I wouldn't want to tell anyone what to do either... but perhaps a comment on country attitudes to nudity...
The assumption I went on here is that Junior and Francine are now are healthy young adults, even though Francine has led a bit more sheltered existence than Junior in the much more religious household of Alma and her second husband Bill. (Yes, Bill... it's based on Annie Proulx's story mostly, not the film! damn that Monroe...) and Francine is going through pretty much the same reaction Junior had to meeting Ellery for the first time: sympathizing with her father's "choice in men" and finding him embarrassingly handsome. They don't have much of a basis for processing "queer relationships" otherwise. We had a discussion about this phenomenon in chat last night, and it is less a reaction of "arousal" than it is of a gushy fan type reaction - a diffuse attraction that is based more in a superficial emotional response than in anything truly sexual.
But girls are like this: I know because I was one! We undressed our Barbie dolls, did all sorts of obscene things with them and Ken, and if there was a chance to peek at some boy with his swimsuit half down or clinging too much to his fruit arrangement, guess what - girls look! And if there was a chance to peek at a nude man without getting caught, you bet!
I hope I made it clear what and why they were looking, however... the irrepressible curiosity of young (adult) women encountering an unexpectly nude adult man in the guest room. And it wasn't their Daddy's backside they were gawking at!
The entire phenomenon of slash fiction rests upon the insatiable curiosity women have, and the fantasy element of their interest in gay males... and as such, I am portraying a phenomenon many of us women know quite well.
If this triggers off some folks' disgust, I'm sorry about that - everyone's reactions are different. They knew they should not have been peeking, and it was (mostly) accidental.
Another reason I did this was to illustrate something about Francine's character. While Junior has a fiery temper when it comes on her, it is Francine that has the "full throttle on all roads" temperament of her father. It was she who summarily cut Ennis off when she felt he had hurt her mother, and she is the one who would deliberately go peek where Junior would not have done something like that on purpose. It is a way of characterizing Francine as much as anything - she is more closeted, more repressed, and is sort of a mini version of Ennis who grew up with a lot of "don'ts" and without the liberalizing, laissez-faire influence of Ennis in the house, forced to go to church every Sunday and with little outlet to be free and easy with her early-marrying older sister. Notice she has gotten to age 19 and isn't married, and apparently no sign of a boyfriend. She has the potential to break out and do unexpectedly wild things. And probably will!
(Now that is fodder for a future story, huh?)
Topic: Taking Chances, by E. L. Van Hine and L.H. Nicoll (Read 4123339 times)