My Dark Vanessa discussion

Is Vanessa a repressed lesbian?

There's the whole thing where she's repulsed by male genitalia and the way she thinks about other girls/women.

Like for example her obsession with Jenny at the start, her writing about "line of her long neck" (or something like that, didn't read the book in English), she has to stop herself from grooming two teen girls who ask her for a cigarette, stops herself from kissing her high school friend (?), she keeps talking about seeing girls through Strane's eyes or when she wanted to stop Taylor Birch from walking away by pulling her braid.

It all just struck me as weird.

I had the same thought. I wish the book explored a tiny fraction of that bit.

i agreee they could've moved it towards so many different ways like her still just being a curious kid or her actually being gay or the ways the traumatized want to traumatize others in some scenarios

I had a similar thought to be honest.

No, I didn't have that feeling at all. Things like the 'long neck' are just descriptive, nothing more. I didn't find it odd, and I certainly don't think she is a lesbian.

So, that thought crossed my mind once or twice but, ultimately, I think it has more to do with the disgust she feels with herself.
I think she's deeply ashamed of every aspect of who she is and this trickles into the people she chooses to "be" with to distract herself from her wounds. I don't think she spoke about other women in a way that showed she wanted to be WITH them, but rather she wanted to BE them so that she could be anyone else.

Everyone that is associated with her in any way is dirty or broken or gross. Everyone that had not been tainted by her was deeply envied. Just a thought...

I had that thought at a couple points while reading but I think it has more to do with her distorted view of relationships and sexuality because of the abuse. Unfortunately, most people who are sexually abused become so because of some vulnerability the perpetrator has noticed. I think Vanessa's was her somewhat closed relationship with her parents and the crumbled friendship with Jenny.

I think she was obsessed with the way Strane viewed her. She looked for hints in the books he gave her and started to do this with Henry too. I think after the trauma she experienced, she's in some way she's trying to see these girls in the way Strane would view them.

I think that the book shows the side of what living may be like after this type of trauma. It is not easy to heal and many are left behind with feelings of disgust with themselves or others. Feelings become confusing and random. Often, they are left with a warped view of relationships and feelings. I believe she was trying to see what he was seeing when he sought her out, as she approached the teen girls. It was possibly something she did to try and understand what she went through and his thought process in general. I think the author added all of this to make the reader realize what it may be like. It could have been taken one way or another but I think the author did this on purpose. To provide the same confusion to the readers. The same confusion and distortion that she felt.

I considered this at one point too - however, when Vanessa meets Craig, he makes it a point to tell her that her friend is the "pretty one". This is just one instance in which she brings up insecurities about her own beauty, so I think that her pointing out how beautiful she finds Jenny & Bridget are rooted in her inability to see the beauty in herself.

I can totally see where you're coming from. Her repulsion of male parts though I interpreted as being because she is a child and it goes beyond what she is comfortable with. And the part about seeing girls through Strane's eyes is evidence of her being groomed from a young age, trained to see the world the way he does - kinda like how even if we aren't aware of it, the male gaze has impacted the way we women view other women.

I totally agree with you. Specially, because in the beginning of the book she tell us why Jenny and her distance. Jenny's boyfriend implied Vanessa was too attached to her like implying she had "weird feelings" for Jenny. Also, she was repulsed by male genitals with Strane. Apart from that, her relationship with men is never about pleasure, but validation. Even with that boyfriend who actually cared about her, she always found him annoying. Well it was obvious she never found Strane attractive, even before all the abuse, she never thought much about him, and after the abuse, she found him repulsive (but this could be for the abuse too). Her relationship with women in completely different, she usually ends with the feeling to be closer or touch them. I know it's complicated to see this, because she mentions she sees the world through Stranes' eyes, but when she was a teenager her feelings for Jenny were intense. Also, she wanted to kiss the other girl, she was drunk (and at that moment she didn't think about Strane). At least, I think it's kinda implied she's attracted to women, but for her relationship with men, I can infer she's a lesbian. I think she found the attention she craved in Strane and plus the abuse, It kept her with the idea of love. I think Strane took her opportunity to discover her sexuality, which is part of her identity, which the book tell us he did that.

I never thought this, but it is an interesting take! In my thought, I feel like at her age as well, that she was figuring out her life and preferences much like everyone else in the world. I also agree with others, I feel as if it was her way of coping with herself and the attention she craved with Strane. It was such a hard thing to uncover which was why I loved the book very dearly, and I'm assuming there are many things you can pick up from the book. She was still so young and figuring her life out but wanted to have her innocence and validity confirmed with Strane. Because she held on to him for so long, she never had to grow up.

Ulzar wrote: "Is Vanessa a repressed lesbian?

There's the whole thing where she's repulsed by male genitalia and the way she thinks about other girls/women.

Like for example her obsession with Jenny at the sta..."

I noticed that too. But believe these kind of thoughts surface because of insecurity and are kinda symptoms of trauma of someone who lost their childhood to abuse. She sees these girls for what I assume she knows society perceives young girls are suppose to be. And she knows she not like them after being in a relationship that is highly illegal and frowned upon. She is missing a lot of her childhood of where she's suppose to be a teenage girl. So maybe there is some envy that they got to be typical teenage girls and she chose the feed into a forbidden relationship that forced her to grow up faster.

Super late to the party, hey!

I believe in these instances it has more to do with her insecurities and envying the beauty in the girls around them. As for the two teen girls asking for cigarettes, I believe it also stems from her insecurities, even more so because she is realizing she is no longer young, and therefore no longer desired by her groomer. Almost as if her befriending these young girls, would give her that little bit closeness to that age. I also thought, while reading, that she is stuck in her younger years, and maybe wanted to be "cool" or in a sense "desired", as she had mentioned she did not have many friends in that time.

Am I making sense?

I don't think that comments of what she said about the 2 teen girls would mean that she's a lesbian, i personally thought that she was trying to understand Strane more. About why he looked at her that certain way, and then getting confused and scared for a second and is glad they walked away. I think that's when she herself first realized how bad it was for Strane to see her in that light.
Although by the end of the book it kind of seems that she'll swear off men as a whole because of her experience with Strane. Since a woman never traumatized her "romantically"