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Two things happened today

Preprint · October 2018

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Priscilla Roberts
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Two things happened today. The International New York Times announced that finally, an art historian
has identified the woman who was the model (I dare not say sat) for Gustave Courbet’s pornographic or
erotic (where you stand depends upon where you sit) painting, “The Origin of the World.”
Commissioned by a wealthy Turkish diplomat in 1866 and once owned by the French psychoanalyst
Jacques Lacan, it is now a stunning and perhaps centerpiece in one of the galleries of the Musée d’Orsay
in Paris. We are told that the woman who posed for this iconic—it is, I believe, either the first or second
best-selling postcard in the Musée d’Orsay’s collections—portrait was Constance Quéniaux, a talented
professional dancer and subsequently courtesan of humble origins who was the chère amie of, among
others, Khalil Bey, the Paris-based Ottoman functionary on whose instructions this artwork was painted.
At the time, she was 34 years old. Mme. Quéniaux died in 1908 at the age of 75, a wealthy and
respected woman living on one of the best streets in Paris, much loved by her servants.

Let us now switch to Washington, DC, in October 2018. Three women have alleged that Judge Brett
Kavanaugh, a nominee for the United States Supreme Court, indulged in gross sexual misconduct during
the 1980s. His appointment was particularly consequential, because he is likely to be the conservative
swing vote on a court that will decide a number of contentious issues, including not just whether
women should be allowed (?) continued access to abortions, but also whether a wide range of
environmental and economic regulations should be left in place.

After strenuous efforts, one of the three, who had the advantage of being a professional woman from
an elite school in the Washington area, was able to obtain an ostensibly respectful hearing before the
Senate Judiciary Committee, which has the responsibility of deciding whether to forward Judge
Kavanaugh’s nomination to the entire Senate. The would-be justice then made an emotional defense of
his position to the Senate committee, while skating over numerous issues relating to his alleged history
of youthful alcohol abuse and violence while under the influence. When one maverick Republican on the
committee decided that as things stood, he could not in all conscience vote for the nominee, a
somewhat restricted FBI investigation was initiated.

The FBI was instructed to interview a second “accuser” from Kavanaugh’s Yale College days, who alleged
that at a drunken party at Yale University he had thrust his penis in her face. The media are already
reporting that the FBI failed to follow up on leads provided by this accuser, and have apparently been
told not to interview either the first accuser or Judge Kavanaugh himself. Meanwhile, additional
evidence as to his alcohol abuse and boorish behavior continues to surface.

The FBI was apparently told not to interview a third and less well-connected female accuser, who has
made somewhat sensational allegations that she attended parties at which the youthful Kavanaugh and
at least one friend were complicit in the drugging and raping of young women. She also claims that at
one of these parties, she herself was drugged and raped by a group of men who may or may not have
included Kavanaugh and one of his close friends. She is the only accuser who claims—rightly or wrongly
we do not know, unless the documents can be unearthed—that she filed a police report at the time, and
who says that she confided in her now deceased mother. The other two say that they hid their
humiliation from their families.

Slut-shaming has begun, with both the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the
Federalist deeply complicit in publicizing derogatory statements by alleged former boyfriends of Ford
and Swetnick. We see the extraordinary spectacle of scorned men beginning to crawl out of the
woodwork. Julie Swetnick, the third accuser, has been confronted with the testimony of not one but two
former boyfriends/admirers. One apparent former boyfriend—with a decidedly shady financial history,
not to mention shifting his identity between various aliases—claims that she threatened his soon-to-be-
wife and unborn child. A second, recently emerged, claims to have had a not-quite affair with her in
1993, during which she confided in him that she enjoyed group sex with multiple simultaneous partners.
Three years later, for some reason, despite the misgivings which had led him to end his “relationship”
with her, he tried to make contact with her, to be told by her father (now 95) that she had
“psychological problems.”

And now, there are allegations against Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. A supposed and unidentified former
boyfriend, his identity undisclosed because he apparently wishes to go on pursing his life in peace—a
fate that will certainly not be his, if he really exists, which is far from certain—cannot quite remember
the dates when he was involved with her, or when she was in Hawaii and he visited her there, but knows
that he was her boyfriend. And also that she coached one of her best friends on how to take a polygraph
test. His unexpected sworn affidavit supposedly arrived at the Judiciary Committee on the evening of
October 2nd.

We are expected to believe that no one saw this coming? Even though the Arizona prosecutor hired to
interrogate Dr. Ford asked her about polygraph tests and her fear of flying. For additional distraction, he
suggests that after they broke up, she ran up $600 of charges on their joint credit card. Oh yes, and she
was “unfaithful” to him. Well, breaking up with someone is not as it happens a criminal offense, and it
happens all the time. We haven’t heard her side, and perhaps she wouldn’t wish to give it, out of
respect for his and her privacy. But he says, “I found her truthful and maintain no animus toward her.”
Would the real ex-boyfriend please stand up, and first of all, give his name. The moment he was foolish
enough to get involved in this affair, his privacy was shot. He is either extremely stupid, or he doesn’t
exist.

It used to be, that the testimony of women scorned (let us think back to the Clarence Thomas case,
when Anita Hill was asked if she was “a woman scorned”) was discounted. Now, it seems, the testimony
of men scorned is privileged. If an “ex-boyfriend” (genuine, false, or even unidentified) pipes up from
the undergrowth, we are expected to believe him. Why? I would be inclined to murmur, Hell hath no
fury like a man scorned. Particularly for good and compelling reasons. So far, the pond life that has
crawled out to smear Women Against Kavanaugh does seem to be exceptionally unprepossessing—
overweight, financially suspect, or simply unidentified from ‘somewhere in California’ (which would, in
other circumstances, most definitely be enemy territory).

By now, it is abundantly clear that most Republican senators would vote to appoint Brett Kavanaugh
even if he were Jack the Ripper. The Senate Judiciary Committee and the Federalist website are
currently engaged in unsavoury competition with the National Enquirer. We have not so far seen
unidentified women claiming abuse at Brett Kavanaugh’s hands crawling out of the woodwork. Those
implicated have come forward, identified themselves, and said what they have to say. Others appear to
be willing to corroborate their claims.

Could I respectfully suggest that the ageing Republican men on the Senate Judiciary Committee stop
trying to pull these really embarrassing stunts, publicizing the testimony of men one would not trust to
run a worm farm. Would one male Republican Senator hire any of these creeps to run any business in
which he had invested? If so, please do so. They would undoubtedly appreciate reliable employment.
 It is not at all unlikely that most of the top-level Republican men involved in these capers possess an
assortment of skeletons in their closets that could joyously dance at a very well-populated Halloween
ball with those pertaining to Brett Kavanaugh (and friends). This we more or less understand, and ideally
this exercise should not become a fishing expedition into what octogenarians did 60 or more years ago,
in their by now rather distant high school and college years. Yet I am sure that someone somewhere is
now scrutinizing the high school yearbooks of Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Mitch McConnell, and
Lindsey Graham. And those of their colleagues. Mais tu l’as voulu, Georges Dandin.

Several Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee would, beyond peradventure of doubt,
have been much happier in that benign age when Madame (I’m not actually sure whether she ever
married) Quéniaux provided various services to those who could afford them, and ultimately died in a
cocoon of comfortable respectability. Others may be too dim even to understand the advantages that
system provided. But top political figures of the twenty-first century United States should not confuse
the mores of an age of respectable hypocrisy and masculine entitlement with those of an era of female
expectations.

The painting is magnificent. But it belongs to the women, not the men.

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