“Has it occurred to anyone that Susan Sontag did not come out of the closet because she was 71 years old? People of a certain age — perhaps even people as enlightened as Sontag — are less comfortable talking about homosexuality or any kind of sex than younger generations. Baby boomer Camille Paglia was coy about the subject when she first came to public view in 1991 or so; I remember a long Washington Post article where she clearly hedged about what team she was playing on. In any case, it seems as if public figures & ordinary citizens have only been out en masse in the last 10-15 years, with a few courageous exceptions. If Susan Sontag had been born later, I bet you she would have been out along with everybody else.”
EMAIL OF THE DAY III: “I have no way to gauge Camille Paglia’s “courage,” but I am aware that Susan Sontag was never afraid to take an unpopular public position nor was she even unafraid to put her on life at risk as she attempted to learn and understand more about the world, as when she lived in besieged Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia. It is disgusting that, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, you would insinuate she was a coward because she didn’t live up to your ideal of a public gay figure.
Perhaps the best explanation actually is the one she provided (and not–imagine that!–the fervid projections of someone with a political agenda)–that she didn’t think it was interesting or relevant to her job as a writer who she happened to be sleeping with at the moment (and, remember, this reticence applied to her male as well as female lovers). That her “identity” might not have been first and foremost “lesbian.” That perhaps she felt she was beyond being labeled as “gay” or “straight” and had no desire to be pigeonholed as such. Perhaps, as a public figure, she wanted to protect the privacy of some part of her life. Who really knows? Honestly–and maybe this is because I’m a straight man who admired her for her mind, as a human being, and not as a member of some sexual-political group, I don’t really care. I don’t really understand why, even though she never denied having relationships with woman and certainly did her part for the gay community, you consider her a coward–presumably because she didn’t discuss her sexual life in confessional detail?
But then, I never understood how you could name a vile “award” after her for saying something (that the terrorists were demonstrably not cowards; that they had motivations beyond being “evil” and that we, as a nation, deserved better than the baby-talk the Bush administration put out after the attacks) that, while tough for many people–including you–to hear at the time, had the virtue of being absolutely, clarifyingly right, and is now conventional wisdom (well, except to the people responsible for our disastrous policies). Which isn’t to say she was right all the time–or never mis-spoke. But then again, who is? Certainly–as I’m sure, as a relatively intellectually honest pundit would be forced to agree, not even you.”
The Dish 