do my best to protect my daughter. But the last thing I'm going to do is tell her, "Do what you want, it's not your fault if you get raped."

I think someone here made the point before but it bears repeating. It's not your fault if you get robbed, but I'm still not going to advise you to leave the doors open and unlocked and all the lights on and all the nice electronics in plain view with a sign on the front door saying, "Gone for two weeks vacation!"

Take some precautions people. There are bad people in this world.

Meade said...

@Brando, feel free to email me if you'd like an explanation for the deletion.

YoungHegelian said...

@Brando,

They also sometimes get twice-elected to the presidency.

Helped into office both times by the votes of large majorities of single women.

Farmer said...

Has she been shouted down with accusations of slut-shaming and victim-blaming yet?

Who am I kidding, of course she has.

Dave Schumann said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Paco Wové said...

"No, Paglia is talking about psychopaths."

Yes, that is quite a mis-reading by Althouse.

Unknown said...

I think she speaks common sense which should be enough to get her burned at the stake for heresy

I'm Full of Soup said...

Paglia is smart and practical and I bet she is utterly despised by her university colleagues.

Scott M said...

They do not understand the fragility of civilization and the constant nearness of savage nature.

Overwhelming truth. No way to cut it otherwise.

n.n said...

traditionalguy:

That's part of the mandatory American Indian-American history: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Every -American history is colorful and diverse, but neither universal nor degenerative until the emergence of class warfare.

What were there, several dozen tribes and nations, which were opportunistically merged into a single, monolithic American Indian? Obfuscating their murder, rape, and pillage competition, including slavery and genocidal activities; their collaboration with the British, French, and Hispanics (e.g. Mexicans) to murder, rape, and pillage Americans. It was indeed a diverse history which varied by individual, tribe, and nation.

I wonder what we can learn from that history.

Yeah, the competition with various, but not all, American Indian tribes was part of the rational justification for the Second Amendment. The Founders recognized an unalienable right and duty for self-defense.

Big Mike said...

h. sapiens is a vertebrate species. If there ever was a vertebrate species where the males were not continually prepared to service a willing female, that species went extinct long ago.

One problem seems to be that the latest version of the female of the species wishes to present themselves as though they are in heat and desirous of being serviced, when they are not. A second, related, problem seems to be that these same females wish to imbibe heavily of a drug -- ethanol -- that gives them the sense of being in heat, when they really aren't. A consequence of this second problem is the female awakening in a strange bed, hung over, and appalled a whom she has had sex with.

Virgil Hilts said...

Scratch the surface of civilization, and from just below it seeps up Stuebenville, Rotherham, or on a larger scale the Japanese comfort stations. Were all of the men involved sparse and scarce psychopaths? Its comforting to think so, but just in case, arm your daughters against the monsters. To do otherwise is disgraceful. Herzog was right.

Jim said...

Time to go back to the days of yesteryear when the patriarchy protected young coeds with restrictive hours in the dorm and the doctrine of in loco parentis was in place.

I thought that it was the LEFT who wanted to overthrow the patriarchy. Or was it merely that they wanted to change SOMETHING to demonstrate their usefulness. Now they want to change SOMETHING back to show their usefulness.

n.n said...

Paglia is idealistic, but also pragmatic. Where there are moral individuals, there also exist immoral and amoral individuals. Life is an exercise in risk management.

Women should not expect a man to be chivalrous, but be pleasantly surprised when he is, and encourage that behavior with a gracious response (e.g. thank you). Women should not needlessly (e.g. out of context) provoke an unwanted reaction. It should be self-evident that it increases, not mitigates risk. Men and women should not defer their lives for fear of litigation. Society should not normalize (i.e. promote) dysfunctional behaviors.

Anyway, let the experiment continue, until everyone wakens from their dissociative slumber, or lose their life, liberty, and happiness in a psychotropic haze.

n.n said...

Jim:

It wasn't just the fathers, but mothers also took their parental roles seriously. The boys were expected to be gentlemen. The girls were expected to be ladies. Both the father and mother educated and disciplined their children. It was a standard upheld in communities of like-minded families.

First, the matriarchy is not synonymous with girls, women, and mothers. As the patriarchy was also not defined in counterpart terms. Still, the matriarchy, composed of ambitious, aggressive, and amoral women, has far exceeded the excesses of the patriarchy in quality and perhaps quantity. Their "choices" and sacrifices to secure power, wealth, and pleasure are telling.

Gabriel said...

A couple of observations:

1) Teach men not to rape sounds like blithering idiocy to people who are not aware of the unspoken premise, which is this: There are behaviors which everyone agrees are rape, such as jumping out of the bushes at a complete stranger, but there are other behaviors which not everyone agrees are rape. And the people who say teach men not to rape are talking about these other behaviors.

Not saying I agree or disagree with this perspective, just presenting it.

2) Many college students are old enough to run for Congress. Nearly all of them are old enough to command men in battle, raise children, and work for a living. Extended, enforced adolescence is a large part of the problem as well as mixed messages about whether adults attending college are or are not adults at all.

Peter said...

"One problem seems to be that the latest version of the female of the species wishes to present themselves as though they are in heat and desirous of being serviced, when they are not.

Or perhaps she was "desirous of being serviced" at the time, but certainly not by anything less than an extraordinarily fine man.

The problems start when she looks at him again in the sober light of day, and sees that really he's just another homely-looking schlub. And surely someone as fine as she wouldn't have consented to have sex with ... that.

So, he must be punished. Which the campus tribunal will conveniently do for her.

Big Mike said...

@Peter, yes.

Brando said...

Meade--will do. I think I know the reason.

Freeman Hunt said...

They do not understand the fragility of civilization and the constant nearness of savage nature.

Amen to that.

Look at everybody's favorite example of anything: the Nazis. Highly educated, highly civilized, and yet they descended into total savagery, murder, hatred, torture, and bloodlust.

When we imagine everyone thinks like us, we err. To err this way is dangerous, even deadly, in certain situations.

traditionalguy said...

The Comanches were an advanced form of demonic evil. But they were damn good horsemen.

They were the southern Great Plains Calvary having learned horses from the Spanish. Their horseback culture limited babies born because of miscarriages, so they took women and children on raids of other tribes to be their work force to dress the buffalo carcasses and prepare the skins.

Comanches just enjoyed doing torture murder of men, as all tribes did to each other, way too much.

tim in vermont said...

Call them "Honor code violations" instead of sexual assaults and call "rape rape" rape, and a lot of these objections on the right go away.

Michael K said...

I taught both my younger daughters to shoot. I do like that tee shirt idea.

When I was in college, colleges were still acting "in loco parentis" and the problem was minimal. Who decided that women did not need to be protected ? I think I know and they are now pushing the "rape culture."

Fen said...

Can't seem to pull up Paglia's article, but usually she is spot on and demonstrates why she's the most essential feminist writer out there.

A feminist using logic and common sense.

I think my brain just freezed up.

Brando said...

Well, that's why she's sort of the rogue of the "feminist" movement. Oaglia tends to stand for the idea of women having actual agency and responsibilities. The Steinem/Valenti wing can't tolerate that.

Having now read the article, it's what I came to expect from her. I wish more feminist writers were like her.

n.n said...

Fen:

First generation feminists. It happened to the classical liberals who are today's conservatives. It happened to yesterday's feminists. Today's progressive is tomorrow's conservative.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
wildswan said...

I'd laugh at all the idiots but I have young relatives - male and female. I truly fear for them. Dolores Umbridge (see Harry Potter) seems to be leaving the pages of books and entering their lives.

Julie C said...

How about teaching our children a few simple rules?

Don't drink so much you don't know what the hell you're doing.

Travel/socialize in groups - don't leave anyone behind.

Don't have sex with someone you just met an hour ago.

This would cut down on a lot of this crap.

buwaya said...

Simple solutions.
Separate dorms separated with high walls and razor wire.
Properly trained dragons/battleaxes to keep the boys out of the girls dorms and vice versa.
And declare that whatever happens off-campus is none of the universities' business.

MD Greene said...

Camille Paglia is a national treasure -- an academic who thinks for herself. Agree with her or disagree with her, you find yourself challenged and not in a bad way.

Our new "fact" that 20 percent of college women are victims of sexual assault needs to be brought into the light and exposed for the handy but sleazy construct that it is.

No wonder she never has been offered a named sinecure at a "top" school.

Ha!

Matt said...

tradionalguy

> Empire of the Summer Moon is a recently written history of the last one of 250 years of Indian wars. It tells the story of the savage Comanche Indians<

Actually it tells of the necessity of the Comanche's to react to white men invading their territory. Sure the Comanches were 'savage' but so were the white soldiers acting under Andrew Jackson's murderous, inhumane and cruel orders. Note that even after the Comanches attacked and killed numerous white settlers their leader Quanah Parker was still invited to Teddy Roosevelt's inauguration. Why? Because Quanah and the Comanches were recognized as Americans too who were fighting for their rights and their land. In short, history is not simple or black and white.

carrie said...

I have no problem with the campus rules either, rules don't help if you can only regulate part of the problem. The way that women dress is also part of the problem, but it should only get a small part of the blame. I think the bigger part of the blame goes to the PC role that the clothes reflect, which includes an attitude about sex that I don't think most young women sincerely feel, but which they get sucked into playing because small fraction of the population that controls PC popular culture wants them to be like that.

chillblaine said...

"The price of women’s modern freedoms is personal responsibility for vigilance and self-defense."

I would love to have lunch with Camille Paglia. She's right. This hysteria is political hay and make-work for Title IX coordinators and gender studies parasites.

chickelit said...

I have the utmost respect for Paglia. I wish more tenured academics were like her.

Titus said...

I live in the urban jungle and the women, for the most part, dress like sluts. Their tits are showing, you can see their camel toes in their leggings, even shaved beaves are revealed in their clothing options. Looking at their iPhones they seem to have no idea men are oggling them, even when the men cat call at them.

Then they get on their bikes with their puss revealed to the street, straddling it like a warm hot hog ready to blow a load. I have witnessed car accidents when men look too long at the revealed biking vage.

Completely oblivious these tramps are because their head is looking down at their device, while listening to something and furiously texting.

Tonight I saw a half dressed whore on a bike with no underwear, in the middle of a huge amount of traffic, texting. I only saw her cooch and her hair dangling toward her device. Cars were honking at her because she was all over the street and pedestrians were yelling at her because she ran all the red lights. This is a daily thing.

And don't get me started with their tats that obviously are surrounding their vagaga and anus.

Please, women, take some responsibility and be aware of your surroundings.

pagila is lez.

tits.

chillblaine said...

"...the latest version of the female of the species wishes to present themselves as though they are in heat and desirous of being serviced, when they are not."

Fantastic point. There is only one mammal capable of presenting herself for sex when not in estrus. Pointing that out is now slut-shaming, though.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Funny that if you wait long enough a crazy hippie lesbian will sound like a conservative.

mccullough said...

Predators that don't look like predators lurk among us. The tough part is identifying them.

rcommal said...

Paglia was so much older then; she's younger than that now.

rcommal said...

I remember 1990...

...and even beforehand.

chickelit said...

A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nate Whilk said...

Paglia wrote, A random young woman becomes the scapegoat for a regressive rage against female sexual power: “You made me do this.”

"You'll have to excuse me for what's about to happen. It's your fault" --Bob Filner, Democrat ex-mayor of San Diego to Morgan Rose

chickelit said...

My point is that she is essentially a voyeur of heterosexual sex, an armchair critic.

Perhaps this is why she can be brutally honest -- with no need to be coy or phony -- because she's not preoccupied with acceptance by the confused and muddled straight feminist sisterhood.

Revenant said...

My point is that she is essentially a voyeur of heterosexual sex, an armchair critic.

That doesn't make much sense. She's talking about rape, not consensual sex. You don't have to be a heterosexual woman to be raped by a man, you know.

Joe said...

Is she also saying that women can't dress provocatively and then deny any responsibility for the consequences.

It amazes me when a well endowed woman wears a low cut top and then bitches to "look at the face."

Quaestor said...

But isn't there a place for a campus with some disciplinary rules and procedures?

Yes, and it should be confined mostly to academics - no cheating, no plagiarism, no bargaining for grades, no "extracurricular" fraternization between faculty and students.

As for sexual matters the university must either treat the student as a responsible adult, or it must assume the in loco partentis responsibilities and act in a way to reduce opportunities for sex. For example they could segregate student housing in the old style -- men's dorms, women's dorms, no co-ed dorms, and certainly no co-ed suites.

The problem arises from the schizoid campus philosophy that rules today -- Sex is totally private and totally a matter of preference bullshit runs headlong into contrary bullshit.

However, rape and sexual assault are crimes against the state. There are laws and sanctions in place that we are taxed to enforce and prosecute. Campus vigilantism is no more welcome in an orderly society than vigilantism on the street and should be treated with the same rough handling.

grackle said...

Real crimes should be reported to the police …

We need go no further than the above. The rest of the article, at least the part about rape, relationships, gender and philosophy's take on such things is a tortured search for something fresh to write, a struggle in which she fails. Almost in passing she manages some inanities on terrorism.

… evil is facilely projected onto a foreign host of rising political forces united only in their rejection of Western values.

An odd way to describe Islamic terrorists. So THAT'S the big problem. Our values are wrong, values like equality, freedom and open societies. Our bad. But the jihadists are NOT evil, mind you – just miffed at our values.

Nothing is more simplistic than the now rote use by politicians and pundits of the cartoonish label “bad guys” for jihadists, as if American foreign policy is a slapdash script for a cowboy movie.

Just for fun let's substitute – as if she were writing about WW2 in 1944:

Nothing is more simplistic than the now rote use by politicians and pundits of the cartoonish label “bad guys” for the [Axis powers], as if American foreign policy is a slapdash script for a cowboy movie.

Reads a little strange in that context. Liberals, and Paglia is a liberal, love to draw irrelevant distinctions. For them there are guys that are a little bit bad, then bad guys, then really bad guys – with shadings between all the points on the continuum, ignoring the fact that they all hate us and want to murder us.

She relegates the problem of Islamic terrorism to the State Department only("American foreign policy"). The time is long past, if ever, when things could be fixed by "foreign policy" initiatives. Carter saw to that by abandoning the Shah and handing Iran over to the mullahs in a personal orgy of naĂŻve utopianism. As a result the world's most prolific exporter of terrorism was born. We've already paid dearly for THAT foreign policy and stand to suffer much, much more if the jihadists have their way.

tim in vermont said...

Grackle, while Jimmy Carter was not busy handing Iran over to the terrorists, he was signalling the Soviets, through weakness, that they could roll into Afghanistan and destroy a working civil government there.

Now we have another president of the same ilk spreading chaos.

RecChief said...

so who is going back and deleting comments from threads? Is that what moderation on older posts means? Meade goes back and cleans things up? maybe you should do away with comments altogether in that case.

james conrad said...

But isn't there a place for a campus with some disciplinary rules and procedures? That's my question.

HMMMMMMMM, am i detecting a whiff of bitchiness from AA? Paglia is not talking about SOME rules on campus, she's talking about equating "felonious rape" with "hookup dramas". BTW, i am a huge fan Paglia

grackle said...

Now we have another president of the same ilk spreading chaos.

Leaders across the globe. both friendly and hostile, pay close attention to the words and actions of any American President.

They have all heard the politically correct parsing of language having to do with Islamic terrorism. They observe that the US military is shrinking, in some cases to pre-WW1 levels! They realize that Obama is incapable of conducting any conventional war, what with his half-measures, disdaining his military leader's best advice and Obama's undue timidity. They have seen Obama's reliance on a reactive foreign policy as opposed to a proactive policy. They have noticed Obama's willingness to give away negotiating points to the Iranians or anyone else Obama has to deal with: Putin, the Chinese government, the Palestinians, to name a few. From this they know for certain that Obama is an inept negotiator

They have all seen Obama's stubborn adherence to erroneous but cherished progressive memes:

The West, especially America, causes Islamic terrorism.

Destroying Islamic terrorism creates Islamic terrorism.

If we ignore their often stated goal to destroy America, if we apologize, bow and bend over so they can screw us better, the Islamic terrorists will come to love and respect Americans.

American power must be curtailed because American power causes worldwide strife. America is too proud, too influential, too much of a "cowboy" and needs to be taken down several notches.

I could go on …

The result is our allies don't trust the US anymore and the Islamic terrorists are contemptuous in their arrogance. ISIS is becoming the superstar of terrorism, beloved by sympathetic Muslims, feared by all.

tim in vermont said...

We can only hope that when American replaces Obama in a couple of year, ISIS finds out one more time, as Muslim terrorists have since the Barbary Pirates, that they have brought a scimitar to gun-fight.

The Romans didn't have the stomach for the fight and led us into the Dark Ages.

gerry said...

I'm going to guess that she thinks most women could grasp this truth of hers, but only if we break free of the lefties' illusions and come face to face with Nature.

I thought they were reality-based.

tim in vermont said...

Being reality based is having and undersized woman guarding the President of the United States that is so easily overpowered.

You see, in Hollywood, women can kick men's asses up and down Pennsylvania Avenue all day long, so hey, what could go wrong? A guy with a knife gets into the center of the WH? Naah, their ideology doesn't allow for it so it can't happen. That is what is known as being "reality based."

The guy should have been shot on the lawn to maintain the security reputation of the Secret Service, if for no other reason.

tim in vermont said...

Fi the gunfight doesn't take place on the lawn, where the good guys have all the advantages, it takes place inside the WH, likely with hostages involved and places to hide.

C R Krieger said...

Am I correct in thinking that the University is a zone of protection for women and that those who don't go to college just have to lump it, or call the police?

If one commits sexual assault one should have to deal with the Prosecutor.  Regardless of location and educational association.  Otherwise we are fostering a new form of Witch Trial (previously mentioned) that our future generations will regret, assuming we don't so mess up sex that there are no future generations.

Regards  —  Cliff

Shanna said...

On Thursday, a real estate agent was taken from a home she was showing here and they just found her body.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/body-of-missing-arkansas-realtor-beverly-carter-found/

This comment is really speaking to me today: But the world remains a wilderness. The price of women’s modern freedoms is personal responsibility for vigilance and self-defense.

Shanna said...

But also this:

the fragility of civilization and the constant nearness of savage nature.

Bad people exist in the world. Sometimes, there is no amount of vigilance that will protect entirely.

Shootist said...

Paglia is a Mensch, if such a thing is possible.

Brando said...

Paglia's is a voice that is sadly underrepresented in modern "feminist" circles--she's no conservative, but she doesn't buy into the leftist narratives either. Her writing is excellent and her reasoning sound--and she has high expectation for women (not buying into the "delicate flower" narrative that campus leftism needs in order to justify its reliance on government as protector and benefactor for all, which sort of runs against the argument that women should be independent and capable). Plus, she has consistently been a critic of Clinton at a time when too many "feminists" made excuses for him.

Interestingly, Paglia's critics on the left just don't know what to do with her--if she were a conservative, they'd dismiss her as brainwashed by the right (as they have done with others).

jr565 said...

We hear about rape culture all the time. But how much of the rapes we hear about are not the classic rapes we all know but instead are these type of interactions where the man didn't get express verbal consent even though she didn't say no and seemed to be enjoying herself.
Sounds like someone is padding their statistics

Paco Wové said...

"You can criticize the rules and procedures that colleges are coming up with to help young men and women learn and grown and enjoy this transitional phase of their lives, but to me your criticism sounds weird and crazy if you won't acknowledge the vast social spaces where most of us live, especially the specific important one that is the college campus."

Ok, we all live in a "vast social space", whatever the hell that means. And the rules that colleges are coming up with are hysterical, self-contradictory, and will probably collapse from their own incoherence.

I still can't figure out what you are trying to say in that quoted paragraph, other than that you seem to approve of the hysterical and self-contradictory efforts. Something must be done; this is something; it must be done! I don't see *you* doing anything!

libertariansafetyguy said...

My experience with campus life is that it's mostly a sheltered place where people can learn, hang out, party, and, at some point, grow up. Most of the people I went to school with were good - but with vices and failings. The school I went to was 7-1 girls to guys, so there was a lot of sex. I was a leader in a fraternity and we only had one reported incident of anything approaching sexual assult. It was a he-said, she-said incident and nothing came of it. The school investigated both the fraternity and young man cooperated. After that we spent a lot of time discussing not putting ourselves in bad positions and treating women with respect. We called these moments: life altering decisions. And we made it a purpose in our fraternity to prepare ourselves for both opportunities and life altering decisions.

All that said, we were all a few bad choices from that wilderness. I remember walking into a friend's apartment and seeing a one pound block of pot and several handguns. We weren't friends after that.

I remember one night where a girl I really liked was drunk beyond belief and she climbed into my bed at my apartment and basically got naked. I was sober and my spidey senses went off and I slept on the couch - then she peed in my bed. Had I been drunk, it might have been a different outcome - except the wet bed.

I think in life you have to hope for the best, plan for the worst, and realize that most of the time, life lands something in between. But I also think you have to be aware that it doesn't take a lot of poor choices to

MayBee said...

You can criticize the rules and procedures that colleges are coming up with to help young men and women learn and grown and enjoy this transitional phase of their lives, but to me your criticism sounds weird and crazy if you won't acknowledge the vast social spaces where most of us live, especially the specific important one that is the college campus.

Yes, we live in vast social spaces.
And colleges- and now the state of California- are coming up with crazy, unworkable rules that have no basis in human interaction and are not rules any of the people who passed them have lived within, themselves
It is weird and crazy to pass laws that cannot be followed, that most people don't want, and that insert themselves into the most personal, intimate details of the lives of adults.

They need to name the problem they think they are solving, and then come up with a rule that may actually solve that.

gerry said...

"You can criticize the rules and procedures that colleges are coming up with to help young men and women learn and grown and enjoy this transitional phase of their lives, but to me your criticism sounds weird and crazy if you won't acknowledge the vast social spaces where most of us live, especially the specific important one that is the college campus."

According to our president and his educational acolytes, the "vast social space" of the college campus is rife with rape (20% are raped, allegedly).

The "rules and procedures that colleges are coming up with" - which may be violations of civil rights - are the fruit of the sexual/moral revolution of the last thirty years. Welcome to postmodern morality, where no may mean yes and no until it means no but then yes and anyway if you have a penis what you say does not matter because you are guilty of having a penis and so deserve no due process anyway.

It looks like extramarital sex sucks, eh?

Seeing Red said...

This truth of hers?


Whaaaa?


This truth of hers left a gaping hole in NYC. The lesson wasn't learned. And this post is a nice companion piece to Roger L. Simon's article today.


Stop being blinded by technology progress. It is the veneer.

"Man" or human nature really hasn't changed that much. We are defaulting back into the Olde World feudalism.

I think it was Bill Whittle who wrote wolves sheep and sheep dogs after 9/11.

There's a reason why vile Progs keep pushing their poisonous theories on us and those theories keep failing and causing death and destruction. And oddly, brings them richer and the great unwashed masses poorer.

Feminists have infantilized women. But it's easier to control them, then.

Lack of curiosity of the world is not a good thing.

Think of it as "stranger danger" writ large.

jr565 said...

Libertariansafetyguy wrote:
I remember one night where a girl I really liked was drunk beyond belief and she climbed into my bed at my apartment and basically got naked. I was sober and my spidey senses went off and I slept on the couch - then she peed in my bed. Had I been drunk, it might have been a different outcome - except the wet bed.

well! did she get your express verbal consent before climbing into your bed naked? You could get her on attempted rape charges. And did she get express verbal consent before peeing in your bed. You can get her on assault and vandalism.
No reason these rules should only apply to men.
Rules for radicals - make them live by their own rules.

Seeing Red said...

If the schools were serious about this, there wouldn't be co-ed dorms. Or those living in them would have to sign a legal document acknowledging the ramifications of choice.

jr565 said...

Gerry wrote:
It looks like extramarital sex sucks, eh?

but these rules would also apply to people who have had sex in a long term relationship too. The fact that you are in a relationship is not an excuse. You have to get the verbal consent every time too. Otherwise - rape!

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Shootist,

Paglia is a Mensch, if such a thing is possible.

Of course it's possible. "Mensch" is not "Mann"; it covers both genders. (OK, all genders; mustn't leave out the intersexed.)

Re: this whole "rape culture" business. Why is it suddenly everywhere? I think because, perversely, actual incidence is down, and a little hysteria (obstetrical reference not intended) is needed to keep interest up. It's like climate change/global warming, where the absence of actual warming has meant a massive increase in the talk about it, and the inflation of every storm/tornado/drought/whatever into an "extreme weather event," of which CC/GW can be the only cause.

Seeing Red said...

The reason this bs is happening is because colleges don't want to call the cops. The drunken sex or vipers would make their college rankings look bad. They're trying to control the women.

jr565 said...

Seriously, it sounds like if you want a sexual encounter with a woman just seek out a prostitute where sex is treated as a service for cash. Nothing complicated. No confusion as to intent. Just be careful where you put your penis, there's some funky stuff out there.

campy said...

"I remember one night where a girl I really liked was drunk beyond belief and she climbed into my bed at my apartment and basically got naked. I was sober and my spidey senses went off and I slept on the couch"

You withheld sex? You sexually violent brute you!

The Crack Emcee said...

"Isn't there a place for a campus with some disciplinary rules and procedures? That's my question."

Sure there are - AFTER you've established clearly defined rules - not doing what whites are and making them up as they go along, ignoring the past they themselves established, of rape and violence:

whites are the only group in america who consider the phrase “stop fucking with me” an insult.

whites are the only group in america who consider the phrase “stop stealing from me” to be insolence.

whites are the only group in america who consider the phrase “stop killing my people” to be an unusual request.

whites are the only group in america who think their attempts to subjugate and/or kill you is something one can easily get over without an apology or recompense.

whites are the only group in america who will tell you to be grateful for their bullshit.

whites are the only group in america who are best known for taking credit for things they didn’t do.

whites are the only group in america who think of themselves as fair, after erecting a system that favored them for hundreds of years.

whites are the only group in america who will say white supremacy is terrible but, then, will also say there’s nothing they have to do about it.

whites are the only group in america who think history is important but get upset when anyone else studies it.

whites are the only group in america who erected a racial system that raised them up, only to now claim race doesn’t matter.

whites are the only group in america who erected a racial system that made old people and children work, only to stop it when it came to themselves.

whites are the only group in america who will ridicule blacks being in poverty after putting them there.

whites are the only group in america who think this is still going to work.

Culture beats politics - to death.

RonF said...

There's no problem with campus disciplinary procedures that deal with infractions of campus behavioral activities that are not crimes and that hand out appropriate punishments for them. There are big problems with campus disciplinary procedures that deal with actual crimes using processes that ignore standard features of the criminal justice system (the rights of the accused, rules of evidence and testimony, etc.).

According to these people, if person A walks up to person B and kisses them without permission they have committed sexual assault. What person A would deserve is to get slapped in the face by person B and to earn the scorn of person B, his/her friends and whoever is at the party. What person A needs to learn is how to deal with that kind of thing using their own resources. Calling in the campus administration and getting person A labelled a sex offender and expelled from school so that they can feel "safe" is absurd and will leave person A ill prepared to face the real world.

Seeing Red said...

Person b as well.

Seeing Red said...

In the "vast social spaces" most of us live, we'd either lock and load or call the cops.

RonF said...

Brando:

"As to whether schools should be able to adjudicate rape as part of their "disciplinary processes"--absolutely not. ... but they simply cannot properly handle a rape allegation. They don't have the resources to investigate, they don't have the legal background that judges/prosecutors/defense counsel have to adjudicate with due process protections--and for schools to take this on is arrogance."

Brando, you miss the point. The objective here is not to provide the accuser and the accused with due process. Due process means that in cases where there is no obvious violent act and testimony boils down to "he said/she said", there will be no conviction of the presumably male offender. That is anathema.

The objective is to punish a male any time that a woman engages in a sexual act that she is either ambivalent about or comes to regret, regardless of whether actual intercourse occurs and regardless of what her thinking was at the time the sexual act occurred. The underlying presumption is that women who engage in sex with men are all automatically victims. They have the authority to do whatever they want - including drinking themselves into losing all inhibitions, getting naked and physically arousing a partner, etc. - but bear no responsibility for their actions.

Drago said...

CR

It's astonishing how much better Betamax3000 is over Crack.

But then the reasons are obvious.

tim in vermont said...

CR

Right, Crack has been replaced with a better Crack, a funnier Crack. As for the pathetic original, whadafukindiot.

DougWeber said...

The problem is that in the 70's we declared the specialness of this environment void. There used to be concepts of in loco parentis and an an assumption that the school was responsible for providing the safe world for its students. Then the students saw this as restricting them and the administrations agree to the removal of these controls. The result was a campus that was indistinguishable from the external world.
Was this a wise choice, certainly some discussion is needed. But if the college campus is a special world, the students must accept that the administration has a right and an obligation to restrict their behavior.

MayBee said...

I don't want to put words in Althouse's mouth or thoughts in her head, but between the comments about having sex with women who have had anything more than a light drunk becomming unacceptable and the old "splooge stooge" stuff, it seems she does want to see some laws and rules that will stop men from having sex outside of committed relationships. That she embraces this goal, even if not this *particular* set of rules. She can't quite bring herself to critize this new California law.

MayBee said...

But if the college campus is a special world, the students must accept that the administration has a right and an obligation to restrict their behavior.

But surely not every single aspect of it! Not intimate conversations in intimate settings. Not sexual behavior even within dating relationships!

Drago said...

MayBee: "That she embraces this goal, even if not this *particular* set of rules. She can't quite bring herself to critize this new California law."

The bottom line is that the left in general and the feminist left in particular have already pronounced men the patriarchy guilty.

The left is now simply attempting to create tools by which to enforce the penalties for this "guilt".

It's not anymore complicated than that.

Drago said...

MayBee: "But surely not every single aspect of it! Not intimate conversations in intimate settings. Not sexual behavior even within dating relationships."

Let me try and summarize this latest leftist gambit:

"2 legs good, 4 legs bad".

Seeing Red said...

Men should stop having sex outside of committed relationships.

Bwaaaaaaa

Kind of tosses over part of the feminist ideology, doesn't it?

Free sex, free love, free birth control....

How many decades have we been force fed stay out of the bedroom, women can have as many sexual partners as they want, no judgment...

And here we are.

The boomers are really something.

DougWeber said...

MayBee:

But that is what it was before. All parties chaperoned, etc. No man an women who were not married were allowed to be in a situation where they could be intimate, even if it was just talking. Very restricting and students through out history have objected to it. But removing it gives the current situation. Ambiguities abound. Chances for misinterpretation are everywhere. A wise man(and 18-20 are not wise) would never spend time alone with a women given the current rules. It is too dangerous.

Shanna said...

Cathleen Calvert: Scarlett! My dear, he isn't received. He's had to spend most of his time at war because his folks in Charleston won't even speak to him. He was expelled from West Point, he's so fast, and then there's that business about that girl he wouldn't marry.

Scarlett: Tell, tell!

Cathleen Calvert: Well, he took her out buggy riding in the late afternoon without a chaperon, and then... and then he refused to marry her!

[Whispers in Scarlett's ear]

Scarlett: [Gasps, then whispers in Cathleen's ear]

Cathleen Calvert: No. But she was ruined, just the same!

Anonymous said...

Bringing all these young people together in one location (a campus) is a recipe for disaster with a simple solution: Skype

Known Unknown said...

"But the real problem resides in human nature, which religion as well as great art sees as eternally torn by a war between the forces of darkness and light."

Ding ding ding. We have a winner.

Too bad so many enlightened are so tragically ignorant of this unending fact.

Douglas B. Levene said...

To return to Witness's comment above, perhaps we need a new category of offense, one that is not per se libelous and life-ruining, and which is only punishable by mild punishments (like a "censure" or a short suspension), and is therefore susceptible of being resolved in casual campus proceedings that don't pay a lot of attention to the niceties of due process. Hey, why don't we call it "ungentlemanly conduct?"