What Leads To Sexual Objectification and Exploitation
The role of sex and how it relates to one’s power in “The Homecoming” by Harold Pinter.
I never thought that a story about a son who brings his wife home to visit his family can reveal so much about the role of sex in our lives—but here we are.
A play written in 1964 by British playwright Harold Pinter, The Homecoming is set in “an old house in North London” where Max—a seventy year old patriarch—lives with his brother Sam and two sons, Lenny and Joey.
Teddy, who is a philosophy professor and Max’s eldest son, moved away with his wife Ruth to the United States six years ago. The family does not know of Ruth and their marriage, and it seems that Teddy has an estranged relationship with them. After traveling to Italy, Teddy brings Ruth back to London to visit his family for the first time.
Although this all sounds (fairly) normal, the family is quite dysfunctional.
Max used to be a butcher, and he takes pride in that. He is aggressive, throwing insults at his family—such as the belittling remarks he makes toward Sam because he works as a chauffeur (unlike Max’s more “macho” and labor intensive career) and doesn’t have a wife nor a girlfriend. Lenny is a pimp and has physically abused women. Joey is an aspiring boxer and, at one point, admits that he forced women to have sex with him without contraception.
Even with all the problems and hostility within the household, they are a family nonetheless. Teddy, despite his distant relationship with them, still wants Ruth to meet his family. But little did he know that he’d be returning back to the United States without his wife.
Who Is In Control?
The sexual desires of both Ruth and the men in the family are put on display. During Ruth and Lenny’s first conversation, they have an altercation that was sexually suggestive. Lenny wants to take a glass of water from Ruth, who is still drinking it, and she refuses. She tells him to sit on her lap and take a sip from the glass, then she commands him to lay down on the floor:
“Lie on the floor. Go on. I’ll pour it down your throat” (Pinter 34).
Later on, with the whole family gathered together, Lenny asks Teddy philosophical questions about “being and not-being” (52). Ruth chimes in:
“Look at me. I… move my leg. That’s all it is. But I wear… underwear… which moves with me… it… captures your attention. Perhaps you misinterpret. The action is simple. It’s a leg… moving. My lips move. Why don’t you restrict … your observations to that? Perhaps the fact that they move is more significant… than the words which come through them” (52–53).
She wants to “capture people’s attention”—not of her husband’s, but rather that of her in-laws. She doesn’t shy away from expressing her desires for something more than what her marriage is offering her.
The men take notice of this. Lenny asks Ruth to a slow dance, which ends up with them kissing. Then, Joey takes Ruth to the sofa—he “embraces and kisses her” (59).
This happens in front of the entire family, and Teddy—as is (sort of) expected from his passive nature—remains calm.
Max, on the other hand, has his own thoughts—he comes up with the idea for Ruth to stay and help them earn some income by working for Lenny, as a prostitute.
Lenny likes this idea, and they make a proposal to Ruth for her to stay in London with them. They never explicitly mention that they want her to do sex work, but she understands as she requests for a flat with “at least three rooms and a bathroom” (76), and also stating that they need to sign a contract in which “all aspects of the agreement and conditions of employment would have to be clarified” (78).
Max and Lenny coming up with this arrangement in the first place shows that they see Ruth as a potential asset—her sexuality is viewed as a means of making a profit.
Even when Max first saw Ruth, he thought she was a prostitute—calling her a “tart” and “slut” (41). When he sees a woman in the house, the first thing that comes to his mind is sex. And he reacts by calling her derogatory name, revealing his lack of respect for women.
In Max and Lenny’s minds, women are sexually objectified—and their disrespect also makes them feel entitled to control women. For example, when Ruth doesn’t want Lenny to hold her hand, he tells her about the time he gave a woman a “belt in the nose and a couple of turns of the boot.” He says that the woman was “diseased” because he “decided she was” (31). Lenny tries to threaten Ruth by showing that he is not afraid to use violence against women, hoping to get her to obey his words.
And with Joey as well—him forcing a woman to have sex with him against her will, without contraception. I don’t think I need to explain why that’s messed up.
Women are seen as sexual objects, and these men use sex for their own advantage. For men like Lenny and Joey, women are subservient to them, and to be the one in power is viewed as “manly.” Women’s sexuality can be exploited if these toxic attitudes towards them are normalized in society.
But in The Homecoming, it’s not only the men who use sex as a way to gain control.
Ruth knows how to grab the men’s attention by expressing her sexuality. And not only does she end up making out with her brothers-in-law, she even spends two hours with Joey in his bedroom.
Of course, the outward display of her sexuality is not the only thing that makes the men want her to stay with them—she is also a wife and mother to three sons. Ever since Teddy’s mom—who is also a mother to three sons—passed away, there has been a lack of a female presence in the household. Ruth presents herself as this motherly and wifely figure, which entices the men as they become attached and want to fill a missing part of their lives. Max even talks fondly of Ruth and, in a way, implying that she reminds him of his own wife:
“Mind you, she’s a lovely girl. A beautiful woman. And a mother too. A mother of three” (59–60).
This sway she has over them might even make it easier for her to use sexuality to establish dominance.
But there is one thing about Ruth that is worth noting—she is not a pushover.
Ruth does things her own way, and she won’t listen when others tell her to do otherwise. When Lenny wants to take away her glass of water and asks to hold her hand, she doesn’t comply. In the bedroom, we find out that—to the men’s surprise—Joey and her spent two hours in there but did not have intercourse. Even when negotiating her stay with the family, Ruth makes her demands and is firm with her requests—she wants at least three bedrooms, and she does not take no for an answer.
Ruth gets a hold of the men by doing exactly the opposite of what they expect from a woman.
But does her sexuality play a role in her power over those around her?
There are many unanswered questions in The Homecoming. We don’t really know much about Ruth and Teddy’s relationship, though we do see that there is some tension between the two—when they first arrive at the house, Teddy appears to be overbearing and Ruth is cold towards him. Maybe it was Teddy’s nerves from preparing to meet his family that got to him, or it could be that there really is friction between the two. We don’t know for sure.
But she obviously has some problems with the relationship, or else she wouldn’t be flirting with and kissing other men.
Teddy and Ruth share a life in the U.S. with their three kids. But in London, not only is she in a different environment, she is also away from her usual roles and responsibilities. She clearly wants to stay longer in London with his family. Ruth is reluctant to leave when Teddy suggests that they should go home, with her asking him questions such as:
“Why? Don’t you like it here?” (54)
With her being in a new environment, surrounded by men who enjoy her presence—while also paying attention to her and giving her what she asks for—we begin to see how this would allow her to let go and bring out a more provocative side of herself. Ruth is comfortable, and she knows that she’s the one in control.
It goes both ways. Because of all these factors, Ruth is able to express her sexual desires. But she also knows that because the men give her so much attention, she is able to use her sexuality to her advantage—she uses sex as a way to receive the treatment and gain the control that she (probably) didn’t get from her life with Teddy.
In a way, Ruth’s sexuality empowers her. The play ends with Ruth sitting in her chair—with Joey kneeling beside her with his head in her lap, and Max on his knees, begging her to kiss him. This is a symbol of her power over the other men in the family, as they are literally at her feet.
Although the family wants Ruth to stay because of what they believe she could bring and do for them, she is now the one who has control over the household—and the family is just beginning to realize that.
It can be argued that her sexuality—in this case—is not empowering but demeaning. The family is not allured by her because of who she is as a person, but more for what she has to offer—the role of a mother/wife… and sex.
Nevertheless, she seems to relish in the power that comes with her position in this situation. But what happens afterwards is unknown—we never know if she ends up working for Lenny as a prostitute, and we are left to wonder about what will happen to the power dynamics between Ruth and the family.
Sex and Power
As demonstrated in The Homecoming, patriarchy and toxic masculinity lead to the sexual objectification of women. Only by breaking the gender stereotypes in society, for both men and women, can we have relationships where the power of all parties are equal.
But we also see how exploitation can happen when one (in this situation, a woman) uses their sexuality and the emotional—as well as sexual—desires of others to get what they want.
It’s true that embracing one’s sexuality can be empowering—but perhaps, like in the case of Ruth and her in-laws, it’s not always for the right reasons.
Works Cited:
- Pinter, Harold. The Homecoming. 1965. New York, Grove Press, 1994.
Hello there! I’m A.X. — a theatre student who is sharing her thoughts about the plays she’s reading in theatre stuff. Interested in more? Here’s what I had to say about The Crucible:
