Lust Susan Minot Essay

During the 1960s, American culture took a drastic turn. With the growing availability of birth control and the rise of counter culture, women were finally given the ability explore their sexuality without the intense stigmas that existed decades prior (Brinkley 731). Yet as the sixties led into the seventies, a rapid growth of social conservativism began to eat away at this sexual revolution. Though the conservative views did bring back a negative stigma on sex, it could not bring back the more traditional view of what sex should be. This mix of two cultures gave birth to a double standard for women and their sexualities that exists to this day. In Susan Minot’s short story “Lust,” our narrator, an unnamed teenage girl, brings us through her sexual exploration during a

The narrator tells her story in hindsight, having already been affected by the systemized misogyny caused by social conservative backlash. The shift from the sexual revolution to social conservatism stemmed from the influence of Christian values on American culture. (759) Exploration of female sexuality was no longer seen as a feminist stance and instead a threat to the traditional family. In this new culture, sex is seen as something that is shameful outside of marriage, especially for women. Having a desire for sex in a social environment that shamed it caused harm to the narrator’s self-worth. Explaining her relationship with sex, she said “I forgot about wanting to do anything else, which felt like a relief at first until it became like sinking into a muck.” (Minot 837) Though she definitely feels the pleasure that comes along with sex, as her number of partners increases, she begins to feel damaged. “You begin to feel diluted, like watered-down stew.” (839) The narrator begins to see herself becoming ruined as she continues to have sex.