“I. Want. You. To.”: Ulysses and Ventriloquized Sexual Consent

Abstract: Molly Bloom is a ventriloquized performance of female consent so convincing that generations of men have read the “Penelope” episode of Ulysses as a spontaneous expression of erotic autonomy in the voice of a woman that is somehow realer than real. Situating Joyce’s female voices within contemporary debates surrounding sexual harassment, #MeToo, and affirmative consent, this essay argues that Molly Bloom’s “Yes” cannot be read “in her own words,” but instead should be considered a male fantasy of perpetual acquiescence. Extending this analysis to Leopold Bloom’s interactions with Mary Driscoll, Lydia Douce, Gerty MacDowell, and Cissy Caffrey, as well as Gabriel Conroy’s uneasy interaction with Lily in “The Dead,” the study exposes a pattern of ventriloquized female desire, sexual harassment, and coercion that mirrors real-world power imbalances in Joyce studies and academia at large.