Women’s sensuality divides between active and passive modes that pull against each other.
Evidence
If the prehensile, possessive tendency exists in woman more strongly, her orientation, like that of Renée Vivien, will be toward homosexuality. Or she will become attached only to males she can treat like women: thus the heroine of Rachilde’s Monsieur V’nus buys herself a young lover whom she enjoys caressing passionately, but will not let herself be deflowered by him. There are women who love to caress young boys of thirteen or fourteen years old or even children, and who reject grown men. … She thus becomes divided within herself: she wants a strong embrace that will turn her into a trembling thing; but brutality and force are also hostile obstacles that wound her. Her sensuality is located both in her skin and in her hand: and their exigencies are in opposition to each other. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 956
Categorization
- DEFINE: Beauvoir’s distinction between skin-sensuality (passive) and hand-sensuality (active/prehensile) becomes a core analytical apparatus for understanding female eroticism.
- XREF: Connects to Beauvoir’s earlier claims about the girl child’s prehensile vs. passive development, and to the Song of Songs symmetry she invokes. — connects to: Woman’s conflicting archetypes range from demon and predator to muse and goddess; Feminine eroticism involves becoming an object to snare another — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 845; Women resist pleasure that feels inflicted or actively engineered by the man. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 988 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Passionate women both crave and struggle against being everything to their lover
#exemplifies(0.88) - Feminine eroticism involves becoming an object to snare another
#expands(0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 845 - Women resist pleasure that feels inflicted or actively engineered by the man.
#expands(0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 988