{"id":10189,"date":"2006-04-12T09:52:47","date_gmt":"2006-04-12T13:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2006\/04\/12\/10189.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:54:49","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:54:49","slug":"book-report-gaudy-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2006\/04\/12\/book-report-gaudy-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Report: Gaudy Night"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The thing that I really noticed this time through Gaudy Night<\/a> was the ontologically transformative power of The First Time. The world, you see, is divided into Women who have Done It, and Wirgins. And never the twain shall meet. Harriet is uniquely located between the two because, you see, although she never married, she Has a Past. Other than that, it’s made pretty clear that the Women have had experience at which the Wirgins can only guess. Oh, there’s one other in-between, but it’s pretty clear that she isn’t a Wirgin (as far as ontological status goes).\n

This struck me as odd for a variety of reasons. First of all, of course, there’s the assumption that the unmarried ladies are all, in fact, Wirgins, which by that time should not be assumed so readily. But really, that’s secondary to the real point, which is that the sort of Knowledge of which we speak here is not, after all, transformative. Nor, really, is the distinction between Having Done It and Not Having Done It so clear as all that. I mean, Clinton Rules aside, a curious and scientifically-minded woman can pretty nearly approximate the physical experience alone (or, of course, in pairs and groups).\n

And, of course, not all sex is the same, and not all sex is good sex. I found myself wondering whether, since Harriet’s experience was, let’s say, not altogether satisfactory, she had really known<\/I> what sex was all about. I mean, if sex is somehow transformative, is seems likely that the transformative power is in the orgasm, yes? And it’s certainly possible to have had sex without experiencing orgasm, yes? If so, does the transformation not take place? Or is it not the little death that is transformative, but the potential for childbearing? If so, I would think Harriet would be out of that picture as well; Harriet would have been taking precautions, under the circumstances, and although of course the precautions could<\/I> have failed, it’s hard to see that particular aspect of the experience being transformative in that way. Or is the operational aspect purely medical, with the breaking of the maidenhead having some biopsychoneuromojo? Does anyone remember if Harriet was brought up to ride horses?\n

I know, I know. None of this silliness is Ms. Sayers’sss’s’s fault. If anything, she deserves some credit for taking the prevailing view of virginity (and the loss thereof) and applying it to women who are not stereotypical, or if they are, are not stereotypical stereotypes, if you know what I mean. Neither whores nor madonnas, nor yet innocent girls. And a good deal of the mystique of virginity is still around, with various cults and anti-sex leagues pushing it for their own purposes in high schools. I think Ms. Sayers probably would have been pleased, on the whole, that her (scarcely original) metaphor of sex as knowledge put her on the opposite side of those arguing for both virginity and ignorance.\n

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The thing that I really noticed this time through Gaudy Night was the ontologically transformative power of The First Time. The world, you see, is divided into Women who have Done It, and Wirgins. And never the twain shall meet….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-report"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17728,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10189\/revisions\/17728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}