The theme of Latent Misogyny and the Sexualization of Minors features prominently in this section. For instance, when he sees his daughter in a bikini at the beach, Bud thinks, “She was magnificent and Bud’s role in her production gave him a perverse pride. How she once swam from his scrotal caves and evolved into this perfect specimen, the stuff of magazine covers and male fantasy” (148). Not only is he sexualizing a minor, but he’s sexualizing his daughter, taking a “perverse” pride in having created this “perfect specimen”; the description identifies both the deviant nature of his gratification and the way the novel’s men consistently objectify women to reassure themselves of their own masculinity.

Jim’s collection of vaginas is another example of this objectification. When he proudly shows them to Catherine, he says that “[t]hey are less depictions of something than depictions about something. […] These pussies are moments in time” (174). Jim’s claims that the sculptures aren’t depictions of the women themselves but depictions of something about him entirely erase the personhood of his subjects, mirroring the broader process by which women become mere objects of male fulfillment. Further, the vagina collection shows that Jim’s major takeaways from his relationships are the ways in which these genitalia “touched [his] life” (173), as he talks about how “tight” one was and calls another his “favorite.” He doesn’t describe the women at all, only their “pussies,” a word he continues to repeat. Most telling is the fact that he calls them “[his] masterpussies” (175), a phrase that implies both ownership and objectification. These “pussies” are his, and he describes them as though he created them originally. Rather than attempting to capture anything of the character of the women he has been involved with, he sought to capture the most important part of the woman to him. That he blames Catherine for being unable to handle his “subversive” collection deepens the misogyny and hints at how the language of women’s sexual liberation is itself weaponized in service of misogyny. It’s not his fault that she can’t handle his “art,” he thinks, never considering that his “art” highlights his chauvinism and objectification of women.

Meanwhile, more examples of Catherine and Bud’s failures as parents arise, developing the theme of Adolescent Agency Under Institutional and Parental Failure. When Harper returns from the camp, Bud is quick to pronounce his decision a success: “There was something different about her, thought Bud. She was sitting up straighter. He internally congratulated himself on a parenting job well done” (144). That Bud’s idea of a “parenting job well done” involves sending his daughter away to be cared for by someone else highlights how minimally involved in his children’s lives he has been. More broadly, Harper was changed by her time at the camp, but not in the way Bud thinks, and his failure to ask questions either about her experience there or her current feelings demonstrates his lack of parenting skills. Harper has become more interested in her physical beauty, like Abigail and her mother, and she is eager to avoid being returned to camp. She hasn’t, as Bud hopes, suddenly grown out of her former noncompliance. Harper, like her sisters, is finding new ways to be “seen” and to satisfy her emotional needs.

Catherine, too, applauds herself for her child-rearing by pointing to her own inaction: “Call her parenting unorthodox, thought Catherine, but no one in the Flynn family suffered from this obesity epidemic the news always went on about” (171). She justifies her desire never to buy groceries or cook by pointing out her daughters’ thinness; she assumes that they are healthy because they aren’t overweight, though people are constantly pointing out how unhealthy Abigail looks. Her resourceful daughters find ways to feed themselves (or not) when their mother and father abdicate responsibility for even their most basic needs. The girls not only survive without guidance, but they also try to keep one another in check, demonstrating a resilience and resourcefulness their parents lack.