How come Rhett and Scarlett didn't have great sex before that one time?

Gable's stinky false teeth

Come on

Subtext: Scarlett is a bossy little princess who didn't respond to kindness, charm, or being lavished with gifts and luxury travel. She needed to be raped to discover her true nature - submissive wifey. After which 'lesson' she gets brutally dumped, doubling her punishment for previously being uppity and independent.

Women didn’t enjoy sex until Kim Cattrall made them feel good about it in Sex and the City.

you have to fill 600 pages with something

sex was a means to an end. she was a sociopath. all of the men she married, including Rhett were simply fulfilling some utilitarian function for her. her only passion was fixated on Ashley.

also, every time she had sex she got knocked up, and children spoiled her figure and were a pain in the ass.

if you read the book, it makes sense.

'Fiddle-dee-dee' was code for the fact that I wanted to 'Fiddle de dick'.

OP, they never had great sex. Scarlett was raped. That scene after Rhett rapes her is bullshit that was thrown in to downplay what really happened.

From the beginning of their marriage to the bitter end, Scarlet and Rhett absolutely loathed each other. There was never really any moment when they had any love or real passion for each other. That scene the next morning when she's smiling and humming is completely inconsistent with the rest of the film. This leads me to suspect that originally, Rhett was supposed to have unequivocally raped Scarlett. But then someone probably thought, "That's way too intense," or "We don't want to make Rhett the villain," so decided to throw in that scene of Scarlett the next morning acting as if she had had the best time of her life.

Miss Scarlett's petticoats were ALWAYS moister than them snack cakes I whipped up for Tara Teatime.

None of you read, do you? It's implied from the kissing scenes that she's turned on by him and they have a romantic honeymoon before the shit hits the fan, meaning she remembers Ashley yet again while in bed with Rhett. In their honeymoon bed.

Then later she gets pregnant by Rhett so the fucking continued, Op, and after Bonnie, she decides it would be great to spurn Rhett for her romantic ideal of a chaste-ish relationship with Ashley. Rhett gets buildup and that leads to the wife rape.

I’ve never read the book - does she wake up all satisfied and glowing after the rape in the book too?

Rhett FINALLY went to see old Dr. Meade for a Viagra.

R12 I love you, you gave me the best laugh of the week

R8 you ignorant fool, she wasn't raped, if you read the book it's clear she gave in to her passion and loved the sex. They afterglow was part of the book too.

My original question is why was this the first time Rhett was able to please her so much when he clearly is an experienced lover and desires her very much all through the book

[quote][R8] you ignorant fool, she wasn't raped, if you read the book

Hey, you dumb Jacqueline Susann/Peyton Place-worshiping bimbo--the movie is not the book. Very few people have read the book and most have seen the movie. You know that, so don't pull this "if you read the book" bullshit when people refer to the events of the movie and not the book.

And I'm not ignorant for not having read a trashy bodice ripper. You're ignorant for not having read Victor Hugo or Tolstoy.

[quote]None of you read, do you?

LOL. An illiterate thinks that people who've never read a love letter to the antebellum South and a trashy bodice ripper don't read.

R10, The New York Public Libray has the SparkNotes for the novel, and a wait list for the audiobook. Barnes and Noble carries the paperback.

I was just wondering if the book were even widely available. I feel like I’ve seen it in thrift shops.

r14 i have read victor hugo, and tolstoy, and GWTW. you are ignorant in thinking that a person only reads one kind of book over and over.

sweet lord jesus! what is wrong with our world when Rhett and Scarlett nearly trigger WW3

R14 you're presemptuous and condescending, assuming I'd never read either author. In fact the only author I haven't read in your post is Ms Susann. I was speaking about the novel and to a wider extent, the movie. Gone With The Wind is not a bodice ripper either, you rude fool.

You obviously cannot see past written word or film to analyse psychological states of characters. Get out of my thread.

OP-Mitchell writes a very romantic honeymoon. It's clear Rhett and Scarlett were happy and satisfied. So the premise of your question is just wrong and not supported by the text.

If I recall the book correctly the issue for Scarlett was having children was ruining her looks. Why she was so concerned about her appearance that she spurns a man she clearly loves is another issue.

In my opinion she's a terrible character who gets what she deserves throughout the book.

GWTW troll.

Clark Gable was one of the most unhung males of Hollywood's Golden Age.

I'm at 98% in the book now - the end. IMO, they had great sex from the very first time - yes. I reason that a)Rhett was always drinking and therefore he had more staying power - he could go on and on for the alcohol in his system. b) Rhett, being highly offended and agitated by Scarlet's incessant obsession with Ashley, was highly motivated to fuck the Ashley out of her every time c) he knew she was full of shit and only played those feminine wiles when she wanted something, and also he realized that her prim and proper demeanor was only a ruse - he liked to make a whore of her in bed because he knew that's what she really needed/wanted "Scarlet, you should be kissed (fucked) often and by someone who knows how (him)." That time he carried her up the stairs wasn't the only time he gave her a damned good dicking, it was just that quite some time had passed before he last put it on her.

Yes, she thoughtlessly complained about losing her figure and told Rhett she didn't want anymore children which in that time period meant no more sex. So Rhett took himself off to the local bordello.

R23 makes a lot of sense. Thank you

R24 Belle Watling ran a respectably business, thank you very much!

[quote]Rhett was always drinking and therefore he had more staying power - he could go on and on for the alcohol in his system.

People who are always drinking have trouble keeping it up.

In the book she wakes up the next morning and from the writing they also did some things she hadn't done before - she thinks a real lady could not have held her head up after spending such a night (maybe she gave Rhett a blow job) Anyway, she also thinks that she had never known such wild passion and is certainly not turned off by it. In the movie and the book Rhett says the same thing to her as he carries her up the stairs "Tonight there will only be 2 people in the bed", knowing her obsession with Ashley

R26 - that may be true for some men, but it certainly wasn't true for Rhett!

scarlett liked it rough and didnt realize it until after the fact.

She would have had more sex but it took Mammy, with her short pudgy fingers, forever to undo the corset.

^I want to know who was slippin' it to Mammy all those years ago, and before she became the sexless character in the film/book. Perhaps it was Monsieur Robillard, Scarlet's maternal Grandfather. Mammy had even raised Scarlet's mother, Ellen, from the time she was a baby.

Why would you want to know about Mammy's sex life?

Because Miss Scarlett was a true Southern Lady-Belle.

And Butterfly didn't know nuthin' bout birthin' no babies.

R32 - Mammy is an essential character in the film/book. She was effectively Scarlet's mother or at least co-mother. Mammy was the ONLY character that Scarlet never fooled - she knew her like the back of her own hand, and even better than Rhett. Mammy must have had a sexual history - we all do. So, I'm just interested in who? where? why? under what circumstances, etc. I am one proponent of the book and film who believes that Mammy should have been given and even greater role. She was a slave, sure, but she regularly and without holding back, told Scarlet off when it was warranted. She's interesting.

R34 I don't disagree, she's a great character. I especially when she is in co-hoots with Scarlett to marry Frank Kennedy to save Tara. I'm just not sure we need to know her sex life. She was probably raped when she was young and cute. We don't want to think of her that way.

The real Scarletts, they don't really like sex.

Scarlett had been married twice before, to a developmentally delayed boy and an "old maid in britches", and had learned to turn her mind and body off during the bad sex, and who wouldn't with those two? Rhett was aware of that and thought he could teach her to respond, he was wrong and may have hoped that good sex would make her love him, it must have crushed his male ego to have failed.

As to why, well of course it's not spelled out in the book! It's a combination of learned behavior, perverse loyalty to the dreaded Ashley, and simple cluelessness on her part - did she even know that sex could be fun? Did any of the women in her circle enjoy sex and admit it to her peers, women who'd married for money or social position rather than love? But beyond that, Scarlett simply didn't associate sex with love. She'd spent her whole life using men's sexual attraction to her to manipulate them, there are women who are all about rousing one-sided desire and using it as a power play, a lot of female "sex symbols" are like that. And as long as Scarlett wanted Ashley, she wanted her relationships with all other men to be one-way, with her cooling taking advantage of their feelings.

As to why Scarlett enjoyed the rape more than any of her other experiences, well, apparently that was based on Mitchell's real-life feelings with a rat-bastard husband. Hard to believe the standard bodice-ripper fantasy works in real life, but you never know.

He finally hit her special spot

^No, I dispute your claim. He had been hitting it all along. He wanted her sexually from the first time he saw her going up the stairs with Cathleen Calvert at the Wilkes estate, cemented for good when he overheard she and Ashley in the library. He burned for her for years before he finally got her in the sack. He savored it and expelled years of pent-up passion. He fucked her good from the fist time.

Most of you commenting, including OP, should read the book.

Fock you.

What r40 said.

Mitchell describes Scarlett's physical and mentally arousal at by Rhett's presence and touch in a at least a couple of instances- pre-marriage when he asks her to be his mistress, when he abandons her on the road to Tara and when he kisses her when she accepts his marriage proposal.

In fact when you go back to their first meeting at the Wilkes barbeque, Mitchell has Scarlett's reaction to Rhett connected to the physical right away, when for the first time her eyes meet his, he is openly, unashamedly ogling her and her reaction is one of both triumph at attracting a man and an embarrassment that her bodice is too low across her bosom.

"Gone With the Wind", while not my favorite piece of pop fiction ( "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn") is, by far, one of the most informative and entertaining novels I've ever read.

Mitchell has earned and deserves excoriation because of approval and cheerleading of slavery and the subjugation of African -Americans.

Still, GWTW is required reading if you've ever wondered why race relations are as they are now. Mitchell exposes white attitudes and beliefs that exist today that have resulted in the election of the Anti-Reconstruction POTUS Trump.

Ignore the movie. Read the book.

Sorry about not editing my previous post before I posted at r42.

He's gay. She's a lesbian (or non-binary, gender fluid). They had to end the movie somehow.

Having viewed the film numerous times over the years, and also having JUST finished reading the book, I have to disagree with anyone insisting that Scarlet "didn't like sex" based on physiological reason alone. Sure, Charles Hamilton was but a mere boy and he probably fumbled around a bit, but alas, he DID get the job done at least once as evidenced by the birth of Wade Hampton. Frank Kennedy was an older man and perhaps very gentle in the sack, but he too got the job done as evidenced by the birth of Ella. A woman may not hoot and holler during the act - she may not respond with rolling hips keeping time and rhythm - hell, even if she just lays there stiff as a board does not mean that she isn't experiencing any sort of gratification. It's still going to feel good to her - the vagina has to self-lubricate to facilitate the act, and that facilitation results from being titillated. A dry vagina does NOT a pleasurable sexual experience make! Granted, some of you may not know these details and there's nothing to make of the fact that you would not know aside from the fact that you'd have good reason for not knowing. Therefore, it's just a simple matter of fact that she'd have been stimulated with at least SOME pleasure to complete the act with her male partner no matter how boring or uninspiring his performance.

Rhett is described in the book as being the standard "tall, dark, and handsome." His muscular physique is mentioned several times - "His muscular shoulders bulging inside his overcoat" or something to that effect. Rhett was sexy with a healthy appetite for intercourse, and he visited Belle Watling's ho house often. He was a very experienced lover, and it's a simple given that he must have been good in bed. Scarlet would certainly respond to him As I stated in my post above, I quote him again and this time without the euphemism: "Scarlet, you should be fucked often and by someone who knows how."

R45 Do you honestly believe that Scarlett's pregnancies are proof that she enjoyed sex with Wade and Frank? Jesus Christ, you're one of those "women can't get pregnant from a rape" imbeciles, aren't you?

What a lot of people forget is that women, to an extent, were expected in that era to use their wiles to make a good match both socially and financially. Scarlett in a lot of ways was simply too good at playing the game, and went too far by not pretending to be a nurturing woman, and also by going into business.

If she'd been just as ruthless but happy to play doting and submissive mother and wife, even if she didn't really feel it she'd have been praised as clever.

The rape scene is insidious because it shows that Scarlett's true nature is to be submissive, to love being forced into sex by a man, to be humiliated into doing things no respectable woman would do. She's then denied her chance to be the doting and submissive wife, and that's supposed to be the big tragic payback for her being so wilfull and cold.

She is basically denied her chance to be a real woman and condemned to be a monster.

* willful

Big Sam joins Rhett for DP vag and DP anal. That's way Scarlett is singing. She had her brains fucked out so for a few hours the sociopathy tamps way down.

R46, don't put words in my mouth. I never spoke or typed the word "RAPE" in any of my posts to this thread. I don't believe that Rhett raped her in that scene. Assuming that you're a gay man, I'll go ahead and put it into terms you can relate to. How's getting fucked in your ass by a big dick with absolutely NO grease to facilitate the mutual experience sound? I honestly wouldn't know, personally, but I can imagine that it would be very painful indeed. My assertion is that even though Scarlet might not particularly care for sex with either of her first two husbands (OR PERHAPS SHE ACTUALLY DID - WE DON'T KNOW), she STILL would have had to be stimulated (HORNY, TURNED ON, WET!!!!) to have engaged them in the fist place. Try fucking a woman who doesn't want to be fucked - it's NOT HAPPENING, unless it's rape and we know that neither of her first two husbands raped her.

Come on, man - it's basic common sense. Damn.

He finally fingered her fiddle dee dee.

Melanie and India went down to the the new Rich's dept. Store. Ventured Into the new mysteries of the East bazaar. Bought a set set of newfangled Ben Wa balls , since both their coochies were as dry as Peachtree St. after the recent hostilities. They decided to give them to Scarlett. The only respectable ho , they knew other than Belle. This is what Scarlett was refering to that No respectable woman should know.

I assume she enjoyed sex with Rhett before, but the post-staircase sex was the first time she had a climax. She probably didn’t know such a thing existed.

R45 R50 you are a mad-person. I'm sure a woman can consent to sex and get lubricated without really wanting or enjoying it.

R53 You make a good point, maybe this was the first time she had a genuine orgasm. She finally let go and went with it instead of retaining her control. Thank you

R54 More like a penis can be inserted into a not very lubricated vagina, it just would hurt. And Scarlett, being an upper class woman of her times wouldn't even know that it wasn't supposed to hurt. You don't need very deep penetration to result in a pregnancy, anyway. Am I the only person here who had an 8th grade sex ed class?

Maybe the broad didn’t give him anal.

[quote]Assuming that you're a gay man, I'll go ahead and put it into terms you can relate to.

Unnecessarily nasty and homophobic.

R54, you just proved yourself to being ignorant and an all around major dumb-ass! You said, and I quote " I'm sure a woman can consent to sex and get lubricated without really wanting or enjoying it." No. It doesn't work that way. A woman is going to feel something as her vagina is STROKED constantly while a man is (typically) laying right on top of her. A woman can orgasm again and again and again during a single sexual encounter. What you're suggesting is tantamount to a man who fucked a woman and came whilst using a completely flaccid penis - it's NOT HAPPENING! During arousal, a woman's vagina not only becomes lubricated, but the canal also widens as it becomes engorged with blood as does the vulva and clitoris - think of it as the female counterpart to a male's erection. Dare I say it? I will. Yes, even in a case of rape a woman may respond though it certainly does not lessen the fact that the act STILL occurred against her will.

I do believe that Scarlet liked sex, and especially with Rhett. As a woman of her time she may have been impressed upon that it was unladylike to show an undiluted pleasure during the act. This fits in well with the character of Scarlet as she schemed her way through most everything else - I can totally see her submitting to a man, enjoying it, but then totally behaving as though she NEVER did.

Literarily speaking, the implication is that Scarlett learned what an orgasm was that night. The trope was very popular in torrid romance novels for generations, and is parodied as the "sweet mystery of life" bit with Madeleine Kahn in "Young Frankenstein."

It's meant to be her punishment to never get it that good again when Rhett leaves, but I've always felt it was unlikely that an angry Rhett would go to the trouble of making her cum just to teach her a lesson.

^R45 R50 R23 R39

Very intelligent observation, R59 - I had not considered that.

R59, I'm absolutely sure that Rhett had tried everything short of violence to make her orgasm that, and his masculine ego took a massive hit when all his loving, passionate, expertise failed. It turned out violence was what did the trick, but he hated himself for being brutal and frankly, he was probably a bit disgusted to find that was what Scarlett actually liked.

Because R45, gentlemen of the period usually believed that virtuous women didn't actually like sex, which is one reason that Charles and Frank wouldn't have done anything to help the wifey get lubricated excect a kiss or two (the other reason was that they were clods who didn't have a clue where to start, and they were probably afraid of Scarlett anyway). Of course Rhett would be the exception to the general expectation that a whore might enjoy sex but a wife would just do her duty, he'd want not only want his wife to enjoy it, he seems the sort of man who spends his life walking around sure that he could show any of the women in his circle how marvelous sex could really be, if they got down to it. He has that kind of sexual charisma. Oh, how it must have galled him that Scarlett wasn't into it, and the book made it clear that she was not.

OP = why are you so invested in your "Scarlett's Only Orgasm" theory so that you ignore the text.

The text of the movie or the text of the book?

And what's in the text of either that would prove Scarlett hated sex, rather than simply didn't like it because it was never good for her?

They DID have great sex. It ended the evening Scarlett was being measured by Mammy and was told she'd never have an 18 inch waist again, and she was looking at Ashley's picture and told Rhett she didn't want any more children. Up to that point, it was quite clear that they were having sex that both of them enjoyed.

"...why was this the first time Rhett was able to please her..."

Because, R13, this time while he was fucking he thought of Ashley.

So basically the only thing that overpowered her vanity (the desire to have an 18 inch waist again) was being forcibly raped by her husband who made her do things no decent woman would? Once he did that, she was willing to sacrifice her figure?

I mean, I don't necessarily disagree, I just am not sure I buy that. Maybe because it's so much like the plot of a bad bodice-ripper and I thought GWTW had more depth that that.

Honey, she had a baby. She ain't never gonna have an 18 inch waist again!

She said she was not going to get old and fat like Aunt Pitty. Then she saw Ashley at the mill and the old flames stirred up in her bosom. Then Rhett came in and was being affectionate. Scarlett, being bitchy as was her wont, pulled away and said "I don't care where you have your dinner." And told him she didn't want any more children, and did he understand what this meant. Rhett proceeded to slam the door and throw a crystal glass at her portrait.

R57, I highly disagree - at least that was not my intent. It was simply my last resort to get my point across. Sorry if it offended you - seriously.

"and I thought GWTW had more depth that that."

Really, a romantic view of slavery is going to have depth?

Did you mean murk?

Sludge can sometimes give the impression of depth but it's often just shallow muck.

If Scarlett and Rhett were having great sex at the beginning of their marriage, it wasn't great to the point of dickmatization for her. She gave up the dick far too easily for that.

This is what happened in the novel. Scarlett and Rhett shared a "wild night" of unbridled sex because Rhett was drunk and crazy with jealousy and anger. He used brute force on Scarlett when he took her to bed; that certainly never happened to her before, and she loved it. She loved being with a man she could not "bully" or "break." And who knows? Maybe they did things she never dreamed existed, like oral sex. Anyway, after their night of hot sex she's convinced Rhett really loves her and believes that now she has the upper hand in the relationship and can control him at her will. But when he comes back (he disappears for two days; he was at Belle Watling's) he dismisses their night of passion as "oh, that" and tells her that he was drunk and "swept off my feet by your charms" as an explanation for his behavior. He looks at her with his "cat at a mouse hole" look; he's hoping Scarlett will say something to indicate that she really cares about him. But she interprets his look as hoping she'll break down and cry and be weak, so she reacts with cold indifference and anger. They were always, as Rhett said later, "at cross purposes."

"Sludge can sometimes give the impression of depth but it's often just shallow muck."

Oh shut up, you cluck. "Gone With The Wind" is one of the greatest books of all time. If it offends your tender sensibilities then read something else.

Sure R73, 'cause we all know that such a horrible, degrading sexual activity like oral sex never happened until say the 1960's. Come on - it's animal nature and as instinctual to us as intercourse itself - Adam and Eve were certainly doing the 69. My assertions pertaining to the sex lives of Scarlet and Rhett are based upon their characters and what little information Mitchell provided on that score. I've gone beyond what was written (and omitted) to draw the conclusion that they had great sex together from the start.