How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #4
It is customary in this age to attribute a comprehensive and quite unanalysed causality to the 'sexual urges'. These obscure forces, sometimes thought of as particular historical springs, sometimes as more general and universal destinies, are credited with the power to make of us, delinquents, neurotics, lunatics, fanatics, martyrs, heroes, saints, or more exceptionally, integrated fathers, fulfilled mothers, placed human animals, and the like. Vary the mixture, and there's nothing 'sex' cannot be said to explain, by cynics and pseudo-scientists such as Francis Marloe […]." (1.17.1)
Despite the important roles that sex and sexual urges play in The Black Prince, Bradley Pearson rejects any Freudian or post-Freudian ideas that human sexuality is at the root of everything. For Bradley, sex isn't the be-all and end-all—instead, it's one part of a much broader and more complex experience.
Quote #5
I would like to make it clear that any explanation along these lines is not only over-simplified and 'coarse', it is also entirely wide of the mark. In so far as I thought about the possibility of making love to Rachel (which by this time I did, but with a deliberately controlled vagueness) I did not, I was not such a shallow fool as to, imagine that a trivial sexual release would bring me the great freedom for which I had sought, nor had I in any way confused animal instinct with godhead. (1.17.3)
In his narrative, Bradley Pearson makes it clear that he didn't associate the idea of sex with Rachel Baffin with the "godhead" that he worships throughout the book. Does he associate sex with Julian Baffin with the "godhead"? If so, why does he feel this way about sex with Julian but not about sex with Rachel?
Quote #6
To lie fully clothed, with one's shoes on, beside a panting naked woman is not perhaps very gentlemanly. I raised myself on one elbow so that I could see her face. I did not want to be submerged by this warm gale. I looked intently down at her face. […] I touched her breasts, moving my hand over them lightly, scrutinizing them with my touch. I looked down and regarded her body, which was plump, fleshy. I drew my hand down over her stomach which contracted under my fingers. I felt excited, stunned, but this was not quite desire. (1.19.50)
For a novel with such matter-of-fact sex scenes (or, um, attempted-sex scenes), The Black Prince isn't exactly a steamy read. Bradley Pearson's descriptions of women are so often unpleasant or grotesque that even the novel's sexiest scenes tend not to be very erotic.