Lady Chatterley's Body

Photo of Kate Moss by Tim Walker for
Love Magazine, issue 9 (S/S, 2013)

According to a recent tweet from Lawrence scholar Catherine Brown, Wetherspoon's are opening a new pub in Eastwood to be called The Lady Chatterley Arms. I've no objection to this, but think it ironic that the pub is to be named after the one part of her anatomy that Lawrence didn't detail (or fetishize) in his descriptions of Connie. 

We know, for example, she had a ruddy complexion, with soft brown hair, big blue eyes (often full of tears) and a slow, soft voice with an underlying wilfulness. We know too she was golden-skinned and if her navel was rather withdrawn and sad-looking, nevertheless her waist retained its flexibility and her loins their voluptuous curve. 

We also know that whilst Connie wasn't tall and had a somewhat stocky build, she nevertheless had a good figure: she wasn't fat, as Lawrence non-too-subtly puts it. That said, neither was her physique quite fashionable. 

Further, despite having a certain fluid proportion, her body had somehow failed to ripen; her breasts were rather small and drooping pear-shaped, her belly somewhat slack and meaningless. Her thighs, meanwhile, were heavy and inert, whilst her back, her hips and buttocks had lost their distinction and were no longer so gay-looking or sensitive in outline as in her Dresden days (i.e. before her marriage to Clifford).

Nevertheless, these were still the parts of her that seemed most alive; the beautiful, long-sloping hips and the buttocks with their round, heavy contour so full of female energy. It was just the front of her body that made her feel miserable, as it seemed to be making the leap straight from girlhood to old age, without ever knowing its mature perfection. Depressed by this realisation, Connie dramatically loses her appetite and briefly becomes as thin as a rail, with dark shadows under her eyes.

Her affair with Mellors, however, restores her body to its full health and vitality. For he finds her body lovely to touch and to marvel at and this makes her feel beautiful and desirable. Her thighs and belly and hips all perk up and she feels a sort of dawn come into her flesh; even her breasts begin to tip and to stir once more.

Mellors particularly likes her soft, golden-brown pubic hair (in which he ties forget-me-nots) and her silky inner-thighs. And, if he is to be believed, not only does she have the nicest of all arses, but she's also the best bit o' cunt left on earth. 

We know then a good deal about Lady Chatterley's body - perhaps even more than we know about her character. But, as I said earlier, we know nothing about her arms ...