Fwd: Re: Safe Sex is No Fun

[Burgess, John]

Richard:
>Two questions:  How is Slothrop's sexual activity with Bianca not 
>brutal-I mean how old is she?
>
>2nd question:  Doesn't Pudding die from his "life-affirming" >appetites? 
e. coli poisoning?

I'm willing to accept a morally relativistic stand on the activities of 
two fictional characters, willing to accept that there's something being 
said that may not be within the norms of currently acceptable practice 
that is being used to convey a metaphorical meaning.

1.  The sex scene with Bianca is not brutal (at least in my book). That 
it treads way close (if not completely over) today's line on sex with 
minors is another issue.  Slothrop consistently says, in one way or 
another, that Bianca is his chance to recapture an innocence that he lost 
(probably since his experimental infant days).  There is a pureness 
(bianca = white) in her that he wants, that she's quite apparently 
willing to give.  This is probably the most emotionally engaging sex he 
has in the entire book... his thinking processes are at their lowest, 
while his feelings are peaked.

2. As others have noted in their replies to my original on this, for 
Pudding, even shit is alive -- for Pudding.  That it propels him back to 
a time when he was truly vital, every sense and nerve-ending alive, is, 
for him, life affirming.  That it ultimately causes his death (that, at 
least, is the supposition of other characters, though not actually stated 
as fact) is a side-effect.  But then, I think I can safely say that we 
all do/did things that made sense at the time, but didn't, in the long 
run.

Regards.