An Academic’s Sexual Memoir Puts the ‘ire’ in Desire
23rd June 2013
In the groves of academe that Angel inhabits, sex is anything but a laughing matter. The relation of Anglo-American academics to sexuality remains a troubled one—at once obsessive and puritanical, criminalizing and infantilizing—even in our day and even (or especially) in disciplines specifically devoted to gender studies. This is a culture where a graduate student can cry sexual harassment if her academic adviser closes his door during office hours, but turn around and solicit congratulations for personal tell-alls bearing titles with some variation on Vagina, which inflict far more violence on her intimate space than any indiscretion she’s ever charged. (More or less, this is the career path of Naomi Wolf.)
Sexism is like racism — the people who most decry it are the people who are most obsessed by it