Social critic and educator Camille Paglia (born 1947) has outraged or befuddled countless readers with her defiantly iconoclastic writings. She has, for example, argued that pornography constitutes sexual reality, that prostitutes enjoy their work, that bisexuality should be an accepted norm, and that all drugs should be legalized. But as anyone willing to read her books and essays soon discovers, her statements are more often than not well-reasoned conclusions that cannot be dismissed out-of-hand.

Camille Paglia was born on April 2, 1947, in Endicott, New York, to Pasquale and Lydia Paglia, who had immigrated to the United States from Italy. Her father was a professor of Romance languages at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, while his wife, Lydia, worked at home sewing wedding dresses until their daughter was three; after that she worked as a bank teller.

Encouraged in Art of Debate

Paglia's family had little money when she was...