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  • Posted by masterofelectricity666 8 years, 8 months ago
    Umm... I wish ... but I've learned over time not to trust many people. Just close family, close friends, and myself, of course. I hate thieves, I hate moochers, I hate slackers, no one has ever really helped me significantly, I've always had to help myself, know what I mean?
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  • Posted by masterofelectricity666 8 years, 9 months ago
    I didn't know she cheated on her husband. I read the dedication to him in atlas shrugged and believed it without verification. Silly me. Men are assholes, women are bitches, and it's never gonna change. Like Gollum, my favorite character in the Lord of the rings said: they will hurt you, cheat you, trick you, lie. Wicked, tricksy, false.
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  • Posted by $ Radio_Randy 8 years, 9 months ago
    Rand's life was reality...Atlas Shrugged was fiction.

    Many fiction writers would never attempt to live the same kind of lifestyle, depicted in their own books. A portion of the writer's personality is infused, of course, but we must remember to separate fantasy from reality.
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    • Posted by ewv 8 years, 8 months ago
      Ayn Rand did live the "lifestyle", i.e., the sense of life, projected by the heroes in her books, and like the heroic characters she projected she did not confuse fantasy with reality.
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      • Posted by $ Radio_Randy 8 years, 8 months ago
        I'm not sure I see the connection between Ayn Rand's lifestyle and the heroes in her books. Granted, I've only read Atlas Shrugged, but Hank Reardan was the only "hero" guilty of adultery and he divorced his wife in the end.

        From what I understand of Ayn Rand's adultery, she still loved her husband, but simply took on another lover. Maybe there is much more to that story than what I've read,
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        • Posted by ewv 8 years, 8 months ago
          Ayn Rand's life style and sense of life is not characterized by her affair with Branden, which as bizarre and inappropriate as it seems to us, had nothing to do with either the motives of Rearden and the nature of his wife Lillian or an "open marriage do anything for fun" notion.

          For an excellent presentation on how Ayn Rand lived see Michael Paxton's documentary film Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life and the companion book.

          https://estore.aynrand.org/p/292/ayn-...

          At the end of Atlas Shrugged she wrote:

          "My personal life is a postscript to my novels; it consists of the sentence: 'And I mean it.' I have always lived by the philosophy I present in my books—and it has worked for me, as it works for my characters. The concretes differ, the abstractions are the same."

          You will find several mentions of connections in different respects between her life and specific characters scattered through her writing and speaking, such as the character Dominique in The Fountainhead as Ayn Rand "in a bad mood", but the Paxton film and companion book is the most biographically comprehensive source directly on this subject.
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          • Posted by Maritimus 8 years, 8 months ago
            Hello, EWV,

            Thanks for the clear-cut response and explanation.

            I have a question. My copy of the documentary (2-disc DVD set, which I bought a few years ago) does not have any books in it. Is the book you mention a separate publication? A quick search did not find a book with that title. Can you help me, please?

            All the best to you.

            Sincerely,
            Maritimus
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  • Posted by $ winterwind 8 years, 9 months ago
    I think she loved and admired O'Connor to a point, but knew that he was no Rearden. and no matter how much she might have wanted him to be, Branden was no Galt. If she had met her equal, or the equals of her own heroes, I think she would have looked no further. as it was, she looked.
    Dagny looked for Galt her whole life, consciously, and several passages discuss her despair that she will never find him. I think that was actually Rand's despair. Dagny's lovers were the closest to that ideal as she could find at that time, but she continued to yearn for "him". Having found him, she looked no further.
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  • Posted by wiggys 8 years, 9 months ago
    would you believe that FRIENDSHIP and sex have nothing to do with each other! she loved her husband and maybe wanted to have sex with someone else and maybe HE was having sexual affairs with other women; who knows.
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  • -2
    Posted by Esceptico 8 years, 9 months ago
    The culture, undoubtedly stemming from religious teachings, is sex simply for its own sake is inherently bad in and of itself—something to be allowed only to express love or for procreation. Procreation and love are separate issues from just having a good time. Once we can control pregnancy and disease, what is wrong with an orgasm among friends?

    Rand made many mistakes in her writings, and she was internally inconsistent at times. For example, Rand’s more explicit sex scenes seem to be rape fantasy oriented, including the initiation of the use of force. The theme is clear in both “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas.”

    Wikipedia says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_fan... ): “Studies have found rape fantasy is a common sexual fantasy among both men and women. The fantasy may involve the fantasist as either the one being forced into sex or as the perpetrator. Some studies have found that women tend to fantasize about being forced or coerced into sexual activity more commonly than men.”

    Maybe Rand portrayed her rape fantasy in her writing and acted out her animal desire for sexual variety with Branden and others not yet known or whose identities were suppressed to keep the idol from having clay feet. I suppose it depends upon the fantasy of the participants.
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