Psychosexual sociopathy: Tampa by Alissa Nutting
Originally published March 28th 2014
Tampa by Alissa Nutting. Released in 2013, it gained notoriety for its acceptance of a fashionable taboo - erotic and paedophilic subject matter. It's certainly an 18+ read, but if you're looking for Fifty Shades of Grey style flagrant masturbation material, I'd search elsewhere.
But first, can we just talk abut the beautifully unambiguous cover design for a moment? They always say not to judge a book by its cover, but I implore you not to believe that rubbish. You should judge it. The art accompanying any text is an important marker, just as the title credits of any film or television should be. Good design glows, and you always remember the good ones - usually because they're distinctly symbolic and they means something specific, and/or represents the larger picture of the story. What makes them extra special in novels and books is that the cover is usually the only visual art, so it gives you this one image on which to shape your imagining of that universe. The vaginal image of a part open buttonhole in a dusky pink fabric on the front, accompanied by the image of a buttoned hole on the back cover is just perfect to me. It's unashamed and I wish I'd designed it. It's something that's on the first glance quite conservative (the fabric reminding me at least of something Thatcher or Umbridge would wear), and yet deeply explicit all in one fell swoop.
For anyone capable of reading this cover beyond its obvious significance, it gives you a stark glimpse into the erotica and sexually motivated characters you're about to encounter. Meet Celeste, a 26 year-old married secondary school teacher from Florida. She also happens to be desperately beautiful and well-dressed. Her secret is that she maintains an extreme sexual penchant for 14 year-old boys. Nothing else arouses her more feveredly than the musky, growing body of a boy in puberty. Told in first person by Celeste, Tampa is the audacious experiences of the sociopathic modern woman.
Avoiding the typical virgin/slut dichotomy reserved for most fictional women, Nutting allows her protagonist an open and fully realised sexuality, even if to us it is a terribly problematic desire to harbour. Celeste is totally knowing of her own psyche and exactly what she wants, and is motivated to the point that her career has obviously been selected purely to pursue it. She's so comfortable with herself that she sees only one problem - that society will not accept it. It's the bluntness with which Celeste tells you her story that allows it to surpass a gross, morally unpleasant erotic story, to a satrical chronicle laced with scenes with the dirtiest, most ridiculous black humour. In one memorable scene, Celeste follows one of the boys of her affection to his home, and masturbates furiously in her car while she spies on him with a pair of binoculars. I mean, talk about women and multi-tasking. In another, she runs naked down the street with a knife, covered in bloody hand prints. A scene straight out of a genderbent American Psycho. And her idiosyncratic, sociopathic thought pattern stays true throughout this event that would horrify the best of us - she merely worries about whether she will be able to 'feign shock' to the police. The subtlety of her monstrousness is something to behold.
And this is why she is such a great female character. Yes, she's flawed and doesn't see these flaws for what they really are. Yes, through her eyes we witness explicit sex scenes with an inexperienced minor, which certainly don't make for the most erotic sex scenes ever. Yes, she has absolutely no empathy and an antisocial personality disorder. But it's so exhilarating to enjoy a woman who's okay to be totally who she was born to be. It's exhilarating to have a sexual woman who is not written as a slut. 'Strong female characters' aren't just women with male characteristics and physical strength - what we mean by 'strong' is REAL, and complicated, and fucked up, and brilliant. I love that the woman gets to be the predator, and that she cares only for her own pleasure and orgasms.
Of course we can't discuss the sexuality of a female predator without taking into account her victims. Celeste uses her projected image as an experienced, beautiful, slightly older woman to seduce the young men in her classroom. But the real issue raised not only this story, but similar stories you hear about in the news - can young teens really consent to sex? Of course they can't. The minds of a young man who is hormonally ravaged are not yet developed enough to make informed decisions such as these. We all know this. That's why statutory rape laws exist. Celeste barely even contemplates this in her relationship with 14 year-old Jack. He's enamoured by this beautiful, powerful and manipulative woman who makes him feel 'chosen'. He thinks that he loves her. "You're different from the others", the seductress whispers.
Tampa is the type of story that flutters between decent and indecent. The black humour the Nutting manages to lace into this controversial narrative (particularly with the prevalence of this kind of story in daily media) keeps it decent. She knows her main character is raping a minor, and allows it to play out like reality - the reality where young teenagers don't realise they've been manipulated and abused until they are old enough to understand it. That's the sadness inherent in the ending of Tampa, and the sadness with which we watch these things happen to the young and naïve, day after day.
The thematic connections to Lolita have already been made by other reviewers and bloggers, but Tampa is more for the Delta of Venus type reader, and I mean that as the deepest compliment.
★★★★½
