S and M is only the expression in the bedroom of an oppressive-submissive relation which can happen also in the kitchen or at the factory, can happen between people of any gender. There is obviously something titillating about these relationships, but it isn't the sexual components that makes them ugly, they're uglier elsewhere. Nothing sexual is depraved. Only cruelty is depraved, and that's another matter.
Interpretation
The quote discusses how power dynamics in relationships, such as BDSM, can manifest outside the bedroom and highlights that cruelty, not sexuality, is what is truly depraved.
Marilyn French's quote explores the complexities of relationships characterized by power imbalances, such as those found in BDSM. While there can be excitement in these expressions of dominance and submission, the real ugliness lies not in the sexual aspects but in the cruelty that may arise from unequal power dynamics. Sexuality itself is not depraved; rather, it is the acts of cruelty and oppression that should be scrutinized, emphasizing the importance of consent and mutual respect in all interactions.
In practice
In a lecture about healthy relationships, this quote can illustrate the importance of consent and respect.
Later, she would remember these years, and realize with astonishment that she had, by fifteen, decided on most of the assumptions she would carry for the rest of her life: that people were essentially not evil, that perfection was death, that life was better than order and a little chaos good for the soul. Most important, this life was all. Unfortunately, she forgot these things, and had to remember them the hard way.
To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.
In a great gasp, puts her head in her hands again and cries as if her throat were a cave, as if the howling winds came from her belly, she cries like a storm that will never end.
Women are afraid in a world in which almost half the population bears the guise of the predator, in which no factor - age, dress, or color - distinguishes a man who will harm a woman from one who will not.
When they kept you out it was because you were black; when they let you in, it is because you are black. That's progress?
'I hate discussions of feminism that end up with who does the dishes,' she said. So do I. But at the end, there are always the damned dishes.
What distinguished my life from my brother's is that my mother didn't like me. When I became a woman, I seemed to repel her.
How we dwelt in two worlds the daughters and the mothers in the kingdom of the sons.
I've had moments when I've thought about somebody, picked up the phone to call them and they are on the line already, and I think that maybe there's some vibration, some connection.
I think every relationship is going to go through a few rough patches. Those are what make it stronger, I think.
Men! She could not understand why so many women feared them. Hadn't the gods made them with the most vurnerable part of their guts hanging right out of their bodies, like a misplaced bit of bowel? Kick them there and they curled up like snails. Caress them there and their brains melted.
Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find. In its presence we can remember something beyond the moment, a strength on which to build a life. Silence is a place of great power and healing.
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