Kleptomania simultaneously asserts the girl’s autonomy and surrender to being object

Evidence

Many young virgins are kleptomaniacs; kleptomania is a very ambiguous “sexual sublimation”; the desire to transgress laws, to violate a taboo, the giddiness of the dangerous and forbidden act, are certainly essential in the girl thief: but there is a double face. Taking objects without having the right is affirming one’s autonomy arrogantly, it is putting oneself forward as subject facing the things stolen and the society that condemns stealing, and it is rejecting the established order as well as defying its guardians; but this defiance also has a masochistic side; the thief is fascinated by the risk she runs, by the abyss she will be thrown into if she is caught; it is the danger of being caught that gives such a voluptuous attraction to the act of taking; thus looked at with blame, or with a hand placed on her shoulder in shame, she can realize herself as object totally and without recourse. Taking without being taken in the anguish of becoming prey is the dangerous game of adolescent feminine sexuality. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 899

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘taking without being taken’ formulation resonates with the hunter/prey reversal theme—compare the huntress Desdemona or the Amazon archetype discussed elsewhere in Beauvoir’s tradition. — connects to: Autonomous self-awareness structurally blocks feminine submission and spontaneous charm. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1922

Broader Connections

• Autonomous self-awareness structurally blocks feminine submission and spontaneous charm. #contradicts (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1922