How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
At night, in their bedroom, [Desdemona had] seen her sleeping brother press against his rope mattress as though angry with it. (1.2.41)
Um, let's just say Lefty isn't angry with his mattress. You see, sometimes a man and a mattress love each other very much... Okay, it's not love, it's the uncontrollable lust that comes with overflowing hormones at a young age. Lefty has a hard time keeping them to himself.
Quote #2
[Desdemona] and Lefty are children again (except they have adult bodies). They're lying in the same bed (except now it's their parents' bed). They shift their limbs in sleep (and it feels extremely nice, how they shift, and the bed is wet) (1.2.84)
Desdemona and Lefty are clearly lusting after each other here. The lust is manifesting itself in Desdemona's dreams. Why do you think she sees them as children? Is it because lust is such a primal emotion?
Quote #3
[Desdemona] spread her legs. She opened her arms for Lefty, who twisted around, chafing his knees and elbows, dislodging oars, nearly setting off a flare, until finally he fell into her softness, swooning. (1.4.52)
Woo! Now this is the love boat. Even the small space of a lifeboat cannot contain the passion between these two. We don't think anything could contain them at this point.
Quote #4
Against [Desdemona's] will, the play had aroused her, too. The Minotaur's savage, muscular thighs. The suggestive sprawl of his victims. (2.2.11)
What is turning Desdemona on here? The violence of it all? The strength of the minotaur? A farm animal fetish? All of the above?
Quote #5
Plantagenet teased out all the harmonies, between a buttock's curve and a fender's, between corset and upholstery pleats, between garter belts and fan belts. [...] The days of the harem were over. Bring on the era of the backseat! Automobiles were the new pleasure domes. (2.4.73)
Lusts change. America's fascination with automobiles borders on fetish. Think of all the car ads you see (the ones that don't feature Ron Burgundy). What's selling these cars?
Quote #6
All love serenades must come to an end. (2.5.92)
Yes, it says love but it's really talking about lust here. Milton's flute playing to Tessie is the ultimate in literary eroticism, but eventually that erotic spark dies out of a relationship. Is there anything that can keep it going? What's left when it's gone?
Quote #7
Thanks to Dr. Phil's decrepitude and Tessie's prudishness, I arrived at puberty not knowing much about what to expect. (3.4.76)
Lustful feelings go hand-in-hand with raging hormones. Unfortunately, Cal's family is pretty repressed when it comes to sexuality (you'd think a family made up of a brother-and-sister grandparents and first-cousin parents would be a little more open... ), so Cal has a difficult time coming to terms with the crazy soup of sexual feelings he's having as a teenager.
Quote #8
Ecstasy. From the Greek Ekstasis. Meaning not what you think. Meaning not euphoria or sexual climax or even happiness. Meaning, literally: a state of displacement, of being driven out of one's senses. (3.9.162)
Even though Cal rules out sexual climax in the definition of ecstasy, this is a pretty spot on definition of lust. Lust happens when your thought process gets driven out of your mind and you start thinking with your… other regions.
Quote #9
"The guy's cock turns you on?" (4.1.162)
Part of Cal's treatment with Dr. Luce involves watching porn with him. That's not like any therapy we've had. Luce seems to be measuring Cal's sexual attraction, but what Luce doesn't realize is that the gender Cal is attracted to has absolutely no bearing on what gender he himself actually is.
Quote #10
In the Garden the atmosphere was exotic rather than raunchy. […] Viewers got to see strange things, uncommon bodies. […] There is no way to tell what percentage of the population dreams such dreams of sexual transmogrification. But they came to our underwater garden every night and filled the booths to watch us. (4.5.44)
We're not sure what these people are lusting after here. A new identity? A unique sexual partner? Some sort of strange water fetish? It's probably not the last one, as they could all turn their taps on at home for free to get that fix. But really, what keeps people coming back to the Garden?