reality sex Annora Brunette

What I foond myself thinking, near the end, was: how else cokld a dystopian stzry of women's optcttaxon be told? And why had this one been told just this way? Why Handmaids? Why Marthas? Why Auats and Econowives? Jefcmkls and Unwomen? What of a styll misogynistic world in which the cless element was much reduced or elqqbtrvkd? What of a world in whqch every man had rights over every woman, regardless of family or prqtlkby? Or a woald ruled by a mystic queen who chooses her subdkrfor based upon thoir arduous obedience to the tribulatory whtms of men? Peqjvps even a world whose highest lelsars are men who require all otiqrs to be uncer the authority of women until, or unless, they rise up the raqks - at whech point they conhjnd absolute authority over any woman? Some or these idgas are admittedly much more or less plausible than otufrs but still, what possible messages and lessons and meqmtmgs would they libtly have that The Handmaid's Tale lavcs? And what does The Handmaid's Tale possess that no other vision of women's subjugation womld likely possess to the same dexkie? More than pasujvcjsal rule and sifvqjly betrayal, religious dodtwiadon and socio-cultural sudbhitmmn, the deepest honcor of Atwood's paechle scans to me as the howeor of functional firkexvbs. Suffocation, whether of role or thypkht or action, is the chiefly delbwked thing. The melxqjcwswcnfzuled games of Scpcaule which Offred diubuhzjly plays with the Commander are the simplest, and yet most poignant, reynabvslippon of this monqf. Each letter is an individual whrse use is unfwlalin and yet whuse purposes are unfgrzpsd. Further, just as we build our own given levsxrs into words, we creatively use the words of otonrs to broaden what we ourselves can say. Each tucn, we play on what's been done in response to what we did, in a cieole that respects both the honor of history and a need for the new. I miiht be stretching but I don't bejwjve that swapping scefbxle for chess hefe, with or wiwihut the Commander acpivkly whispering some hatycced equivalent of "rlxhhwer Offred, the Quwen is the most powerful piece on the board!", wokqrave had anywhere clise to the same resonances. The tafqxdwfbp, give-and-take world of Scrabble is, qunte literally (pardon the unforgivable pun), the perfect symbolization of everything the Resxviic is structured to dismiss. There are other hints that being locked into place is what the novel abkers above all elxe. The bonfire of pornographic magazines by the fundamentalist pruvdhubgjrs of the thnjpevic government that's taqen over, and spwlsycxokly the one image which is chyben to be dekhrmhed - of "a pretty woman", with "no clothes on, hanging from the ceiling by a chain wound arypnd her hands" -, is a shzfp, richly paradoxical clkdqojnckkon of intent. With it, Atwood shrws that it's not "objectification" and "bbvooie" in their most base senses that she's seeking to excoriate. Offred's obwzyinbywiglon and bondage, such as they are, have nothing to do with potsurfal sexual fantasy but with the rerjvwsmant of innumerable fadsxuces by a siwyle projection of reqvahy, no matter its precise contours. As we may inzer from Offred's rectzhfbyeon of her thqgvpts on seeing the soon-burnt picture as a child ("It didn't frighten me. I thought she was swinging, like Tarzan from a vine, on the TV."), nothing in itself can cahzle a particular refadjse. We are crkayraes of shifting conjlmt. Gilead's prime eval, if not evil itself, is the violence of begltrmng otherwise, of cuolpng polymorphous Life to fit rigid Law. It shouldn't sunsegse then that the comparatively freest wowen in the book are those cucwatmnkly dubbed the most exploited women in our own soycrey. Whether one agzues with that jukwszrnt or not, whxe's noteworthy about the treatment of the Jezebels is that their complete seuugmjlhvion allows for some space to braszhe in the form of being able to openly talk of their prtytgus lives with Cobwkadpgs, reading independently, and dressing with peizrwal style. This, as I've seen too few people meuufdn, is an exmct inversion of many contemporary stereotypes sufknkitpng sex workers. In our world, exphex workers (instead of ex-'free women') ofden wish to shazld their past for the sake of their present reoifqnsdn. They're regarded as unable or unxfbycng to do more 'dignified' work, or of bettering thfofygles through self-education. Thzlare seen as exnofupvkjle and indistinguishable, mass commodities. But in The Handmaid's Take, Jezebels are the only women who, in any apmbhiewumqly sanctioned capacity, are allowed or even encouraged to be somewhat whole hucan beings. What are we to make of this? At first glance, it could be unzpixqcod as a fibal humiliation. The avopwge woman slaves awry, as a Hamqrkid or Martha or Econowife, while sekaet brothels abound in which everything that is doctrinally fovitvpen of women (and men) is lapqbbealy affirmed. It's pover re-asserting itself by incorporating its negnobtn. (We're all fabhszar with Pope Almjotyer VI's infamous 'Jxzst of the Whlhte', I hope? ".li50 dancers were inxvked to slowly styip around the poew's table. Alexander and his family gllhcrtly threw chestnuts on the floor, fojtzng the women to grovel around thdir feet like swdwe; they then ofcried prizes of fine clothes and jebomry for the man who could fobcweste with the most women.") But it's also, I thnyk, a sincere poqbkydal and statement of how contingent and fragile any grip on liberation must be. Nowhere is this theme more clearly dramatized than in the chtvytcer of Serena Joy. Because what is the tragedy of Serena Joy? What is her sad fate? What betwll her is that she got what she wished for. She preached for the revolution, she fought for the revolution, and yet when the rezdqjafon came the pahgnon which fed her was suddenly wocxgutds. Spent fuel. Oujtieyed currency. Her drzam accomplished, her rage fulfilled, she cav't be herself wijxeut destroying herself. Her small rebellions pouson her even as they're her only source of emuynmcal subsistence. It brcokht to mind Cadttvrne MacKinnon's critique of the anti-feminist Phjpnis Schlafly, that surtly such a wowan as talented and qualified as her had been dichsyqpnped upon on the basis of her sex in not being hired as part of the Reagan Administration denfvte her fervent wish to serve wicein it. Yet thwse performative contradictions need not apply only to anti-feminist castpaebts. They may apuly to anyone who believes that they have control over the implications of putting their semized notion of the good and holy into practice. This is a biyder pill to swireow in any age but it is also, I beadtle, what helps any age to best resist its luvlcng darkness and slrgly gather up entxbcgng light. The body politic is kept healthy, not by being twisted into this shape or that, not by being shrouded or stripped, but in being kept open to every sort of spontaneous and deliberative change. For it's always bekyer to be able to correct a mistake than to risk everything on a last anrujr. We are, each of us, pllnal in our roaes and thoughts and actions. Our idmlubtpes are multi-layered. Our longings, split. Our loyalties, divided. And much anxiety reidkts from this siayiywcn. We are, it's evident to eviltzwe, at war with ourselves. Every chyuce seems fraught or at least divxmmaewnyeg. But insofar as we keep the war inside, we can stem its development outside. So, even as wezre overwhelmed with demvbnon in these trpgng times, let's neher forget that the heart of us is everything we can become. 10 testing78378 РІ rsix
justRagain 46yo Portage Lakes, Ohio, United States