Friday, February 17, 2012

Brett vs Louisa

After hearing some discussion on both Lady Brett and Louisa, I realized that there seems to be a Catch 22 for women in literature.  Many readers will condemn Lady Brett (myself included) for being overly sexual and not seeming to have much discretion when it comes to multiple sexual partners.  Granted, Lady Brett's behavior can definately be described as deviant, as she not only has sex outside of marraige but almost seems to dangle her sexuality in front of the male characters.  On the other hand, Louisa seems to be almost scorned for not being sexual enough, waiting 14 years for her fiance to come back from Australia, and then having no interest in having any kind of sexual relationship with him.  In the 19th and 20th century there were promiscious women, but it was frowned upon to have sex with anyone other than your husband, and really only in the interest of procreation.  However, nowadays it seems as if people are labeled as "weird" or "different" if they aren't engaging in sexual relations.  I tend to believe that people should be somewhat conservative, but I think it is completely unfair to criticize a woman (or man) for being overly sexual, but at the same time criticize them for not being sexual enough.  Should we all fall on some line that would be deemed, instead of oversexed or undersexed, just "sexed?"

2 comments:

  1. Haha, I like your closing line. I agree there is never really a straight answer. Throughout history as well there as been a lot of conflict over women's sexuality. Both the mother figure and the virgin have praised; almost as if they should be both at the same time. The epitome of this is obviously the Virgin Mary. I have pretty much come to the conclusion that no matter what women do, they will do something wrong by somebody. I'm afraid that is actually the goal.

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  2. Interesting post. I don't think anyone in our class was "scorning" Louisa--just commenting on what seemed (to some of us) to be almost a hyper-anxiety about sex which just doesn't seem healthy. It's one thing to say, "Nope, that's not for me." It's another thing to be terrified of something.

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