In this week's episode, Hà Trang and Kim take on a matter of greatest pleasure yet greatest pain: sex. While Hà Trang presents 17th-century poem "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell, examining the poet's amusing rhetoric aimed at convincing his mistress to consummate their relationship before time and grave worms eat away her virginity, Kim taps at the issue of sexual harassment through excerpts from This Is Pleasure by Mary Gaitskill.
Both works drill into the idea of female coyness; that is, women have unspoken sexual desires and demand gratification. Yet a reading of the poem and the novella side by side leads to the discussion of consent and personal boundaries. One thing is for sure: women should be sexually satisfied, in a respected manner. She can be coy, but she is not to be toyed with.
