Kass On Ass

Kieran Healy has a wonderful analysis of this essay by Professor Leon Kass on why today's college woman is a slut, and isn't really happy about it. I won't even try to improve on Kieran's analysis, but here's Kass describing his thesis: "A virtue [modesty], as it were, made for courtship, it served simultaneously as a source of attraction and a spur to manly ardor, a guard against a woman's own desires, as well as a defense against unworthy suitors."

And it made mountains and mountains of fresh coleslaw.

In a footnote, Kass opines that "Readers removed from the college scene should revisit Allan Bloom's profound analysis of relationships in his The Closing of the American Mind .... Bloom was concerned with the effect of the new arrangements on the possibility for liberal education, not for marriage, my current concern." You remember, the tome in which Bloom revealed his sure-fire pickup line, comparing the campanile to a boner. That's some fine wooin'.

There's two more parts to Kass's essay, so be sure to bookmark the page.