La Perdida

I thought it was very interesting to read this book, La Perdida. I have never read a full comic book like this before and at times I found it difficult to follow some of the text. I liked the pictures because they helped put the text into a reality. I did not like when she used Spanish because it made it a little more confusing to read.

Most of the visuals are set up in order for the reader to read from left to right. Some of the boxes are larger than others and as I read on, I noticed that I needed to pay attention to that, so I would be reading in the correct order. At times, I found this to be difficult but once I got the hang of the visual representation that was being repeated made it much easier.

All in all, I thought it was a very interesting comic book. I thought the way that "women" were being represented in the culture of this book was also interesting. They treated women as if they were an object or possession of the men. "Keep your hands off my woman," was repeated much throughout the text. The female did not stand up for herself very often and the men really would not let her. I'm not sure if that is just how it is in the Spanish culture because I know her brother kept mentioning that she should kick out her boyfriend and stand up for herself.

AhhH!

Okay, I don't know about anyone else but the exploratory essay was very difficult for me to write. I felt I was all over the place and had no structure at all. I basically just spilled all of my ideas out onto paper. Whenever something popped into my head I started to type away. When I thought I was finished I read over what I had written down & it was a disaster! Nothing I seemed to write made any sense what so ever, so I basically ended up re-writing everything.

I basically wrote about each term (love, sex, & desire) seperately and how I defined them. At the end of my essay and I summed each one up and tied them all together. Love was the most difficult for me to define because it is not simple at all to say the least. Love is difficult to define in general, which is why there are so many variations of definitions for it.

All in all, I enjoyed writing the essay once it was done & over with. It brought me to realize what I know and don't know about love, sex, and desire. The questions that I brought up also really made me focus on what I want to know more about.

Yummy.

Like Water for Chocolate

I really enjoyed reading, Like Water for Chocolate. I thought it was very creative how the author set the book up by recipes. I really liked how Tita's emotions were somehow molded into her cooking and everytime people ate her food the would react to those emotions.

Love, in this book, is much more "real" between Tita and Pedro. They have an emotional attachment to each other that they share with no one else. Even though they are forbidden to be together because of Mama Elena they still share a love for each other that they cannot find with anyone else. Love is also defined in this book as something that is forced by history. When Mama Elena forbids Tita to ever fall in love with anyone and instead marries Rosaura and Pedro together. She does this because of old views from their culture. The youngest daughter should never marry and instead take care of her mother.

I really wanted Tita and Pedro to work out from the very beginning. It was awful how Mama Elena treated Tita. She treated her as if she was her slave. Tita was suppose to be the daughter who took care of her mother for the rest of her life. If that was me, I would go against everything she would say. That is unfair for Tita to have to contribute all of her time and effort into someone else's life and never get to live her own the way that she wants to. If I were her sister, Rosaura, I would not want to marry someone that my sister loved and wanted to marry. I would feel awful if my sister or my friend did that to me.

I thought it was interesting how the book ended up. The ending was a bit weird. I liked that it wasn't a typical love story ending. I thought it was weird how they just basically burst into flames. The candle analogy was very beautiful. I have never heard that before but it was a different way to look at it.

All in all, this was a great book. I enjoyed every chapter of it and now I want to watch the movie. Hopefully it is as good as the book!

Love

After recently finishing the novel, Love by Toni Morrison, I was a little confused on how exactly I felt about it.

When I first began to read the novel I was very confused with the various characters that I encountered throughout the chapters. I felt the author kept switching between characters and it was difficult to follow at times, which through my track off the story line. To be completely honest I didn't really start following the story line until about Chapter 8 (Father). Anyways..

I really enjoyed how the term, love, was incorporated in many different ways throughout the novel. For instance, Morrison used the term love as an actual affection towards another person. Through her writing she also defined love as something that could bring someone to insanity such as, setting a bed on fire. In this novel, love is something that is formed as a game of greed, a way of life, something we need, and how it effects people.

I find it interesting that Morrison writes this novel about a man named, Bill Cosey, who has many different relationships with various women. The way that he played these women and the stories of each relationship are very interesting. It is funny how love is incorporated in each relationship but can hold a totally different meaning with each. For example, the love between Mr. & Mrs. Cosey is true love compared to love between Mr. Cosey & his granddaughter,which is more a "blood love." I believe love plays these same roles in actual reality. We view this everyday between friends, family, peers, etc. Love is constantly being tossed around us and the meaning is constantly changing at all times, which is why love is so difficult to define. One minute it's "this" and the next it's "that." Whatever that may be.

Love, Desire, & Sex

The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm by Anne Koedt

After reading The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm by Koedt I noticed her feminist qualities come out through her writing. The entire essay, from my perspective, is about women gaining the right to their sexuality and how men treat women who are not as sexually involved as men would like them to be. It merely focuses on the outcome of sex, not the process. What we get out of sex is just an orgasm? In most minds that doesn't fly. Sex is more than just an orgasm. It is the love and desire that the partners have for one another. This essay just picks apart how males treat women genitals.

Do define love and desire in Koedt's essay I would define them in a different sense than usual. Love in this essay is defined as the love for the women and respecting her emotions about sex rather than love between partners. Desire would also be along the same lines as love. Koedt wants the male to desire the females sexual parts as her own and her own way of receiving pleasure rather than being fearful of them. Sex defined in this essay is intercourse between a man and a woman; insertion of penis into the vagina.

The time period definitely plays a large part in this essay. Women are becoming more and more aware of what an orgasm is and how they experience one. Sex is becoming more and more of an equal exchange rather than the vagina is solely used for a man's pleasure. Age is also a factor in this situation that men usually respect women more as they grow older and become more aware of sex.

Lusting for Freedom by Rebecca Walker

The young girl in this essay experiences sex very early on. It amazes me how young she was. She clearly defines sex as love. Sex is something you share with your partner. It is a physical thing that you can keep to yourself or give out to others.

"It gives you someone to hold onto when you can't feel yourself."

I think this quote is how sex can be represented at many colleges. Most of the time, college is the time to experience yourself and figure out who you truly are and at times it can be very lonely. College is also a great time to experience others and make lifetime relationships. Sometimes during college people just feel that they need someone to hold onto when they can't find themselves and are lonely. It is okay.

The desire for sex is not merely just to experience pleasure in a way of an orgasm but also to get pleasure from knowing that there is someone else who would like to experience and enjoy that pleasure with you. Someone to share it with.

This author is much more interested in the opposite sex in a positive way that helps themselves or looks at both partners benefiting unlike Koedt who basically bashes men for only wanting sex for their personal pleasures. Walker takes a different perspective from the females point of view on how they can also benefit from sex and give it as they please. She almost takes sex as a privilege to have and if the female doesn't want to give sex out then that is her choice.