it isn't really all about sex

Thomas Foster, in his How To Read Literature Like a Professor, has a funny point to make about literature: it's all about sex, unless, of course, it is about sex, in which case it's about something else.

Take Yeats' "Leda and the Swan," a rather dangerously erotic poem about Zeus's rape of Leda in, well, the guise of a swan. Yes, it depicts a rape. But it's not really about the rape; it's about the devastation of entire civilizations that can result from a single act of indifference. In other words, it's a poem that describes a sex act, but it ain't about sex.

But....sigh. There are only so many arguments you can win in a lit class.

I had a student a year or so back, who came into every office hour I had so that he could assiduously study the meaning of each line of poetry. He was a nice kid. But sometimes I wondered.

“So what about this line,” said D., pointing to the second stanza--the one that describes the rape. “The part where it says, 'How can body, laid in that white rush / But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?’”

“Um, yeah,” I said cautiously. Seemed straightforward enough to me...does a line like that need unpacking?

“The white rush. What is that?”

“Well, that’s like the rush of the white feathers of the swan, smothering the girl.”

“Huh,” said D., looking at me speculatively. I hate it when they get that look. It means things are getting out of control. “Could the white rush be something else?”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Well, I think that’s kind of a climactic moment. And when I see those words, I think they might be like...” he paused. “How do I put this. You know, the money shot.”

“The money shot?”

I'd never heard of a money shot. But it sounded bad.

“You don’t know what a money shot is?” D. asked incredulously. “Oh wow. How can you not know what that is!”

I gaped at him.

“Okay, so there’s this guy in my frat who’s really into porn. And he told me there’s this one star who’s really famous for his money shot. It’s like when...”

“Ooooooh,” I said, blanching. “Okay.”

Yes, okay. Stop already. There's D. sitting there grinning at me--it's so much fun to make your professor uncomfortable! And at this point I'm thinking, dude, you have just crossed my Line of Inappropriateness: the Boundary Which No Student Shall Ever Transgress.

I opted for the direct, no-nonsense approach.

“Semen,” I said knowledgeably, sounding, I hoped, as unfazed as a medical professional, undeterred by direct references to human fluids or acts. (You know we professors have many ways of talking around these objects. We prefer not to refer to them point blank at all, if possible; instead we talk vaguely about "the phallus" or "the patriarchal other.")

D., however, was not to be deterred. He proceeded to describe his knowledge of this arcane term in some detail, and, even though the door was open (it always is) and other students were milling about outside, I was powerless to stop it. It was way more information than I wanted or needed.

Finally he stopped.

“Well,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “I guess you learn something every day.”

And besides, he might be on to something.