Allen Ginsberg (1982) was an awful poet, and a much worse man
Re-posted by Nicholas Stix
A tip ‘o the hate to Bill B.
Bill B. re-posted the passage with some strange paragraphing (compared to the book). I searched for the passage, but could not get the entire passage via Google Books, and I too violated what I found of the original paragraphing, which had really long, weird grafs. (Confession: I write short, punchy paragraphs, oddly, like an old newsman.)
From Andrea Dworkin’s memoir, Heartbreak:
On the day of the bar mitzvah newspapers reported in huge headlines that the Supreme Court had ruled child pornography illegal. I was thrilled. I knew that Allen would not be. I did think he was a civil libertarian. But in fact, he was a pedophile. He did not belong to the North American ManBoy Love Association out of some mad, abstract conviction that its voice had to be heard. He meant it.
I take this from what Allen said directly to me, not from some inference I made. He was exceptionally aggressive about his right to fuck children and his constant pursuit of underage boys.
I did everything I could to avoid Allen and to avoid conflict. This was my godson’s day. He did not need a political struggle to the death breaking out all over.
Ginsberg would not leave me alone. He followed me everywhere I went from the lobby of the hotel through the whole reception, then during the dinner. He photographed me constantly with a vicious little camera he wore around his neck. He sat next to me and wanted to know details of sexual abuse I had suffered.
A lovely woman, not knowing that his interest was entirely pornographic, told a terrible story of being molested by a neighbor. He ignored her. She had thought, “This is Allen Ginsberg, the great beat poet and a prince of empathy.”
Wrong. Ginsberg told me that he had never met an intelligent person who had the ideas I did. I told him he didn’t get around enough. He pointed to the friends of my godson and said they were old enough to fuck. They were 12 and 13. He said that all sex was good, including forced sex. I am good at getting rid of men, strictly in the above-board sense. I couldn’t get rid of Allen.
Finally I had had it. Referring back to the Supreme Court’s decision banning child pornography he said, “The right wants to put me in jail.” I said, “Yes, they’re very sentimental; I’d kill you.”
The next day he’d point at me in crowded rooms and screech, “She wants to put me in jail.” I’d say, “No, Allen, you still don’t get it. The right wants to put you in jail. I want you dead.” He told everyone his fucked-up version of the story (“You want to put me in jail”) for years. When he died he stopped.
jerry pdx
ReplyDeleteI would take anything from Andrea Dworkin with a big grain of salt. She was so desperate to be seen as a victim of sexual abuse she accused two men in France of drugging and raping her, the story was so obviously bogus that even her feminist allies openly questioned it. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/doubting-dworkin-the-radical-writers-dubious-account-of-being-drugged-and-assaulted-does-no-good-for-rape-awareness/article768435/
She had a long history of making theatrical claims about abuse with no evidence, she considers all sexual activity between men and women to be rape (men are raping women). Her hatred of men is palpable. I've read some of her writings and I think her bitterness toward men stems from being morbidly obese and unattractive her entire life. I recall reading something she wrote where she said (can't recall exact wording but something like this): "I look in the mirror and my fat hangs down and covers my vagina, that way men don't see me as a sexual object and I'm protecting myself from being raped". Seriously, she writes books revolving around that crap.
Doesn't mean she isn't right about Ginsberg, he was a homosexual with a taste for young boys but I suspect she is highly elaborating on what he may actually have said to her, the first tip off was her suggestion that he was "sexually harassing" her in some way, as if a gay man with a pedophilia complex would be sexually interested in a fat angry feminist. Not that it's impossible, but it smacks more of her need to be seen as being victimized than a reflection of what really may have happened between them.
jerry pdx
ReplyDeleteOne more thing re Dworkin. Radical feminists like her will call out gay pedophiles like Ginsberg, even though they might be considered gay allies, but the fact is, Dworkin and her man hating feminazi stormtroopers have had an enormous impact on promoting lesbianism in underage females in the West. A Ginsburg might wish to promote homosexuality among underage boys but he and other perverts like him don't have the feminist movement to piggyback his own deviant needs on, the way lesbians do. Dworkin, Karen MacKinnon, etc... have infiltrated their lesbian agenda into college campuses and it gets broadcast through mainstream media entertainment, you can see a filtered version of it on talk shows (just watch a few episodes of Jerry Springer lesbians) female pop singers and actresses of today, many (if not most) of whom claim to be lesbians or have bisexual longings, always with an underlying message of: If you feel insecure and angry at boys you can turn to being a lesbian, it's the ultimate statement of empowerment for women.
Men like Ginsberg are disturbing and they may succeed in molesting some underage boys but they can't influence and exploit a generation of underage girls on the scale the the likes Dworkin and her allies have been doing.
Allen was a poor poet. YES. MOST modern poets are poor poets. But I am not an expert so who am I to judge. As with modern art the same way.
ReplyDeleteGinsberg stuck on Dworkin like glue at the bar mitzvah for one reason only. He wanted to use her for her publishing contacts, to piggy back on her audience. A photograph of them together, would influence women editors at newspapers, publications and publishing houses internationally. Dworkin may have been more famous than Ginsberg at the time of the bar mitzvah. She certainly was talked about more in universities and colleges than he was.
ReplyDeleteGinsberg was a blood sucking user. He didn't like women, but he used them.
Allen was a member of NAMBLA and close friends with another wealthy junkie pedophile, William Burroughs. Read Naked Lunch and puke. It's all about him fucking young boys, children really.
They became famous because they worked at it, using people on the way to stardom.