Sexual Whatever

Author

Madeline Rose TecmireFollow

Year of Award

2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Degree Name

Creative Writing (Poetry)

Department or School/College

English

Committee Chair

Sean Hill

Committee Co-chair

Chris Dombrowski

Keywords

sexuality, violence, family, patriarchy, Christianity

Subject Categories

Poetry

Abstract

A rerouting of gendered power, Sexual Whatever unleashes femininity repressed in America’s nuclear families. This collection of narrative poetry puts pressure on patriarchal traditions of Christianity through persona, Madonna—a radical culmination of the Madonna-Whore Complex—resisting systemic domination of female sexuality in both public and private spaces. While Madonna dismantles the patriarchy, she investigates the mechanisms of domestic violence, emotional manipulation, the very value of a proper Christian woman.

This book dares to demean female characters through love, sex, and family, while still giving voice to abusers, creating webs of confusion around the many definitions of domestic violence. More characters question their place in Christian society, often entertaining various gods and imagining different versions of Heaven, all a coping mechanism for the sorrowful truth of the female experience. Each poem interrogates whether there is room for the modern woman in Heaven, or if eternal paradise, too, is dominated by the male interest. Sexual Whatever does not only uncover Christian attempts to control femininity, but it exposes the violence couched in control that reveals itself in private spaces.

My hope for this collection of poems is for a reader to familiarize themselves with systemic violence that only continues to unravel and may it empower all people to set a boundary, then protect it. For every female character silenced, Madonna delivers another rageful response, another call for change—another naked protest in The Sistine Chapel—until her very screaming is replaced with echoes of femininity worthy of worship which lives within us all.

Recommended Citation

Tecmire, Madeline Rose, "Sexual Whatever" (2022). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 11962.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/11962