The Life of a Lesbian

I like Camille Paglia. I have three of her books:

- Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson
- Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays
- Vamps & Tramps: New Essays

The titles are provocative, but the essays are sound. Paglia clearly loves Western culture, and is willing to take its highs and lows.

I think Paglia started off writing interesting and provocative essays on our modern world, its art and its personalities. But, as time wore on, I began to realize that she wasn't offering us anything better. Her writing, and her views became a repetitive "we have to put sex back into our culture" mantra. Perhaps that is what atheistic aesthetes finally evolve (devolve) into: pure sensualists. There is nothing higher than man for them, so they start to idolize something of man: his mind, his body, and even his spirit. But when the humanness of man becomes apparent, they have to sensualize him, and their reaction to him. What better aspect to grasp on to than sex?

There is no areligious person. Everyone eventually succumbs to some kind of higher order. If it is not God, then it could just a well be a tree. But sophisticates like Paglia go for the most God-like creature in the universe, and elevate him to an undeserved pedestal. Man becomes their god. Or better yet, woman becomes their goddess.

Below is Paglia's eulogy for Elizabeth Taylor, where she elevates her into a goddess.

From the Chapter: "Elizabeth Taylor: Hollywood's Pagan Queen" (pp14-19 in Sex, Art, and American Culture):

In 1958, Elizabeth Taylor, raven-haired vixen and temptress, took Eddie Fisher away from Debbie Reynolds and became a pariah of the American press. I cheered. What a joy to see Elizabeth rattle Debbie's braids, and bring a scowl to that smooth, girlish forehead. As an Italian, , I saw that a battle of cultures was underway: antiseptic American blondness was being swamped by a rising tide of sensuality, a new force that would sweep my sixties generation into full force.

Paglia groups Debbie Reynolds with "that trinity of blond oppressors!" of Doris Day and Sandra Dee in her latest article Taylor Swift and Katy Perry are Ruining Women.

These chirpy, young white women become the Debbie Reynods (though nothing as innocent as the young Debbie Reynolds) of our modern world, while the black pop star Rihanna is the Elizabeth Taylor.

Paglia writes about Rihanna in Taylor Swift and Katy Perry are Ruining Women - which of course implies that Rihanna is saving women:

Rihanna...was born and raised on Barbados, and her music...has an elemental eroticintensity,a sensuality inspired by the beauty of the Caribbean sun and sea. The stylish Rihanna’s enigmatic dominatrix pose has thrown some critics off. Anyone who follows tabloids like the Daily Mail online, however, has vicariously enjoyed Rihanna’s indolent vacations, where she lustily imbibes, gambols in the waves and lolls with friends of all available genders.

I've written about Rihanna's nihilistic performances under the title: Rihanna Sings to the Anti-Christ:

Rihanna, the pop star, was sporting some kind of leather jacket with crosses printed on it at a recent event. That's nothing unusual in pop fashion. Madonna made the cross into some kind of pop fashion statement, and many follow her example.

But Rihanna's cross is a new evolution. I can only see two imprinted on her jacket. One is right-side-up, the other is upside-down...

This...is a new development, at least in the mainstream pop world. It is one thing to "ironically" wear an exaggerated cross as part of a fashion statement. That still leaves some room for true belief. But it is another to unashamedly display an inverted cross, because its meaning is nothing but demonic.

The original meaning of the inverted cross is related to St. Peter's humility. But, it has been appropriated by Satanists. Here is a brief explanation:

An inverted cross is the cross of St. Peter, who, according to tradition, was crucified upside down because he felt unworthy to die the same way as Christ. As Catholics believe the pope to be a successor of St. Peter, the inverted cross is frequently used in connection with the papacy, such as on the papal throne and in papal tombs [photo]. It also symbolizes humility because of the story of Peter. The inverted cross has more recently been appropriated by Satanists as a symbol meant to oppose or invert Christianity. [Source: Religionfacts.com]

I doubt the perverse Rihanna is thinking of her salvation when she sports this symbol, Her intentions are much more nefarious.

It is the dark Elizabeth Taylor who snatched blonde Debby Reynolds' husband from her. But Reynolds, forgave her and became friendly with her in later years? Would the volatile Taylor have accepted such a relationship if she had been the aggrieved party?


Elizabeth Taylor, in 2007, three years before her death at age seventy-six.
She was in a wheelchair, unable to walk. But like true divas, managed to
Reynolds today, with her chirpiness and unwrinkled forehead, continues unabated with her persona, and her life. She appears on television shows and films, performs in one-woman comedy shows and in Broadway musicals, and is cast as a formidable (former-blonde, now dyed blonde) mother on various sitcoms. Wiping off scowls and other dark expressions has made her into a survivor. Taylor, inflated by her memories of the dark vixen, reverted to reviving the persona of her younger days, but ended up looking weak and pitiful. No-one pities Reynolds. We admire her instead.


Debbie Reynolds at the Beverly Hills Hotel
100th Anniversary Weekend in 2012 (age, 80 years)
Finally, below is Paglia in 2013. A washed out beauty-chaser, who ends up looking like the drag queens she eulogizes so much in her writings. What happens to a lesbian as she ages? I think the guilt and emptiness fills itself up with something else.


Paglia on the cover of Vamps and Tramps in 1994 (she's no Debbie Reynolds)
and in 2013, over-rouged like Elizabeth Taylor