Papers, that other thing I do at Oxford

I've been informed my blog reads like I'm on vacation, which isn't surprising since I never post anything about my tutorials or work. I've been thinking a lot about it though and some of you might actually be interested in my papers, at least when I tell you that they have recently involved a lot of talk about ejaculation and mimicking anal rape on stage. Catch your interest? Read on! If not, just wait for more pictures ;)

Here are the titles of all the papers I've written for Absurdist British Theater so far:

Week 1: Mark My Words: Unstable Terms for Ambiguous Relationships in Two Harold Pinter Plays

Week 2: Two Umbrellas in the Desert: The Betrayal of Inaction in Three Harold Pinter Plays

Week 3: Between Science and Storytelling: Blurring the Lines Between Rational and Romantic in Arcadia

Week 4: I am, I am not: Abstraction and the Search for Self in Three Sarah Kane Plays

Week 5: Spitting, Spewing, Swallowing: The Insatiable Mouth of Desire in Three Steven Berkoff Plays

Week 6: You Play Like a Girl: Exploring Dealer’s Choice with an All-Female Cast

(Just 2 more to go!)

Ok, so I have to read my papers aloud one-on-one with my tutor, and some of these topics make that a tad awkward. So let's just say Oxford has taught me how to talk about oral sex, ejaculation and anal rape in the most delicate ways possible. That's right, I had intelligent things to say on all these topics as they relate to contemporary British theater.

Here are some quotes. Just imagine me saying them out loud, and you'll be entertained:

The confusion between sex and love becomes more pronounced as “I fucking miss you” gets transformed into “I miss fucking you”

Mike also likens his “juices” to “the honey from the little wasps of Lesbos that only live a day,” and Sylv’s “arse” to “Bertorelli’s ice cream” (17).

despite Mike’s crudeness—“‘open them [knees] thou bitch before I ram a knuckle sandwich in thy painted boat”’—she misses him and misses sex (11, 12).

When Helen “gobbles the waiter,” sexual and edible metaphor become so layered they are inseparable wherein the waiter bearing breakfast on a tray becomes a sexual object she “gobbles,” literally swallowing his semen like food (19).

References to masturbation and castration further emphasize the men’s anxieties about their ability to be productive and successful sexually and financially. Ash (Tom Georgeson) tells Carl to own up for as “the sad sorry little prick you are for spunking all this money,” but no equally demeaning phrase seems to exist for women.

Switching the genders also complicates the moment where Frankie pretends to sodomize Mugsy and give him HIV (15). Not only does the act lose the touch of humor it has in the original as women are at much higher risk of sexual harassment and rape, but women miming anal sex does not have quite the same effect as men, since women lack the phallus necessary to perform the act.