How Little We Know, How Much To Discover

Camile Paglia, the social commentator and professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, recently wrote a lengthy essay in the Times of London Magazine section about Lady Gaga.  Truth in advertising, I wasn't going to pay the one pound sterling (1.60 USD as of this morning) for the privilege of accessing the Times' site for 24 hours just to read the entire thing.  Call me stingy, I've been called worse.  But I read enough of it to get her jist.  Basically, Gaga is no Madonna, and her forced, bizarre act is a plastic imitation of the authentic sexuality exhibited by the likes of the Material Girl and Marline Dietrich.  Paglia asks, rhetorically, if Gaga represents the "exhausted end of the Sexual Revolution."

I must say, we have come along way when Madonna represents the "good old days."  But my take is that Paglia is right; the Sexual Revolution is over, but Camile shouldn't be so disheartened because the revolutionaries won.  Lady Gaga is what we get when sex is reduced to a bodily function, devoid of romance and tension, and disconnected completely from any idea of permanence, and yes, child birth.  Freud knew that once sex was separated from reproduction all perversions were possible.  And now we live in the age of the "hook up" and "friends with benefits" where sex is treated like a recreational activity, with about as much significance as an afternoon at the gym.  We go, release our frustrations and once we're satisfied it's time to move on to the next exercises machine.  There have been studies to show that the hook up culture is emotionally destructive to young people, especially women (I would argue men are just as damaged, but are often too thick to figure it out).

Many pop songs today reflect the hook up mentality.  They focus on the sex act as a given, and revel in the immediate experience with no thought to tomorrow.  And why not? There are no consequences that can't be either prevented or taken care of later.  There are no attachments, no strings, just now.  But lets look back at the days of Sinatra and Como.  The songs didn't have to do with love for a day, but forever.  Even in songs that were more "erotic," for lack of a better term, there was a tension at play.  The narrator of the songs "Witchcraft" or "All or Nothing At All," struggle with the temptation because they know there is something at risk, both emotionally and I would argue practically, even if this concern is unspoken.  "How Little We Know" bows to the fact that sex is a mystery, and the attraction that draws a man and a woman together is beyond reason and science.

The Sexual Revolution succeeded in it's goal of making the contraceptive mentality the default position in the popular mind.  But it also had another result; it killed romance.  Without consequences, without something to risk, and without the promise of a future, sex is rendered plastic and fake.  Without bowing to the mystery that sex has a power beyond our reason and a purpose higher than our desires, we are stripped of a key part of our own humanity.