Camille

Camille Paglia has written extensively and with appreciation about male homosexuality, but when it's about lesbians she's mostly irritated, finding them immature and uninterested in self-knowledge, art or culture.

One of her pet peeves is how often feminism passes as male-bashing and hate, because unfortunately that's what it's used for by a lot of women who hate and fear men. She finds that a lot of lesbians are men-haters, who find in male-bashing "feminism" validation for their own inadequacies in dealing with the opposite sex's complexities and challenges. She's expressed surprise that in her experience, and quite unlike what she expected, the strongest and most mature women were not lesbians, but straight women who had learned to successfully deal with men. Camille theorized that this learning that comes from interaction with the opposite sex is essential for one to rise to one's full human potential, and become a complete, mature human being -- something lesbians deprive themselves of by shunning men.

One could argue that in that case the same could be said of homosexual men, for they too refuse to "deal" with women; but Camille fully agrees that gay men who shun the feminine principle from their lives never grow up and stay little babies forever. The gay men she admires honour and respect women, some by incorporating it into their personalities, like drag-queens do, or by worshipping the best of womanhood in the figure of the glamorous Hollywood icons and pop singers and fashion models. This appreciation for womanhood allows them to grow without having to go through a heterosexual relationship. She herself, however, has only "dealt" with maleness through homosexuals, and as an added value they made it ok for her to embrace back some of her own discarded femininity, because if it's ok for them to be feminine, it's ok for her as well.

She's always been very butch, identifying more with boys, and claims she never had whatever gene makes little girls get everything they want from their daddies with a simple bat of an eye-lash. Until proven wrong, I say "cop-out" to any claims that offer genetics as a supposed explanation for personality traits, and I feel it's a way of asking people not to judge. I'm ok with the "do not judge" part, but I still want to understand. In a way all is genetic, just as all is made of atoms, and to say "atoms made me this way" is not an explanation either. An explanation could be that she was just as feminine as any other girl, but learned to discard that because it was rejected by others, because she was punished for using it, or for some reason felt it put her in danger. Hence the rationalization "If it doesn't work when I do it, I just don't have it."

In her theory about gay men she said they were rejected by the males in their family, and protected by the women. They grew up identifying more with their mother and sisters. They wanted to be like other boys, but failed. The ardent desire to be like men turned into desire for men, as an unattainable ideal. I can't know how much of this theory is valid, but it could be insightful about her own homosexuality: if your femininity is rejected, or you choose to reject it because it puts you in danger, you envy the power that beautiful women possess -- you go from wanting to be like them, to desiring them.

Beauty -- or, what the hell, femininity as I understand it, which is a woman's self-perception as being beautiful and desirable, no matter what other people might think; and how this feeling of being beautiful translates to a self-confident, seductive body language and demeanor -- beauty in short, is an armour that keeps attackers at bay, simply because it robs men of their will to attack. Men are kind to and try to please beautiful women. Take an extreme example of beauty like Marilyn Monroe: even if a man knew he didn't have a shot in hell to be with her, even if he could just spend three minutes in her company to ask for an autograph, for the duration of those three minutes he tried to be as pleasing as possible. If he could go home thinking Marilyn had liked him, he was in heaven. Thousands of men died for Helen of Troy, but she herself never got a scratch. For unattractive women, though, things can get much more unpleasant. Ugly women see the dark underbelly of the sex wars. The biggest problem is not being ignored, but to be targeted, in the category of someone who is a woman but an ugly one, as the perfect scape-goat for any resentment or grudge men may have against the opposite sex. It's ok to lash out against this ugly one, because she doesn't represent all that is attractive in womanhood, rather she's the physical embodiment of all that you hate about womanhood in all its "ugliness". Even if a girl grows up to be quite a beautiful woman, this kind of treatment leaves lasting marks.

Maybe Camille was one of those kids who was made to feel that she wasn't "good enough" as a woman, and she felt it was in her best interest to not be perceived as a girl and become as male as possible. Even if she failed at that, it's better to fail at something you're not than at something you are -- it's not your real you that's being attacked.

As for dealing with straight men directly, she says her sex life was a complete disaster. She has had sex with men, and enjoyed it, although she says she wants to kill them afterwards. In my opinion she's bi, not 100% lesbian. She's argued that what determines your sexual orientation is the gender of the person you fall in love with, but to me who you lust after, and who you have pleasure with sexually, is just as valid as who you fall in love with. In any case, she enjoys being submissive with women and doesn't want to kill them after, so it's a more comfortable experience whenever she's been lucky enough to get it with a lesbian that doesn't bore her out of her mind. Her friend Fessenden suggested she was a masochist, but she rejected the allegation, on the grounds that she doesn't enjoy pain and is very self-protective. He said all the more reason, because masochism is as self-defensive as it gets. She wasn't convinced, but I think he was shrewed: she feels any sex with men is a submissive attitude on her part, and therefore as giving in to the "enemy" responsible for destroying her femininity; that's why she wants to kill them afterwards, she's so angry.

In her eyes the ideal woman possesses the best weapons of both sexes, and is embodied by movie stars like Marlene Dietrich, or Lauren Bacall, whom she's defined as women of "cold, lesbian will". They're like drag-queens, all woman on the outside and all male within: they put on the external accoutrements of femininity, the clothes, the make-up, the hair-spray, the barrels of jewels and dozens of husbands; but inside they're "like men", hard-willed and cold hearted.

They're Trojan horses or poisoned candies, engaged on women's side of the sex wars, determined to break men's hearts, but never giving their own to the "enemy". They don't melt like "sissies", they don't need, they don't plead, they allow no breaches on the high walls of their citadels. Camille wishes she could be like that, but like Barbra Streisand's character in "The Mirror has Two Sides", who didn't see the point in wearing make-up because it didn't change her bone structure, her face "was still the same, only in colour", Camille doesn't believe that all the make-up and glamour in the world could make her "pass" as a desirable woman. She fears the exposure and inevitable ridicule. Femininity is something she only does ironically, as a dare, and as an homage to her gay male mentors.

I for one think she's quite an interesting lady, don't you? Quite beautiful. But an early trauma is one of the most difficult things to get over.