Sexuality and American Culture

From Morrison’s Sula and from Stevenson’s essay we do indeed see “sex in the female slave world,” as “part of the culture of adults.”  However, while Stevenson posits that women realize their sexual power in service to their families and communities (Peiss ed., 166), Morrison’s novel shows female slave sexuality to be more about the pursuit of personal pleasure and power. 
In this matrifocal world filled with transient men, strong ties among the women (reminding us of the intimate friendships among 19th century women) form and seem to liberate the women from any sort of dependence on men.
Is it first important to discuss the accepted sexualized setting within slave society.  As Stevenson tells us, a “single women’s dress, hair, walk, dance, and language could…be sexually suggestive” (Peiss ed., 167), and men placed much emphasis on their “sexual prowess” (170).  All this saturated sexuality is showcased the song of ex-slave Levi Pollard, in which we see the “celebration of slave male eroticism, sexual casualness, and female slave objectification” (170).  But it is not as if this was one-sided; there was an understanding and an appreciation of this objectification on the side of the women that we can see in Sula.  When, as young girls, Nel and Sula walk past the men, they do it knowingly, excitedly.  “There was no mistaking the compliment” bestowed upon Sula by Ajax: “pig meat” (Morrison 50).  They walked past these men regularly, awaiting licking lips and tipping hats.  They admired the “smooth vanilla crotches,” that “invited” and beckoned” (50).  The language here is not threatening at all; there is a mutual understanding of the inevitability of sex.
Specifically, in the Peace household, sex was something Sula understood from an early age as “pleasant and frequent” (Morrison 44).  Outside of the house however, “the message was different,” in terms of the Hannah’s detached sexual activity.  The community shunned her not because she was having a lot of sex, but because she did not attach passion to her relationships and because she tended to break up marriages.  This did not seem to affect Hannah; she simply wanted “some touching everyday” (44).  Sula followed suit in “the easy way she lay with men.” Despite the positive associations she had learned in childhood, her thoughts about sex were not completely straightforward.  She first thought of “lovemaking” as a “special kind of joy,” then of its sootiness, then of its wickedness.  Ultimately though, she sought “misery and the ability to feel deep sorrow” through sex.  And it was through the ironic situation of finding “limitless power” while lying under someone that she found the silence of orgasm and the eternity of loneliness (123).
Morrison’s novel presents the complexities of sexuality in the female slave world of the 20th century, from its pleasures to its sorrows.  It also highlights the cultural differences that develop in terms of sexuality.  It seems, from the experiences of Sula and Nel and comments from Stevenson’s essay, that what Marcella and I would call “street harassment” could be considered a desired and expected part of a not so courtly courtship ritual.  It is clear though, that in this female slave world, sexuality is embraced as a tool, be it for pleasure, power, or simply survival.