"What remains enthralling, though, are Millett’s close readings, her exposés of the naked emperors of the literary left."

"'After receiving his servant’s congratulations on his dazzling performance, Rojack proceeds calmly to the next floor and throws his wife’s body out of the window,' is Millett’s deadpan description of the aftermath of the hero’s sodomization of a maid in Mailer’s An American Dream. Millett then observes, 'The reader is given to understand that by murdering one woman and buggering another, Rojack became a "man."'"

Writes Judith Shulevitz in "Kate Millett: ‘Sexual Politics’ & Family Values" (New York Review of Books):

For a glorious moment, this very bookish literary critic was the face of American feminism. The New York Times called her the “high priestess.” After “Prisoner of Sex” became the talk of the town—and the revered Harper’s editor Willie Morris was fired for publishing it—Mailer organized a riotous debate known as “Town Bloody Hall,” which was filmed by Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker and is now streamable. It was a circus, and it was Millett who set it in motion, even though she refused to show up. Mailer aimed a torrent of insults at the feminists who did agree to take the stage or appear in the audience, among them Greer, Diana Trilling, Susan Sontag, Betty Friedan, and Cynthia Ozick. They rolled their eyes and gave as good as they got—much better, in most cases—and the crowd roared with delight. Try to imagine a public clash of ideas being so joyously gladiatorial today.

Here it is:



ADDED: The word "bugger" (for anal sex) is rare these days. Did you know the word is related to "Bulgarian"? From the Online Etymology Dictionary:

bugger (n.) "sodomite," 1550s, earlier "heretic" (mid-14c.), from Medieval Latin Bulgarus "a Bulgarian" (see Bulgaria), so called from bigoted notions of the sex lives of Eastern Orthodox Christians or of the sect of heretics that was prominent there 11c. Compare Old French bougre "Bulgarian," also "heretic; sodomite."

bugger (v.) "to commit buggery with," 1590s, from bugger (n.)...

The earliest use of "bugger" to express "annoyance, hatred, dismissal, etc.," is, according to the OED, in the diary John Adams, in 1779: "Dr. W[inship] told me of Tuckers rough tarry Speech, about me at the Navy Board.—I did not say much to him at first, but damn and buger my Eyes, I found him after a while as sociable as any Marble-head man."

AND: Here's a William Safire column (from 1995) on the word "bugger," written after some Congressman said "We're here to nail the little bugger down" (and the "little bugger" was Bill Clinton). How disrespectful was it?

The Oxford English Dictionary Supplement categorizes the word as "coarse slang," but not a vulgarism; the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang shows four senses: "a despicable person," "a fellow; person," "a thing" and "an undertaking that is difficult," and adds, "The Standard English sense 'sodomite' is no longer commonly understood in the U.S."

In the same way, the slang verb bugger off means only "beat it," or "get out of here," or their extension, "don't give me that stuff." James Joyce used the term in that imperative-departure sense in his novel "Ulysses": "Here bugger off, Harry. There's the cops!" This is predominantly a British usage, as is bugger-all, meaning "nothing."

As a verb, however, to bugger is now, and has been since its coinage from a 1555 noun, plainly obscene. It means "to engage in anal copulation." No ifs or ands. A second sense of the verb is not obscene, with its past participle meaning "cursed, damned," as in "I'll be buggered." A third sense, often combined with up, means "confuse, discombobulate." This is as acceptable as screw up, which followed the same metaphoric trail from verbal obscenity. (You can say all screwed up on American television or all buggered up on British television without raising eyebrows.)

It would help if the noun bugger were applied only to small objects, and the slang term for "sodomite" were limited to buggerer, but such orderliness cannot be imposed on language....

Both noun and verb could be attacked on grounds of ethnic slur: the French bougre comes from Bulgarian, a name for a sect considered heretic in the 11th century, to whom various abominations were ascribed. The good citizens of modern Bulgaria have a right to complain, but life is unfair.

To come to the point, it was disrespectful to call the President a "little bugger," or even a big bugger or a canny bugger, but it was not intended to be, or widely taken to be, obscene; a family newspaper or broadcaster was proper to report the noun as spoken. Just be careful about using it as a verb.