Amanda Hess of Washington City Paper points out an interesting side effect of Ayn Rand’s highly-influential fiction: it’s a platform for forced-sex fantasies.
[Rand-oriented dating-site founder Joshua] Zader says that many Randians experience their first contact with her books between the ages of 14 and 21. “Her books appeal to youthful idealism, to people who are at the point in their lives where they’re trying to figure out what’s important,” Zader says.
It’s also when they’re trying to figure out sex. Rand’s influence on young people can’t be overstated—her fans have described her books as “life-changing,” “my Bible,” and “hot.” “I know that your sexual inclinations can be kind of stamped into you when you’re going through puberty,” says Kate. “So it’s a little disconcerting that at 12, 13 years old, I was stamping myself with this complete and total interest in submission, when I didn’t have any experience with sex at all,” she says. “It’s an interesting seed to plant in a teenager’s mind that that’s how sex operates.”
Actually based on my (limited, repulsed) reading of Rand I got the impression she deeply believed that sex is ordinarily cooperative and mutual the only possible way to have sex with any integrity at all is to force yourself on someone who, whether she’s “secretly” interested or not, is resisting by all means at her disposal. Anything less would be corporeal compromise with another human being, and that appears to be a fate far worse than death for Rand. (For someone who claimed to be such an iconoclast she sure was into making the bogus Two Rules of Desire a central feature of her sex scenes!)
Far be it from me to suggest that between competent, consenting adults that kind of kink should be denied or resisted.
I will say, though, that unless a middle-schooler has received a solid, comprehensive sex education that includes sections on autonomy and negotiation I’d probably steer them towards works with more neutral sexual content. Indoctrinating children to specific types of kink before they’ve begun to develop sexual expression on their own is as likely to limit their development as thoroughly as advocating the lights-off, man-on-top, only-to-ejaculation, only-for-reproduction kink the Victorian missionaries were so enamored of.
Well, in Atlas Shrugged and
Submitted by ozymandias (not verified) on Thu, 2010-03-11 13:15.Well, in Atlas Shrugged and Anthem*, there’s consensual sexual relationships without that many icky power dynamics in them. Not that the gender politics in these books aren’t seriously fucked up; in Atlas Shrugged every woman falls in love with men because of how successful in business they are, and every man falls in love with women because they’re beautiful**. Two Rules of Desire, eesh.
Although there is a bit in Atlas Shrugged where Rearden (hero) thinks about how there’s no look more distinctly feminine than being chained (eep). And, yeah, That Scene in Fountainhead is basically glorification of rape.
*Which is honestly her only good book; it’s a reallly cool dystopia with no more preaching than normally accepted in dystopian fiction. Also, short. **If you’re very lucky, because they’re beautiful while, like, running a business or whatever.
Of course, it makes a little
Submitted by Nightfall (not verified) on Thu, 2010-03-11 14:56.Of course, it makes a little more sense if you realize that Rand’s model of the “perfect man” was a bank robber, rapist, and serial killer named William Hickman. She idolized him because he simply did whatever he wanted, without worrying about what society thought of him (“there’s no such thing as society, just a collection of individuals” – a common refrain among Rand fans, but I’m not sure if she said that herself) and without being held down by “emotional parasites” (a phrase which she used occasionally and seemed to be using it to mean family and friends which one has a strong emotional tie to). Pretty much the only way one could have sex with a man like that is to be forcefully coerced into it, whether you want it or not.
It also helps to remember that during the days of Rand’s most prolific work, there was the popular concept of “Übermensch” (Overman) – that some people were just plain superior to others, and the lot of the common masses was to suffer so those superior people could reach their full potential. This concept had a lot of influence on her work.
I was much older than 14 when
Submitted by fiveofnine (not verified) on Fri, 2010-03-12 09:44.I was much older than 14 when I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, but for some reason I don’t remember noticing the sex scenes. Over my head? I thought the character of Dagney to be rather independent, which I liked and some of the stuff of individualism which was a given. No earth shattering philosophical pronouncements. Most of the problems I had were Rands, versions of society. How we could get an ethical and functioning society and a just government with her philosophy? At the time I had no idea that she had the followers and had and academic career developing an objectivist philosophy. Some forty years later I did read some of her other writings. Which cinched my earlier uncomfortableness with her.
I had noticed when I began to become reacquainted with libertarianism, which many are followers of Rand, that even though they espouse equal rights for women, they objectify women in the name of sexual tolerance. That the way many talk about women were as if we were still in the fifties. It seem to explain why they who had very intellectual arguments for the 2nd Amendment, think Sarah Palin would make a good president. They never fail to mention in some oblique way, just how “hot” she it.
It’s interesting that Zader
Submitted by SnowdropExplodes (not verified) on Fri, 2010-03-12 20:47.It’s interesting that Zader talks about Rand appealing especially to “coming-of-age” teens (the 14-21 age range) because that was exactly the theme I picked up when I read Anthem (the only Rand I have read so far). In the review I wrote on my own blog I broke down how the narrative structure directly maps onto the narrative structure of many novels aimed at teens (in fact, I was especially reminded of those that look at the difficulties in coming out as gay or trans).
While the sex in Anthem appeared to me (like ozymandias above) to be fully consensual and mutually desired, the logic of the philosophy outlined in Anthem certainly did call for forced sex – since the selfish ego is defined as all that matters in Anthem, the other person’s willingness or not seems to be beside the point when it comes to seeking sexual pleasure.
I do have one other point. I feel as if I am being othered by this phrase: “Indoctrinating children to specific types of kink before they’ve begun to develop sexual expression on their own…” I was kinky (as in, developed into BDSM tendencies) long before I was sexual in any recognised way – long before I knew what sex was! So it makes no sense to me to talk of “indoctrinated to specific types of kink” because my kink identity pre-existed any sexual expression – and a lot of other BDSM folks seem to have that same experience of their development.
Now, I actually agree with the point you were making about the need for a rather more balanced introduction to bodily autonomy and negotiated consent. Just as the “Christian discipline” kink based on passages such as Ephesians 5:22-33 is a very poor way to base consensual kink, I think using any political/social philosophy to justify or extol a particular relationship structure is going to run into serious problems. I just think it’s not so much a kink that is being indoctrinated but rather a specific understanding of one’s place in the world of sex and kink (and necessarily an understanding that is skewed and denies the consent of those who do not share that understanding). Reflecting back to my objection above, that actually makes Rand even more dangerous as sex ed, because for someone coming into sexuality as I did, and aware that to many people the feelings I had were wrong, finding a philosophical basis for it would have been very tempting (again, see the narrative structure I outlined in the review I linked earlier). If it had been as skewed as Rand’s philosophy, that could have been very bad.
I wonder if the audience is
Submitted by fiveofnine (not verified) on Sun, 2010-03-14 09:24.I wonder if the audience is really the 12 to 15 year old. I think there is a special personality who reads Rand fifty years later and I don’t think they read just for the sex. Most young people want to feel special and children are innately selfish; her books enforces their feelings. They have justification in being superior and don’t ever have to be responsible for anyone else. Rand philosophy will produce a just and ethical society without them having to do the heaving lifting. I have even read some bloggers who say they use her philosophy to guide their life, even as to raise their children. I got the impression that she would favor euthanasia for children with an IQ she didn’t approve of. I am more upset that her views have permeated into the political discussion, AKA CATO, now that her fans have grown up. I would also say that her views about sex went with the times. Normally I think if some university had not given her credence, her books would have died out, but so many institutions were enamored of the anti-communist dissonant.
[It gets worse. Much worse! You know where I first heard about Ayn Rand? When I was living in a very seedy university-area apartment building that also catered to a lot of still-functional junkies and ex-junkies. Man junkies just love Ayn Rand! She just totally justifies the attitude you have to develop if your life involves basically assessing every human being you encounter in terms of how you can rip them off. They’re an astonishingly big-L “Libertarian” demographic that way… and one more reason I’m suspicious of the whole “objectivist” enterprise that fuels it. Thanks, Five. —fl]