Young Irish Women and Sex in Seamus Heaney's Poem, Punishment, and in the Documentary, Sex in a Cold Climate

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During the 20th century in Ireland, girls had to suppress their inner-sexual thoughts and desires becasue Irish girls' personal lives were dictated and controlled by the Catholic church and state. Ireland socially accepted female inferiority as they humiliated and tortured young girls for loving another partner. As seen in Seamus Heaney's poem, Punishment, and the documentary, Sex in a Cold Climate, Irish girls' views of love and sex were forever tainted because of the public treatment and ridicule they received. In Punishment, Heaney describes a personal experience witnessing a young girl tarred-and-feathered in public for loving a British solider. Moreover, Sex in a Cold Climate focuses on four women and their tragic experiences in Ireland's Magdalene Asylums. Furthermore drawing themes from Punishment and Sex in a Cold Climate, I am going to discuss the relationship between sexual desires and punishment and argue that Irish girls were deprived of having a normal love and sex life.

In Seamus Heaney's Punishment (1975), recalls a specific yet terrible moment in his life.

The Irish rebellion against Britain remained significant to nationalism to Ireland and Irish people; moreover, to those who betray Ireland were severely chastised. According to Enda Duffy, Heaney observed a young women, naked and bald, ready to be hanged in front of the church where she was being tarred and penalized for being enamored with a British solider (Duffy 4/6/10). Heaney calls this woman a “little adultress” and “[his] scapegoat” to show the woman's betrayal to her country (Heaney ln 23, 28). This situation is biased because of the soldier's nationality: if the solider was Irish, the couple would be socially acceptable but because t...

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... are deprived of this and having a love and sex life becomes a privilege.

Works Cited

Crowley, Una, and Rob Kitchin. "Producing 'decent girls': governmentality and the moral geographies of sexual conduct in Ireland (1922-1937)." Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 15.4 (2008): 355-372. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 28 May 2010.

Heaney, Seamus. Selected Poems from "Opened Ground" by Seamus Heaney (York Notes Advanced). New York: Longman, 2000. Print.

Sex in a Cold Climate. Dir. Peter Mullan. Perf. Kate Christie, Sean Colgan, Daniel Costello (II). Miramax Home Entertainment, 1998. DVD.

Smith, James M. "The Politics of Sexual Knowledge: The Origins of Ireland's Containment Culture and the Carrigan Report (1931)." Journal of the History of Sexuality 13.2 (2004): 208-233. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 28 May 2010.

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