Sleeping Beauty likes submission

In the article "Intellectual Smut: The role of Tradition in Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty" Sarah Lash discusses a few things. To summarize, Anne Rice wrote a trilogy of erotic novels based upon the events that followed after Sleeping Beauty was rescued. In the novel Beauty turns into a sex slave for the prince along with other characters, and she likes it. Lash tries to explain why Anne Rice uses sleeping Beauty and not a character of her own.

Lash starts off with an analysis of the Fairy Tale Sleeping Beauty, basically describing the original story and what others think of it. She also states what other folklorist believe the underlining meaning of sleeping Beauty to be. For example, Bruno Bettoheim believes Sleeping Beauty is a coming of age story, basically telling kids that all things pass with time. Max Luthi thinks the story is more based on the time and timelessness, basically that time is not to be feared (because sleeping Beauty slept for 100 years before her prince saved her). Others focus on the sexual and passive aspect of the story, obviously Beauty is passive while asleep and needs to be saved by a man, that kind of thing. She then goes on to tell what Anne Rice wrote about, which I have already summarized.

She also states that Beauty is not the only sex slave, there are many others. These could be a representation of fairy tale characters in general. How they are all slaves to us in a way. She states that in the book Beauty was sent to a village where the sex slaves were sent for the amusement of the villagers when they acted badly. The slaves here consistently expressed a feeling of belonging, they pretty much enjoyed being someone else's property and being passed around. Lash states this could is in a way similar to how we use fairy tale characters, how we shape them and mold them in a sense for our own amusement, passing them around the campfire so to speak. Lash says that Anne Rice could have been making this general statement about fairytales. She ends the article saying that by thinking about the sexual aspect of the stories we all may find that we like the stories more than we thought. I think it can be an interesting idea, what happens after "ever after"? Anne Rice takes it to a bit of an extreme with her sex slaves and bondage and such but nonetheless she did explore it.

I agree with Lash totally in her analysis of Anne Rice's books. Fairy Tales are definetly passed around by the common folk the same way Beauty was passed around in the village. We take these characters and use them for our own motives, whether it be trying to teach someone morals or keep children away from certain places that are dangerous. Sleeping Beauty was originally raped by her rescuer but obviously Disney wouldnt show that, so they changed the story along with her character to suit our modern needs.

Another thing is the sexual implications of Sleeping Beauty, and most fairytales for that matter. Lash makes a good point in saying that fairytale females are projecting this idea of domestication and submissiveness in a way. Sleeping Beauty for example, she needs to be saved by the prince in order to live. Basically she is entirely dependent upon him. She is sleeping which means she is in her most passive state, as Lash said and she is entirely submissive to him in every version of the story that i've seen. This is pretty much saying that for a society to function properly women have to be domestic housewives? In most fairytales the woman is completely dependent upon the prince or the king (usually her father). Now if fairytale characters change according to our needs and society, will these fairytale woman change? In 50 years will they be more independent then they were in the 1950's? It is an interesting idea to think about.

Fairies and Humans don't mix...

Once upon a time not so different from our own there lived a beautiful fairy woman named Lily. Now like all the fairies do, Lily lived in the forest of Blue. The forest of Blue was not blue really, it was like any other forest you have ever seen or heard of, big trees, happy animals, blah blah blah, the whole nine. Only real difference was the fact that no man had ever seen or been to the forest, making it the most beautiful place left on Earth. And this, where no man had been, is where our cute little fairies reside.

Now despite popular belief, most fairies aren't like Tinkerbell. Take Lily for example, (for this imagine there is elevator music playing, a spotlight is shining on Lily, shes standing on a slowly turning platform and an announcer that sounds like what can only be described as Isaac Hazes hosting a bidding auction says) Our beautiful Lily stands at 5 feet 2 inches. She has long flowing red hair and the prettiest biggest bluest eyes you've ever seen. Aside from the fact that she has wings on her back, not so different from a butterfly, you'd think she was human. (And the bidding starts at 100$, do I hear 100$... No, just kidding, back to the story, sorry.)

One day while Lily was sitting in a pond bathing when a group of what seemed to her to be fairies who lost their wings started walking toward her. She tried to run but the men were too fast and captured her, and took her back to their van. She cried and cried but the men just stared at her and wrote notes in little note pads, all but one man. This one man, who goes by the name of John, looked at her frowning. Once the van stopped moving the men threw Lily into a big cage and went into their tents for the night.

In the middle of the night John came out to speak to Lily. "Hey, I'm John, Whats your name?" He said to her. Lily, still whimpering, raised her head and replied "I'm Lily. Please help me, I'll do anything." John looked at her with that same frown before he said "I don't know if I can. Your a fairy, if we bring you back home we could make millions. No one has ever been to this forest before, and it seems this is the only place fairies live from what I've seen." At this Lily paused, she didn't know what to do or think. Then it hit her. "I'M A PRINCESS! If you save me, you can be my prince and live here with me and we can be happy forever. My father is king and he will be indebted to you if you save me."

So, John, being the human he is, took her up on the offer. First he had to make sure his co-workers would never find him or tell anyone else of this forest, so while they all slept that night he burned each and every tent. Then he freed Lily and returned to her Castle deep within the forest where they were married. The princess was so happy about being saved and getting married, she was more excited than she had ever been in her whole life.

After the wedding (which was huge, everything that lived in the forest attended) the prince and his princess went on their honeymoon (the pond where they captured her. In the forest, there are not many options for a honeymoon). Sitting under the moon light, Lily looked at John and said "This is beautiful. I'm so glad to have met you my prince." John looked deep into her eyes, "Yeah." was all he said, but it was enough for Lily. And they lived happily ever after....

Except that "ever" only lasted about 10minutes. See, As John and Lily were going to do what newlyweds do on their honeymoon, John noticed something... Fairy woman and Human men have very different parts down there, parts that are not compatible. In his rage at the situation John grabbed Lily and carried her back to the van (they left it with the now burnt tents) and took her to his world. Lily cried and cried, even as John sold her to a Zoo of some kind where they promised to take good care of her. After making his millions off her, John lived happily ever after... The End.