Ask DB1: The Casanova Question
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DB1-
I’ve been wondering about a question for some time. Was the fabled womanizer, Casanova, a douchebag? In an age when marriages were arranged not through love, but for social connections, does he earn a nottadouche-pass because of his opportunistic social maneuvering for the suckle-thigh?
Or is he one of the modern day originators of the douchebag, spawning leeches on society like Mystery? He did detail that he had slept with over 120 women in his own memoir…
While historical evidence is thin on his level of douchebaggery, I turn to you in hopes that you can shed light on this problem.
Cheers,
Skyler
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Simply hooking up with tons of women is not a sign of doucheyness in and of itself. Chasing women is a time-honored tradition driven by genetic imperative, one which I spent most of my twenties paying homage to. Now I just sit around, drink, eat tasty Hostess snack cakes, and scratch myself. But so long as such hooking up is done within a framework of authenticity and play, rather than name-brand validated spectacle and “game,” it doesn’t really fall under douchal mock.
Checking trusty wikipedia, Casanova hung with Voltaire, Goethe and Mozart. Which would make him a Warholian superstar of his era. Also, Casanova was an author. Having gone through the process myself, this engenders respect.
However, there is no doubt that Casanova began to develop the insidious modern “game.” The manipulation techniques and use of body spectacle in an attempt to brainwash the hott with dazzle and to score the proverbial top-shelf poonany. For this, Casanova is troubling.
Sadly, I have to rule that Casanova must be marked an historical ‘bag. But with cultural caveats that there was some redemption found in Casanova’s honesty, directness and critique of societal mores, rather than replicator of mass culture.
