Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Just Eat Me

In the Times a while ago:
[Naomi Wolf] added: “In 2012 we’re still living in the Victorian age when it comes to sexuality. Vagina has to be a household word. It should be a topic discussed at the dinner table when you’re having a dinner party.”

It will be a long time before readers of the new book hear the words “dinner party” without thinking of “Vagina.” Not because of Judy Chicago’s gynocentric artwork “Dinner Party,” a beloved touchstone for Ms. Wolf, but because of the party an unnamed friend gave to celebrate the book deal for “Vagina,” published by Ecco.

She wrote that when she arrived, guests were shaping homemade pasta dough into vulvas. Sausages sizzled on the stove, salmon fillets graced a platter. Her “depression that a friend would think this was funny,” Ms. Wolf wrote, rendered her unable to “type a word of the book — not even research notes for six months.” Her writer’s block was explained by what she said was the book’s “big message.”

“When you honor a woman’s sexuality,” she wrote, “you support her intellectual creativity; when you threaten and insult her sexuality and her very sex, you do exactly the opposite.”
The rest of the article presents the usual balance: the noted onslaught of terrible reviews is set against the good of argument for its own sake.

11 comments:

Smut Clyde said...

It should be a topic discussed at the dinner table when you’re having a dinner party.

Why does it not surprise me that N. Wolf is enthusiastic about "dinner parties"? The very concept sends me off in a death-spiral of M.Bouffant-style misanthropy.

As middle-class exercises in smugness and gourmanderie, they are already sufficiently self-indulgent and self-obsessed without adding the excuse to bore everyone else about one's relationship with one's genitalia.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH DRINKING PARTIES???!

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

I'm with Smut! I wonder if vag-chugging would be a suitable substitute for butt-chugging.

Smut Clyde said...

Serious question? For topical use only.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

But we thought it was what you WANTED!!??
~

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

WHAT IS WRONG WITH DRINKING PARTIES???!

reminds me of an old Doonesbury:

"OK, Governor, the party supplies have been delivered. Two cases of Wild Turkey, 8 bottles of tequila, three cases of Budweiser, seven grapefruit, a powdered substance in a diplomatic pouch, and case of rum. What time will the guests be arriving?"

"Guests?"

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

Oh goody. I can't wait to host my first vagina dinner.

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

HA HAHA!

tigris said...

guests were shaping homemade pasta dough into vulvas

Tortellini?

mikey said...

Wait. Why would they be making models of Swedish cars out of their pasta dough. That's just not going to cook up al dente, I'm afraid...

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

I see what you did there. Al dente vulvas.

M. Bouffant said...

M.Bouffant-style misanthropy
Thank you. Now I need a cigarette.

I'm most offended by the snausage sizzling. OUCH!