The saints, many of them women, warred with themselves as well as God. The body has its own animal urges, just as there are attractions and repulsion… - Camille Paglia

Woman's sexuality is disruptive of the dully mechanical workaday world, in which efficiency means uniformity. The problems of woman's entrance into the career system spring from more than male chauvinism. She brings nature into the social realm, which may be too small to contain it.

I am being vilified by feminists for merely having a common-sense attitude about rape. I loathe this thing about date rape. Have twelve tequilas at a fraternity party and a guy asks you to go up to his room, and then you're surprised when he assaults you? Most women want to be seduced or lured. The more you study literature and art, the more you see it. Listen to Don Giovanni. Read The Faerie Queene. Pursuit and seduction are the essence of sexuality. It’s part of the sizzle. Girls hurl themselves at guitarists, right down to the lowest bar band here. The guys are strutting. If you live in rock and roll, as I do, you see the reality of sex, of male lust and women being aroused by male lust. It attracts women. It doesn't repel them. Women have the right to freely choose and to say yes or no. Everyone should be personally responsible for what happens in life. I see the sexual impulse as egotistical and dominating, and therefore I have no problem understanding rape. Women have to understand this correctly and they'll protect themselves better. If a real rape occurs, it's got to go to the police. The business of having a campus grievance committee decide whether or not a rape is committed is an outrageous infringement of civil liberties. Today, on an Ivy League campus, if a guy tells a girl she's got great tits, she can charge him with sexual harassment. Chickenshit stuff. Is this what strong women do?

Feminism has tried to dismiss the femme fatale as a misogynist libel, a hoary cliche. But the femme fatale expresses woman's ancient and eternal control of the sexual realm. The specter of the femme fatale stalks all of men's relationships with women.