Interstices

"Ay, small need was there for me to make such a mighty to-do in giving Erlend what he had taken for himself already."-Lavrans Bjorgulfson, Kristin's father after the wedding, to his wife.

Kristin Labransdatter is based in 14th century Norway. The Canterbury Tales were written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 14th century England. From reading the latter, particularly the Wife of Bath, I thought of this construct:

-A rape is a taking without a giving. And then of these variations:

-A giving defeats a taking. A woman can avoid a beating by submitting. 

     -"If rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it."-Bob Knight.

Power. I thought of power in sex. 

-“I have the pussy, I make the rules.”

-Is the missionary, or "submit," position as humiliating for women as it appears? On your back, helpless, with your legs pinned back, a stronger man on top of you: Jesus! If the missionary position is not the "rape position" it sure could be!

-The Wife of Bath however talked of using sex to make her husbands (she had five) her "thral," prisoners. She made them pay her money to have sex with her. She would not let her husband's hand come over the bed dividing board until he had paid his duty.

There is an earlier English text than The Canterbury Tales written in 1325 called The Proverbs of Hendyng, advice for young women:

Ȝeue þi cunte to cunnig and craue affetir wedding.

(Give your cunt wisely and make [your] demands after the wedding.)

And after reading more of the context of the times and fixating on"craue" the thought occurred to me that a translation more consistent with original intent would be "crave." "Give your cunt wisely and get what it (or you) crave after the wedding." Have affairs. The Wife of Bath sure did! "Cuckold" the man. Cuckold first appears in English in 1250. 

The Wife of Bath to her husband:

"What aileth you to grouch and groan?

Would you have my cunt alone?

Be certain old dotard, by your leave,

Ye shall have all the cunt you want at eve."

That is turning power in sex on its head!

There's a chapter heading in the Wife of Bath,

"Old men should read and right while their wives play."

-Thinks, doth I: The Canterbury Tales was written by a man. How certain are we that the Wife of Bath was, even as a composite, based in reality, however loosely, and not just a perv's fantasy? Five husbands, and that is certainly the translation, does not sound even approximately real to me. Could "husbands" be Chaucer's euphemism for "lovers"?The modern concept of the "Cougar", and the Wife of Bath was a Cougar, has been (so far as these things can be) disproved--by an English study. But back to Sweden.

Power, consent, rape, lust...Kristin, 17 years old, fought off one rape by a man. When Erlend, her now husband, "takes" her virginity, he gently pushes her back, Kristin resists slightly and then lies back. It was so minimal that I had to read it a couple of times to make sense of Erlend's post exclamation, "It was not forced!" It used to be in the United States--and fairly recently, in the early 20th c, like in the Deliverance states--and I assume in other countries as well, that a rapist could make good his rape by marrying the woman! Jesu! O.J. Simpson admitted he forced Nicole Brown the first time. Anyway, every time after that Kristin had consensual sex with Erlend, matched his lust, and they got married.

Except one other time kinda sorta. Erlend wanted to do it, Kristin didn't really want to but gave in. She got pregnant that time. Duty sex. 

-"Lie still and think of England." 

-"I lay in dread every time I heard the clip clop of his boots down the hallway."

-"I watched the hair grow on my legs."

Wives can be raped by their husbands, absolutely, but getting into the interstices of consent and "duty," "obligation," marriage, long-term dating, there is some gray. What of a wife who refuses all marriage to have sex with her husband? A marriage was "consummated" with sex. If it wasn't consummated was it marriage? Wasn't at common law one of the grounds for divorce "estrangement" of the man from the woman? 

What if a wife always only gives her husband duty sex, always lies in dread, never enjoys it, never lusts for him.

Or a husband. One of the delicious POV reversals in Kristin Labransdatter is Lavrans sexual relationship with Kristin's mother, Ragnfrid. Lavrans was the young, innocent one. Ragnfrid the older “Cougar” who lusted after him; he not at all, ever, after her! Lavrans gave Ragnfrid only duty sex all so far twenty-seven years of marriage! And six children. Never desired Ragnfrid.

You wouldn’t call that rape (I don’t think!) but in this interstice we see desire, lust, peeking through to complicate things. Is it real? What do you call Lavrans-Ragnfrid sex. It was sex. What is sex+mutual desire? Is there a word for that? What is sex-mutual desire? Could be rape. Doesn’t have to be. Could be duty sex. Would mutual desire negate rape? No. “Her pussy was wet as a motherfucker” (actual words used by a rapist to the police in a rape case I once had). The operative element in rape is force. Okay. Is a non-desirous husband who provides his wife with duty sex doing so really consensually? If you have a duty to do something are you doing it really consensually?

What is love-making? Is that sex+desire? Usually. Okay, but wait. Olympics sex in porno where you do it in degree-of-difficulty positions for an hour and both partners have multiple O’s is love-making? Then what the hell is generic missionary position sex between a husband and wife who are truly in love and what to express their love for one another physically. Huh?

Is desire different from lust? Yes, by degree. There is a lack-of-controlledness with lust, isn’t there. Not just that you get an instant erection or are instantly lubricated, that’s, by degree, desire. Lust is you don’t know where you are, you don’t care that you’re in public, you can’t help yourself you just instantly rip each other’s clothes off and go to it.

Who knows what this means? FMLYHM.  Look it up. Where does “hate sex” fit in?

What about favor sex? Not completely uncommon. Wives do it: “Go to the store for me and I’ll give you a blowjob.” Friends do it: “If you help me move I’ll give you a blowjob.” That’s transactional sex, and in the interstices of  favor sex, prostitution, and consent it’s all muddy gray.

What about faking it? Famous movie scene. Woman: “Every time we did it I faked an orgasm.” Man: “Get out of here!” Woman: “Oh yeah?” She then does the most incredible acting of a real O if she wasn’t standing and fully clothed you’d believe she was.

What if you deceive the other person of your true intentions? Ragnfrid’s first ever lover seduced her and then told her he didn’t want her. A year later, after she’s married to Lavrans, he comes back tells her he really does love her and she gives him sex again.

My brother-the-klansman once asked a woman if she would come to San Francisco with him. I’ll pay for the whole trip. She agreed. And never gave him sex. “You never said anything about sex!” I cry foul on the woman on that one.

An attorney friend of mine told me she always went out with older men on dinner dates. To get a free meal. Never gave sex. That’s different from a round-trip all expenses paid trip to San Francisco—but by degree. It is still not cricket.

What if you consensually get drunk, knowingly—knowing that frequently when you drink your inhibitions get lowered and you end up having sex? “I had too much to drink and it just happened” a woman I dated once said. “What do you mean like you got tipsy and fell down on his dick with your vagina?” (Unsaid by me.) No one but a troglodyte would consider a woman who is raped to have cheated on her husband or to be a woman who “sleeps around.” But in the interstices of sex and consent and force and unstated nonconsent and lowered inhibitions and it-just-happened and cheating and sluttiness lurks Excuse. “This is the fifth time this year you got raped?” That can happen! Not in this universe but in theory that can happen.

Fortunately the vast majority of us never have to treat of these theories in reality (Right? RIGHT?). That is why God created novelists.

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