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Tom Wolfe: America Has Become a 'Sexual Carnival'

Noted author Tom Wolfe has a message for the "progressive" no-holds-barred, do-what-makes-you-feel-good left: No, thanks.

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  At least, that's what his new novel, "I Am Charlotte Simmons," purports to convey.

In an interview with London's Guardian newspaper, Wolfe expounded on America’s sexual revolution and the culture war that divides America during this heated presidential contest.

Because of America’s cultural meltdown, says Wolfe – without offering any firm endorsement of the president – "I have sympathy with what George Bush is trying to do, although obviously the excursion [into Iraq] is not going well."

What does he mean?

"Four years ago, Wolfe wrote an essay to mark the millennium called 'Hooking Up,' about what he called 'feverish emphasis on sex and sexiness,'" says the Guardian.

He says the heroine in his current book, Charlotte Simmons, arrives a virgin to attend a fictional Ivy League school, Dupont College. He says, according to the paper, that Simmons arrives at the school "a diligent virgin from the hills of North Carolina, on a full scholarship. She is initially intimidated and appalled, but eventually conquers her fear to partake, indeed to star, in the jock beanfeast."

The book is essentially a modern tale of sexual excesses on campus.

"I personally would be shocked out of my pants if I was at college now," he told the paper. The book, he says, is "about sex as it interacts with social status. And I have tried to make the sex un-erotic. I will have failed if anyone gets the least bit excited. So much of modern sex is un-erotic, if erotic means flight of fancy or romantic build-up. Sex now is so easy to consummate – it is a pressure that affects everybody, girls more than boys, I think."

He says the book deigns to portray America as at war with itself, as never before, over the issue of morality.

Though the country twice elected Bill Clinton, things changed greatly following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Much of that has to do with the influence of President Bush.

"On the flip side of the culture of ubiquitous sex is that of puritan Christianity, as harnessed in no small part by Bush," the Guardian writes of Wolfe's opinion.

The author adds: "Yes, there is this Puritanism, and I suppose we are talking here about what you might call the religious right. But I don't think these people are left or right, they are just religious, and if you are religious, you observe certain strictures on sexual activity – you are against the mainstream, morally speaking."

"And I do have sympathy with them, yes, though I am not religious," he continues. "I am simply in awe of it all; the openness of sex. In the '60s they talked about a sexual revolution, but it has become a sexual carnival."

Regarding Kerry, Wolfe says "he is a man no one should worry about, because he has no beliefs at all. He is not going to introduce some manic radical plan, because he is poll-driven, and it is therefore impossible to know where or for what he stands."

Does that mean Wolfe is a patron of the Right?

"I'm gratified if you find me to be hard on them too," he says, anticipating that "conservatives will not like this new novel because I refuse to take the impact of political correctness seriously – I think PC has probably had a good effect because it is now bad manners to use racial epithets."

But he's no automatic liberal either. And why?

"I cannot stand the lock-step among everyone in my particular world. They all do the same thing, without variation. It gets so boring. There is something in me that particularly wants it registered that I am not one of them," he told the paper.

Still, he sees much of the East Coast liberal elite as vehemently out of touch with the rest of America.

"Tina Brown wrote in her column that she was at a dinner where a group of media heavyweights were discussing, during dessert, what they could do to stop Bush. Then a waiter announces that he is from the suburbs, and will vote for Bush. And ... Tina's reaction is: 'How can we persuade these people not to vote for Bush?' I draw the opposite lesson: that Tina and her circle in the media do not have a clue about the rest of the United States. You are considered twisted and retarded if you support Bush in this election. I have never come across a candidate who is so reviled. Reagan was sniggered at, but this is personal, real hatred."

Wolfe went on to say: "Indeed, I was at a similar dinner, listening to the same conversation, and said: 'If all else fails, you can vote for Bush.' People looked at me as if I had just said: 'Oh, I forgot to tell you, I am a child molester.' I would vote for Bush if for no other reason than to be at the airport waving off all the people who say they are going to London if he wins again. Someone has got to stay behind."

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