[Editorial] Exploring Sexuality Through Horror: Raw

Sexuality is such a primal and carnal instinct; built into us without control over how our bodies react and feel to certain imagery, touch and stimulation. This in turn can cause sexuality to become both a point of fascination and confusion; trying to navigate the world and understand sexual desire can leave us with conflicting emotions, especially when we are coming-of-age. But it is during this period that we begin to fully delve into the depths of our personal awakenings and touch upon our likes and dislikes within a sexual reality, however, it is something that over time we learn more about. 

Julia Ducournau’s 2016 horror film, Raw, provides a unique take on the once loved cannibal genre to allow the audience to understand what it is like as a teenage female trying to navigate the landscape of higher education and finding one’s own sexuality. Justine is just about to embark on a journey into veterinary school, arriving at the University and quickly realising that she feels out of her depths and like an outsider compared to her older sister, Alexia. This supposedly educational atmosphere seems to lack, and instead is replaced by a toxic culture of hazing, humiliation and honour; all of which expose Justine to an inner desire that becomes unleashed after she is forced to eat the rabbit liver. As her hunger begins to grow with intensity and ferocity, so does her spiritual awakening as to who she really is and what her body really craves for, and that craving is for more than just animal meat. 

Similarly to our first experiences with sex; once Justine first gets a taste of meat she becomes knowledgable of what that tastes like on her tastebuds, the fleshy meaty taste that satisfies a hunger like nothing else. As a devoted vegetarian, Justine becomes overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and shame after a feeling of pure ecstasy only incited by eating meat, which is representative of how when we first begin to discover sex there is a societal stigma attached to enjoying and exploring sex, especially as a young woman. Growing up it wasn’t considered ‘lady-like’ to openly admit to enjoying sex and partaking into sexual activities - this dangerous terminology forced an idyll into the minds of young adolescent women across the world, forcing them to feel shame and embarrassment at also having lustful desires that are akin to those that a male experiences aswell. Encouraging women to adhere to this stereotype of being a ‘lady’ with manners that expresses themselves only through what should be considered as deemable ways causes an oppressive space to grow up in, one that can unfortunately lead to unhealthy behaviours and a secretive nature around sex which can therefore cause young women to become uneducated about the realities of sex. These restrictions placed on young women can evoke a rebellious need to go against what is expected of them, and therefore act in the opposite nature, but in potentially risky situations because everything has to be kept a secret so you can continue to be considered ‘lady-like’. In Raw we see how Justine continuously fights against her own needs, swallowing and stifling them in order to try and be the young innocent girl that has been formed and moulded from the very beginning of the film. 

However, once Justine has had her first taste of flesh, it becomes apparent that she has discovered what makes her thirst and she is fraught with a passionate hunger to taste more, to consume more, to eat more even though she feels conflicted to those feelings. Justine’s first act of allowing herself what she desires is during an accidental moment when her sister Alexia cuts off her own finger whilst trying to cut away bikini wax which is stuck to Justine. The severed finger spools in a pool of musty blood, echoing cries to Justine as her eyes glaze over and she becomes embodied with the need to feed. Alexia’s finger is more than just a body part; it is the on-screen symbolic representation of the phallus - castrated from the body, and yet erected without a human connection, it is the first signal of Justine’s desire and one that she cannot overcome. As she closes her eyes and presses her tongue against the flesh, lust courses through her veins sending euphoric waves like ripples through her body, creating a similar feeling to the sheer ecstasy felt when first experiencing a sexual encounter. From this moment on, Justine realises just how powerful that feeling is, and how she needs to continue seeking it out in order to fulfill her unsatisfied needs. There are brief moments where it seems that Justine might be fighting an internal conflict within herself against her want for flesh, but with the knowledge of ecstasy on the tip of her tongue, it's something that is worth pursuing, regardless of how others see her or the consequences that might come from it. 

Throughout Raw we see how Justine looks at different species as if they are a ‘piece of meat’. In theory this is an actuality for Justine, as to her these living beings are something to be devoured, but with that context in mind we can apply this to that saying ‘piece of meat’, which is often used to describe how one person looks at another in a derogatory and only sexual manner; typically used to explain how a man looks at a woman. However, the tables are turned and it is Justine that snarls and drools as she stares upon the organisms around her, imagining herself slowly sinking her teeth into their flesh for a taste of metallic and sinew. One of her main points of desire throughout the film is room mate Adrien, who is gay but seems to tolerate Justine’s desire for him. The hunger in her eyes when viewing her friend is symbolic of the sexual desire we feel when we first begin to explore, and also indicates how when we are first discovering our sexuality we are less inclined to feel as if we need to mould into the constructs of society, and more inclined to ‘discover’ our sexuality, regardless of what that entails. But that willingness to explore further than just the human body goes deeper and further with Justine’s lust, she has the same starved expression when gazing upon cows and horses, once again imagining how their skin would taste stuck between her teeth. Although we can understand this starvation from a sexual point of view, for Justine it is both cannibalistic hunger and sexual desire. 

Ducournau encapsulates those overwhelming feelings of sexual desire in one particular scene in Raw, a scene so powerful that you can almost feel yourself drooling and your stomach growling as you watch. Justine stands on the end of the concrete football pitch as she watches Adrien play amongst his peers; he is topless, with a glistening of sweat across his body, the movements of his muscles rippling as he runs across the pitch, with the camera providing a female gaze upon his form, never allowing his body to not be the centre of attention. As Justine prowls from the sidelines, she represents something far more predatory than she has before, staring intently at Adrien, watching every move he makes so intensely and ferociously that her eyes do not pause to blink and her nose begins to bleed. It is during this scene that we can clearly see how Ducournau has represented the female state of lust as something comparable to pure and raw hunger; we often do not think of how intense women’s sexual needs are, due to the societal expectations but they are profound and when you are first discovering your sexual needs, they can feel so powerful and overwhelming that you begin to feel like you need to hunt for your next victim and satiate that feeling. As a young woman, being able to describe how powerful sexual longing can be is a difficult to do, but this scene in Raw is the perfect representation of how possessing the feeling is, and how it becomes a carnal reflex when watching someone or something (in Justine’s case) that causes the mouth to salivate and the body to quiver with lustrous want. 

Although Raw is a film about cannibalism on the surface, it goes far deeper in it’s exploration of female desire and really looks at how women have intense and often insatiable cravings for human flesh. It is not unknown that many women suffer from not having received proper orgasms from their sexual partners, something that women for centuries have not complained about purely because we’ve always been led to believe that as a woman you shouldn’t air your grievances, especially when it comes to sexuality. Therefore we are a species that have an uncontrollable and overwhelming sexual desire, one that often goes unsatisfied, leaving us in a constant state of hunger, longing for the flesh of another, wanting to taste them and feel them. When that hunger is finally fed, it can open up the possibility of wanting more of what you have just had - needing to constantly feed the hunger that flows through us like waves. When Justine finally awakens her sexuality and her cannibalistic tendaancies, she discovers the understanding of herself; suddenly she goes from shy and awkward, to realising the power of her. It is through this awakening of oneself that we begin to understand that hunger is representative of sexuality, and although Justine’s desire for human flesh becomes something horrifying and disturbing, in actuality that desire symbolises the female desire to consume the flesh of another in order to reach the ultimate euphoric climax.

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