After Pangloss tries to filter the horror of the earthquake through the model of optimism, Voltaire juxtaposes the philosopher’s inquiry with a laundry list of the best of all possible human characteristics… Greed, debauchery, lust, negligence. The critique of philosophical optimism is not subtle, and neither is the gendered portrayal of the sailor (man) and the prostitutes (women). Men throughout the book (Pangloss, Don Isaachar, etc.) seem helpless to their carnal impulses. The women, too, seem helpless–not in that they suffer from the same affliction, but in that they are obliged to satisfy the “needs” of men. There seems a critical interdependence between the aggressive sexuality of men and the passive (if not victimized) sexuality of women. There is no model of healthy, consensual sexuality to be found: by the time Candide and Cunegonde are out of peril, she’s become too ugly to be considered a viable object of desire. Object-hood, it seems, is the sustained condition of women in this book.

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