Letters

Annie McStravick
Paris, France

Safety first

Why is Regina Loughran still employed by the Schools Investigation Unit ["Law and Disorder: Special Victims Unit," December 14–20, 2005]if her boss thinks she has made critical decisions that resulted in students getting sexually assaulted by sick teachers and administrators? As a former employee of the Board of Education I am appalled. I worked at the Board of Education discipline unit for four years and I prosecuted a lot of these sexual predators. Even one student who becomes a victim to one of these sick people is one too many. Regina Loughran should be fired; clearly she does not care about the safety of our students.

Dennis Torres
Brooklyn

Rapists' paradise

Why choose a flack for the pornography industry like Rachel Kramer Bussel to write "What's Behind Rape Fantasies?" [Lusty Lady, December 7–13, 2005]? Bussel, who writes for that paragon of clarity on gender relations, Penthouse, and whose idea of an "expert" on rape is former Playboy centerfold and patriarchal tool Barbara Keesling ("Ph.D."), ignores 40 years of feminist scholarship on sex inequality to portray rape fantasies as wholesome and good. What do women want? To be raped. Why? 'Cause they want to! In the endless night of her banality, Bussel stumbles across this noxious tautological weed and feeds it Miracle-Gro. When libertarians reduce private fantasy to a question of "choice," they obscure the fraught relationship between the unconscious and structures of society. But who knows what we would fantasize about in a world where women were not at perpetual risk, i.e., the reality of being raped, beaten, cut up, ridiculed, discriminated against, and murdered by men?

John Sanbonmatsu
Medford, Massachusetts

Pryor knowledge

For the most part, Greg Tate's tribute to Richard Pryor ["Richard Pryor, 1940–2005," December 14–20, 2005] was warm and fitting. The trick to enjoying it was getting through the first paragraph. Perhaps Tate can explain how he assumes, simply because Pryor couldn't "jump around" anymore, that he "really was ready to die." Obviously Tate could have asked him at the time, or he can still ask his family. Up until his death Pryor still had many plans for his life, including a second autobiography.

Philip Bennett
Brooklyn

Counter-cynicism

While I can clearly see that J. Hoberman is an accomplished critic, he is stuck on his own obsession with jargon. His review of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe ["Trapped in the Closet," December 7–13, 2005] came across as though he were attempting to be very cynical. No one cares if he feels The Passion of the Christ was a "Jew-baiting sadomasochist extravaganza." Likewise, I don't think there is any Bush conspiracy behind the message of the movie. I think it would be wise to instruct Hoberman to either tone down his rhetoric or consider a new position, perhaps as a political pundit at CNN. But for those of us who enjoy coming to The Village Voice for good movie reviews, I believe he has missed the point. Review the movie, not the political landscape surrounding the movie.

William Cook
Birmingham, Alabama