Sexuality

Annie Ernaux’s The Years explores sexuality thoroughly and mainly from the female perspective. Ernaux posits that the fulfilment of desire for sexuality is itself an act of liberation, either from the strict watch of the Catholic Church, an unsatisfying marital life, societal sexism, or any other form of light or heavy oppression. For Ernaux, the sign of liberation is the orgasm, the completion of sexual desire and the act itself.

Ernaux first discusses how the fulfilment of sexual desire was an act of defiance and liberation from the Catholic Church’s credences. She writes, “In these conditions,” speaking of the Church’s monitoring of young peoples’ lives, “we faced endless years of masturbation before making love permissibly in marriage” (46). She goes on to say that “Wether under the bedclothes or in the lavatory, we masturbated before the eyes of all society” (46), combining defiance of the Church with...