This is a case of deception, love, and sex (not an unusual trio) that has caused a lot of startled and skeptical reactions. You may have to concentrate a bit to follow it at first:
A woman accused of pretending to be a man to lure a fellow student into bed has told a jury that her alleged victim was in on the deception and was a closeted lesbian.
Gayle Newland, 25, has admitted creating a fake Facebook profile in order to meet girls, using a photo of a good-looking Asian man she called Kye Fortune. But she denies misleading a woman who claims she was sexually assaulted by Newman wearing a prosthetic penis after they had intercourse, during which the woman wore a blindfold.
Newland denies five counts of sexual assault between February and June 2013. The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had earlier testified to having willingly worn the blindfold during numerous sexual encounters with someone she believed was Kye Fortune. She said Kye told her he was recovering from a brain tumour and did not want her to see his scars. Opening the case earlier this week, the prosecuting barrister, Matthew Corbett-Jones, told the jury the complainant was “by her nature a very gullible and naive person…
The court heard that the pair spent at least 100 hours together in person after striking up an intense online relationship over two years, and even became engaged. At each meeting, the complainant wore a blindfold, not just when they had sex but when they sunbathed or watched films together and even on one occasion when they went out in Kye’s car. The woman told the court she only uncovered the deception after ripping her blindfold off and seeing she had actually been having sex with Newland.”
The unnamed plaintiff was either gullible and naive, say some; or stupid or desperate, say others; or lying and in on it, say still others. I don’t profess to know the truth. But for me, the story conjured up another story, or set of stories, which are of great antiquity and power. One might call the original story and all its variations “the myth of the hidden lover.”
They are all stories in which the heroine is loved, and in some cases made love to, by a man who for some reason has to remain hidden, and asks her to trust him. Remember “Beauty and the Beast“? It’s not a traditional tale; it was written in 1756:
The Beast receives [Beauty] graciously and informs her that she is now mistress of the castle, and he is her servant. He gives her lavish clothing and food and carries on lengthy conversations with her. Every night, the Beast asks Beauty to marry him, only to be refused each time. After each refusal, Beauty dreams of a handsome prince who pleads with her to answer why she keeps refusing him, to which she replies that she cannot marry the Beast because she loves him only as a friend. Beauty does not make the connection between the handsome prince and the Beast and becomes convinced that the Beast is holding the prince captive somewhere in the castle. She searches and discovers multiple enchanted rooms, but never the prince from her dreams.
That story in turn echoes older stories from a folk and mythological tradition. The first is “East of the Sun West of the Moon” and its variants, which I delighted in as a child:
Well, after she had eaten, and it became evening, she felt sleepy from her journey, and thought she would like to go to bed, so she rang the bell. She had barely rung it before she found herself in a room, where there was a bed made as fair and white as anyone would wish to sleep in, with silken pillows and curtains, and gold fringe. All that was in the room was gold or silver. After she had gone to bed, and put out the light, a man came and laid himself alongside her. It was the white bear, who cast off his pelt at night; but she never saw him, for he always came after she had put out the light. Before the day dawned he was up and off again. Things went on happily for a while, but at last she became quiet and sad. She was alone all day long, and she became very homesick to see her father and mother and brothers and sisters. So one day, when the white bear asked what was wrong with her, she said it was so lonely there, and how she longed to go home to see her father and mother and brothers and sisters, and that was why she was so sad, because she couldn’t get to them.
“Well,” said the bear, “that can happen all right, but you must promise me, not to talk alone with your mother, but only when the others are around to hear. She will want to take you by the hand and lead you into a room to talk alone with her. But you must not do that, or else you’ll bring bad luck on both of us.”
But earlier still was one of my favorite ancient tales (from Apuleius, but I read it in a children’s book of myths), that of Cupid and Psyche:
The transported girl awakes to find herself at the edge of a cultivated grove (lucus). Exploring, she finds a marvelous house with golden columns, a carved ceiling of citrus wood and ivory, silver walls embossed with wild and domesticated animals, and jeweled mosaic floors. A disembodied voice tells her to make herself comfortable, and she is entertained at a feast that serves itself and by singing to an invisible lyre.
Although fearful and without sexual experience, she allows herself to be guided to a bedroom, where in the darkness a being she cannot see makes her his wife. She gradually learns to look forward to his visits, though he always departs before sunrise and forbids her to look upon him, and soon she becomes pregnant.
The stories have slight variants, but are remarkably similar. There is a young woman who gets lost or is taken away to a palatial place where unseen hands serve her. At night, a man (or beast?) enters her bedroom to lie with her, either chastely or sexually, and although she comes to love him, he says she cannot be allowed to look on him and she must trust him. At some point she is homesick and is allowed to visit her family, who plant seeds of doubt in her mind as to the man’s identity. Is he a man, a beast, a con artist, a monster? Finally, when she returns (the “Beauty and the Beast” story is a bit different on this point), she breaks the trust and one evening she takes a candle and tries to gaze on her lover’s sleeping face. When she does so, she is elated—he is a prince, or in the case of Psyche, he is Venus’ handsome son Cupid. But alas, she has broken the trust, and woe befalls them—at least for a while.
The plaintiff suing Newland was told that her lover felt self-conscious about looking like a beast of sorts (“was recovering from a brain tumour and did not want her to see his scars”). She was told to trust him, but ultimately she betrayed that trust, ripped off her blindfold and was confronted, not with a handsome prince or the god Cupid, but with Newland—a woman.
Life’s not a fairy tale. But the tales themselves have a power, and they often speak great truths about the human…Psyche.
