Bridesicle
Right off the bat one line sparked my thinking, “Am I your first? No one has revived you before? Not even for an orientation? The notion seemed to please him, that he was her first” (McIntosh 1). I immediately connected this to the fetishization of female virginity. This creep brings Mira back into the world and immediately reduces her to a sex object and revels in the power he has over her. Mira ended her own life because she felt she had no power or control over how her mother spoke to her and made her feel. Now she reenters “life”, and the first person she meets takes pleasure in taking her metaphorical virginity. The entire concept of virginity in life acts as a patriarchal mechanism to control female sexuality. Women are shamed for losing their virginity, yet paradoxically shamed for maintaining it when there isn’t even a true definition of virginity in the first place. Mira has no agency, even before when living with her emotionally manipulative mother the only thing she could think to do to save herself was commit suicide, there in killing her mother. In my opinion this qualifies all the relationships she has with people who wake her up as abusive. Each one has unconsenting power over her and take pleasure in that. I may even argue that Neas is a rapist. Though Mira consents to bear his children, it’s coerced consent, and Mira can’t say no without literally dying. Though it’s a peculiar situation, it fits the definition of rape.
