Ms. Kempe If You're Nasty

Since Isabella from Measure for Measure got brought up in class today, I've been thinking about it and I'm wondering more about the accusation that Margery is a "strumpet."

Isabella, some argue, is the most sexualized character in the text by her own power. Aside from the fact that sexuality if often placed on her (Angelo, the Duke, Claudia...there isn't a man in that play who isn't pressing some form of sexual discourse on her), Isabella herself is a physical character. Her description alone of how far she's going to go to be nonsexual is probably one of the most sexually charged descriptions in the play.

As much for my poor brother as myself:
That is, were I under the terms of death,
The impression of keen whips I'ld wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death, as to a bed
That longing have been sick for, ere I'ld yield
My body up to shame.
(i.iv)

Impressions of whips? Strip myself to a bed? What kind of asexuality are we dealing with here?

I think, however, a pronounced celibacy, like Isabella's screaming in the street or Margery's white robes, is a highly sexual state of being and Margery, like Isabella, is much more sexual than we think. It is, in fact, announcing your sexual status with every step that you take. It is constantly having your thoughts on your own chastity, which is, in fact a sexual state of being. Announced sexuality, putting yourself right into a field of vision, is more of her elective Othering.

Her main issue, when she runs into people who don't know how to take the white robes, is her sexuality. And the treatment she receives on page 83-85 sounds a whole lot like "Well, if you weren't wearing that skirt, this wouldn't have happened." It is an accusation that a woman is not only aware of her own sexuality, but bringing everyone else's attention to it, as well.

In fact, I'd go so far as to backtrack and say that the fear for the wives is not because they'd be shaking up the status quo by leaving the sexual economy, but instead that the wives would be more sexualized by entering a state of being that is, in fact, completely centered on sexuality and announcing that sexuality to anyone with eyes.

That also makes the accusation of strumpet...ness that much more accurate. If a strumpet is a prostitute, one who's business is sex, then Margery is a strumpet. More modern interpretations of prostitution as the site of revolution (the short story is that prostitution and sex work show heterosexual normatively for the sham that it is. If you can pay a woman, regardless of her sexuality, to perform heterosexuality with you, how "natural" can that be?) then Ms. Kempe is definitely a strumpet.