Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1996 20:11:12 -0700
From: dwalter-AT-ucla.edu (don walter)
Subject: Re: cummings again


>
>
>
>Don wrote:
>
> but I
>> wondered (and wonder) whether there is a P.C. attitude toward 20's/30's men
>> writing joyously about prostitutes (sorry: P.C. means politically correct,
>> in the narrow, 90's version of that phrase).  cummings changed and grew a
>> lot over the years, as one would hope from sampling most of his more popular
>> poems; he also had a very happy marriage (his fourth? I think) toward the
>> end of his life.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>I guess my question would be in what respect the attitude is PC. Is it PC 
>in respect to women being prostitutes, men frequenting them, or men 
>writing about them openly?  I don't mean to be snippy at all, I just 
>wonder what kind of 'morality issues' you feel are at work in the 
>potentially PC attitude.
>
>Thanks,
>Laurel
>
>
Don says

Gee, I don't know-- I never really understood PC attitudes, anyway.  I guess
what I was really wondering was whether various folks on this list would
feel bad about cummings' visiting prostitutes (almost as delicate as
"frequenting them"?), then writing somewhat joyously about them--- but,
never having visited a prostitute myself, I guess I wondered whether any
woman could feel, these days, that his attitude could have been anything but
down-putting toward them. His writing about female lovers he didn't pay,
seems to me much more joyous and happy-making (for me, anyway).  (Consider
his worshiping attitude toward the character "Me", in his early play, "Him";
and, better known, his later poems about anonymous women lovers).
   I guess this is connected with the surviving-- and very unfair-- attitude
that it's OK to prosecute a Madam, but not the Johns.