Honey, it wasn’t the kiss I objected to. I liked the kiss very much. It was the other little – familiarity – that I – felt obliged to – discourage… I didn’t resent it! Not a bit in the world! In fact, I was somewhat flattered that you – desired me! But, honey, you know as well as I do that a single girl, a girl alone in the world, has got to keep a firm hold on her emotions or she’ll be lost.
– Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 6. Blanche says this to Mitch when she refuses his request for a kiss. She is playing up her Southern Belle image of virginal purity in the hope that she will become Mitch’s wife. Blanche is desperate to hide her sexuality behind a facade of respectability and gentility. But her attraction to young boys is apparent in the previous scene when she seduces a newspaper boy with a kiss on the mouth.