Already the American man sometimes felt surprise at finding himself regarded as sexless; the American woman was oftener surprised at finding herself regarded as sexual.
Bowen, repelled by the Labor Party's 1945 election victory, retreated to Ireland with her sexless husband, but really she lived in a world of letters with a Canadian lover.
The book relates women's sexual passivity of the day with that of a castrate, essentially sexless and it also turns her into a household name and bringing her both adulation and opposition.
She was free; she had no illusions; she was sexless; she had discarded all that the male disliked; and although she secretly regretted the discard, she knew that she could not go backward.