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korrick 's review for:
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories
by Angela Carter
There's the indulgence of the mind, and there's the pleasure of the senses. One can fill oneself up on the former to the brim, hold firmly to one's breast its lack of ignorance, its sophisticated patterns of thought, its know-how translating into a delightful net of endless know-whens and know-whats and whatever know-wherefore's your precious neurons may desire. There's a unique satisfaction to be had in those sorts of theoretical acrobatics, that complex weave of states of mind that are fully aware and fairly smug about their enlightened existence. But my god, there's also something to be said for the sensual things in life. Revel all you want in the theory of evolution, but don't forget to take advantage of what this millenia long build up of exquisite physicality has gifted you with.
A simple thing to do, that last part, wouldn't you think? This book certainly had no trouble with spilling out in a languorously lurid display its myriad charms and carnal glory, many if not all of the stories focused on the well earned pleasures of females taking charge of their own. And yet, look at the society of today, a heterosexually dominated rape culture complete with the most hypocritical set of double standards to ever exist, where every boy is a Casanova and every girl is either an easy slut or a virginal saint. Never both. That's a physical impossibility, didn't you know, since the very word 'virginity' implies that a cock has the power to change the inherent dichotomy of whatever it fucks. Boys can be virgins too, but the lack of it never seemed to compromise their intrinsic value in the history of cultures worldwide. Quite the opposite, in fact. And on the other hand, you get the dowry. Unicorns. Virginal white caked in contextual definitions of simpering innocence and shining perfection, ideological imperatives that soak the fairy tales choked down at the cradle and continue forever on in trash à la Fifty Shades of Gray.
Spare me this puritanical rot seeping into society, enough to make a biological imperative a sin in some situations and a shameful state in all cases female. Deliver me from erotica that claims to pander to anything besides the patriarchy, and is subsumed by it all the more. Give me a heady mix of whirling words that seduce the senses without sacrificing the self on an altar of supreme obedience and abused devotion, offering pleasure with no sense of whatever guilt the world attempts to infuse it with. Keep your knights in shining armor who think the nub between their legs makes them a god over everything that lacks it. I'll take the man who sees the woman as an equal in all things in the bedroom and without, the woman who will kiss you if you treat her right and spill your throat out in a righteous flow if you treat her otherwise.
You have your body. You have your dignity. You know that others have these, and that you must respect them. You don't need anything else.
A simple thing to do, that last part, wouldn't you think? This book certainly had no trouble with spilling out in a languorously lurid display its myriad charms and carnal glory, many if not all of the stories focused on the well earned pleasures of females taking charge of their own. And yet, look at the society of today, a heterosexually dominated rape culture complete with the most hypocritical set of double standards to ever exist, where every boy is a Casanova and every girl is either an easy slut or a virginal saint. Never both. That's a physical impossibility, didn't you know, since the very word 'virginity' implies that a cock has the power to change the inherent dichotomy of whatever it fucks. Boys can be virgins too, but the lack of it never seemed to compromise their intrinsic value in the history of cultures worldwide. Quite the opposite, in fact. And on the other hand, you get the dowry. Unicorns. Virginal white caked in contextual definitions of simpering innocence and shining perfection, ideological imperatives that soak the fairy tales choked down at the cradle and continue forever on in trash à la Fifty Shades of Gray.
Spare me this puritanical rot seeping into society, enough to make a biological imperative a sin in some situations and a shameful state in all cases female. Deliver me from erotica that claims to pander to anything besides the patriarchy, and is subsumed by it all the more. Give me a heady mix of whirling words that seduce the senses without sacrificing the self on an altar of supreme obedience and abused devotion, offering pleasure with no sense of whatever guilt the world attempts to infuse it with. Keep your knights in shining armor who think the nub between their legs makes them a god over everything that lacks it. I'll take the man who sees the woman as an equal in all things in the bedroom and without, the woman who will kiss you if you treat her right and spill your throat out in a righteous flow if you treat her otherwise.
You have your body. You have your dignity. You know that others have these, and that you must respect them. You don't need anything else.