8. Compare the impact of the socially unacceptable sexual practices of Bayard Rustin and George Eliot. Where does Brooks draw a line and judge their behavior? What values and standards is he using to make his conclusions?
I know I’ve been religious, and stodgy, and old-fashioned for a solid seven questions here. I’ve been a throw-back and I’ve been frustratingly narrow and Judeo-Christian-Islamic in my outlook.
Here’s where Brooks and I part company.
Brooks judges the hell out of Bayard Rustin, who should have gone down in history as an icon of the civil rights movement. Instead, he was sidelined due to being gay and engaging in (and getting caught at) public, permiscuous, sex.
On the other hand, Brooks has no problem with the romantic choices of George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann Evans, a Victorian novelist. She was forced to live as an ex-pat so she could cohabit with a married man. Divorce was illegal. His wife was openly with another man. Still, he and Evans had to move to Germany to be together.
Where Brooks appears to draw his line is not at sexual orientation but at love. He gives Mary Ann Evans a pass and doesn’t take the consequences of her social ostracism seriously because she was in love with her partner. Rustin, on the other hand, was free and easy with his affections, and sexually expressive. Brooks gets as close as he’s going to get to thumping a Bible on the man’s head for it.
Dragon has an interpretation other than my love theory. She thinks Brooks gives Evans a pass because her sexual choices didn’t appear to impact her vocation, her life work. Rustin was severely limited in his vocation because of how he chose to exercise his sexuality.
But I think Brooks used love to draw his line. And he got judgy as hell.
So let me break with my heretofore conservative persona to ask, with all seriousness, what the hell is wrong with casual sex? Among consenting adults, what’s wrong with lots of casual sex? With lots and lots of casual sex? With sex with multiple, well-informed, partners? I have nothing against a wild nightlife because dear God there’s nothing to be ashamed of about the human body. Most grown people have sex. It’s a fact of life. It’s nothing you need to whisper about in adult company. None of us, not a one of us, has discovered anything new about sex or the human body since one generation after homesapiens established themselves as the dominant life form on the planet.
And I don’t think Bayard Rustin did anything wrong, or has anything to apologize for, or should be treated any differently than George Eliot. Wherein lies this magical difference that Brooks seems to find? What’s so special about love? Why does that give anyone a free pass?
Sexual fulfillment is just as valid as artistic fulfillment, or career fulfillment.
And I’ll take that to the bank.
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