This is sad.

You mean Dominque could never prosecute, even if she wanted to. That, I will accept. But she still wanted it rough, and he gave her what she "asked" for.

Oh my god! Seriously??? You are wrong. Faith would have strengthened her work??? Her work was a result of NOT having faith. Faith is illogical and mystical. Good grief....

I suspect Jack Nicholson's Colonel Jessup would gag at the thought of getting f______o from President Hillary. If she would even consent to perform such an act on any man, husband or no.

I listened to Barbara once.... she was close to the situation for yeeears. Why not listen to her? How do you know it was an open marriage? Define open marriage.

Where do you come up with such crap? This blog has gone viral in the worst sense.

Wrong. Frank was not of low intellect and held all the right values. Branden just appeared to be exceedingly strong philosophically.

"Stepping stones" - really? That suggests she was just using them - as if she knew there would be someone better down the line. Absurd.

Such speculation is beneath any Objectivist or anyone who really knew and understood them. So I assume you are not one.

That's plain hypergamy, nothing unusual, all women are wired that way.

Don't you think that is an unnecessary question?

Certainly no sexual issues. You're listening to Barbara too much. Open marriage.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightath...

Perhaps I unintentially added personal experience from my first wife whose parents were part of Rand's "Inner Circle." She enjoyed playing the fantasy of rape to act out scenes in Rand's writings and never feared pregnancy (these were days before the pill) because nobody in Rand's books got pregnant. To me the theme was clearly rape. But, perhaps not---I always leave that option open.

LS, you made our day -- it's not just any man who can
even carry Rand's Perrier!!! -- j

p.s. if she *had* met her intellectual equal, what a
revolution that would have caused. . takes my
breath away.
.

oh, now, I seem to remember in the book where
Dagny and Hank have a conversation where he says,
"I understand. . I have met him." . I'll look for it. -- j
.

You say: "The theme is clear in both “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas.”"

No it isn't. There is nothing in Atlas that can be construed to be on this theme as far as I'm aware. If you can provide any specific example from Atlas which can be in any way described as a "rape fantasy" please do.

LOL. Even if Hillary becomes president, I understand she is going to live at the white house with Bill and woman they were both dating when Bill met Hillary. Only a rumor.

There was that scene where Dagney didn't want to tell Hank about Francisco indicating maybe her openness wasn't on a par with Ayn. As for Hank he really wasn't all that happy about Francisco either. He didn't like her not being his so I conclude that the characters weren't as pure as Ayn. I seriously doubt that Ayn's husband wasn't all that open minded about it either.

The so-called "rape" scene was nothing of the sort, and it was no "mistake".

As Rand said of the scene: “If it was rape, it was rape by engraved invitation.”

Roark already knew for a fact that Dominique wanted him, from the objective evidence of the "crack" she had attempted to manufacture in the stone to serve as an excuse for calling him over. He also then made sure to get double-confirmation as well - from her reaction when he sent someone else over to actually replace the stone.

Besides, anyone who tries to use this scene as a way to call into question Rand's opposition to the initiation of physical force is also dropping context in a major way. Dominique was no ordinary character. She was clearly a bit psycho - she routinely destroyed art she loved and made major decisions that were in direct contradiction to her actual values (e.g. marrying Peter Keating). It was completely in character for her to act in a way that contradicted her true desires. And for a novel to make any sense, characters need to act in accordance with their nature, which is what she did in her initial expression of her attraction for Roark as well.

Dagny is very different from Dominique in this regard, and the sex scenes she's involved in are all very clearly and explicitly consensual.

Another piece of context-dropping is that The Fountainhead was a novel celebrating artistic integrity and individual creativity, which was written before the full development of the Objectivist philosophy. The Fountainhead wasn't supposed to be a novel about Objectivism (which wasn't yet in existence as a philosophical system). That was Atlas Shrugged, and in Atlas Shrugged no character behaves in any way that could even be slightly misinterpreted. When Dagny shoots the guard at the SSI, the reasoning and justice of it is clearly detailed right there.

In contrast, there are other elements in The Fountainhead which could be considered in violation of Objectivist ethics and principles, for example Roark's blowing up Cortlandt. I'm not sure Rand would have defended that as completely consistent with Objectivist ethics, but it happened before Objectivist ethics were a thing, so it isn't supposed to be a representation of Objectivist ethics, and people who drop context to pretend that it is are simply intellectually dishonest weasels.

Yes, and Rand found homosexuality "unspeakably" disgusting. But, of course, she could never articulate why she would find this so.

For that matter, look at how explosively they parted ways. Her "To Whom It May Concern" essay reeked of the "woman scorned" narrative.

That's exactly what Rand did. She wanted her sex as rough as the man was willing to make it. She carried it so far as to say no woman should be President of the United States. Why? Because a woman President could never be a true submissive in bed!

Personally, I could almost accept Aaron Sorkin's line, that he gave to Col. Nathan R. Jessup USMC in "A Few Good Men." I'll never forget hearing Jack Nicholson deliver it: "There is nothing on this earth sexier...than a woman you have to salute in the morning. Promote 'em all, I say, because this is true. If you haven't gotten [f______o] from a superior officer, well, you're just letting the best things in life pass you by....Of course, my problem is, I'm a colonel. So I guess I'll have to keep on taking cold showers until they elect some gal President, heh, heh, heh."

Actually, Henry Rearden knew from the get-go that he was not her final choice, and she was always looking for that man. So supremely comfortable did he finally become in his own skin, that he could accept that without protest, in the time between his hearing it on the radio, and her rushing back home to take a shower after having to deal with Bertram Scudder.

That was the one thing I couldn't understand about the relationships among these four. Barbara Branden narrates this in detail in "The Passion of Ayn Rand." I will defer to Mrs. Branden's recollections of her attitudes and actions, and of the judgments she made.

Actually, without realizing it, Rand was one of the early polyamorists.

Now a growing number of people are coming to realize that sexual monogamy is quite irrational and that very often (I would even go as far as to say fundamentally and inherently) it is just a method of emotional control and coercion. Just like God, Fiat Money and Democracy, Monogamy is another one of those things the world has been brainwashed about.

Also, I believe the word "affair" implies cheating and dishonesty. This wasn't at all the case with Rand's completely ethical and honest polyamorous relationship.

Rand was a trailblazer in many ways, some which she isn't quite credited for yet even by her fans! She seems to have independently invented ethical polyamory. She was obviously quite immune to brainwashing and was able to see things for what they actually were. To her, and in reality, there's simply nothing wrong with having multiple romantic / sexual relationships at the same time as long as one is honest about it.