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Lady Gaga is the first major star of the digital age. * * * [D]espite showing acres of pallid flesh in the fetish-bondage garb of urban prostitution, Gaga isn’t sexy at all – she’s like a gangly marionette or plasticised android. How could a figure so calculated and artificial, so clinical and strangely antiseptic, so stripped of genuine eroticism have become the icon of her generation? Can it be that Gaga represents the exhausted end of the sexual revolution? In Gaga’s manic miming of persona after persona, over-conceptualised and claustrophobic, we may have reached the limit of an era…

No Sex Please, We’re Middle Class By CAMILLE PAGLIA Published: June 25, 2010 WILL women soon have a Viagra of their own? Although a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recently rejected an application to market the drug flibanserin in the United States for women with low libido, it endorsed the potential benefits and urged further research. Several pharmaceutical companies are reported to be well along in the search for such a drug.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi scored a giant gain for feminism last weekend. In shoving her controversy-plagued healthcare reform bill to victory by a paper-thin margin, she conclusively demonstrated that a woman can be just as gritty, ruthless and arm-twisting in pursuing her agenda as anyone in the long line of fabled male speakers before her. Even a basic feminist shibboleth like abortion rights became just another card for Pelosi to deal and swap. It was a stunningly impressive recovery for someone who seemed to be coming apart at the seams last summer, when a sputtering, rattled Pelosi struggled...

What would you call an acknowledged member of the intellectual elite who is skeptical of global warming, likes to listen to Rush Limbaugh, has an ongoing battle with the feminist establishment and is a fan of Sarah Palin? I would call her the last of the open minded liberals. Don't get the wrong idea, she's no dittohead. And she has some controversial and disturbing ideas that would be right at home in the far left universe. But what she doesn't do is blindly follow today's liberal orthodoxy. Today's liberals consist of two groups. One group includes the far left ideologues...

Oct. 14, 2009 | Dear Camille, I am amazed at the easy pass you still give the Obama administration. You continue to excuse his blunders and misses as the result of a lack of experience and bad advisors. Many of Obama's policies have been a scary continuation of the worst ideas of the last year of the Bush administration, while undoing some of the few things they got right. Enjoy this story? Buzz up! More Buzz up! Digg Facebook StumbleUpon Reddit You have been hitting that note about the need to shake up his staff for quite a while. Yet...

Thank you very much for your personal testimony. I too have been repulsed by the elitist insults flung at Sarah Palin in the massive, coordinated media effort to destroy her. Hence I have been thoroughly enjoying the way that Palin, despite all the dirt thrown at her by liberal journalists and bloggers, keeps bouncing back as if unscathed. No sooner did the gloating harpies of the Northeastern media think they had torn her to shreds than she exploded into number one on Amazon.com with a memoir that hadn't even been printed yet! With each one of these amusing triumphs, Palin...

Thank you very much for your personal testimony. I too have been repulsed by the elitist insults flung at Sarah Palin in the massive, coordinated media effort to destroy her. Hence I have been thoroughly enjoying the way that Palin, despite all the dirt thrown at her by liberal journalists and bloggers, keeps bouncing back as if unscathed. No sooner did the gloating harpies of the Northeastern media think they had torn her to shreds than she exploded into number one on Amazon.com with a memoir that hadn't even been printed yet! With each one of these amusing triumphs, Palin...

Sept. 9, 2009 | What a difference a month makes! When my last controversial column posted on Salon in the second week of August, most Democrats seemed frozen in suspended animation, not daring to criticize the Obama administration's bungling of healthcare reform lest it give aid and comfort to the GOP. Well, that ice dam sure broke with a roar. Dissident Democrats found their voices, and by late August even the liberal lemmings of the mainstream media, from CBS to CNN, had dramatically altered their tone of reportage, from priggish disdain of the town hall insurgency to frank admission of...

What a difference a month makes! When my last controversial column posted on Salon in the second week of August, most Democrats seemed frozen in suspended animation, not daring to criticize the Obama administration's bungling of healthcare reform lest it give aid and comfort to the GOP. Well, that ice dam sure broke with a roar. Dissident Democrats found their voices, and by late August even the liberal lemmings of the mainstream media, from CBS to CNN, had drastically altered their tone of reportage, from priggish disdain of the town hall insurgency to frank admission of serious problems in the...

See article below.

They see no danger in expanding government authority and intrusive, wasteful bureaucracy. * * * Affluent middle-class Democrats now seem to be complacently servile toward authority and automatically believe everything party leaders tell them. Why? Is it because the new professional class is a glossy product of generically institutionalized learning? Independent thought and logical analysis of argument are no longer taught. Elite education in the U.S. has become a frenetic assembly line of competitive college application to schools where ideological brainwashing is so pandemic that it's invisible. The top schools, from the Ivy League on down, promote "critical thinking," which...

Obama's healthcare horror Heads should roll -- beginning with Nancy Pelosi's!Editor's note: This story has been corrected since it was originally published. By Camille Paglia Aug. 12, 2009 | Buyer's remorse? Not me. At the North American summit in Guadalajara this week, President Obama resumed the role he is best at -- representing the U.S. with dignity and authority abroad. This is why I, for one, voted for Obama and continue to support him. The damage done to U.S. prestige by the feckless, buffoonish George W. Bush will take years to repair. Obama has barely begun the crucial mission...

Heads should roll -- beginning with Nancy Pelosi's! Aug. 12, 2009 | Buyer's remorse? Not me. At the North American summit in Guadalajara this week, President Obama resumed the role he is best at -- representing the U.S. with dignity and authority abroad. This is why I, for one, voted for Obama and continue to support him. The damage done to U.S. prestige by the feckless, buffoonish George W. Bush will take years to repair. Obama has barely begun the crucial mission that he was elected to do. Having said that, I must confess my dismay bordering on horror at...

Slightly long read. First and second pages are a must read, third is a waste of time. While I disagree with a couple of her minor points, on the whole it is a good post.

Camille Paglia writes in today’s Salon that she’s still glad she voted for Barack Obama, mainly because of his expert foreign policy — an argument we’ll leave for another time. She pronounces herself shocked, shocked! at the amateurish attempts at handling domestic policy by the White House thus far, however, and blames the hard-Left wing of the Democratic Party for the most part. Paglia focuses her ire more on Nancy Pelosi rather than Barack Obama, and demands a new Speaker of the House: I must confess my dismay bordering on horror at the amateurism of the White House apparatus for...

[As much as I hate adding hits to a liberal site like Salon, this piece is worth looking at. Even "intellectuals" on the Left can see what a disaster the Obama faction is. Thanks to Steve Schulin for the heads-up on this!] From [FReeper and MD Independent Party founder] Steve Schulin: Camille Paglia is the University Professor of Humanities and Media Studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She has a monthly column at Salon.com. Much of her column today seems downright reasonable. Here are some highlights...

.......But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises -- or that he would so easily cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens. She is doing grievous damage to the party and should immediately step down........

Having said that, I must confess my dismay bordering on horror at the amateurism of the White House apparatus for domestic policy. When will heads start to roll? I was glad to see the White House counsel booted, as well as Michelle Obama's chief of staff, and hope it's a harbinger of things to come. Except for that wily fox, David Axelrod, who could charm gold threads out of moonbeams, Obama seems to be surrounded by juvenile tinhorns, bumbling mediocrities and crass bully boys.

Just wondering. Do you still think Sarah Palin is ready for the big stage?Good question! And very timely after Palin's shock resignation as governor of Alaska this past Fourth of July weekend. I assume that family priorities -- personal as well as financial -- had become all-consuming. Given her success with finalizing the massive Alaska pipeline project, I think Palin should have stuck it out, but of course she is master of her own fate. What certainly was blameworthy was the chaotic and rushed statement itself. Something so politically consequential needed more careful composition and rehearsal. Why provide more fodder...

Barack Obama was elected to do exactly what he did last week at Cairo University -- to open a dialogue with the Muslim world. Or at least that was why I, for one, voted for him, contributed to his campaign, and continue to support him. There is no more crucial issue for the future of the West, whose material prosperity masks an increasing uncertainty about its own principles and values. Religion, abandoned by the secular professional class, will continue to be a major marker of cultural identity for most people -- even more so during periods of economic or political...

May 13, 2009 | In John Frankenheimer's taut 1964 film, "Seven Days in May," the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appalled at a disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union, plot a coup d'état to remove the president whom they regard as too soft and naive about the evil of America's enemies. The screenplay by Rod Serling (based on a 1962 novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II) is filled with passionate lines that seem right out of today's talk radio -- "intellectual dilettantes" versus patriotism; America's loss of "greatness"; the superiority of military experience to civilian judgment and governance.

TO CAMILLE PAGLIA: Friends of mine and I have found ourselves at the crossroads of the Washington, D.C., media, gay press and the murder of a straight man at the home of a noted gay rights and marriage attorney. Print may be morbid, but maybe citizen journalism/investigation may fill the void. There is a three-year-old unsolved murder of a straight man who was drugged, incapacitated, sexually assaulted, suffocated, then stabbed in the home of three gay men, one of them being an old college friend. One of the defendants -- not charged with murder, however -- is noted K Street...

Let the new president grow into the job -- but he'd better do it fast! Plus: Readers ask about everything from talk radio, morality, Mary McCarthy, and a big movie about a sinking ship.In your column, you say, "President Obama has been ill-served by his advisors and staff..."CharlesPennsylvania You are absolutely correct! The buck stops with the top executive. But we all know how little executive experience Barack Obama has had. He was elected for his vision and his steady, deliberative character, not his résumé. For better or worse, Obama is learning as he goes -- and surely most fair-minded...

I occasionally like to poke around Salon.com for a healing dose of tolerance, inclusion and progressive enlightenment whenever my heathen conservative predilections get the better of me. Imagine my shock when browsing through some reader comments when I saw the sort of lowbrow discourse usually reserved for people who couldn’t get into Swarthmore or Brown and never drove a Saab: “go f**k yourself;” “you’re so full of sh*t;” “shut up idiot;” “get a f**king clue;” “screwball… crank;” “bitch;” “whore;” and the never encouraging, “c**t.” What was happening here? A good-n-proper reaction to the obligatorily reviled Ann Coulter? Did Sarah Palin...

President Obama's clumsy, smirky staff is sinking him -- and resurrecting a deflated GOP! Plus: Lay off Rush! And a Brazilian diva, up close and electric

Yes, free the president from his flacks, fixers and goons -- his posse of smirky smart alecks and provincial rubes, who were shrewd enough to beat the slow, pompous Clintons in the mano-a-mano primaries but who seem like dazed lost lambs in the brave new world of federal legislation and global statesmanship.

Here is audio from the Mark Simone Show, where Mark interviewed Liberal Columnist Camille Paglia yesterday and talked to her about the Obama Administration's early weeks, and the issue of the "Fairness Doctrine." Paglia blasts her fellow Democrats for even suggesting the idea of limiting Talk Radio or monitoring it in any way. She says they are "betraying the very soul of the party" by suggesting such a thing. It is refreshing to hear a liberal stand on their own principles but be fair and honest towards those who don't agree with them. Paglia fits that category, and should be...

Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who has been in the aggressive forefront of the campaign to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, is married to Tom Athans, who works extensively with left-wing radio organizations and was once the executive vice-president of Air America, the liberal radio syndicate that, despite massive publicity from major media, has failed miserably to win a national audience. Stabenow's outrageous conflict of interest has of course been largely ignored by the prestige press, which should have been demanding that she recuse herself from all political involvement with this issue.

Money by the barrelful, by the truckload. Mountains of money, heaped like gassy pyramids in the national dump. Scrounging packs of politicos, snapping, snarling and sending green bills flying sky-high as they root through the tangled mass with ragged claws. The stale hot air filled with cries of rage, the gnashing of teeth and dark prophecies of doom. Yes, this grotesque scene, like a claustrophobic circle in Dante's "Inferno," was what the U.S. government has looked like for the past two weeks as it fights on over Barack Obama's stimulus package -- a mammoth, chaotic grab bag of treasures, toys...

As I have repeatedly said in this column, I have never had the slightest problem in understanding Sarah Palin's meaning at any time. On the contrary, I have positively enjoyed her fresh, natural, rapid delivery with its syncopated stops and slides -- a fabulous example of which was the way (in her recent interview with John Ziegler) that she used a soft, swooping satiric undertone to zing Katie Couric's dippy narcissism and to assert her own outrage as a "mama grizzly" at libels against her family. Ideology-driven attacks on Palin became clotted liberal clichés within 24 hours of her introduction...

[snip]According to Paglia, "There's many a moose in Alaska with greater charm and pizazz" than that possessed by Couric. So wrote the outspoken columnist Wednesday in response to a reader's question about the media's treatment of Gov. Sarah Palin. In her most recent offering, Paglia answered queries on subjects ranging from religion, music, sexuality, freedom of speech, and, of course, politics. [snip] "If there's anything that demonstrates the straying of the Democratic Party leadership from basic liberal principles, it's this blasted Fairness Doctrine -- which should be fiercely opposed by all defenders of free speech. Except when national security is...

Dear Camille, When Obama is reading off a teleprompter or in a scripted environment like a debate (where the game is to plug in your prepared sound bites regardless of the question), he comes across as a magnificent and inspiring speaker. But there were several times during the campaign where he appeared to trip all over himself when off script. Now in his comments about the Blagojevich mess, he comes across badly and makes it look like we are in for another four (or eight) years of people having to carefully parse every word. Do you get that same impression...

Roads and bridges! What joy. Last week's announcement by President-elect Barack Obama of his massive public works initiative to stimulate the economy won loud applause from me. Not only does the decaying U.S. infrastructure need emergency attention but construction commissions will be far more substantive and enduring than the half-mythical 5 million "green" jobs that Obama was airily promising before the election. But then I gulped when Obama also pledged educational reform by putting state-of-the-art computers in every classroom. Groan. Computers alone will never solve the educational crisis in this country: They are tools and facilitators, not primary conveyors of...

Roads and bridges! What joy. Last week's announcement by President-elect Barack Obama of his massive public works initiative to stimulate the economy won loud applause from me. Not only does the decaying U.S. infrastructure need emergency attention but construction commissions will be far more substantive and enduring than the half-mythical 5 million "green" jobs that Obama was airily promising before the election.

What a powerful letter -- which I am pleased to share with Salon readers. Yes, let us not forget the tragic series of dubious political judgments that led the U.S. to lurch into Southeast Asia after the French had prudently packed up and left. The debacle of the Vietnam War still haunts American politics and has produced deep partisan fissures that have never healed. However, I would appeal to you and to all Americans to acknowledge that the preservation of our liberties ultimately depends on the enormous dedication and self-sacrifice of our military men and women. I am very concerned...

  A Lefty Sees the Light Camille Paglia, author, staunch liberal feminist and pro-choice advocate, has some interesting comments on the election and Sarah Palin today in her online column at Salon.  Thanks to Hot Air.   Paglia expresses doubts about the media's coverage, or lack of it, of several controversies surrounding Obama during his campaign.  She says: In the closing weeks of the election, however, I became increasingly disturbed by the mainstream media's avoidance of forthright dealing with several controversies that had been dogging Obama -- even as every flimsy rumor about Sarah Palin was being trumpeted as if it were engraved in...

In the closing weeks of the election, however, I became increasingly disturbed by the mainstream media's avoidance of forthright dealing with several controversies that had been dogging Obama -- even as every flimsy rumor about Sarah Palin was being trumpeted as if it were engraved in stone on Mount Sinai. For example, I had thought for many months that the flap over Obama's birth certificate was a tempest in a teapot. But simple questions about the certificate were never resolved to my satisfaction. Thanks to their own blathering, fanatical overkill, of course, the right-wing challenges to the birth certificate never...

Dazed and confused. A week after the election of Barack Obama, millions of American news junkies are in serious cold turkey, the big bump of withdrawal from two years of addiction to the dizzying ups and downs of a campaign that threatened never to end. Eat dirt, you sour Clintons, who said Obama was "unelectable." Obama's 8 million vote margin over his Republican opponent -- miraculously sparing us endless litigation and chad counting -- was an exhilarating testimony to his personal gifts and power of persuasion. And the formidable Michelle Obama, with her electric combo of brains and style, is...

Dazed and confused. A week after the election of Barack Obama, millions of American news junkies are in serious cold turkey, the big bump of withdrawal from two years of addiction to the dizzying ups and downs of a campaign that threatened never to end. Eat dirt, you sour Clintons, who said Obama was "unelectable." Obama's 8 million vote margin over his Republican opponent -- miraculously sparing us endless litigation and chad counting -- was an exhilarating testimony to his personal gifts and power of persuasion. And the formidable Michelle Obama, with her electric combo of brains and style, is...

Dear Camille, I was actually leaning towards Obama before he stated his willingness to enter negotiations with Iran with no pre-conditions. This is frightening stuff here. My wife and I lived in Germany for five years until late 2006, and I worked in Baghdad during the better part of 2006. His offer is reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain, but I don't think Obama's motives are as sincere as Chamberlain's. Like most politicians, I believe Obama says what the people want to hear. He doesn't come across as a change agent. Sincerely, Philip Steelman Your concern about the foreign-policy world-view of liberal...

Yes, both Todd and Sarah Palin, whom most people in the U.S. and abroad had never even heard of until six weeks ago, have emerged as powerful new symbols of a revived contemporary feminism. That the macho Todd, with his champion athleticism and working-class cred, can so amiably cradle babies and care for children is a huge step forward in American sexual symbolism. Although nothing will sway my vote for Obama, I continue to enjoy Sarah Palin’s performance on the national stage. During her vice-presidential debate last week with Joe Biden (whose conspiratorial smiles with moderator Gwen Ifill were outrageous...

How to destroy Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin? That’s the quandary of the left, of the campaign Democrats and the bloggers and other commentators who camp with them. She sailed through the first two tests — her introduction to the nation as John McCain’s running mate and her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention — with an easy self-confidence that alarmed adversaries expecting a deer-in-the-headlights revelation of the former small-town mayor’s unpreparedness for the duties ahead. One of her greatest tributes came from an independent-thinking feminist and Democrat, Camille Paglia, a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia....

WASHINGTON, September 11, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an article focusing on newly appointed vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, prominent feminist Camille Paglia admits that, much like Gov. Palin, she also believes abortion involves the murder of an innocent life - but unlike Palin, Paglia says she is a "firm supporter" of abortion. Paglia's piece, which appears on Salon.com, is the latest indication that "utilitarian" philosophies that no longer recognize the "right to life" as being the most foundational human right are gaining ground in some liberal circles. Under these philosophies even murder can be advocated as long as it protects what...

Camille Paglia takes Democrats to task over their treatment of Sarah Palin and offers a cogent diagnosis of their hysteria — a desperate grasp on their pro-abortion dogma. Palin challenges their ossified view of women and power, and sees her not as a threat to legal abortion, but as someone who can reveal just how intellectually and morally bankrupt their own ideology has become. Paglia points out the flaws and wonders just when Democrats became the party of lockstep thinking: What I am getting at here is that not until the Democratic Party stringently reexamines its own implicit assumptions and...

Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism. At her startling debut on that day, she was combining male and female qualities in ways that I have never seen before. And she was somehow able to seem simultaneously reassuringly traditional and gung-ho futurist. In terms of redefining the persona for female authority and leadership, Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats of the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist...

The nomination of GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is causing a schism on the feminist left. A group founded by philanthropist Susie Tompkins Buell, a wealthy member of the secretive left-wing Democracy Alliance, accused journalists of sexism in its coverage of Palin and told reporters "to back off," Jonathan Martin of the Politico reports today: WomenCount, a group co-founded by top Hillary [Clinton] fundraiser Susie Tompkins Buell, posted a lengthy item on their blog decrying questions over whether Palin can, as a mother of five, juggle her family responsibilities and still be vice president. "The very notion that Sarah...

When Sarah Palin stepped into the spotlight as John McCain’s running mate in Dayton, Ohio, and promised that women could “shatter that glass ceiling once and for all”, it was an electrifying moment in a presidential election that had already produced its share of upsets and surprises. History was on the march again the morning after Barack Obama became the first African-American to accept his party’s White House nomination. After the fireworks, the 80,000-strong crowd who had cheered Obama to the skies at the Mile High stadium in Denver woke up with a hangover. “We may be seeing the first...

Feminism Past and Present: Ideology, Action, and Reform CAMILLE PAGLIA Feminism is back in the news. After a long period when feminist debate has been mainly confined to Web sites and to books that, however well reviewed, did not find a readership beyond that of other feminists, the current presidential campaign has restored gender war to the center ring. There has been an explosion of international publicity and acrimony over the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Hillary is not, as is too often alleged, the first woman to run for president: she has a long line of strong-willed precursors beginning with...

Right now, Hillary is in Godzilla mode, refusing to accept Barack Obama's looming nomination and threatening to tie the Democratic party in legal knots until the August convention and beyond. Those who think she will withdraw gracefully in a few weeks are living in cloud cuckoo land. The Clintons are ruthless scrappers who will lock their bulldog teeth in any bloody towel. In her raw ambition and stubborn, grinding energy, Hillary will certainly cast a long shadow on young women aspiring to high office. She is both inspiring role model and cringe-making bad example - a feminist who never found...

When the dust settles over the 2008 election, will Hillary Clinton have helped or hindered women's advance toward the US presidency? Right now, Hillary is in Godzilla mode, refusing to accept Barack Obama's looming nomination and threatening to tie the Democratic party in legal knots until the August convention and beyond. Those who think she will withdraw gracefully in a few weeks are living in cloud cuckoo land. The Clintons are ruthless scrappers who will lock their bulldog teeth in any bloody towel. In her raw ambition and stubborn, grinding energy, Hillary will certainly cast a long shadow on young...