Go Tell It on the Mountain Sex Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #7

"You stink of whisky. Let me alone." 

"Ah. I ain't the only one got a tongue. What you got to say to this?" And his hand stroked the inside of her thigh. 

"Stop." 

"I ain't going to stop. This is sweet talk, baby." (2.1.115-18)

Florence and Frank fight all the time, and their marriage doesn't last. Maybe it's because, just as he does outside of bed, Frank ignores her wishes in bed. She tells him clearly to leave her alone and to stop, and he just refuses, keeping on with what he wants to do without respecting her.

Quote #8

The silence was the silence of the early morning, and he was returning from the harlot's house. (2.2.4)

Gabriel is a good-time guy before he gets saved, which involves lots of drinking and sex. Now that he's saved, however, he looks back on that time with a whole new vocabulary. He sleeps with a woman that he meets one night while he's out partying, and, because he comes to Jesus the next morning, he now thinks of her as a "harlot," or prostitute.

Quote #9

Lord, how they rocked in their bed of sin, and how she cried and shivered; Lord, how her love came down! […] And he touched the tree, hardly knowing that he touched it, out of an impulse to be hidden; and then he cried: "Oh, Lord, have mercy! Oh, Lord, have mercy on me!" (2.2.12)

Even if Gabriel does have a judgmental view on sex, the way he thinks about it almost sounds like a prayer. The repetition of "Lord," sounds like he's praying, just like afterward, when he begs God for mercy. It's like the entire act, from sex to repentance, is all part of the same prayer.