Was Erica Jong Right. Do Women Really Love Fascists?
In the late 70’s, Erica Jong was all the rage with a bestseller entitled “Fear of Flying,” a book which I would characterize as middlebrow literature as it was too exciting and splashy to be highbrow but had a sort of savior faire that made it rise above lowbrow.
If I recall correctly, the second chapter was entitled “Every woman loves a fascist.”
As the chapter suggests, Erica contended that most women, no matter how liberated they profess to be, crave a man who is a bit of brute or at least something along the lines of a braggart, a barbarian and a bawdy son of a bitch.
As I grew up, I found that the nicest guys I knew were stepped on by women and that the bastards in my peer group, the money=grubbing sharks, lawyerly liars, and ass-grabbing macho men, met lovely women and had great marriages.
I do not mean to offend the feminist establishment (Maybe I am full of shit), but one must endeavor to be somewhat empirical in one’s work. In other words, we can’t just philosophize about how life and art and sex operate in the world; we must also examine the world and see what is happening on the ground, in real lives, in real time. Indeed, psychologists say that if ideation, or time spent forming ideas, greatly outweighs reality-testing, or going into the world to determine the accuracy of one’s ideas, the superfluity of ideation can lead to the formation of veritable tumors of delusional thought. And the swelled heads of academics may, in part, be swollen because they are bursting with a metastasis of utter baloney. Perhaps the ideas of feminists should be examined in real life.
I might be in error and the preceding might be the rant of a homosexual and misogynistic scold and son of a bitch. But that would not make me wrong. After all, Abrham Lincoln suffered from severe depression, but I don’t think that means that his criticisms of slavery were invalid.
In any event, share you experiences and, if you can, dare to extrapolate from your experiences to conjure up theories and assessments re the crazy sexuality of the contemporary West.
Since, at times, I may be a verbose son of a bitch, you may have forgotten the question:
(I suppose the greatest impediment in my career as a writer is something I witnessed many years ago in Junior high school. I watched a teacher grade term papers. She had a scale and she weighed each term paper.)
And the question is --- give us the drum roll --- do women tend to fall in love with fascists.
Could it be power? We often see the most stunning women with the most decrepit and repulsive males. Perhaps women love to see feel touch taste power? If so, does this occur with the lights on or off?
At the biological level it helps protect offspring.
Steve, you may be entirely correct, and your idea, as I think of it, is entirely consonant with the ideas put forth by those scholars who populate a field that maybe known as evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychologists (If that's what they are called) start with the premise that we all have the objective of transmitting our genes to successive generations. To do this, we adopt those behaviors that will help pass our genes on into the future. A woman, by mating with a tough SOB, increases the likelihood that her progeny will survive as a tough SOB is more likely to get bread when people are fighting for bread and many starve to death.
What if peaceful, intelligent, sensitive males may have the self-awareness and self-knowledge to negotiate an amiable win-win scenario where all current and future progeny prosper. In such a scenario absent would be the narcissistic whose tendencies prefer one solution for many of societies problems. A world of free individuals would compete to offer many solutions for one problem.
Is it me, or does fascism can only take place in a "statist" apparatus?
No neutralizing completion to balance out the power grab. Seems like every tribe clamors to take control of centralized power. When they finally take over, folks get a real taste of the jackboot-only to realize "oops too late!"
Your assertion is, at first blush, wholly logical. However, sometimes peoples' desires sway to the beat of moods and masters other than logic. Thanks for your comments. I welcome your comments, and they are A okay with me even if they will register vociferous disagreement.
I tend to be logical. I read fear of flying several times when I was in my early 30’s. I think her writing is fabulous, just as a stand alone comment. I’m also a feminist, for whatever that adds to this conversation. You are tying my comment to logic- something different than what I said, and then responding to your own response, which is that my comment was logical, rather than my actual comment, which was basic human psychology.
Jong's comedy had the force of a comet. I remember the opening lines of Fear of Flying as if it were Yesterday. She starts the book by saying that she was on a plane with about 90 psychoanalysts and that they were all going to a conference in Europe. And then she said that she slept with more than half of them.
Re the substance of what we were talking about: I tend to get into arguments re feminism, and I certainly don't want to offend you. I was trying to say that your argument was logical == yes I know that you were trying to talk about "basic human psychology" and not logic -- and I was saying that basic human psychology does not necessarily comport with logic.
Just consider the psych. defense mechanisms. They are examples in which we distort reality, and hence logic, to make our lives easier. Whether we are referring to identification with the aggressor or projection or repression into the unconscious, they are all distortions of the truth and ultimately they maim logic. And, incidentally, Freud spoke of what he called "feminine masochism." Of course, I will concede that feminists consider his discussion of feminine masochism quite archaic and useless.
I haven't read the book since it came out, back in the late 70's. I think would be VERY INTERESTING to determine how it reads now. How did our views re sexuality change. Did the ensuing infectious nightmare, AIDS, make the book altogether juvenile. How has feminism changed. Of course, we know how non fiction may chronicle all of these changes, but how are they reflected in fiction. Sometimes, fiction can discern changes in the Zeitgeist that goes under the radar screens of psychologists who write non fiction.
Also, I feel and almost fear that if I read the book I would feel lonesome for a vanished and lost world. Let me see if I can explain (And this may be difficult because I am tired and thinking out loud):
An architectural critic once said that If you have lived your whole life in NYC, after 40 years the city WILL BECOME ENTIRELY UNRECOGNIZALBE.
In other words, because of what some people call the "creative destruction" of capitalism, old clubs, restaurants and fashions are constantly displaced because they are no longer profitable. So everything changes very rapidly per the whims of the market.
Erica Jong's book, if my memory serves me correctly, is a fun account of a certain group of people who used to live in New York: They were left of center, educated, talkative, rebellious, and lived in a New York at a time when one did not have to be loaded to be cool and hip. It was the New York of riotously funny Woody Allen movies, of Philip Roth's prose chock full of psychosexual "mishegas."
It was the New York spoken of by the New York Times, in a feature article in 1966, which proclaimed that the Jews had "taken" New York City from the Irish. Neither the Times nor I are attacking the Irish. We are simply stating that the mood of New York had become more Jewish. The New York of Cardinal Spellman, the New York which fired Bertrand
Russel from New York's City College because he was, allegedly, a "damnable" sexual libertine, the New York which could be just as prudish as Gomer Pyle's hometown, Mayberry, North Carolina, had changed. Mayor Lindsay, a liberal Republican Protestant, was elected Mayor in 1965 and he hired a largely Jewish and Protestant brain trust which, among other things, ended the policy of Police entrappment of Homosexuals shortly after Lindsay took office. (NYC policeman would pretend to be gay, cruise and attract homosexuals in gay areas in NY, and then, when a gay man invited the cop to his apartment, the cop would whip out his badge and arrest the guy)
In any event, Erica Jong is writing about a world that may be gone. The Jewish intellectual ferment is gone. The Left, which once cared deeply about economic issues, was displaced by identity politics. And the City that once felt like home to many bright and bookish people no longer feels like home. It has become so expensive, and so icy in its smug and aloof affluence, that it feels as if any day they are going to charge you for crossing the street or stepping into Central Park.
Could it be power? We often see the most stunning women with the most decrepit and repulsive males. Perhaps women love to see feel touch taste power? If so, does this occur with the lights on or off?
At the biological level it helps protect offspring.
Power. Maybe it's power?
Steve, you may be entirely correct, and your idea, as I think of it, is entirely consonant with the ideas put forth by those scholars who populate a field that maybe known as evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychologists (If that's what they are called) start with the premise that we all have the objective of transmitting our genes to successive generations. To do this, we adopt those behaviors that will help pass our genes on into the future. A woman, by mating with a tough SOB, increases the likelihood that her progeny will survive as a tough SOB is more likely to get bread when people are fighting for bread and many starve to death.
Thank you for you reply David.
I may be wrong.
What if peaceful, intelligent, sensitive males may have the self-awareness and self-knowledge to negotiate an amiable win-win scenario where all current and future progeny prosper. In such a scenario absent would be the narcissistic whose tendencies prefer one solution for many of societies problems. A world of free individuals would compete to offer many solutions for one problem.
Is it me, or does fascism can only take place in a "statist" apparatus?
No neutralizing completion to balance out the power grab. Seems like every tribe clamors to take control of centralized power. When they finally take over, folks get a real taste of the jackboot-only to realize "oops too late!"
Looking at the world today, I might be tempted to say "yes."
Only women who want to be treated badly because they don’t believe they deserve better. Psych 101
Your assertion is, at first blush, wholly logical. However, sometimes peoples' desires sway to the beat of moods and masters other than logic. Thanks for your comments. I welcome your comments, and they are A okay with me even if they will register vociferous disagreement.
I tend to be logical. I read fear of flying several times when I was in my early 30’s. I think her writing is fabulous, just as a stand alone comment. I’m also a feminist, for whatever that adds to this conversation. You are tying my comment to logic- something different than what I said, and then responding to your own response, which is that my comment was logical, rather than my actual comment, which was basic human psychology.
Jong's comedy had the force of a comet. I remember the opening lines of Fear of Flying as if it were Yesterday. She starts the book by saying that she was on a plane with about 90 psychoanalysts and that they were all going to a conference in Europe. And then she said that she slept with more than half of them.
Re the substance of what we were talking about: I tend to get into arguments re feminism, and I certainly don't want to offend you. I was trying to say that your argument was logical == yes I know that you were trying to talk about "basic human psychology" and not logic -- and I was saying that basic human psychology does not necessarily comport with logic.
Just consider the psych. defense mechanisms. They are examples in which we distort reality, and hence logic, to make our lives easier. Whether we are referring to identification with the aggressor or projection or repression into the unconscious, they are all distortions of the truth and ultimately they maim logic. And, incidentally, Freud spoke of what he called "feminine masochism." Of course, I will concede that feminists consider his discussion of feminine masochism quite archaic and useless.
Love your description: "...force of a comet." Indeed.
I wish I were on that fucking plane. Will check out the book.
I haven't read the book since it came out, back in the late 70's. I think would be VERY INTERESTING to determine how it reads now. How did our views re sexuality change. Did the ensuing infectious nightmare, AIDS, make the book altogether juvenile. How has feminism changed. Of course, we know how non fiction may chronicle all of these changes, but how are they reflected in fiction. Sometimes, fiction can discern changes in the Zeitgeist that goes under the radar screens of psychologists who write non fiction.
Also, I feel and almost fear that if I read the book I would feel lonesome for a vanished and lost world. Let me see if I can explain (And this may be difficult because I am tired and thinking out loud):
An architectural critic once said that If you have lived your whole life in NYC, after 40 years the city WILL BECOME ENTIRELY UNRECOGNIZALBE.
In other words, because of what some people call the "creative destruction" of capitalism, old clubs, restaurants and fashions are constantly displaced because they are no longer profitable. So everything changes very rapidly per the whims of the market.
Erica Jong's book, if my memory serves me correctly, is a fun account of a certain group of people who used to live in New York: They were left of center, educated, talkative, rebellious, and lived in a New York at a time when one did not have to be loaded to be cool and hip. It was the New York of riotously funny Woody Allen movies, of Philip Roth's prose chock full of psychosexual "mishegas."
It was the New York spoken of by the New York Times, in a feature article in 1966, which proclaimed that the Jews had "taken" New York City from the Irish. Neither the Times nor I are attacking the Irish. We are simply stating that the mood of New York had become more Jewish. The New York of Cardinal Spellman, the New York which fired Bertrand
Russel from New York's City College because he was, allegedly, a "damnable" sexual libertine, the New York which could be just as prudish as Gomer Pyle's hometown, Mayberry, North Carolina, had changed. Mayor Lindsay, a liberal Republican Protestant, was elected Mayor in 1965 and he hired a largely Jewish and Protestant brain trust which, among other things, ended the policy of Police entrappment of Homosexuals shortly after Lindsay took office. (NYC policeman would pretend to be gay, cruise and attract homosexuals in gay areas in NY, and then, when a gay man invited the cop to his apartment, the cop would whip out his badge and arrest the guy)
In any event, Erica Jong is writing about a world that may be gone. The Jewish intellectual ferment is gone. The Left, which once cared deeply about economic issues, was displaced by identity politics. And the City that once felt like home to many bright and bookish people no longer feels like home. It has become so expensive, and so icy in its smug and aloof affluence, that it feels as if any day they are going to charge you for crossing the street or stepping into Central Park.