Sexual Personae Today

The book became a flashpoint for debate due to Paglia's uncompromising and often controversial stances:

: This is the "female" force of nature—chaos, instinct, and the primal urges that civilization tries to suppress but can never fully extinguish. Sexual Personae

In Paglia's view, art is the battlefield where these forces meet. From the regal, rigid beauty of to the internal, explosive poetry of Emily Dickinson , she traces how artists have attempted to trap the "Dionysian" within "Apollonian" forms. A Provocative Worldview The book became a flashpoint for debate due