Contact itself is ambiguous, merging refuge with imprisonment, pleasure with irritation.

Evidence

Even the elements of passive eroticism are ambiguous. Nothing is murkier than contact. Many men who triturate all sorts of material in their hands without disgust hate it when grass or animals touch them; women’s flesh can tremble pleasantly or bristle at the touch of silk or velvet: I recall a childhood friend who had gooseflesh simply at the sight of a peach; the transition is easy from agitation to titillation, from irritation to pleasure; arms enlacing a body can be a refuge and protection, but they also imprison and suffocate. … For the virgin, this ambiguity is perpetuated because of her paradoxical situation: the organ that will bring about her metamorphosis is sealed. Her flesh’s uncertain and burning longing spreads through her whole body except in the very place where coitus should occur. No organ permits the virgin to satisfy her active eroticism; and she does not have the lived experience of he who dooms her to passivity. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 957

Categorization

• DEFINE: Beauvoir establishes the ambiguity of contact as a foundational concept for understanding female passive eroticism.