Sounds like it was written by Xander: "Choose the boring nice guy, because the dark interesting guy will RAPE YOU OMG!!!1111!"
Also bothersome: the association of "virtue" with "chastity." I suppose it's my 20th century upbringing, but I fail to see the connection. Why's Clarissa better that everyone else just because she doesn't want to have sex? And why is every sexual woman in the movie (Clarissa's sister, the whores) a cruel monstrosity of a human being?
And, and ... "womanizer" != "rapist." One can enjoy sex and shrug off society's reservations about it without being a sadist who gets off on hurting people. And why's there never any acknowledgment at all that maybe a woman could enjoy sex too? (Oh, right, 18th century.)
I mean, I could totally sympathize with Clarissa's wanting to remain independent and not get married, and it sucks that she lived in a society that treated women like property. But I guess most of the underlying ideas about the nature of gender and sexuality (and morality) just creeped the hell out of me.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-15 04:25 pm (UTC)Also bothersome: the association of "virtue" with "chastity." I suppose it's my 20th century upbringing, but I fail to see the connection. Why's Clarissa better that everyone else just because she doesn't want to have sex? And why is every sexual woman in the movie (Clarissa's sister, the whores) a cruel monstrosity of a human being?
And, and ... "womanizer" != "rapist." One can enjoy sex and shrug off society's reservations about it without being a sadist who gets off on hurting people. And why's there never any acknowledgment at all that maybe a woman could enjoy sex too? (Oh, right, 18th century.)
I mean, I could totally sympathize with Clarissa's wanting to remain independent and not get married, and it sucks that she lived in a society that treated women like property. But I guess most of the underlying ideas about the nature of gender and sexuality (and morality) just creeped the hell out of me.