In honor of Women’s History Month, I decided that I needed to shed some much needed light on one of my favorite poets, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Millay was a Pulitzer Prize winner and advocate for her progressive views on the role of women in society. Millay’s career took off after publishing a collection of poems entitled A Few Figs From Thistles, which explored feminism and female sexuality. Millay worked to shed light on the difficulties women face in heterosexual relationships, and her early understanding of the double standards surrounding sex is exemplified in her poem “I, being born a woman and distressed”. As a young female college student who is surrounded by hookup culture, this poem resonated with me and I chose to explore it a little deeper…
“I, being born a woman and distressed”
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body’s weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn with pity,- let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.
This poem is about a woman who feels degraded and ashamed after having sex, even though she pursued a sexual interaction. Unfortunately, many young women experience negative emotions post-hookup, and Millay attempts to analyze the intense double standard between men and women in sexual relationships. Despite the speaker’s resistance to these “needs and notions” of her kind (a play on the male expectation that women want passionate love affairs), she admits to being “urged” by a male figure. This caused her to -for a moment- forget that she prides herself on her feminine independence. The speaker’s discomfort with this sexual relationship is shaped by the double standard surrounding sex. Men rarely -if ever- feel shame for pursuing a woman, when females must be demure when it comes to wanting sex. The speaker is aware of this standard, but also aware of the desire within her to be in a sexual relationship. There is a dichotomy between the part of her that wants sex and wants to be pursued, and the part of her that rejects this social norm and rejects the whole notion of casual sex. To the speaker, she is the one committing “poor treason” by allowing herself to be seduced into this interaction.
This is a battle so many women face when it comes to casual sex. We are all painfully aware of how heterosexual sex works to empower men, and shame women. While some of us work to reject this by expressing our needs and wants with our partners, some women still feel guilty engaging in this patriarchal dance all together! That is what our speaker is struggling with. She wants so badly to be viewed as someone who deserves respect and authority, but her desire for sex contradicts this. Her personal perception of who is deserving of said respect is someone who rejects all patriarchal notions, up to and including sex.
Millay demonstrates this incredible moral contradiction within the speaker and within so many young women today, can we have empowering casual sex? The answer is obviously yes, but it’s much more easily said than done. From a young age, women are told to cover their bodies and hide their lust when men are praised for their developing sexuality. In health class, the girls watched a video on why they get a period and how they prevent pregnancy when the boys were taught about wet dreams and erections. The concept of pleasure is ingrained in the male mind from a young age, when passion and desire are forgotten in young women.
The speaker of the poem took a more radical approach to addressing her internalized misogyny by removing herself from any situation focused on male pleasure, but when the time came where she wanted sex, she felt betrayed by herself. This exemplifies how difficult it is for young women to enjoy casual interactions when they have not been told that their pleasure is valid and important, and for them to feel guilty for engaging in a behavior which could be used against them. We have to change the generational notion that sex begins and ends with male pleasure. We have certainly worked on embracing our sexuality and engaging in healthy relationships, but we can take it one step further. Follow in Millay’s footsteps and question why it is that we still fall prey to the double standard, and how we can work individually to change our internalized perceptions of sex. Only then can both participants enter a sexual relationship as equals, and enjoy it as such.
