Seductress (50 page)

Pinups belong in the realm of adolescent male sexuality, a way of fending off sexual terrors. On this, see Pietropinto and Simenauer,
Beyond the Male Myth,
344-45; Lederer,
Fear of Women,
256; and Willard Gaylin,
The Male Ego,
which analyzes male beauty junkies and their insecurity and assorted pathologies at some length, 173-78.

40
There was “no . . .”:
Homer, “The Hymn to Aphrodite,” 72, and Hans Licht,
Sexual Life in Ancient Greece
(London: Abbey Library, 1932), 204.

40
Warriors dropped their . . . :
Homer, “Third Hymn to Aphrodite,”
Homeric Hymns,
84.

40
When Hera wanted . . . :
Iliad,
Book XIV, 262.

40
This “complex, learned . . .”:
Friedrich,
Meaning of Aphrodite,
144.

40
Finally, there were the virtuoso . . . :
Ibid.

41
She had the Graces . . . :
Homer,
Homeric Hymns,
75.

41
Her necklaces, brooches . . . :
See the meaning of her goldenness in Friedrich,
Meaning of Aphrodite,
78-79. “The Hymn to Aphrodite,” 75.

41
Aphrodite, the “weaver . . .”:
Quoted in Thornton,
Eros,
61.

41
Filled with “sweet longing” . . . :
Homer, “The Hymn to Aphrodite,” 77-78.

42
This likely duplicated . . . :
These dildo fetes are pictured on numerous Greek vases. For more on this topic, see Eva C. Keuls,
The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Greece
(New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 82-86.

42
After the procession . . . :
Opium was associated with Aphrodite and sacred to her; this suggests that it was featured in her ecstatic rites as it was on Crete. See Camphausen,
Encyclopedia of Erotic Wisdom,
14.

42
Other festivals ran . . . :
Note the feast at Argos, where priestesses worked themselves into such frenzies that “hysteria” became associated with their unhinged mental states, and the Hybristika, the Feast of Wantonness, when men wore veils and sometimes castrated themselves in their transports, running through the streets with their severed genitals and throwing them at women in exchange for feminine clothes. See Lederer,
Fear of Women,
144-45. At the festival of Aphrodite Anosia flagellation took place. For more on this festival, see Licht,
Sexual Life in Ancient Greece,
130, and for other similarly extravagant rites, see Burgo Partridge,
A History of Orgies
(New York: Bonanza Books, 1960), 19-22.

42
Aphrodite was not the marble . . . :
This refers to Phidias’s statue
Aphrodite of the Eleans.
The tortoise signified: “The woman should stay home and keep quiet,” Thornton,
Eros,
172.

42
She was an “awesome . . .”:
Quoted ibid., 150 and 62.

43
Whether we use . . . :
Homer, “The Third Hymn to Aphrodite,” 85.

43
“Why should I . . .”:
Raphael Patai,
The Hebrew Goddess
(New York: Ktav Publishing, 1967), 210.

44
Entwined with her . . . :
Ibid., 219.

44
With protean wizardry . . . :
Ibid., 239.

45
Aphrodite’s seductive eloquence . . . :
Ibid., 222.

45
She enticed victims . . . :
Ibid., 230.

46
Monster of depravity . . . :
Ibid., 214.

47
Nor have they lost . . . :
William Shakespeare,
Antony and Cleopatra,
ed. Maynard Mack (Baltimore: Penguin, 1960), act II, scene ii, line 237, and quoted, Hermann Kern,
Through the Labyrinth
(New York: Prestel, 2000), 30.

47
They prefer the most . . . :
Stephen Nachmanovitch,
Free Play
(Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1990), 106.

47
One of the uses . . . :
Neumann,
Great Mother,
6.

48
The seductress deities . . . :
Buffie Johnson links Aphrodite’s goldenness to her celestial character and celebrates her birth goddess connections, while archaeologist Marija Gimbutas reads prehistoric vulva drawings as tributes to motherhood without considering the possibility of a sexual subtext. Johnson,
Lady of the Beasts
(Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions International, 1994), 74, and Gimbutas,
The Language of the Goddess
(San Francisco: HarperSan Francisco, 1991), 105.

48
Feminist critic Mary . . . :
Mary Ann Doane, “Film and Masquerade: Theorizing the Female Spectator,”
Issues in Feminist Film Criticism,
ed. Patricia Erens (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 48.

48
As the hapless . . . :
Sophie Parkin,
Dear Goddess
(London: Headline, 2000), 173.

49
On that final . . . :
Edith Wharton,
Age of Innocence
(New York: Collier, 1920), 333.

50
As Nancy Etcoff and . . . :
Una Stannard, “The Mask of Beauty,” in
Women in Sexist Society,
ed. Vivian Gornick and Barbara K. Moran (New York: NAL, 1971), 195. See also Nancy Etcoff,
Survival of the Prettiest
(New York: Anchor Books, 1999).

50
They unsettle all . . . :
William Gass, “Throw the Emptiness out of Your Arms: Rilke’s Doctrine of Nonpossessive Love,”
The Philosophy of Erotic Love,
ed. Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991), 452.

50
But as prehistorians . . . :
Georges Bataille,
Eroticism: Death and Sensuality,
trans. Mary Dalwood (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1962), 31.

50
Anthropologist H. R. Hays . . . :
H. R. Hays,
In the Beginnings: Early Man and His Gods
(New York: Putnam’s, 1963), 36.

51
If evolution decreed . . . :
Neumann,
Great Mother,
96 and 110.

51
Nor has this primordial . . . :
Robert Graves, for example, resurrected this Neolithic deity as the goddess ideal of his
White Goddess,
the “woman with a hooked nose” who can transform herself into serpents, owls, and other beasts and make men’s “eyes water,” and hair “stand on end.”
The White Goddess
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1948), 24.

51
The “Serpent of . . .”:
Bernard Berenson, quoted in Isabel Ross,
Charmers and Cranks
(New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 155.

51
Dressed in skintight . . . :
Louise Hall Tharp,
Mrs. Jack
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1965), 109.

51
Then at the climax . . . :
Quoted in Douglass Shand-Tucci,
The Art of Scandal: The Life and Times of Isabella Stewart Gardner
(New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 213.

51
The psychologist William James . . . :
Ibid., 213.

52
She was, as . . . :
Quoted ibid., 23.

52
In an age . . . :
D. G. Brinton, M.D., and Geo. H. Napheys, M.D.,
Personal Beauty
(Bedford, Mass: Applewood Books, 1994 [1869]), 10.

52
Yet this homely . . . :
Quoted in Tharp,
Mrs. Jack,
28.

52
“She throws out . . .”:
Quoted ibid., 109.

52
“I may not . . .”:
F. Marion Crawford,
To Leeward
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Co., 1883), 54.

52
Her father’s favorite . . . :
Tharp,
Mrs. Jack,
8.

52
But he underestimated . . . :
Crawford,
To Leeward,
111.

53
More heinously, she . . . :
Tharp,
Mrs. Jack,
126.

53
She arrived at cotillions . . . :
Quoted ibid., 110.

53
The man was . . . :
Shand-Tucci,
Art of Scandal,
44.

53
At their daily . . . :
Quoted in Tharp,
Mrs. Jack,
139.

54
Frank said his . . . :
Quoted ibid., 83, and Crawford,
To Leeward,
103.

54
America’s first “lady . . .”:
Nelson Landsdale, “Mrs. Gardner and Her Palace,”
The American Heritage New Illustrated History of the United States,
vol. 2,
The Gilded Age,
ed. Robert G. Athearn (New York: Dell, 1963), 981, and Shand-Tucci,
Art of Scandal,
211.

54
“Battered, depleted, [and] . . .”:
Quoted in Tharp,
Mrs. Jack,
272.

55
But she was still . . . :
Crawford,
To Leeward,
53.

55
On her travels . . . :
Tharp,
Mrs. Jack,
90.

55
An observer remembered . . . :
Quoted ibid., 322.

55
One wrote her . . . :
Quoted ibid., 220.

55
Time did not . . . :
Crawford,
To Leeward,
349.

55
She profaned the . . . :
Emily Thornwell,
The Lady’s Guide to Perfect Gentility
(New York: Derby & Jackson, 1860), 75.

55
She wore the . . . :
Women, as to be expected, cut her socially and vivisected her character, but she disdained to notice. Once when a grande dame left her out of her daughter’s wedding, Belle attended anyway, bearing rubies for the bride.

55
She traced her ancestry . . . :
Quoted in Tharp,
Mrs. Jack,
322.

55
Bernard Berenson called . . . :
Quoted ibid., 220.

55
This misunderstood “ugly . . .”:
Jane Harrison,
Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion
(New York: Meridian Books, 1955), 187 and 195.

56
As a local paper . . . :
Quoted in Tharp,
Mrs. Jack,
109.

56
“The weapons at . . .”:
Antonia Fraser,
The Weaker Vessel
(New York: Vintage Books, 1984), 399.

56
To a man . . . :
Quoted ibid., 407.

57
The only daughter . . . :
V. DeSola Pinto,
Sir Charles Sedley
(London: Constable, 1927), 137.

57
Having inherited her . . . :
Quoted ibid, 133, and quoted in Fraser,
Weaker Vessel,
400.

57
One of his slurs . . . :
Quoted in Pinto,
Sedley,
135.

58
Casting the curative . . . :
See Harvey Mindess, who with an increasing number of theorists, beginning with Norman Cousins, subscribes to the therapeutic value of laughter and comedy.
Laughter and Liberation
(Los Angeles: Nash Publishing, 1971).

58
“We [James’s mistresses] . . .” :
Sedley quoted in Pinto,
Sedley,
138.

58
Characteristically, she needled . . . :
Quoted ibid., 140.

58
Because of the “favor” . . . :
Ibid., 206.

58
Rail thin, her . . . :
Quoted ibid., 156.

59
Again, though, her “wit . . .”:
Quoted ibid., 136.

59
She promptly captured . . . :
Quoted ibid., 216, fn. 3.

59
Appropriating the swan . . . :
Neumann,
Great Mother,
43.

59
When she dispatched . . . :
Quoted in Fraser,
Weaker Vessel,
307.

59
Rigged out in . . . :
Quoted ibid., 407.

59
When he asked . . . :
Quoted ibid., 408.

59
Derided as the . . . :
Ibid., 2, and see Olwen Hufton, “Constructing Woman,”
The Prospect Before Her
(New York: Vintage, 1995), 28-61.

59
She swanned around . . . :
Pinto,
Sedley,
3.

60
“What strange mysterious . . .”:
Charles Sackville, earl of Dorset, “A Faithful Catalogue,”
The Poems of Charles Sackville, Sixth Earl of Dorset,
ed. Brice Harris (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1979), line 38, 138.

60
She was just as bizarre . . . :
Quoted in Greg King,
The Duchess of Windsor: The Uncommon Life of Wallis Simpson
(New York: Citadel Press, 1999), 420 and 124.

60
Nicknamed Minnehaha, she . . . :
Charles Higham,
The Duchess of Windsor: The Secret Life
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988), 40.

61
Vivacious and quick-witted . . . :
Quoted in Ralph G. Martin,
The Woman He Loved
(New York: NAL, 1973), 50.

61
Beginning in grade school . . . :
Quoted ibid., 29.

61
Although the “least pretty” . . . :
Higham,
Duchess of Windsor,
16.

61
When she “came out” . . . :
Quoted in King,
Duchess of Windsor,
35.

61
Harsh-featured and plain . . . :
Quoted ibid., 35.

61
As their union unraveled . . . :
Quoted ibid., 431.

62
At her celebrated dinners . . . :
Higham,
Duchess of Windsor,
213.

62
The moment he met . . . :
Quoted in Martin,
Woman He Loved,
87.

62
After that she became . . . :
Ibid., 138.