Erica Jong Web Site: Her works, books, poetry, and life

‘Flying’ High Again

Erica Jong’s new book speaks volumes about Bill, Hil and sex in America

By Wayne Robins

This column ran on pages 17 and 48 in the September 10, 1998 Arts ˇ Entertainment ˇ Lifestyle of the New York Daily News.

Presidential sex escapades. A feminist First Lady on the defensive. A City Hall campaign to close porn shops. A pill to aid erections that has tens of millions of formerly circumspect American men shouting proudly to their doctors: "I’m impotent."

Is this a great time to be Erica Jong, or what?

Twenty-five years after her novel "Fear of Flying" sold 15 million copies and made her the scandalous personification of female sexual power, Jong at 56 is a happy wife and mom. She is also the author of a new book of essays called "What Do Women Want?" (HarperCollins). It’s a bold commentary on Bill, Hil, Monica, pornography, Viagra, "Lolita" and other current and former players in America’s long-running struggle with sexuality.

Greeting a visitor to her office in a gaudy East Side high-rise (she lives in more tasteful surroundings nearby), Jong is full of spunk and good cheer.

Looking shapely and chic in a brown silk Jil Sandler suit, pearls, and a pair of colorful Dolce & Gabbana slippers, she lies back on the settee, pondering the nation’s current sexual soap opera.

Jong believes she was onto the President all along about the Lewinsky affair.

"Not that I thought it made him a bad President," she said. "But when he got on television and said, ‘I never had anything to do with That Woman,’ it was clear to me that nobody would use that locution if they weren’t guilty."

As one of the most outspoken artists who has flown the flag for the feminist revolution, Jong spends many moments examining the complexities of the woman who has become the movement’s de facto leader: Hillary Rodham Clinton. A chapter of her new book called "Curst Ladies: The Vicissitudes of Being Hillary Rodham Clinton" deals partly with some of Hillary’s obvious flaws. But Jong’s admiration remains unflagging.

"She’s certainly a curious character," Jong said. "Here is a woman who is a full and equal partner with her husband. They ran for office together. That is totally new. And it reflects what American marriage has become, which is a partnership of two equals who both earn a living, whose work is equally important, who have to make concessions to each other. And that’s a new paradigm for us."

On the other hand, even as a Hillary fan, Jong notes, "I think the way she’s constantly remade her public image is a symptom of the difficulty of being a public woman in America. If we have a woman President in 20 twenty years, it will be mostly due to Hillary Clinton."

Jong believes it was Hillary who was driven to take on the insurance companies, the NRA and the tobacco lobby. "She has more gumption than anyone in American public life."

Jong knows something about what it’s like to be a public woman, and an uppity one at that. Twenty-five years ago, "Fear of Flying" seized the Zeitgeist. The fictional Isadora Wing’s conflict between her desires for sexual fulfillment, career satisfaction and security made Jong a symbol for a generation of women.

"There were people who thought I was bringing women of the world to decrepitude," Jong recalled. "I kind of feel it’s an honor to be blamed for that. I just happened to write the book that expressed where women were at at a certain point in history."

One of Jong’s heroes is Henry Miller, author of "Tropic of Cancer." Earlier this century Miller’s work was banned as pornographic, a charge that was leveled against Jong when "Fear of Flying" was published in 1973.

In her essay "Deliberate Lewdness and the Creative Imagination: Should We Censor Pornography," Jong -- who believes we should not -- is especially critical of "well-meaning feminists who assert without evidence that pornography is rape."

"What bothers me is the idea that somehow feminism is anti-man," Jong said. "That fringe ideology. . . .is going to turn off a whole generation of young women."

A ‘gloriously filthy’ city

Jong’s passion for freedom of expression guarantees her disapproval of Mayor Giuliani’s crackdown on porn shops and strip clubs.

"I think he wants to turn New York into Orlando," said Jong, who was born on the upper West Side.

"My idea of hell is Disney World. The pornography industry is ugly, let’s face it. It’s negative to women. But all great cities have that. And to try to sanitize New York too much, maybe that’s to betray its essential character. I don’t like the idea of cleaning up New York. I think the great thing about New York is how gloriously filthy it is!"

Living the life of America’s foremost female sex symbol of letters did not always enhance Jong’s self-esteem.

She has been married four times. Her third divorce was, she said, "incredibly painful."

For a while, Jong lived the single life of one of her lesser known fictional characters, Sally Sky, the self-destructive folk singer from her 1997 novel, "Inventing Memory."

"She never stops doing drugs, she always gets involved with the wrong men, and ends up wrapping her car around a tree," Jong said.

"In Sally, I really depicted my dark side. I had tough times," she said of the painful split from the father of her daughter, Molly, 20.

"When my marriage. . . .broke up, I ran around with too many men, drank too much, took too many drugs. How did I get it together? I had a child I loved and I wanted to be together for her."

Molly, who recently published an article about her teenage bulimia, is now getting an apartment on the same block as her mom.

Happy days

The slower tempo and settled stature of middle age suits Jong, who now has been married for nine years to attorney Ken Burrows, with whom she shares more than the same birthday (he’s a year older). Jong also wrote about her marriage to Ken in her 1994 nonfiction best seller, "Fear of Fifty."

Happiness has her imagination soaring.

"I’m going to write a novel about a happy marriage, a marriage that really works," Jong said. "I really feel like I’m in the prime of life."

These days, Erica Jong has no plans to write "Fear of Sixty," or any more books about fear at all.

(Robins is a frequent contributor to The News.)