Tuesday, January 12, 2010

"One rarely gets the sense in Roth that he would throw away his penis if he could."

So. That title is hard to follow. But I've been thinking about this essay by Katie Roiphe for weeks. It's an essay on the "great American male writers" and how they write about sexuality. Basically, she points out that the Great Male Novelists of the 20th century (Roth, Updike, Bellow, etc.) were, in their writing, explicit and misogynist about sex. Sex was aggressive, virile, dirty, and well masculine. It was often uncomfortably intimate. It wasn't sweet.

But this was problematic, for feminists. The women characters in these books were often hated, ridiculed, despite the male characters' extreme displays of physical intimacy with them. So, post-feminism, we moved on. But what happened? When the next generation of great male writers established a collective voice, it was shockingly asexual. Think David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers, Michael Chabon. Intimacy with women was reduced to, well, cuddling. Intimacy has become pure and childlike. There may be emotional connection between men and women. It might be romantic, but, well -- it's just not very sexy. It doesn't involve the intimacy of true risk-taking, soul-baring sex on the part of the characters. And if it doesn't involve risk - how can it be a genuine emotional connection?

I have some reactions to this article.

1) Hell yeah, Katie Roiphe is right! I feel like I have no interest in reading Roth, Updike, etc. But I do feel this infantilization of adult love that shows up in the books of the writers she mentions, including my beloved Jonathan Safran Foer! How can it be a good thing for sex, or masculinity, to become childlike?
2) But what about the women writers? Where do Shriver and Atwood and Niffenegger fit in? They write about sexual relationships between men and women that don't seem quite so childlike. What alternate perspectives are they presenting? Are they more real? Or more fantastic?
3) There are other male writers Roiphe doesn't mention: McEwan, Perotta, Irving. We have read all three of them in book club. Are they just not "great enough' for her to consider? Because they present alternate, less conservative, and riskier versions of sexuality.
4) She doesn't mention the "pornification" of our culture. Perhaps we don't need to visit the great male novelists for sexual explicitness, because whatever variety of porn you want is everywhere. The barriers were broken by the 60s, and being dirty is just not a big deal. Or maybe since sexual depravity is so commonplace, with internet porn, that level of intimacy is not needed between real people (or literary characters) to get the same effect. That's a little scary.

But I agree with Roiphe that something is lost. There's got to be something in the middle between misogynist and childlike. Just not sure what the next wave of writing will show. Does this strike a chord with anyone else? Would love to discuss at book club!


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