The representation of an Amazon queen’s fantasized body turns attention to what is concealed by Amazon dress. These celanda function as a somatized preterition of Amazon customs that incites readerly speculation around their social meaning within an imagined society. Together with unanswered questions about the variantly gendered body and its meanings, the alterity of her physical presence invites the reader to entertain utopian alternative organizations of gendered identity grounded in a sexually variant perspective at the margin of the text’s fictional world. The preteritive attention paid to her experience and the world view of her society thus opens up the possibility of an "Amazon reading" of Alexander himself, and by extension an Amazon reading of the epic that celebrates his exploits. With the possibility of Amazon reading comes as well the possibility of solidarity among those who read like Amazons, a solidarity effected not by any commonality of essential identity, but by their willingness to read the text’s preteritions against the grain of a sanctioned, "straight" interpretation informed by the received cultural values of an "ideal" audience.

Roth is known for his frank depictions of sex and desire; indeed, these elements of his novels have been some of the primary sources of their controversy. Yet what often goes overlooked, especially among those who read Roth’s work as sexist or hyper-masculinist, are the ways he engages with notions of sexual fluidity. This chapter will provide readers with some necessary theoretical and cultural background for understanding the variety of ways Roth writes about sex and desire. In some ways, a heteronormative culture informs his representation of such. However, Roth’s representation of queerness and homosocial discourse in works ranging from Letting Go to The Professor of Desire to Sabbath’s Theater to Indignation, among other works, complicates a simplistic reading of his engagement with sexuality.