ruined by its ignorance of female sexuality . I found this book embarrassing to read - not because it's risque, but because it so clearly illustrates how the French & Italians got their reputations as great lovers. Is this the best that English literature can give us? This fellow clearly understands little of female anatomy, let alone female sexuality.     It's also mean-spirited. Lawrence proves his points by setting up his version of idealized man and even more idealized woman, and then spends most of the book trying to knock down every other character and concept. This is his only real method of proving the superiority of his ideal. He drips way too much contempt.    Everything outside of sex is dumb, meaningless, ridiculous. Attempting to derive enjoyment from the "mental life" makes one ridiculous; being paralyzed makes one ridiculous; trying to have sex in any way outside Lawrence's own true and correct way makes one pathetic, or defective, or spiteful; not being able to enjoy the sort of lovemaking Lawrence proposes makes one undeserving of the title of "woman" or "man"; and so on.     Looking at Italian art is stupid. Everything in Paris is stupid. Constance can apparently tell from a glance that nobody in France knows how to have sex properly.    Reading the book without his openly contemptuous commentary on what's "wrong" with everyone except C. and M., one might easily conclude that Constance doesn't really seem happier now that she's sleeping with the gamekeeper, and Hilda does seem happier in Venice - the author counters this by ridiculing "that kind" of happiness as delusional and druglike. He even seems to imply that her being so pleased with her life is yet more proof that there's something wrong with her. Of course Constance is wretched, because she does not have that one thing that, in Lawrence's view, really matters in life - not Mellors, but Mellors' equipment. This book does degenerate into phallus-worship, which makes the author's hostility toward "druglike" pleasures seem sort of ironically comical.    Hilda is pathetic precisely because she can derive enjoyment from sensual pleasures: from Venice, from the feel of the sun, from jazz, from dancing. This seems weird to me - as if Lawrence is punishing the uppity woman. Hilda is also described as worse than pathetic - she is a "user", with strong suggestions that she is cold and immoral - because she enjoys that part of dancing which allows her to press up against a strange man, only to walk away when the dance is over. (This may be why at least one reviewer called the book sexist, since obviously Lawrence doesn't mind if Mellors is callous and behaves as a "user".)     It's actually sort of creepy how an author who seems to be claiming that sensuality is good consistently knocks sensual pleasures like the feel of sunshine on one's body. Everything is stupid except sex - and not just any sex, but his notion of real sex.     This is where astute readers will have the most trouble. Lawrence clearly defines a "real" woman - Constance Chatterly - by contrasting her with bad examples.     A woman who lays there "unfeeling" is clearly an example. Such a woman is described in terms suggesting she lacks warmth/decency/heart/womanhood/etc. Lawrence doesn't even seem to have considered the possibility that maybe what the man is or isn't doing could even be related; it's presented quite clearly as a difference between good/desireable women vs. women who are defective not only physically, but in character.    On the other hand, a woman with an unfeminine urge to be In Control - that is, one who insists on moving herself, rather than sitting passive and letting the man do what he will - is forgivable when Michaelis is the male (because he's premature, and meant to be pathetic), but it turns unforgiveable when it's women in general and especially Mellor's Bertha, who just refused to come when she should out of spite. Bertha just had a sick (!) urge to be In Control, demonstrating her essentially vicious and pathological nature. The only thing Mellors did wrong was to not put her in her place promptly - he "spoilt" her.     As for all those touchy-feely things that women so frequently enjoy? Forget it. Lawrence suggests that Mellors does at least sometimes kiss and touch, but if it happens at all it appears to be mostly incidental, nothing important. A Real Woman doesn't need foreplay. Just hop on and go, and if she's what she ought to be, she'll feel crashing waves and dark tides sooner or later.    These were what I found the most embarrassingly inaccurate - that a woman's duty is to lie there, not too passive, but not too active, and come when she's supposed to (and if she doesn't, it's her own fault); while a man's job is to climb on top and "perform". All of this is based on what ought to be a perfectly logical set of assumptions that are, unfortunately, not true. The truth is that a woman's vagina is not the equal-but-opposite inverse of a male penis; there's a thing that both males and females start out with, which in a man becomes the penis, and in the woman becomes (or remains) a clitoris. Lawrence seems to assume that what a woman feels is similar to what a man feels - but he assigns this feeling to the wrong body part.     Women have always known about their own bodies; surely a man so dedicated to the advancement of sexuality could have and should have taken more time to research how women really feel about things, preferably apart from what women think men "want to hear". This, too, is no doubt why it has been accused of being "sexist". The author (or at least Mellors) openly blames women who cannot or will not "come to the crisis" when she ought, as if it were entirely of the woman's doing and had nothing at all to do with the man.     It's also likely that science will eventually prove (if it hasn't already) that women like Constance Chatterly are not the norm or 'what a woman ought to be' emotionally as well as physically. For all that Lawrence spends an awful lot of energy ripping apart what he sees as silly, even noxious emotions and desires - such as "intimacy" and "connection", both of which he has Constance openly ridicule - biologists are increasingly finding that not only do men and women tend to have different feelings and expectations when it comes to the sex act, but that there is believed to be an evolutionary advantage in these differences, based on the notion that a man's biological job is to get his DNA out there, while reproduction for a woman involves a heavy emotional and physical commitment. If this is true, it would be the woman who takes such a cavalier and reckless attitude toward sex who is the deviant, not the one who wants to connect emotionally with the future sire of her child.     So - while there may or may not be women who feel as Constance does, at the same time it's not so clearly obvious that a woman "should" feel that way, as to justify Lawrence's open belittling of women whose emotional states don't match masculine emotional detachment and distance.    There's a lot of talk of "tenderness" - in fact, Constance keeps mentally accusing everyone in Venice of somehow "lacking tenderness" - but quite frankly I am unclear on what exactly is supposed to be so tender. The only thing he values about her is that he quite clearly likes having sex with her, but even there she only stands out particularly because a good sex partner is so difficult to find.     I can imagine a woman putting up with - but I cannot imagine a woman particularly treasuring - a man who rebuffs her when she wishes to talk, who is rude to her instead of treating her as equal (remembering she's a Lady) when she asks him questions, who calls her c--t as if that were her name, and generally treats her as if she were a whore. I could imagine a woman finding this fun if it were a game they jumped into and out of, but this is how their relationship really is; she spends far too much time begging or wanting to beg him for reassurance - for the things he won't say and the questions he won't answer - for me to find her undiluted enjoyment in their relationship particularly credible.    For what it's worth, I think life will be better when this book has become obsolete. It is exactly this sort of schlock that had women feeling pressured to fake their sexual responses - at great cost to their marriages, if not their selves. Those who agree that heppiness is linked to sexual satisfaction should be in favor of replacing this book with something that deals with sex in a way that reflects female sexuality in an honest and realistic fashion. As for those who just want a good read - I'd call it a matter of personal taste. Obviously some people enjoy this book. (Equally obviously, I did not.
Output: NEG