Peter,

If you get the chance and you're interested in Paglia's theory, the first chapter of "Sexual Personae" titled "Sex and Violence, or Nature and Art" is where she lays down her main themes....it's an interesting read.

Her opening lines:

"In the beginning was nature. The background from which and against which our ideas of God were formed, nature remains the supreme moral problem. We cannot hope to understand sex and gender until we clarify our attitude toward nature. Sex is a subset to nature. Sex is the natural in man.
Society is an artificial construction, a defence against nature's power. Without society we would be storm-tossed on the barbarous sea that is nature. Society is a system of inherited forms reducing our humiliating passivity to nature.....Human life began in flight and fear. Religion rose from rituals of propitiation, spells to lull the punishing elements....Civilised man man conceals from himself the extent of his subordination to nature. the grandeur of culture, the consolation of religion absorb his attention and win his faith. But let nature shrug and all is in ruin...Civilised life requires a state of illusion. The idea that the ultimate benevolence of nature and God is the most potent of man's survival mechanisms. without it, culture would revert to fear and despair."

I can't really understand what distinction she's trying to make.

To me, the tension is about the connection between men, sex and babies. I believe that originally - what Paglia is calling in the state of nature - people didn't understand physical paternity, an ignorance that our ancestors shared with other species. In that original condition, a man did not make any contribution to his offspring in the social role of father because no-one knew what a father was. His contribution was in his capacity as the mother's sexual partner. Many times he would in fact be contributing to his own offspring, but the point is, no-one knew that. Women obtained supplementary subsistence by exchanging sexual favours for material favours. Patriarchy (father-rule) didn't exist, because social paternity didn't exist, because no-one knew what physical paternity was. The mother's main support in looking after her children was the maternal grandmother. Society was matricentric. Women had greater sexual freedom and economic independence, and much less security. Religion was polytheistic. Monogamous marriage was much less secure than today. The predominant mode of heterosexuality was what we would today call promiscuity/prostitution - the open trading of sexual favours.

The recognition of physical paternity led to a moral and economic revolution, as the woman, for the first time, was able to condition her consent to sex on an ongoing commitment in exchange for sex. The role of the male was recognised, his obligation to support her children was entrenched, and he gained the corresponding right to know that the children were his. This involved the woman sacrificing her former sexual independence, and therefore her former economic independence. Husband as woman's main support in raising children. Rise of patriarchy. Monotheism, stern god, inveighing against all sex outside monogamous marriage, and all that. Villification of prostitution. Much greater security, but less freedom, for women. What Paglia apparently calls "society".

These modern haters of sex and prostitution and pornography are just coming from that latter tradition. Just like the Christians, they think sex is intrinsically degrading and repugnant, but cannot give any rational reason for their censoriousness.

I see the ongoing comments as still circling around the concept of pornography without actually addressing same. Probably because there is no rigidly defined concept of 'porn' that is universally accepted by our society (or maybe any society). In fact, I DON'T CONSIDER THAT PORNOGRAPHY ACTUALLY EXISTS, outside someone's imagination, that is.

To explain, the original article was about objections to some tea-room posters depicting a variety of sexual activities, which were adjudged as offensive to some viewers, and empathised by a judge. However it is possible to visit any number of world leading art galleries and museums and view similar images depicting almost identical activities being performed by men; women; animals and mythical entities, displaying similar genitals and the priviledge of owning these pieces of art cost milions of pounds/dollars, if they can be bought. Add to this a statement like: 'everything is art!'

To summate, the offensive seems to be simply the setting within which the pieces of art were presented and viewed? Or perhaps, if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then porn is .....?

deadly comes to the only conclusion moral relativist can ever come to. He/She writes 'I DON'T CONSIDER THAT PORNOGRAPHY ACTUALLY EXISTS, outside someone's imagination, that is.'

The same reasoning leads to some claiming sex with animals is ok and even sex with minors. A lot of ártist'would agree with deadly's pervese conclusion.

runner shows the underlying Christian view that everything other than monogamous married sex is a distortion of human sexuality.

Peter,

Which is what Paglia was positing - that Christianity sublimated human sexuality and contained it inside the vessel of marriage.

We exist psychologically suspended between two worlds. The carnal reality of the human condition assaults our civilised sensibilities. Our intellect rejects our animality (and the possibility that the only pertinent meaning of life is that we propagate the species)...but we can't accept such a position as it's incompatible with our potential for systems and reason and "civilisation".

The Christian paradigm struggles amidst the explosion of profitable media which persists in chinking the curtain and exposes us as we really are.