Sex for women can be seen differently based on how they were raised to see it, how society saw it, and women were treated at the time. For example in the books Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Each of the main characters were women who saw sex differently. In The Bell Jar, the main character is named Esther and she saw sex as a right of passage, a way to her self freedom. Esther meets a man named Irwin who is a married professor and she chooses to give him her virginity. Her virginity was a major definition to who she didn’t want to be anymore. She states “It occurred to me that blood was my answer. I couldn’t possibly be a virgin anymore. I smiled into the dark. I felt part of a great tradition”(Plath, 219).Esther feels a satisfaction of freedom and how she was now able to be and choose how she wanted her life to play out. Although on the other hand in The Color Purple by Alice Walker, sex wasn’t freedom but a way men asserted control of women. The main character is named Celie, she struggles through life being treated as an object. Celie was to be controlled by her stepfather, then married off to a husband who as abusive and unloving as her father figure. In the beginning of the book it starts with Celie being raped by her step-father and being told to stay quiet or pain will be inflected to those she loved. She states “Just say You gonna do what your mammy wouldn’t. First he put his thing against my hip and sort of wiggle it around. Then grab a hold of my titties. Then push his thing inside my pussy. When that hurt , I cry. He start to choke me, say You better shut up and git use to it.”(Walker,1). This allows to see how men saw her as object and she allowed herself to be used as so due to her lack of knowledge that there was another way. Furthermore, sex was also scary but a way of showing your devotion and love to one another. In Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the main character is named Ifemelu and she is in love with Obinze. Both are well educated Africans that attend college and spend all of their free time together. They both understand the outcomes of sex and the need to use protection, being told and shown from parents and family. Ifemelu’s first sexual experience is with Obinze, they do not use protection but use other methods that aren’t always guaranteed. And Ifemelu fears she maybe pregnant due to her showing signs such as vomiting. Eventually she takes a test and sees she is not pregnant but has an inflamed organ that requires surgery. The book states “It felt to Ifemelu like a weak copy, a floundering imitation of what she imagined it would be…She had been tense through it all, unable to relax. She had imagined his mother watching them ;”(Adichie,114). Ifemelu feels the guilt that she promised Obinze’s mother when they would start any sexual relation, and so she can’t fully give herself to Obinze. Sex is different to everyone due to many factors such as time period, how they are raised, education, and society. All of this shapes an individual’s outlook on sex and what is the meaning behind it. In conclusion, for women it’s not all this general thought but can mean Freedom or Demise or Nothing.