This is what I have been thinking about lately. The explicit description of Bella's childbirth versus the lack of description of sex, which -- and this may be news -- is actually how babies are made in the first place! Why is one description more acceptable than the other? A baby slowly (though unintentionally) destroys Bella up until the actual moment of childbirth, which is a very violent event, with bones breaking, spinal chords snapping, projectile blood-vomit... oh yeah, and a C-section! This total mutilation of her body is accounted for second by second. Now flip back a few pages... to the part where both Edward and Bella claim to have the best night of their lives. Doing what? biting pillows? sitting in the ocean staring at each other? Wasn't this moment in their relationship almost as big a milestone as Bella being turned? Think about it. They had decided she would become a vampire before they decided they could have sex. So its a really BIG deal, right?
The author wrote the violent end of Bella's human life very well. If I hadn't already decided to distance myself from the storyline due to my own rather violent reaction to finding out bella was pregnant (her revelation and the chapter following it will require entirely separate entries), I probably would have been able to really get into the story and be really scared for Bella... but I digress.
The whole series is about these two characters who have a painfully haphazard relationship. Most of the details are about how painful everything is, being apart, being together in a restricted sense, being together but risking everyone's life around them including each other's, blah de blah. The theme of restraint is arguably what makes the book so addicting in the first place. Repressed feelings and sexual tension, impossible love = page turner, right? Bella says it herself... the anticipation is sometimes more exciting than the action. But by the fourth book, we've moved into the realm of the not so subtle. So when the author skips over the sex part and goes strait to "oops I'm a bit bruised", and the other morning-after consequences, it just doesn't seem to fit. Or maybe it does... maybe she's more about the consequences than the action. For every kiss, there are ten pages of descriptions of Edward's wild eyes and tense jaw, and oh yeah, he feels so guilty about it all that he's damned himself to an eternity of sweater vests and khaki (a failed attempt to dissuade Bella, perhaps?)
So maybe there is nothing to read into. Maybe the sex/pregnancy conundrum is just following the normal pathways of the book. Maybe these books weren't written for a women studies major to overzealously analyze. Maybe it has nothing to do with the deepset religious mores that many in the US grew up around -- pregnancy being punishment, sex being dirty, etc. Or maybe the entire series is one crazy moral lesson about the consequences of our actions? This is what happens when you trade the khaki skirt for a motorcycle helmet and start drinking caffiene! Of course I can only guess if the author meant for us to find these themes. I doubt whether Meyer was doing anything intentionally besides writing a great love story, but our subconcious rarely lets us escape such powerful cultural markers (*cough* mormonism *cough*). Which is probably why the books are so addicting in the first place. Who doesn't understand the woes of repression?
But still... isn't the point that they stay together despite all of this because love is worth it? The happiness outweighs the pain? Shouldn't there be some accounts of intense joy for these two? Is it really so hard to describe a pleasurable experience in a non-graphic way (if that is really the issue here). A happy medium?
Apparently snogging is ok, and attempting to seduce your vampire boyfriend is ok, and feeling frustrated is ok, and being ripped apart inside out from a demon baby is ok. But sex is something that we readers don't need to read, or shouldn't want to read, or are too young to read about. Sex is personal and private, but to my knowledge so is childbirth, especially if you're vomiting blood. And I don't think either can really be called "Adult" themes anymore. Isn't the whole point of a story to go through the person's experiences with them, to empathize (see future blog about Jacob's Chapter for more of my thoughts on this)? Weren't we all clumsily gawking with Bella, hanging on to Edward's every word, losing sleep over the anticipation of what would happen next? What did happen?
Bella is so absorbed by pleasure that she doesn't remember anything. The erratic memory doesn't surprise me (it is very bella). But for all the shortness of breath and heart stopping and hands gripping hair that we get with a liplock... really? Not even foreplay? I will say, the morning after descriptions were great, and if Meyer really wants to keep it a fade away from the sex type of book thats fine (maybe its difficult to put into words), but there are implicit routes she could have taken, to help the reader better understand this new dimension in the 1600 page relationship. Seriously!
I just have a hard time grasping what makes it ok for a girl to have her body torn apart, in detail, but not to feel pleasure, in detail. I mean, now we are just all going to have to imagine for ourselves what went on in that ocean! Right? Or maybe thats just me... afk.
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