In the short text, Lusting for Freedom, by Rebecca Walker, she talks about the power that is gained in sexual relationships, and the power of one’s body. I think that this connects very strongly to the novel The Handmaids Tale, because of the portrayal of women and their purpose in society. In The Handmaids Tale women are given the responsibility to produce the next generation for the community that they are living in, to produce the people that will never know what it is like to be free.
The power that the Handmaids hold is really just an illusion. This is because even though they are the only ones that produce children for the civilization, if they are infertile, and cannot produce children they are sent away to the colonies. The connection between this and the text Lusting for Freedom is that in the text Walker emphasizes that power and trust that is gained, while in The Handmaids Tale the ceremony is their twisted version of sex where there is no trust between the Handmaid and the wives, and the power of the women is removed from them because they have no say in what is being done to them.
Walker also mentions that “Sex can also be power because knowledge is power.” I think that in The Handmaids Tale the society has attempted to make this untrue. They have removed all education for the Handmaids, they are no longer allowed to read, all knowledge will be unimportant to the Handmaids anyway because the single job that they are given does not require it. In The Handmaids Tale the necessity of knowledge has been removed and therefore the power gained through sex has also been removed.
The shame that Offred feels during the ceremony is also similar to the shame that Walker mentions in Lusting for Freedom. In Lusting for Freedom Walker talks about the judgments that are imposed that “encourage shame within individuals.” This is seen in The Handmaids Tale because of the shame that Offred feels because of the ceremony and her sole purpose in society. I think that in Walkers text she almost sums up the problem with the ceremony, “Sex in silence and filled with shame is sex where our agency is denied.”
I think in The Handmaids Tale, sex is meant to be the only knowledge women should comprehensively know, which is exactly what you said. I totally agree with you in that sense, but i have to disagree that Offred feels shameful of having sex as a part of her job. Offred's job is to be a handmaid, which involves having involuntary sex with a male,but she doesn't feel shame about having sex in general. I think she feels shamed in not having to choose who she haves sex with, a little different than what you said but it just my opinion.
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