There’s no reason to believe that gender is not as strong an influence as experience on author input, and though I’d like to believe that I have a more balanced female/male way of thinking, I’m not quite getting Kundera’s statement on sex being the only real differentiation in women.
To be sure, the millionth part dissimilarity is present in all areas of human existence, but in all areas other than sex it is exposed and needs no one to discover it, needs no scalpel. One woman prefers cheese at the end of the meal, another loathes cauliflower, and although each may demonstrate her originality thereby, it is an originality that demonstrates its own irrelevance and warns us to pay it not heed, to expect nothing of value to come of it.
Only in sexuality does the millionth part dissimilarity become precious, because, not accessible to the public, it must be conquered. (p. 200)
I’m all for vive la difference! and certainly have enough experience to know that each man is different in the sack too, but frankly, I would still think that a good sit-down conversation over a glass of wine and plate of brie and grapes will reveal more of what is unique or particular to him.
Might I suggest that Kundera is giving Tomas an "out" or an excuse for his behavior–and he really needs none–because since his relationship with Tereza, it causes him some internal conflict.
So it was a desire not for pleasure (the pleasure came as an extra, a bonus) but for possession of the world (slitting open the outstretched body of the world with his scalpel) that sent him in pursuit of women.
Well, that’s a new one.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology