The Black Prince Theme of Sex

Our narrator, Bradley Pearson, may claim to be kind of a puritanical guy, but The Black Prince sure does have a lot to say about sex.

Over the course of the novel, we watch as Bradley Pearson goes from being a dude who shies away from sexual entanglements—and sexual feelings in general—to a dude full of passionate desire for a young, boyish-looking woman who's basically a third of his age. Yeah, it's complicated. As he explores his unexpected desire, Bradley never thinks of sex as a purely physical act—for him, the act of love is a form of spiritual consummation that's part and parcel of the true artist's communion with his artistic "godhead."

1. In The Black Prince, how does Bradley Pearson represent the ideas that he had about sex when he was a young man?
2. Is Bradley Pearson sexually attracted to Rachel Baffin? If so, in what way? How does he describe that attraction, and what about her seems to turn him on?
3. In what ways does Bradley Pearson find Julian Baffin attractive? What aspects of her physical appearance turn him on, and what aspects of her intellectual and emotional self attract him to her?

Bradley Pearson isn't just a dirty old man. For him, sex is a spiritual experience more so than a physical act, and it's the spiritual connotations of lovemaking that have him so riled up.

Despite his attempts to intellectualize his passion and describe it in mystical and religious terms, Bradley Pearson can't convince us that he was interested in anything other than getting it on.