Miller took such lessons to heart in Tropic of Cancer and acknowledged the debt in Plexus, insisting that sexual freedom was as necessary as economic freedom and that the volcanic force of an orgasm might be compared justly to an uprising. It was not news. Emma Goldman said it; Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith and Lucille Bogan said it even better, but when the white boy said it, the world listened, and it became philosophy, not entertainment.
