Because otherwise no one would believe it? I don't agree with her most of the time, but she is super smart and has the courage of her convictions. That is rare enough to keep her around.

I think Paglia is a snotty blowhard. She kisses right wing butt; then touts her status as a "Democrat." I haven't read her Salon column in years, and will continue to avoid it like the stinking rot that it is. Hope that helps!

Paglia's persona is finished. It has that " I am a woman, a Democrat, but enlightened enough to not be PC or to support the feminist issues", so, who cares about you? She tries to spew this machismo that is just mediocrity looking for a group to tweak. I stopped reading her and she stopped being relevant.

Emma: "she is super smart"? Please elaborate. :)
Eva and Stellaa: Amen.

I will maintain that her book "Sexual Personae" is a first rate piece of critical thinking, but then again it's an academic work, where one's wildest declarations have to be defended with a close study of the materials. Being a columnists requires a lighter scrutiny on the subject matter, since it's opinion, not thesis writing, but Paglia's chief sin is that she's very predictable in her remarks. George Will's conservatism is an enervated husk, but he's worth my while to read if only for the elegance of his prose, and Maureen Dowd,though her riffs become familiar, remains a master of varying her targets and polishing the quotable, the snappy line. There is an art to column writing, even political column writing, and Paglia hasn't the ear nor the verbal grace to make we want to read her more often. She is a blowhard, and seemingly cannot give an intelligent reply without talking about herself in the main, evinced especially in her habit of telling you, redundantly, when she first wrote about a subject and how time has proven her right yet again. Under it all is chattering nervousness that just gets on my nerves. I imagine she is a good teacher and, if she ever gets back to publishing serious books again, a first rate intellectual. But as columnist she is a washout. Joan Walsh and company should have realized this some years ago and realized her name brand is aged badly.

Oh, hell, I've been unofficially boycotting her for years.

But yeah, I've always been amused/annoyed by Those Who Must Click Things They Know Will Piss Them Off.

For god's sake, people. Impulse control.

(P.S. Yeah, she IS super smart...but hasn't demonstrated it since 1992. Sexual Personae IS a great book--too bad the much-self-promoted second volume never emerged.)

I have had an unconscious boycott of her for a while. However I think she may have been reading OS and picking up tips on how to attract readers, hence the lesbian porn item right at the end of her latest column, like a "would you believe it" section at the end of the TV news. Sucked me in. I am ashamed. I will not be tempted again.

Super smart? Read "Sexual Personae." Fucking genius. Sadly her books on contemporary culture have not been as good as the historical overview (Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson) in Sexual Personae. I know Paglia pisses off a lot of feminists by refusing to be a victim and taking on a can-do, if sometimes arrogant attitude but feminists need diverse voices and Paglia, like it or not, is a celebrity and god knows feminists could use a celebrity when each generation of young women don't even know what feminism is.

Yeah, as amusement in my pre-OS days I'd read her column and the hundreds of outraged comments...and the just-joined-for-the-occasion praise letters (positive trolls). This current one I read the first bit and then, like eating something over-sweet (! maybe not an appropriate comparison) I felt ill and clicked off.

Arran's Alley had a good description - " Camille Paglia, Salon's Bill Kristol/Dan Savage mixed breed".

I was trying to describe for myself what was such a turn-off about her. I guess the contemptuous tone, the absolute self-certainty, and all applied to kinda petty matters...

Anyway, I think I can resist clicking on her next column...

"Sexual Personae" was diatribe, not brilliant. She was an academic flash in the pan, and hasn't effected the academic discourse one bit. I haven't read her for years.

what stellaa said.

Done and done. Tho now I feel obliged to actually learn who this person is.

I dunno...she is DIFFERENT. She's not an android writing for the Huffington Post...I need more convincing.

Man, I had a whole response written! Then OS deleted it. Argh!!!

I must confess that Paglia's Sexual Personae profoundly impacted my thinking about art and sexuality for several years. Her various early collections of essays on sex, art and celebrity were provocative and delightful. But since that time her politics have gone terribly awry.

Due to the respect I have for her early work I tried to follow along with her reasoning, to understand the points she was attempting to make. But the psychology reflected in her punditry brings to mind a dynamic which I typically see happening to men of a certain age, and which I can occasionally see in myself when depressed or cranky: one's thought processes appear to become impacted by a souring of the hormonal state, what almost feels to be a kind of testosterone-poisoning of the brain. I warn my aging male friends to guard against this effect, to avoid wallowing in cantankery, to stave off the inner curmudgeon. It is an emotional dynamic characterized by bitterness, resentment, a lack of indulgence and a rigid adherence to authoritarian sentiments. I do hope that Paglia recognizes this inroads made by this condition and manages to defend her finer sensibilities against it.

I can see the logic in your missive, M. Chariot-delivered eloquently as always.

She makes me want to dig my eyeballs out with a rusty fork. And I have not clicked on her for awhile, although I sometimes enjoy that feeling.