"wholesome" sex

[J.]

On Mon, 25 Nov 1996, Paul Mackin wrote:

> Can this possibly mean that "healthy" or "normal" or "wholesome" sex
> is something pretty unlikely to come from a writer we will want to read?

Maybe, depending on your tastes =).  IMHO it has more to do with the fact
that 'perverse' or 'unhealthy', in terms of sex, is fairly easy to define,
in the sense that it is just negation of the idea of 'normal' or 'healthy'
sex, which is in contrast a more difficult idea to pin down in specifics,
or at least one more subject to disagreement.

It's also my impression -- offered tentatively, as this is my first time
through the novel, unlike (it would seem) most of the list -- that for TRP
sex is symbolic or emblematic of larger themes of human interaction,
moreso than a discrete idea in and of itself.  So it seems to me that his
portrayals of sex, gay or straight, are more about emptiness, loss,
manipulation, or decline (for the most part -- Roger and Jessica seem to
be more about hope-against-hope, their happiness more a portent of coming
loss than anything else), than a criticism of or commentary on actual sex
practices.  So I tend to think that comparing gay and straight
relationships in _GR_ is almost beside the point, extraneous to what TRP
was trying to say.

I dunno where exactly I picked up that identification of 'perverse' sex
and social decline -- probably somewhere between Zola's _Nana_ and
Spengler's _Decline of the West_, I guess -- but so far it seems to hold
true in _GR_.

Just my $.02,
J.

--
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