Paired Blogging 11/21

Here’s what me and Ana discussed about The Year of the Flood through Siobhan Sommerville’s work so far:
*super long post ahead, we more or less wrote mini essays to each other…*

Vita: The piece we read by Siobhan Somerville dealt with the interdependent relationship between scientific/ pseudoscientific discourses of race and (homo)sexuality in the 19^th century. In regards to The Year of the Flood, race/ ethnicity and the spectrum of sexualities seems to be absent or downplayed (debatable?). However, a working idea that has been ruminating in my mind is a similar interdependent relationship between discourses of sexuality and economics/ capitalism in The Year of the Flood.

I argue that the general economy of this dystopia, especially the various Corporations, is saturated in sexuality in terms of influencing products and values. In turn, discourses about (hetero)sexuality of several characters are informed by economical principles. The most potent example of the first side of this relationship is the SeksMart Corp, which included the club, Scales and Tails, by the time Ren was in college. In an extreme example of an economic monopoly, pimps and street prostitution was outlawed and anyone outside of this “legitimate Corp with health benefits and a dental plan” was considered “pathetic” and even called “‘hazardous waste’” (Atwood, 2009, p. 294, 7). In addition, Toby recalls that it was typical for people to reason that even if a young woman fell into economic despair, “at least she had something of marketable value, namely her young ass…and nobody had to feel guilty,” which suited the ultimate CorpSeCorp principle of the bottom line (Atwood, 2009, p. 28).

On the other hand, in the discourses about sexuality by characters like Ren and Amanda, the economical influence is apparent. This is obvious when Ren starts working at Scales and Tails. On numerous occasions, Ren mentions doing “plank work” or talking about the “bristle work” that was done by literal expendables (not Scales girls) (Atwood, 2009, p. 130). In addition, Amanda would often use the euphemism of “doing a trade,” which was literally providing sex for an exchange of items or help from others…

Ana: I also found that gender roles and sexuality in The Year of the Flood wasn’t as important of a personal identifier than it is in our contemporary U.S. society. It can be argued that our gender and race are the most influential in establishing our identities in a public space and even how we are expected to behave in private spaces. Race and gender function as the most powerful categorical tools we utilize to differentiate ourselves and also connect to others. Perhaps, because The Year of the Flood takes place in a post-apocalyptic North America where it seems nations are defunct or never even existed in the collective memory race is almost non-existent.

To respond to Vita’s argument of the economics of sexuality, I actually found it a generous facet of the CorpSeCorps to legalize and celebrate sex workers. Our world stigmatizes any kind of sex work, even if one is only an exotic dancer! We believe them to be immoral, dirty, outliers, and above all, subhuman. They are portrayed in media as loose, godforsaken women (and sometimes trans men) and of low class. They are usually portrayed as desperate and without dignity.

Now, I’m sure the CorpSeCorps did not create the SeksMart Corp out of the generosity and open-mindedness of their hearts, but to control that sector of the entertainment economy. But still! These sex workers, as Vita mentioned, HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE! I think it’s safe to say that if the status quo persists, I will never live in a day when sex workers will have the rights to governmental health care (considering we’re having a problem now with its distribution as the healthcare sector continues to privatize).

To get back to what Somerville argues in Queering the Color Line, race and sexuality are not mutually exclusive either in The Year of the Flood. Somerville argues that historically, once the discourse of race was the hot topic of the 19^th century, talks of homosexuality also began cropping up in mainstream academia. She argues that just as the color line was established to prevent mixing between races, so did sexuality categories to prevent “experimentation out of the white, hetero norm”. In Atwood’s novel, Toby’s sexuality is almost non-existent until she undergoes a physical transformation when she begins to work at the AnooYoo Spa. Her skin tone changes to that of a darker color and her facial features change as well to what is described as a more sexually exotic looking woman than the white, lanky, and rather sexless woman she was before. She notes the changes in herself as well as the noticed difference in treatment from Zeb. After her transformation, she seems more gendered as female gathered from the behavior she “elicits” (is this implying a sort of victim-blaming mentality?, because that’s not how I meant it) from Zeb. It is impossible to talk about the birth of her sexuality without talking about the change in her physical appearance.

Vita: I forgot that example about Toby! I agree that her racialized physical appearance change corresponded with a shift in her gender performance and sexuality. I also find that Toby’s sexuality (and corresponding gender performance) throughout her life/ book to be unstable: she was a relatively “normal” college student who was sexually involved with a monogamous boyfriend; after the double tragedy of her parents, she went through a drug-fused sex run; then there is her horrific experience with Blanco; and in God’s Gardeners, she is known as the “Dry Witch” and was deemed “sexless” enough that even Lucerne isn’t paranoid that she is a rival for Zeb. Also there are tiny snippets through her narrative in which she questions her feelings about jealousy and affection surrounding love/ sexual desire. Curious…

I also interpreted Toby’s racial transformation as a subtle nod to a long line of stereotypes surrounding women of color: as you note, the exoticism and sexualization of the “other.” Atwood also brings out complications of these sexual, gendered, and racialized stereotypes in the scene where Toby meets Rebecca for the first time in SecretBurgers. Rebecca warns her about Blanco and expresses relief that she is “too black and ugly for him” even though Toby/ narrative notes that Rebecca is “beautiful in a substantial way” (Atwood, 2009, 35). I suppose this is the flipside of women of color/ other being exotically sexual is to be undesirable to “white hetero norm man” (also noting what Blanco’s name translates as) and is in sync with Sommerville’s argument of the intertwining fears of sexual desire between races and within genders in the 19^th century.

Lastly, I agree with your comments about health insurance as well as the stigmatization of sex workers in our society. Though, I think the curious thing about dystopias is that there is sort of a sugar and medicine mentality: there are the appearance of “good” and ideal things such as health insurance and care, but it is twisted in either their sincerity or their purpose. I think about what the true quality of their healthcare might be since it’s likely another Corp and we know they hold no bounds in using customers or even their own workers for their own gain such as how the rigorous healthcare Toby’s mother received ultimately cause her death.

To be continued…