Passionate women both crave and struggle against being everything to their lover

Evidence

At first, the woman in love is delighted to satisfy her lover’s desire; then—like the legendary fireman who out of love for his job lights fires everywhere—she works at awakening this desire so as to have to satisfy it; if she does not succeed, she feels humiliated, useless to such an extent that the lover will feign passion he does not feel. In making herself a slave, she has found the surest means of subjugating him. This is another lie of love that many men—Lawrence, Montherlant—have resentfully denounced: he takes himself for a gift when he is a tyranny. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1872 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Women resist pleasure that feels inflicted or actively engineered by the man. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 988; Women’s sensuality divides between active and passive modes that pull against each other. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 956; Women in love seek to be indispensable rather than merely wanted (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• A woman’s self-enslavement in love is itself a strategy of subjugation #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1872