File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9804, message 184


Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 12:02:02 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Rousseau


Hugh,

>>Michael shows the depth of pornographic imagination in Western Philosophy:
>>>as for 'sexual naturalism', why not Rousseau's characterization of women's
>>>nature enslaving them to their sexual passions...making them worse than
>>>lesser-species animals who go through heat because women constantly want
>>>sex and their ability to arouse men gives them the ability to enslave men...
>>
>>The above makes me think that Rousseau must have been the Submissive in his
>>sex life.
>>
>>Yoshie
>
>Rousseau had problems. He was with a courtesan in Venice who liked him, but
>advised him to go and study mathematics rather than try his luck with women.
>
>He found a very docile companion who had four (I think) children with him
>and let him send them all to the orphanage because he couldn't face
>bringing them up.
>
>He was at once intensely proud and exhibitionistically inclined to flaunt
>his failures in public.
>
>He also changed the intellectual and ideological world of the 18th century
>more than any other single individual:
>
>"Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains."
>
>Perhaps Yoshie only interprets this as an indication of his sexual
>preferences? Most people don't.

Well, Rousseau was sexist, and in the above sentence he wasn't thinking of
women at all. To him women were chained to 'sexual passions' (not 'born
free'), and men were enslaved by women so enslaved by 'nature.' That's the
point of Michael's citation of Rousseau as a spectacular example of sexism
and misogyny in 'sexual naturalism.' But it's no wonder Hugh can't read the
point of my and Michale's posts. Hugh can't read gender.

Yoshie




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