Quote 79
And my mind whirled with forgotten stories of male servants summoned to wash the mistress's back; chauffeurs sharing the masters' wives; Pullman porters invited into the drawing room of rich wives headed for Reno – thinking, but this is the movement, the Brotherhood…
I was heading for the door, torn between anger and fierce excitement, hearing the phone click down as I started past and feeling her swirl against me and I was lost, for the conflict between the ideological and the biological, duty and desire, had become too subtly confused. (19.70 – 19.71)
This is an incredibly un-sexy love scene. The narrator is torn in a million different directions: She's married! Am I being set up? I'm attracted! This is an unequal sexual relationship – is she just using me?
Quote 80
I looked at the red imprint left by the straps of her bra, thinking, Who's taking revenge on whom? But why be surprised, when that's what they hear all their lives. When it's made into a great power and they're taught to worship all types of power? With all the warnings against it, some are bound to want to try it out for themselves. The conquerors conquered. Maybe a great number secretly want it; maybe that's why they scream when it's farthest from possibility – (24.54)
Here, the narrator speculates that women are socialized into certain types of desires – for instance, that power is erotic. As a white woman, Sybil has been taught to fear the power of the black man, but at the same time she occupies a "greater" position (in relation to the black man) because of her race. This dynamic creates a space where she feels free to ask for rape – not realizing, of course, that not all black men are or want to play rapists.