Merri Lisa Johnson, University of South Carolina, Upstate
Vol. 27, No. 2 (Fall 2008), 327-352

This article examines Nancy Mairs’s memoir Remembering the Bone House (1989) as a feminist critique of male-dominant heterosexuality. The article counters the moral and aesthetic condemnation that has characterized critical responses and student reactions to Mairs’s sexual encounters by arguing that female self-revelation reveals the circumstances of objectification. Mairs narrates the negotiation of sexual desire and power in a nonabusive heterosexual partnership, presenting female awakening as a break with marital authority. This article draws on disability studies and critical heterosexuality studies to uncover the full range of Mairs’s dissenting positions and demystification of the romantic ideology. In a substantial postscript, the article also addresses the role of lesbian sexuality in challenging the heterosexual imaginary.