Virgin Suicides Women and Femininity Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #10

"It's the smell of trapped beaver," Paul Baldino said, sagely, and we didn't know enough to disagree, but we found it hard to imagine such an aroma issuing from the ventricles of love. The smell was partly bad breath, cheese, milk, tongue film, but also the singed smell of drilled teeth. (4.66)

There are lots of myths about what a woman's vagina smells like. Paul Baldino's vulgar reference to the Lisbon girls compares the smell that comes from their closed-up house to the girls' repressed sexuality. It's a disgusting description, and some of the narrators, still caught up in their romantic idealization of the girls, don't believe it.