Untitled - Sexey's School Moodle

While this episode can be perceived as particularly funny, Julian Murphet points out
nevertheless that tangible, “real,” sexual relations between female and male characters in
American Psycho are non-existent or doomed to fail, for “men and women in this textual
world exist on parallel, untouching planes of reality; each sex satisfies for the other only
preconceived and fixed expectations … (31).” In other words, there exists no possibility
of actual intimate—whether physical or emotional—contact between male and female
characters. This is illustrated on numerous occasions, such as in the romantic-turned-
parody vacation he spends with Evelyn in East Hampton (278-282), or his inability to
have a relationship with Jean, his secretary.
153
To respond to Alberto Manguel claims that specific frameworks and contextual
notions “that allow us to read depictions of horrific acts as illustrations of aesthetic or
philosophical theories are absent in Ellis’s book (104).” However, one needs to consider
the possible implications of Ellis’ distinctive approach. Why did the author adopt a style
and an aesthetic that belong in the pages of Hustler magazine? If the purpose of
pornography is to confer physical pleasure or sexual arousal, it can be said that Ellis’
purpose of including pornographic passages in the novel was to elicit a similar response
from the reader. This echoes a previously articulated notion of the act of reading
becoming a physical experience. While an identical argument could be drawn to justify
the production of mass pornography, in this case, it carries some deeper ramifications.
As noted above, the source of this pleasure is scopophilic, and thus an act of voyeurism,
of enjoyment at a “distance,” but the absence of emotions prevalent in all pornographic
writing initiates a process of identification in the reader: there is no distance between the