Blanche’s overly sexual nature most likely came from discovering her first love and husband in bed with another man. Blanche saw his homosexuality as personal rejection and inadequacy and caused her to be licentious as well as obsessed with her age and looks. She tells Mitch,” …I’d failed him in some mysterious way…” as though she had caused him to be gay or that her his suicide resulted from her condemnation of his homosexuality. (P.114). Blanche’s sexual desires and her damaged past cause her social death. Her reputation for promiscuity follows her to Elysian Fields, as does her lusty relationship with a seventeen-year-old boy. What dishonors her also causes her to lose her job and places her in a position of destitution whereas she must rely on her brother in law for support and eventual leads to her rape and, the need to be institutionalized.
Stanley rapes Blanche and pushes her over the edge to a mental breakdown. The first time Blanche and Stanley meet you can see her lust for him, and it continues as she openly and admittedly flirts with him. Stanley says just before he rapes her “Tiger-tiger! …We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning” (p.162).
A Streetcar Named Desire is also about women depending on men and their use of sex to obtain what they need and want. Both Blanche and Stella depend on men for their happiness. Blanche wants to marry Mitch so she can “breathe quietly again” (p.95). She is not marriage material after her past is disclosed. Stella accepts the abuse from Stan and even denies that he raped Blanche and continues to live with him, and their fights often lead to the bedroom.