In “Difficult at Parties,” there is a sense of ambiguity about the narrator’s recent trauma, although just enough is given to glimpse into what may have happened. She is bruised, there is pain, a cop calls, and it seems like there is a care taken concerning the sex life she has with Paul. It is interesting, being put in a room in the mind of a traumatized woman because she never outright states the violence enacted upon her. Instead she is concerned with the door being locked or the bruises on her body and the way they fade. She is concerned about the camera. Being seen in such a way seems to frighten the narrator to the point where she steals that camera and uses it on her own terms. In having the reader substitute whatever physical violence we see fits, there is both a deeper connection with the narrator as well as a sort of voyeuristic element.
However, there is a way that trying to rebuild her intimate life with Paul enables her to see into the rooms of other people. When the narrator begins trying to watch pornography as a way to ease back into a normal sex life, she hears the thoughts of the actors. She isn’t able to be a simple bystander (or voyeur). Nobody wants to hear to internal monologue of actors in porn, but maybe that’s the point. Being a victim of violence of any kind, let alone what is implied to be sexual violence, creates a sort of attention to detail. Consciously or not the mind becomes so concerned with self preservation and preventing that sort of event from happening again, it observes everything with care. And so does the narrator’s mind, although it presses even further than seeing body language. She enters their mental rooms, and it kills the party for her.
Your focus on the narrator’s trauma is a really big part of the story, and keeping in line with the fantastic we are not explicitly told or explained what happened to the narrator, but rather the aftermath.
I agree that the narrator can’t be a bystander anymore to the porn movies. No one watches porn for the people, they watch it for the action. The people aren’t actually people, really, just actors with ridiculous stage names. Machado makes them real. The internal monologue of the actors that the narrator hears is surprising; the thoughts are not at all what you would expect porn stars to be thinking. Furthermore, I think Machado hits upon a good point: how trauma risks our internal self. For example, the party scene in the story resonated with me because the narrator had to compartmentalize her trauma and act normal for the sake of the people at the party. How does one act “normal” after such a trauma? What if how she acts is “normal?”
I agree with your thoughts about the assault completely changing her behavior. I think after her assault sex becomes complicated. She can no longer view it as purely sex, nor view the people having it as purely objects that have sex. She is now suddenly aware that not all sex is enjoyable and people aren’t always in the moment when they’re having it. Now all she can hear is maybe the reality of people who maybe hate what they are doing. Essentially, as an aftermath of the assault, intimacy is ruined for her and she is no longer able to see sex as a pleasurable thing
I also agree with your point about sexual assault changing her behavior. She wants to be able to enjoy sex as she used to, but now she can only wonder about how others feel about it — if they’re enjoying it and if it’s actually consensual.