Some wench's abject thirst to quench

And yet the major critics,at least the ones I've read--from Field and Stegner
and right up to Boyd--have passed over the lines in silence. -Jim Twiggs

It is clear that something sexual (at least) is very wrong with Shade. It never has ceased to amaze me that those who know this novel so well can continue to ignore the obvious discrepancy of these and other lines. In another day and age sexual prudery could have been blamed for the ashamed reluctance. But no one here seems to quake before the hyper-sexuality of Ada, so why such ignorance persistante when it comes to John Shade?

How can it be that someone like innocent old no-sex-before-marriage John Shade even knows about such a thing as cunnilingus? This is before "Everything you wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask" and waaaaay before Dr Ruth after all. In 1965 I had to explain to my mother what homosexuality was - - she had heard of it but was afraid to ask what it meant - - even of her husband who was a physician. I don't think she was particularly prudish or ignorant but she didn't know. My generation has been unusually sexually well-educated, some might even say to the point of corruption. But Shade is of an earlier generally more innocent period, so why isn't he innocent?

It's really been very difficult for me to understand the refusal by some of our more illustrious members to deal with this really rather obvious dissonance. Hell, no one on the list has been willing to deal with it!

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