Male admiration of beauty hides fear and contempt for nature

Evidence

Man’s hesitation between fear and desire, between the terror of being possessed by uncontrollable forces and the will to overcome them, is grippingly reflected in the virginity myths. Dreaded or desired or even demanded by the male, virginity is the highest form of the feminine mystery; this aspect is simultaneously the most troubling and the most fascinating. Depending on whether man feels crushed by the powers encircling him or arrogantly believes he is able to make them his, he refuses or demands that his wife be delivered to him as a virgin. In the most primitive societies, where woman’s power is exalted, it is fear that dominates; woman has to be deflowered the night before the wedding. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 342 (#expands, via linked claim)

Man seeks the Other in woman as Nature and as his peer. But Nature inspires ambivalent feelings in man, as has been seen. He exploits it, but it crushes him; he is born from and he dies in it; it is the source of his being and the kingdom he bends to his will; it is a material envelope in which the soul is held prisoner, and it is the supreme reality; it is contingency and Idea, finitude and totality; it is that which opposes Spirit and himself. Both ally and enemy, it appears as the dark chaos from which life springs forth, as this very life, and as the beyond it reaches for: woman embodies nature as Mother, Spouse, and Idea; these figures are sometimes confounded and sometimes in opposition, and each has a double face. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 324 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Virginity myths encode male ambivalence between fear and desire of the feminine — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 342; Woman embodies Nature, whose ambivalence makes her both ally and enemy to man — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 324; Pastoral longing for benign nature encoded masculine commodity attitudes toward it — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 97

Broader Connections

• Virginity myths encode male ambivalence between fear and desire of the feminine #expands (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 342
• Woman embodies Nature, whose ambivalence makes her both ally and enemy to man #expands (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 324