“ ”

Stupid people sometimes complain that there is no sex in Austen's novels. In fact, they are driven by the oceanic force of suppressed female desire, which dwarfs any opportunity for enactment. Actual sexual intercourse is the off-stage climax of the Austen novel. The possibility that defloration may be an anti-climax is to be found in the tingling ironies that cling to every word that Austen writes.