Prometheus 6

Wasn't it the slave Tituba [?] who was blamed for teaching young girls witchcraft in Salem Mass., thus unleashing a chain of events that ended in the Salem Witch Trial?   

It’s as if there were now Three Ages of Woman: first Mary-Kate, then Britney, then Courtney. Boys don’t seem to have such constricted horizons. They wouldn’t stand for it — much less waggle their butts and roll around for applause on the floor of a school auditorium.

Not on this one...have you seen Mary-Kate, Britney and Courtney? These are "the whitest" white girls on the planet. I'm sure someone will make the case, but as Exhibit A, I would submit that Paris Hilton sex tape. Exhibit B would be the death of Kurt Cobain. Exhibit C would be unnecessary.

One of the delusions that white Americans have about themselves is that they aren't really all that "sexual." And yet, the US history of pornography, illicit drug use, sexual violence and deviance is full of legendary folk on all sides of this aisle: for and against. The circuitous path to public acceptance traveled by one Hugh Hefner is particularly instructive. Last time I checked, Hugh was white as the day is long and still mackin' 20 somethings and getting re-married. It's been a while since I checked, but this cat is damn near 80, and he's a legend...and he gets his props...and he's paid...and everyone wants a ticket to the mansion (including Harold Ford). And if he sends me a ticket, I'm going too. "What happens in the Grotto, stays in the Grotto!"

There are so many nuances to the evolution of American sexuality (and race is at the center of much of it). Race and sex meet around the words like legal, ethical, permitted, tolerated. These nuances have brought us, collectively, to a point where moralism must confront tolerance (anything goes) and distribution (mass media). If the internet is driven by porn and music (presumably the former is consumed principally by parents and the latter principally by children), that middle school performance was not an unexpected nexus of time and space. In fact, it's been going on for years.

The critique of elders may have been subtly different, but the associations remain unchanged. Whether it's the advent of the 2 piece swimsuit nearly a century ago, listening to jazz music or dancing to rock n' roll or the Nipple Gate of Janet Jackson, Americans and American Christians in particular, have always been SLOW to accept and recognize changes which have already occurred. After, this writer is lamenting a phenomenon that's been in play for years. If the Middle Schools have Gone Wild, what were their college and high school siblings doing on video ten years ago in Mexico, New Orleans, Florida, California and Arizona? Indeed, the hootchie has left the barn and archives are available for $9.99. This is a case of too little, too late.

Conversely, they have reconciled themselves to the essential American violence that "required" the mass murder of Indians...but they have yet to reconcile themselves to the many variations of sexual life that have been here since the Mayflower.

When it comes to a confluence of violence and sex: rapists, pedophiles, "gay bashers" are all part of a broader cultural paradigm in which many of this nation's most celebrated citizens have been participant, victim or victimizer. Captains of industry, paragons of virtue, upholders of the law, and out-and-out crookit muhfukkas have all been caught in this dragnet. And those caught in the web have largely been practitioners of a white American, Western culture...Demonizing everything that is not on-the-bed-missionary (OTBM) is also part of the American tradition. This dynamic tension has led to this crossroads. How can you be shocked in 2006 when the videos have been on sale for 10 years? "Wuh, wuh, well, I Never!"

...and try to teach sexual responsibility, white culture instantly starts playing the blame game and adheres more stubbornly to "it doesn't exist until it gives me a hard-on, and even then I'm not sure."

It occurs to me some of the parents he's complaining about may have been in the first videos.

isn't a monolith when it comes to sex...it's just as convoluted as Bill O'Reilly's constant moralizing contrasted with never-ending invitations to Jenna Jameson to appear on his show. Bill should just get his Donald on and profess his love for silicone blondes who get freaky on film...it's not like he'd be in a minority among Republicans or Democrats. The funny thing is contrasting folks like him and Pat Buchanan with those dabblers who still try to act like they've been redeemed while others remain forever tainted. I certainly consider Larry Flynt to be a white supremacist - as much of one as Buchanan - and so, they're divergence is not about "white culture" as much as it is an American tendency to flip flop on all things.

"it doesn't exist until it gives me a hard-on, and even then I'm not sure."

Well...speaking for white males everywhere, I've always considered that a reliable sign.

"White" that is to say historical WASP culture has always been misrepresented as Puritanism, which was actually just one strand. The Middle and Southern colonies were not settled by moral exemplars trying to build cities on a hill but by those trying to get rich quick and amass enough land to emulate English gentry. Georgia began as penal colony and most of the whites there arrived as indentured servants and would have remained landless were it not for headright grants.

Sexual mores were quite loose until the 1830's when protestant revivalism swept America ( even in the North, Massachusetts did not look terribly "puritan" during the American Revolution).

"White" that is to say historical WASP culture has always been misrepresented as Puritanism, which was actually just one strand.

Why? That's that I've wondered on occasion...why does WASP culture want itself represented as something it is so obviously not?

I would venture to say that the public image of WASP puritanism ties in with the middle-class social reform movements of the 19th century - abolitionism, temperance, women's suffrage, Progressivism - because these grew out of the slightly earlier" burnt over district" religious revival and " cult of domesticity" for women.

The upper crust that became the Eastern Establishment found these mores as useful standards of public morality, even if, like British aristocrats in Victorian England, they did not adhere to them in private life. In a relatively fluid society, "neo-puritanism" created the dividing line between " respectable" people and the common sort, the difference between " deserving" and " undeserving" poor, good Americans and " foreigners" and so on.

Of course, many of these behavioral standards were in fact positive forms of socialization as they encouraged hard work, thrift, honesty and sobriety which, on average, made it more likely that one would accumulate wealth and get ahead. This was relative of course - Irish, Chinese, Jews, African-Americans faced higher hurdles as I'm certain you're well aware but nonetheless, the elite in these communities adopted the standards as well ( "Talented Tenth", " Lace Curtain Irish" - whatever the minority social elite might have been called, they emulated & strictly enforced these WASP norms as a condition of entry. More Catholic than the pope, so to speak, so you end up with Joseph Kennedy puling strings to become the ambassador to the Court of St. James so that " good people in Boston" will invite Rose to tea)

Your blog always jogs my memory for American social/ economic history.

I wonder if the Civil War and its divisions also had something to do with the domination of one strand in sociopolitical terms/deepening rifts between perspectives. My only evidence for that observation is what you allude to in your comment here, zenpundit:

"White" that is to say historical WASP culture has always been misrepresented as Puritanism, which was actually just one strand. The Middle and Southern colonies were not settled by moral exemplars trying to build cities on a hill but by those trying to get rich quick and amass enough land to emulate English gentry. Georgia began as penal colony and most of the whites there arrived as indentured servants and would have remained landless were it not for headright grants.

Sexual mores were quite loose until the 1830's when protestant revivalism swept America ( even in the North, Massachusetts did not look terribly "puritan" during the American Revolution).

Also, sorry about the white culture monolith comment. But the puritanism seems to override most of the other strains in public political and social culture. If the pushes for social reform did coincide with these sexual perspectives, then the Union victory in the Civil War probably suppressed overt challenges to puritan formalities -- even if people's actions were completely different. People do tend to project moral and ideological values on physical and political conflicts...*cough*

Add industrialism as a growing concept to the mix, and it probably explains some of the reason why puritan wet dreams (I couldn't help the play on words) persists into modern political, social, and economic discourse.

But then again...this is just my brain. So it could be way off the mark. lol

One of the most edgy adult magazine of the 1970's was "Puritan." I don't recall exactly when it was founded or the editorial staff, but it was far more explicit than Playboy or even Guccione's Penthouse.

Zen...quick question for you...Have you discerned a relationship between Georgia's quick admission to the States (4th?), the Seminole War, extending a southern US border and these head right grants you referenced?

Hi Temp.

Great question -and you are stretching me because I specialized in 20th century diplo and economic history; I know the above material primarily because my mentors in those fields also concentrated in the 19th century and one was also an expert on antebellum Southern topics.

Stephen Hahn has written about headright in Georgia in several of his books ( he first concentrated on white upcountry yeomen, then lately on African-American social groups). My best recollection is that Georgia headright was nice but insufficient because:

a) Southern agriculture focused on labor-intensive commodity crops for export (indigo, rice, cotton, tobacco) and not subsistence crops like Yankee farms & required vastly more acreage. Some of these also "wear out" the soil relatively quickly

b) the best land in the low country was concentrated in relatively few hands of the planter class. A source of bitter class resentment.

c) Yeomen families were large and subdividing a headright plot was not economically viable so younger sons had to go south or west unless the paterfamilias had accumulated enough cash to buy land and slaves to rise up into the lesser planter class.

All of these promoted a pressure for more land. Planters would have viewed the Seminoles as an ever-present security threat and temptation to their slaves to run away ( nor were they, if I recall, much enthused with Spanish authorities on their doorstep and very vaguely defined borders between Georgia and Florida). An anti-Spanish filibustero sentiment began in the South quite soon after independence. As a state government, Georgia was very aggressive vis-a-vis the Indian tribes and Spanish.

As this period (18th cent.) is weak for me, I can only speculate that these factors promoted the relatively Tory Georgia's quick admission to the Union but I would expect that they played a role in terms of incentives for both planters and yeomen ( landholding voters) to support ratification of the Constitution.

Syl wrote:

" wonder if the Civil War and its divisions also had something to do with the domination of one strand in sociopolitical terms/deepening rifts between perspectives"

Definitely. Sumner, Stevens, Ben Wade -the Radical Republicans were determined to put their stamp on the GOP and the nation.