The short story “Lust” by Susan Minot details the life of a high school girl who has succumbed to the pressure of her surroundings. The pressure of sex by her peers and all of the boys she came across led to the multiple sexual encounters that make up this story. This realistic view on the teenagers of the early 1970’s shows the ups and downs of sexual movement of the 1960’s. In “Lust”, Susan Minot shows the reality of a teenage girl’s life throughout her high school years and the problems her actions give her as she gets older.
Janet M. Ellerby analyzes “Lust” in her essay titled, “Lust”. In this essay, Ellerby goes through and gives a brief but accurate summary of the short story. Then she gives her interpretations of what this story was supposed to mean. She finally talks about the techniques Susan Minot used in order to get the atmosphere and emotions she wanted the reader to experience. I agree with how Ellerby interprets this story and it will be evident throughout this paper. Because I agree with what this essay had to say, I will be able to use it as evidence to support my ideas.
The setting of this story took place in a time where sex was becoming more and more publicized and less taboo. The 1960’s and early 1970’s are commonly associated with things like the hippie movement and the free love movement. These two went together and created a revolution of young people getting high and having casual and meaningless sex with no sort of consequences. In the story, the narrator experiences both of these countercultures. Her “lovers” are random men from her school or just people that she just happened to come across and decided to hook up with. Some of these hook ups were follow ups to some sort of drug usage. This just furthe...
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...fects. No matter where there is love involved or not, the two people will engage in some sort of emotions whether they want to or not. The narrator shows this throughout the story. At first it was all happy and she seemed proud that she was going and sleeping with all of the different boys. As her high school life went on though, she started showing regret in almost every encounter she had, even the one boy that she actually had feelings for ended in a shameful feeling. He just left afterwards and so she just sat there waiting for him to come back (Minot 102). No matter how badly the two parties involved want there to be no strings attached and to just have a simple hook up, someone is going to get emotionally attached. In the time period of this story, the one that got emotionally caught was usually the woman and the narrator of “Lust” shows that almost flawlessly.
Lust is referring to the students who come to class in street clothes, or better defined as party clothes, and who rate their professors in such lewd ways. Benton wonders when students’ uniforms changed to being wanted to be noticed in class with their inappropriate clothes. Another example would be that the college and high school Lusts, when bored in class, tend to fantasize sexually about their hotter teachers mainly
To do so, Levy turns to the experiences of several young women whom she interviews. From her interpretations of these experiences, Levy reaches the conclusion that these women’s sexual nature revolves around their need to feel wanted and to gain attention rather than to satisfy their own sexual needs (Levy, 194). But by drawing her experiences from only a small subset of the population, her analysis is ultimately restricted to that of a simulacral woman: specifically, one constructed from the characters that actively participate in raunch culture.
For centuries, society has placed a remarkably large emphasis on protecting the young from the many perceived errors of growing up. Effective sex education is resisted in many locations across the country in favor of somewhat comical biblical suggestions for abstinence until marriage even while the majority of those targeted teens are viewing the world as a more and more sexual place. So many views are weaving in and out of teenagers' newly formed adolescent minds that any effective argument for responsible attitudes or analysis of sexual behavior in teens should be expressed with a certain minimal degree of clarity. Unfortunately, this essential lucidity of advice is missing in the short story “Where are You Going, Where Have You Been,” in which the misguided Joyce Carol Oates creates the character of Arthur Friend as a cliché personification of the inner demon of uncontrollably budding sexuality. Instead, the murky characterization of the antagonist presents nothing more than a confused and ambiguous view of the meaning of the story.
”The History of Sexuality” is a three-volumes book, published around 1976 and 1984 by the french historical philosopher Michel Foucault. The three volumes are “An Introduction” (which later is known also as “The Will of Knowledge”), “The Use of the Self” and “The Care of the Self”.
Chasing Amy is a movie that uncovers the hardships we find within the confusion of love and sex in our lives. Sometimes the line between love and sex seems almost invisible, but the differences and complications of understanding that are quite clear in this movie. The issues presented in Chasing Amy are directly related to the discussions of “Politics of Sexuality” as well as everyday life in our culture.
Donna Freitas in The End of Sex gives her thoughts on how hookup culture is affecting specifically college students. Her judgment comes out of a space where she wants, “to empower them (participants in hookups) to seek the kinds of relationships they want…” (16). Though her perspective comes from a good place, her argument has points that are shaming, archaic, dismissive, and one sided. Her argument seems to be that of a pro-woman stance at times, neglecting one of the key feminism ideals of choice. Freitas uses patriarchal arguments to back up her ideas, tarnishing her perspectives that come off as woman empowering. The book, The End of Sex, neglects to be conscious of female independence
Understanding sex and sexuality in the South is beyond a challenge. Those wanting to explore these concepts are met with rigid, religious traditions and ignorant, bigots who perpetuate the ideals of the stubborn South. This is especially difficult for the youth of the South who are still trying to find themselves and navigate the trials and tribulations of life.The protagonists of both Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones and Jim Grimsley’s Dream Boy come from two contrasting backgrounds yet, both share the same struggles of understanding themselves and their sexuality and coming to terms with their sexuality.
This poem dramatizes the conflict between love and lust, particularly as this conflict relates to what the speaker seems to say about last night. In the poem “Last Night” by Sharon Olds, the narrator uses symbolism and sexual innuendo to reflect on her lust for her partner from the night before. The narrator refers to her night by stating, “Love? It was more like dragonflies in the sun, 100 degrees at noon.” (2, 3) She describes it as being not as great as she imagined it to be and not being love, but lust. Olds uses lust, sex and symbolism as the themes in the story about “Last night”.
Love is a powerful emotion, capable of turning reasonable people into fools. Out of love, ridiculous emotions arise, like jealousy and desperation. Love can shield us from the truth, narrowing a perspective to solely what the lover wants to see. Though beautiful and inspiring when requited, a love unreturned can be devastating and maddening. In his play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare comically explores the flaws and suffering of lovers. Four young Athenians: Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia, and Helena, are confronted by love’s challenge, one that becomes increasingly difficult with the interference of the fairy world. Through specific word choice and word order, a struggle between lovers is revealed throughout the play. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare uses descriptive diction to emphasize the impact love has on reality and one’s own rationality, and how society’s desperate pursuit to find love can turn even strong individuals into fools.
What is it about sex that makes everyone so uncomfortable? Upon reading Randa Jarrar’s A Map of Home, one of the major themes that the novel goes in depth about is Nidali’s sexual awakening. Many students would argue that this novel is littered with too much sexual activity, i.e. masturbation. However, A Map of Home is a novel about finding your place in this world; the search for your identity and purpose. Sexual identity plays a significant part of that continuum. You may question, “Well, could you have figure out a way to describe her story without all the sex stuff?” This statement would demolish the novel’s relatable and sheer honest tone, as well as disintegrate the genuineness behind the narrative if Jarrar would omit Nidali’s sexual experiences. The complete fact that young teenagers do think about sex so often makes one grasp the true relatability this novel showcases through the main character’s sexual experiences. In this essay, I plan to explore the importance of sexual awakening, Nidali’s own reasons for experimenting with her sexuality, and what we can ultimately learn from being open with what we want in that context.
"They turn casually to look at you, distracted, and get a mild distracted surprise, you're gone. Their blank look tells you that the girl they were fucking is not there anymore. You seem to have disappeared.(pg.263)" In Minot's story Lust you are play by play given the sequential events of a fifteen year old girls sex life. As portrayed by her thoughts after sex in this passage the girl is overly casual about the act of sex and years ahead of her time in her awareness of her actions. Minot's unique way of revealing to the reader the wild excursions done by this young promiscuous adolescent proves that she devalues the sacred act of sex. Furthermore, the manner in which the author illustrates to the reader these acts symbolizes the likeness of a list. Whether it's a list of things to do on the weekend or perhaps items of groceries which need to be picked up, her lust for each one of the boys in the story is about as well thought out and meaningful as each item which has carelessly and spontaneously been thrown on to a sheet of paper as is done in making a list. This symbolistic writing style is used to show how meaningless these relationships were but the deeper meaning of why she acted the way she did is revealed throughout the story. Minot cleverly displayed these catalysts in between the listings of her relationships.
Hubbard, Ruth. "The Social Construction of Sexualtiy." JSTOR. Duke University Press, 1996. Web. 13 Mar. 2014. (Class Source)
The story is set hundreds of years in the future in a world with completely separate values and beliefs from those of today’s society. Birth has become an outdated and even disgusting thing. Instead of being born, humans are mass-produced through very elaborate cloning methods. Children are raised in a society that promotes both sexual promiscuity and drug use. They are brainwashed in their sleep to enjoy everything about their lives and to accept every aspect of society. Each person is predestined to fall under a specific social class that determines what they will do for a living, who they must take orders from, and even what they look like. Every aspect of every person’s life is manipulated, yet everyone feels free.
A teenage girl, away at boarding school, decides to experiment with her sexuality. Popular among the boys, she soon finds herself in many unrestrictive, lust-filled sexual encounters. The conflict of the story emerges with her inability to find emotional fulfillment in her promiscuous affairs. Further, she is unable to reconcile her distorted belief that females are obliged to physically satisfy males against the empty and hallow feeling her profligate lifestyle creates within her. As a result, the teenager, along with many of her female peers, feel depressed and desolate.
Leora Tanenbaum’s book Slut! imposes the argument of the unfairness and small mindedness of the sexual double standard between teenagers and what leads them to label others of the name slut. Throughout the book, the author discloses many different studies and stories to help the readers understand the underlying cause and issue of the name slut and how it affects different girls and women around the country.