All images: Amelia by Stanley Patzoid (website)

Land of Lost Libidos

Disappointment, confusion, disagreement and lack of sensual arousal was the prevailing response by six eager listeners, initially jazzed by the idea of hearing feminist icon and erotic writer Erica Jong at Philadelphia’s Free Library last Thursday evening.

Four of us — Susana, Charlotte, Beverly and myself —  are Erica’s younger, female contemporaries, with married couple Dvora and Paul aging a generation younger.

Totally bummed by the evening, Susana and I wandered the streets of Philadelphia late into the night, asking ourselves what has gone wrong — not with social conservatives and the Republican right-wing that wants to bring women down in America. 

What’s up with the daughters of America’s second wave feminists, that they sound like Phyllis Schlafly and Sarah Palin? We’re not judgmental about their lives; why the need to condemn ours? And why is sex still a bad, bad thing in America?

Wanting to generate discussion about this critical topic, we publish our third piece on Erica Jong and her daughter Molly — and now her daughter’s circle of friends and literary colleagues.

I invited each person I met last Thursday night at the Philadelphia Free Library (an interesting metaphor) to speak on our reactions to one of America’s greatest feminist icons — a woman several of us are loathe to criticize in any way.

Icons Are Human

It’s like turning on our own mother or big sister; the gesture represents a real source of discomfort and for me — anguish. These days I feel as if standing on quicksand when the subject is the future rights for our young women in America and around the world.

The sexual revolution gets such a bad rap, as if all it stood for was the right to sleep around. The main sexual argument for many of us — that loving sex can be a very strong bond between people who care for each other and is a key component in keeping love alive — is passé.

The goals of the sexual revolution need rebalancing — the favorite word of these women — when America has yet to achieve a healthy relationship with sexuality.

Many of us believe that sexuality is a life force, central to our vitality and wellbeing. For this panel, sexuality equals disgust and inappropriate behavior. We’re a danger to young children and the future of humanity.

The response from Dvora and Paul is especially beneficial because they are contemporaries — but very different sensual thinkers — from Jong’s two younger panelists Julie Klam — introduced as a close friend of Erica Jong’s daughter Molly Jong-Fast — and Philadelphia-native Karen Abbott.

The three women writers were promoting Erica Jong’s latest anthology ‘Sugar in My Bowl’, at the event billed as new contributions to a four-decades old conversation of ‘real women talking about real sex’.

Hear No Evil | See No Evil

Forget sex. Both Klam and Abbott opened the evening making the critical point of saying they don’t enjoy talking or writing about sex, and definitely not in any way that relates to their own lives.