High School Student Sentenced To 0 Years In Prison For Raping His Little Sister's Best Friend

Not the news headline you were expecting? Me neither. After all, why did we hear nothing about Jerome after he raped Calliope?

Whoa, rape?

Yeah, rape.

Rape is sexual activity where there is a lack of consent, meaning that Cal and Jerome’s interaction in the swamp shack is a textbook definition of rape.

Seriously, look up "rape" and then re-read the scene with Cal and Jerome

After all, readers are able to view the entire event from Cal's point of view, where he never once seems to give consent. Not verbally, not mentally, not emotionally, not physically - literally no sign of Cal wanting anything from Jerome other than his sister.

Furthermore, Cal had a moment during this scene where he “realized how drunk [he] was” (Eugenides 375) and everyone hates bringing up the complicating factor of alcohol, but it is very clear that Cal’s intoxication was no accident. Indeed, it seems that Jerome was waiting until the alcohol had taken plenty of time to affect Cal before he sexually assaulted him.

I was worried, for a good portion of the novel, that Cal never had time to realize that this experience was in fact a rape. After all, he was so busy worrying about his genitals and being discovered as intersex, that he never dwelled on what happened that night. As the novel bounced back and forth between Cal’s adolescent years and adult years, I began to worry that this experience was part of what made him so distant with Julie; maybe it was part of the reason why he could never get both emotionally and physically intimate with his lovers? Given that it was his first sexual experience (at least technically), I worried that he thought about it often and that even as an adult it was affecting his life negatively.

Maybe I’m reading too into the novel, but why wouldn’t I? If you took a good look at the rape culture that our society promotes, then you too would worry about Cal as I did. Look at Brock Turner, the Standford University swimmer who served only 6 months for his rape. Look at Donald Trump, who actually has a shot at becoming the President of our country.

Grab her by the 'crocus'

Look at almost any major media outlet and watch how they cover rape. Are they sensationalizing? Are they victim-blaming? Are they manipulating? In almost all cases, the answer to one of those questions is yes.

Maybe it’s just me that was worried about Cal after he got raped…but it shouldn’t 

MiddleShreks

A few nights ago I was watching a movie with a group of friends. The film we chose was Shrek: The Musical for a multitude of reasons, one being that none of us had seen it. We had seen many Shrek films but had not seen it in a musical format.

Shrek takes place in Duloc where Lord Farquaad wishes to become king. To do this he must marry a princess and sends for Princess Fiona. Fiona has been locked in a tower since her childhood. Shrek, an ogre, is sent to retrieve her. Shrek and Fiona fall in love in the few days’ travel back to Duloc.

As we finished the film I realized that Shrek was the closest thing to a prince Fiona had ever met. Sure, she had read fairy tale books, but outside of that she knew nothing about men. Shrek also has not had much exposure to love and women, or even friendship for that matter.

After taking this into consideration it is not a surprise as to why Fiona and Shrek grow close over the period of a few days. (They are literally bonding over burps and farts.) Shrek is not the model prince, but Fiona is not the model princess either. In my mind they bonded over their imperfections.

         This then made me think of Desdemona and Lefty in Middlesex. Growing up in the same room for over 20 years (with the only separation being a curtain, mind you), they were the first impression they had of the opposite sex. Lefty even mentions how he had looked at her outline once he realized their sexual differences. Desdemona undoubtedly did the same.

         Now, the two tried to like other people. Or rather, Lefty tried to love other women; however, he only liked women who reminded him of his sister. Desdemona also tried to pair her brother with girls from the village. If he chose one, maybe then she could move on and find someone else she could love.

         Desdemona and Lefty’s relationship also reminds me of Sigmund Freud’s theory. This is the theory where all men want to kill their fathers and marry their mothers and vice versa where all women want to kill their mothers and marry their fathers. Desdemona is not Lefty’s mother, but she does take on the motherly role after their parents die. Desdemona and Lefty quickly realize what they really want is each other. 

In both cases the couples fall in love with what they know, pointing to Freud’s point.

Is the “American Dream” only a dream?

Within Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides, the idea of the “American Dream” is introduced early in the novel. Cal’s grandparents, Lefty and Desdemona Stephanides, are forcibly removed from their village in Greece. The Greek-Turk wars included a great fire of Smyrna devastated their village and forced the pair to seek refuge in the elusive United States. They wish to start a new life together, as husband and wife, and pursue the American Dream.

The “American Dream” is defined as a set of ideals of the US that promotes democracy, equality, and prosperity. Often, immigrants, looking for a better life, often looked to the US to get this better life. The American Dream has been a motif that is within various pieces of literature. Most noticeably, this is presented in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. This novel portrays this ideal as an aspiration that has a terrible dark side. The American Dream seems to be only a dream to titular character Jay Gatsby, when in reality, the American Dream does not exists. Nick Carraway and Gatsby experience how unattainable and undesirable the underside of this ideal can be.

Unfortunately, Lefty and Desdemona experience the darker side of America. When they first arrive, they fear for any illness that may cause a denial of entrance into Ellis Island. A simple illness can exile them back to the chaos of Greece, which is contrary to the safe haven American is coined as. When Lefty is given a job at the Ford Motor Company, his associates try to Americanize him, as with the nightly English classes. This “melting pot“ of various ethnicities would be expected to be accepting of different nationalities. But Lefty is forced to learn English and assimilate into the American way of life.

Lefty also sees the corruption in America during this time through Lina’s husband, Jimmy Zizmo. When they arrive, Zizmo is relatively successful in his American life; he has a job, a place of residence, and a wife. To an extent, Lefty wishes to have a life similar to this. But it is later revealed that Zizmo is a bootlegger, as this is during Prohibition, and is involved with illegal activities. Lefty is soon drawn into this business and later inspires him to open up a speakeasy in his home. Lefty gives up this dream of a wonderful life in American and partakes in illegal activities just to survive with Desdemona and his two children.

For the Stephanides, the American Dream is not possible. The only way to come close to achieving this goal, is to participate in darker activities which do not align with the ideal of the American Dream. As shown with other novels, the American Dream seems to be only achievable within a dream.

                 

Why Would I Like a Book About a Hermaphrodite?

When I first picked up Middlesex, I was surprised to learn that it was a book about a hermaphrodite.  (The title of the book suddenly made a whole lot more sense.)  I thought, I probably won’t like this book because I won’t be able to relate.  I searched my brain to see what I knew about hermaphrodites.  In the back of my brain, I distantly remembered an article I read from the New York Times that discussed the controversial topic of intersex women in competitive international sports such as the Olympics.  (The article is called “The Humiliating Practice of Sex-Testing Female Athletes” by Ruth Padawer for those of you that are curious.)  It featured an Indian women named Dutee Chand that had come from a poor rural area, who had illiterate parents that were basket-weavers, and who had earned luxuries such as food by running, food that her family would normally not be able to afford.  When her gender was questioned, she was subjected to a series of tests to prove that she was a woman.  But, alas, she failed.  It was found that she had more androgens than the usual woman.  So then it was declared that she would be banned from participating in competitive sports.  This woman was shocked.  She was told during the series of tests she had to endure that it was standard procedure.  She was only thinking of a way to earn her family extra privileges by doing something she loved.  She asked, “Why should I change the way I look on the outside, if I was raised as a woman, identify as a woman, and have to compete with other women that may have other advantages such as coming from a privileged background?”

Dutee Chand

            It makes you wonder what she feels like, having her gender questioned when all she has known is that she is a girl.  Likewise, the narrator in Middlesex must have questioned what happened to her.  The narrator mentions that she is born a girl, but then born again as a boy.  In the first few pages, the narrator sounds matter-of-fact, like he (or she) has accepted who he is.  He hints at a budding relationship with Julie in the part we have read so far, and a possible previous relationship with a girl, and perhaps her brother.  Although I had some reservations about this book, I find myself eager to join the journey of the various events that lead up to the narrator’s birth and his life afterwards.  It makes me curious about how he is going to figure out that he is a hermaphrodite, how he deals with it, and how he is going to grow relationships as he gets older.