It is Molly's own sexuality, however, that has inspired so much critical acclaim and so much denunciation. Some critics think of Molly as a "pig"; others see her as Joyce's symbol of the Blessed Mother, finding an aura of sacramentality in her combining menstrual blood and water (urine) in a cracked chamber pot. The truth is probably somewhere in between these two extremes: Molly is religious, insofar as she accepts God and His manifestations in physical nature. She is also completely human in her total acceptance of the body, with all of its joys and pains. Through Molly, Joyce revealed what Irish women were really thinking when their subconscious gates were flung open on a warm June night in 1904.
Many of Molly's thoughts touch on subjects simply not discussed in the literature of 1922 — at least not outside of a psychoanalysts office — and Joyce reveals great insight into the physical aspects of the female personality. The variety of sexual experiences that Molly touches upon is astounding: the kinky habits of Mrs. Mastiansky's husband, for example, who made his wife "stick out her tongue as far as ever she could . . . ." There is also flagellation, as well as exhibitionists who pretend that they are urinating in order to expose themselves; in addition, there is female masturbation (complete with banana); a wish to exchange places with a man to see how sex feels from the male viewpoint; a desire to make love to boys and sailors, even though the latter might be diseased; and a stray thought of having sex with Boylan in front of Bloom in order to punish him — these thoughts, plus many more, crowd her mind and flow from it.
What "Penelope" concerns most, however, is Molly's frank acceptance of herself, and most of what Molly thinks about is scarcely "abnormal" by late 20th-century standards: for example, the shape, in detail, of the male sex organ; Boylan's stallion-like sexual prowess (it seems that he had at least four climaxes); a woman's vaginal irritation before a period; rough sex hastening a period; and the physical enjoyment of using a chamber pot (note Bloom's delight in defecation).
