Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Rape and Modern Sex War, p. 68
Context: I am saying that many of the problems between the sexes are coming from something prior to socialization, a turbulence that has to do with every boy’s origin in a woman’s body, and the way he is overwhelmed by this huge, matriarchal shadow of a goddess figure from his childhood. And I feel, after so many decades of studying this, that men are suffering from a sense of dependence on women, their sense that at any moment they could be returned to that slavery and servitude they experienced under a woman’s thumb, when they were a boy in the shadow of the mother. I got this from studying all world culture, and comparing and noticing how often there were these similar patterns in many different cultures. Many things that erupt in rape or violence, or battery and so on, are happening when a woman is pushing that button of fear and dependency.
State of the Art (2000)
5th Public Talk, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (30 May 1967)
1960s
“Don’t push the on-button if you don’t know where the off-button is.”
Source: Short fiction, The Further Adventures of Mr. Costello, p. 224
“It's supposed to be automatic, but actually you have to push this button.”
Source: Stand on Zanzibar
“If you die in an elevator, be sure to push the up button.”
I did not learn my AA-BB-CC's. God-god dammit-dammit.
Mitch All Together (2003)
