Sexuality and Contemporary Literature By Joel Gwynne and Angeli ...

politics, and its nebulous position between erotica and pornography further complicates the potential liberatory sensibilities it ostensibly espouses. Prior to exploring this further, it is important to emphasize how Bentley’s text does offer positive models of empowerment to women.

Bentley’s memoir affirms an ethos of sexual liberation and freedom precipitated by a frustration with a reactionary culture that still upholds the values of sexual essentialism and a belief in the finite character of sexual roles. First, the author condemns the “curious double standard” regarding the attitude of heterosexual men to anal intercourse: “How can they expect a woman to take a cock up her ass when they squeal if anything larger than a pinky finger is waved in their direction?”(115). She orienteers safe sex practices in an uncompromising repudiation of sexual encounters that are not mutually satisfying: “There were only two rules that governed my behavior. One was relentlessly safe sex—I became the Queen of Condoms. The second was the importance of quality control. If the sex isn’t awesome, or at least fascinating, get out, stop, shift gears, and change direction with minimum discussion” (34). Most prominently, Bentley posits a rejection of heterosexual romantic love, marriage, and emotional intimacy, commenting that being a “Mrs.” “felt horrendous,” whereas “Ms.” represented a “dry, neutered alternative,”and concludes that the “problem with them all is that what followed was always a man’s name” (204). Yet, although these statements may seem to constitute a political stance that, in principle, rejects the commodification of female identity, the author’s rejection of monogamy actually originates from negative prior experiences of emotional submission. The author “caught several men desiring matrimony,” “married the best of them,” and “found misery to spare” (76). Even prior to marriage, she suspected that the proposals “were more about insecurities and jealousies than about love, more about tying [her] down emotionally when [she] needed tying down physically” (76). After marriage, she chooses a nonmonogamous, physical relationship with a man she loves, aware that exclusivity requires a form of emotional