Water for Elephants Sex and Sexuality

Here, Jacob weighs two sensual pleasures. At his stage of life, both seem equally delectable and unattainable. The description of the corn, with "those sweet kernels bursting between my teeth" wouldn't be hard to transfer over to a sexual encounter, and maybe that's the point. He can't have either, but thinking about them gives him the same kind of vicarious pleasure.

Jacob is brutally honest here. He appears to consider his ongoing virginity as a kind of failure. However, his state also reflects his honesty. He suspects there might be other "old […] male virgins" out there, but they're all pretending they've gotten some. Jacob has standards that he won't lower for anything, even the much-desired event of losing his virginity. He won't lie and he won't participate in mass prostitution. Good values to live by, we'd say.

When we contrast this description from a young, naïve, and excited Jacob with others that come from the experienced and elderly Jacob, it's actually kind of cute. Jacob is thrilled and overwhelmed by the fact that he's "touching a breast." It's not even a bare breast, but, as Jacob implies, this is still a monumental event in his sexual development.

This isn't sex, but it's kind of a precursor to it. Jacob and Marlena are magically drawn to each other in this scene. Jacob doesn't know why; all he knows is that somehow "she's in my arms" and they're pulled to each other like magnets. Then they dance together, freely and joyously, and Rosie the elephant approves.

This moment of a first kiss between Marlena and Jacob is reminiscent of the scene when the two of them dance in front of Rosie. In that scene, they "twirl" (10.6); in this one, Marlena is "turning, spinning in some kind of dervish." The kiss becomes almost like an extension of the earlier dance. In both events, their bodies take over against their minds' best interest.

Jacob already shows how much he's growing up here. He's already less interested in sex for the simple sake of it, in being turned on just to get turned on. He's already become emotionally invested in Marlena, so sex on its own has less interest for him. He's holding out for sex with an emotional connection. On a side note, it's funny that Jacob would see the woman in the sexualized comic as someone "with [a] horse face"; this could be the effect of the animals and other elements of circus life spilling over and consuming his mind.

It hurts Jacob to see Marlena with someone else. He can't bear the thought of August "clasp[ing] her in his arms"; he can't even look while it happens. And this is a public embrace. Imagine what he must think about what could be going on between Marlena and August behind closed doors.

There are a couple levels of irony here. For one, August is both right and wrong in accusing Marlena and Jacob of having an affair. He's right in that they've become emotionally involved, and you could probably say they're having an emotional affair. But August is focused on the physical, accusing them of conducting "a postcoital celebration," and that simply isn't the case. Up to this point Marlena and Jacob have only kissed. The other bit of irony is that August's accusation is the last straw. It's only after he accuses Jacob and Marlena of having sex that they end up doing so. Oops.

As soon as he's started falling for Marlena, Jacob is focused on combining sex with emotional connection. Here he manages to achieve that. The "afterward" means they just had sex, and yet as close as they were during their intimate physical time, here they seem even closer. It's interesting that Jacob wants Marlena to be inside <em>him</em>: "I want her to melt into me, like butter on toast. I want to absorb her and […] [have] her encased in my skin."

Here Jacob describes the paradox of sex: it both completes him and leaves him wanting more. As he says, "[t]hese encounters leave me both exhausted and recharged, desperate and fulfilled." The more he has, the more he wants. And yet getting to be with Marlena also wears him out and worries him. He's so consumed by her that he can't bear being without her, but sometimes being with her is almost too much to take.