SOURCE: '"Mentalized Sex' in D. H. Lawrence," in Novel: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. 8, No. 2, Winter, 1975, pp. 101-22.

In the following essay, Stoehr examines D. H. Lawrence's thoughts on sexuality in literature as they are expressed in his fiction as opposed to the opinions of his public statements and essays.

"And I, who loathe sexuality so deeply, am considered a lurid sexuality specialist."

I

D. H. Lawrence is probably the most notoriously censored author in all of literary history. His very first novel, The White Peacock, had to be toned down, words like "mucked" and "passionate" changed to "dirtied" and "infatuated." From then on it was one suppression after another. When the police confiscated the first edition of The Rainbow in 1915, Lawrence automatically became the inspiration (though not quite the spokesman) for a new generation of writers who wished to establish sex as a legitimate subject of...