Have no doubt, Paul Ryan is a big admirer of Ayn Rand
"I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are. It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged. People tell me I need to start with The Fountainhead then go to Atlas Shrugged [laughter]. There’s a big debate about that. We go to Fountainhead..." - Paul Ryan, 2005 speech, quote starts at 2:01
Reading these books first as an adolescent, its not a big leap to think Rand's influence on Ryan included
her utterly bizarre portrayal of sex, generally as either outright rape (The Fountainhead) or a coercive act very, very close to it (Atlas Shrugged).
“He moved one hand, took her two wrists and pinned them behind her, under his arm, wrenching her shoulder blades.…She fell back against the dressing table, she stood crouching, her hands clasping the edge behind her, her eyes wide, colorless, shapeless in terror. He was laughing.” – Ayn Rand, “The Fountainhead”
When asked about that scene, here's what Rand herself had to say:
“If it was rape, it was rape by engraved invitation.”
From Rand's introduction to the
25th anniversary edition of “The Fountainhead” (emphasis in the original)
“This is the motive and purpose of my writing: the projection of an ideal man.”
Let's move on to her second famous (or infamous) work.
“It was like an act of hatred, like the cutting blow of a lash encircling her body: she felt his arms around her, she felt her legs pulled forward against him and her chest bent back under the pressure of his, his mouth on hers” – Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged”
In Rand’s world, the heroic woman is one who achieves her goal when she goads a man in to a violent sexual attack.
“She felt him trembling and she thought that this was the kind of cry she had wanted to tear from him — this surrender through the shreds of his tortured resistance. Yet she knew, at the same time, that the triumph was his, that her laughter was her tribute to him, that her defiance was submission, that the purpose of all of her violent strength was only to make his victory the greater-he was holding her body against his, as if stressing his wish to let her know that she was now only a tool for the satisfaction of his desire-and his victory, she knew, was her wish to let him reduce her to that.” – Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged”
(Yikes, there really is no writer more turgid than Rand. Someone should start up a
contest similar to
Bulwer-Lytton, where people try to write in that hilariously adolescent Randian style)
After hearing over and over from the right how much influence the incendiary words of "spiritual mentor" Reverend Wright had on Barack Obama, its more than fair to ask how Ayn Rand's view of "legitimate rape" has shaped Paul Ryan's views on sexual violence and a woman's right to choose.
I'm no psychologist, but it seems not unreasonable that a teen, at that very age when views on sexuality and gender are being formed, reading an author he greatly admired, would be deeply influenced by these scenes.
Now Paul, if your tastes run to a kink that requires some bondage or non-consensual role-play or occaisonally wearing an Alan Greenspan mask, its none of my business.
When its not a fetish, but a framework for shaping laws around certain types of crime, and reproductive rights, I'm going to have to point out, repeatedly, that you're an idiot.