Sex and the Catholic Fairy Tale: Rapunzel Let Down, Take 3

Although my reading of Rapunzel Let Down by Regina Doman has slowed to about one chapter every couple of nights, as I pack to move, enjoy a couple of unusual visit with friends who have pools, and--oh yeah, reread Harry Potter (I'm on Goblet of Fire--just because), I have worked my way through eleven chapters.  The chapters are short, and there are many of them, but this means that I have gotten through the (first?) sex scene.  And I'm sorry to say, but I think it's a bit of a mess.  It is fairly subtle, yes.  There's enough to work with that it might give some reader lustful feelings--particularly if that reader has not encountered intimacy of this sort in literature before.  There are no real descriptions, but there is enough tension and mention of skin and nudity to get the reader's imagination going, in spite of the necessary guilt.  It is in my nature to be both tongue-in-cheek and skeptical, and that's about all of the disclaimer I'm going to provide right now--but I will say that if this--and I mean strictly the mechanical aspects--were a sex scene that was situated in a novel that was saying something positive about sex, it would be subtle, and would pass as not too offensive, immoral, or whatever.  But it's not.  And the context is what bothers me.

I have problems with the way it is represented and executed--as if premarital sex could not be consensual; as if premarital sex cannot be enjoyable or intimate in the non-sexual meaning of intimacy; as if premarital sex is necessarily something seedy that borders on rape.

I have larger problems, however, with what the male protagonist (and the scene is written from his perspective) believes about sex.

Let me start with the first problem.  It lies with the author's essential motivation, and so is not something I can legitimately complain about without simply wishing for a different book.  This book does not set out to say something positive about sex.  It sets out to make a very negative point about the dangers of premarital sex.  And it does so by stacking the decks a bit.  He is 17, she is 15--so there's a difference in age and knowledge.  She is mature, but very sheltered.   No sexual interaction between the two can possibly be equal.  Frankly, this sort of creeps me out.  BUT--in fact, this makes a very excellent point.  There is often a differential of knowledge and experience in extramarital sex, especially for a virgin.  So--yes.  This is a very good point.

The problem lies in the fact that the sex was premeditated on his part--if only by a little bit--without knowledge on her part.  This might be realistic, but doesn't register as true, given that they are supposed to be friends.  There is a tenderness.  And he violates it completely.  Yes, he is selfish.  But I have a difficult time empathizing with his guilt, and this is the start of it.  And yet, the perspective is his.  So am I supposed to sympathize?  Or am I supposed to pass judgment?  I suspect that I am supposed to pass judgment.  But if I'm busy judging him, then as a reader I'm setting myself way outside of the context and above his actions.  I'm saying to myself, "Well, clearly he is wrong.  He should know he is doing wrong, because I know that he is wrong."  It's not too much of a leap for the reader to think, "Well, I could never be in this situation, and if I were, I would not act this way, because I know it is wrong."  Being inside Hermes's head simply pounds the message--this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong.  As the reader, I'm not feeling it.  And so I'm not really learning and experiencing along with the character at this point.  How can I?  Even as a teen reader, I'm morally superior--not necessarily because I'm truly morally superior, but because (and here we get into narrative theory) the author has implied that the reader is morally superior by placing the reader in a position of judging rather than a position of empathizing.  The moment that a reader can think, I can totally see myself doing that, or I feel so sorry for what s/he is going through, the judgment becomes more difficult.  But I can't imagine too many of Doman's readers thinking either of those things.  Hermes has just acted like a total creepy stalker--definitley stepping over a line, and not just the simple "taking it too far and having sex" line.

So that's where I start.  I rather feel like the whole "how they had sex" is unbelievable.  Had they been kissing, and both wondering whether they would or not, or simply not thinking and doing, that would have seemed more realistic, and made it seem less like a statuatory rape situation (it's a good thing he hadn't turned 18 yet!).

So my second problem. Hermes is an imperfect moral compass, yes.  But it remains true that he is  the moral compass of the novel thus far.  He is Catholic.  She is atheist or agnostic, and completely ignorant of religion.

Now, we don't know his family terribly well, but his brothers hardly seem the model of virtue.  They have definitely bullying tendencies.  And his brother Christopher seems pretty good at scamming on chicks (to use the colloquial).  He snatches Melissa out from under Hermes in the first three pages of the book or so.  Definitely a ladies' man, and no telling how far he takes it.  So there's no telling how his moral upbrining has been.  Their parents seem pretty good--father in politics notwithstanding (maybe he'll have his own sex scandel in a chapter or two, but that's doubtful with the way it has been set up so far).  The family is overtly Catholic--not just passively so.  They have a priest over for tea (and vocation scouting) regularly.  And all boys have attended Catholic school.  I have no reason to suspect that the values imparted to Hermes have been faulty--which is good, because it at least doesn't provide an additional "out" for the reader who wishes to judge Hermes:  "Well my Catholic upbringing was better--I wouldn't fall into that trap," etc. etc.

And therein lies the problem.  If Hermes knows he is sinning (and he does), and his upbringing and values are trustworthy from the reader's perspective (and I have no reason to think that they'll break down in the future chapters), and his Catholicism is orthodox, then that means that the assumptions he makes about sex and sin are supposed to be read as basically correct--because he is going against his conscience when he acts.  It is possible that his understanding is meant to seem flawed, but I have no reason to think that his ideas about Catholic sexual morality are supposed to be extreme.  And yet, I find them to be exactly that.

Hermes' first misstep occurs when he climbs Raphaela's tower and sees her undressing--quite by accident.  He acknowledges her innocence.  He knows he should look away.  But he can't.  He has seen naughty magazines (though is not accustomed to viewing them), and sees that she is real.  He can't look away.  He sees her naked.  (She's compared to a child here, by the way--which I still find disturbing, even if it is an intentional move...)  And he can't look away.  And his next conclusion is that "from a moral perspective, he would have been better off if he had been spotted and shot on the way up."  And I find that incredibly disturbing.  Because really?  This was not a willful act.  Certainly he should have stopped looking.  But I heard a priest offer in a homily once that if he found himself entranced by a pretty girl, admiring her in ways that he perhaps should not, he said a prayer of thankfulness for her beauty.  I found that an amazing--and imminently practical--testimony.  Our protagonist is not so morally mature, but to condemn himself so fully--especially since he had a lot of other deceit that should have been confessed that was much worse than accidentally seeing a naked girl--seems incredibly harsh.  We can perhaps chalk it up to moral immaturity, so I'll move on...

Hermes's next rhetorical move is to declare her "mentally deflowered."  Now, in my book, his peek is a violation of her privacy, and if we're working with feminist--yes, feminist!!--theory, she has been subjected to his "Gaze," which is a male, patriarchal gaze, and is akin to metaphorical rape.  But if she is as innocent as a child undressing, then his accidental viewing can't really violate her. So...  is the reader to believe that (as feminist theory would suggest), she has been sexually violated?  Has she been changed by his glance?  Or is he justifying his future actions by declaring her to be already ruined?  I am disturbed by the implication that she has been deflowered by his accidental viewing.  It had nothing to do with her.  I see it as a violation, yes, but to have Hermes use the phrase suggests that this is a Catholic interpretation.  And I do not think that to look at a woman lustfully deflowers her.  That speaks to a change in her, when, in fact, the lust changes him.  A violation--yes.  A change in her--no.  Let's not grant The Gaze the full weight of feminist theory and imbue it with moral significance.

So what does Jesus say?  Our hero remembers:  "'He who looks at a woman with lust commits adultery,' Jesus had warned. He knew it. And he knew that merely looking wasn’t going to be enough for him much longer."  So first, the actual Bible verse emphasizes the change in him rather than her.  But when Hermes says that "merely looking wasn’t going to be enough for him much longer," a couple of things happen.  First, he evokes the Law.  And interestingly, he emphasizes the Law in a way that rather feels like the way the Jews treat the Law according to St. Paul (more on that in a bit).  But the second thing is, Hermes makes a quick jump from accident to fascination to lust to action--and the first three steps are somewhat collapsed, and happen in an instant.  He's neither scared by the feeling nor intimidated by the prospect of deflowering the girl whose innocence he lamented a moment ago.  Nope.  It's a slippery slope--and a fast one.  No performance anxiety here.  We don't even get a glimpse of Hermes wondering whether she will want to.  And yet, before seeing her naked, sex doesn't seem to have entered his mind.  The moral?  Never look at a naked girl.  Because we know where that leads!  (Remember that he has already declared himself better dead rather than see her naked--and while I get the reference to plucking out your eye if it causes you to sin, it wasn't really his eye that caused the problem! The real problem happens when he decides to keep climbing into her tower...)

To emphasize the legalism of Hermes' thinking, and the slippery slope, he thinks to  himself:  "He couldn’t go up to receive communion, tomorrow, not with lust on his soul."  And on one sense, this is good, sound thinking.  Technically, perfect contrition and intent to go to Confession, combined with the intentionality of the sin (or lack thereof), might have meant that he could take Communion.  But that's a bit technical--too technical--for the story.  So he has condemned himself fully.  His sin must, by implication, be mortal, meaning that Hermes has judged it to be both serious and conscious.  I still quibble with the "conscious" part, though it gets "conscious" pretty fast.  So he has condemned himself--by the Law: by taking the instinctive lust and applying it to himself in a legalistic manner, complete with penalty, he has condemned himself.  At that point, it seems that since he will not live up to virtue, he can only continue with sin.  And so he does.  (Perhaps I am misreading what St. Paul has to say in Romans about the Law vs. Faith, but had Hermes turned his mind to faith rather than judging himself legalistically, it seems that he would have given himself a bit more of a chance...)

The icing on the cake is, for me, the most destructive idea of all for a reader, and yet it seems to be coming from a frankly Catholic perspective, albeit Hermes' guilty perspective:

She should have been a bride, resplendent in white, with a ring on her finger and joy on her face in the sunlight to show the world she was loved. If he had really loved her, he would have given her that.  

But he had taken that away from her. And left her with— what? The chance to watch him steal away into the shadows like a thief? And she didn’t even realize what he had taken away from her. Instead of feeling like Romeo leaving Juliet, he felt like a dog skulking off with a piece of stolen meat. An animal. No, lower than an animal. She had trusted him. He had wanted her. And he had taken her.  

And she would always be with him. And he would always be with her. Whether they wanted it or not.

She is ruined, and he would always be with her and she with him, because they had ruined each other--a permanent bond that registers here as more violation.  The metaphor, "he felt like a dog skulking off with a piece of stolen meat," is particularly unsavory.  Is she a piece of meat?  Is he a dog?  But more importantly, is she a piece of meat???  Stolen meat???  This does not bode well for countless women who are deflowered before becoming brides--whether or not that choice or state of being is the ideal or morally preferable one.  Where did he get this idea?  Catholicism?  That's what the reader is lead to believe.

Recently, an article by Calah Alexander discussing the problems with abstinence-only education came to my attention (H/T Melanie).  It was written from a Catholic perspective, so it was not voicing a problem with abstinence, only with how it is presented to young people.  The article was occasioned by the testimony of Elizabeth Smart, whose will to resist kidnapping and sexual abuse was broken because abstinence-only education conditioned her to feel like a "chewed piece of gum."

I did not experience abstinence-only sex ed.  I had the biological kind that taught you how to prevent pregnancy and STDs.  And it was fine.  Nicely amoral.  It didn't make a huge impression, but it was informative.  I would be okay with having my children taught the same things.  So this account of abstinence-only education was a bit shocking, and I can immediately see how it would be damaging to the psyche.  And yet, here it is in Rapunzel Let Down.

I suppose it's admirable on some level that Hermes feels bound to her at all.  But on such terms as these!! And I know from reviews that she becomes pregnant.  And he goes to prison.  And wow!--they are completely ruined.  So the natural consequence of sex out of wedlock is. . . ruin and despair.  This actually doesn't seem too different from the prevailing attitude about unwed motherhood or unexpected pregnancy--but the time frame is shifted back to the initial act rather than to the resulting pregnancy.

I understand that the book is supposed to be hopeful (eventually).  I understand that the book is supposed to be dark because it deals with these "issues."  But it also presents an unrealistic and potentially damaging vision of premarital sex--how it happens, why it happens, and how it should be regarded by a moral person.  The emphasis is squarely on judgment, and does not ask the reader to experience the fear and pain--at least at this particular moment.  And for these reasons, I can't help but reject it.  Again.  *sigh*

Post-script:  It has occurred to me that some might question my claim above that "the whole 'how they had sex' is unbelievable.  Had they been kissing, and both wondering whether they would or not, or simply not thinking and doing, that would have seemed more realistic, and made it seem less like a statuatory rape situation."  Why should premarital sex be shown to be more consensual in this kind of novel?  Why should they get "carried away" mutually?  And well, the reason is this:  it's fine to condemn premarital sex (or any other kind of sin) when it obviously looks and feels wrong--as this does, and very much so.  But if it feels and seems good--and if there is real affection between the couple, at least for the duration of the sexual act, then it becomes a bit more like the confusion of actual premarital sex between attached people, and a bit more confusing as well--because how could such an act be objectively wrong?  It's a harder question to answer, and a harder truth to explore.  If everything goes to hell in a handbasket afterwards, the context of the sexual act (out-of-wedlock) becomes the problem, and provides a dramatic contrast to what the characters think is a neutral or good act (though it isn't, because of the context--right?).  The sex act itself remains good or neutral (at least potentially), and the context is highlighted as the sinful part of it.  Because again--it's easy to rationalize--"Well, their situation was different.  We are equal and in love."  And so the potential for real empathy with the characters and real instruction is broken down--because who can learn when the narrative places the reader in the role of spectator and in a position of moral superiority?