During the 20th century in Ireland, girls had to suppress their inner-sexual thoughts and desires because Irish girls' personal lives were dictated and controlled by the Catholic church and state. Ireland socially accepted female inferiority as they humiliated and tortured girls for loving another partner. As seen in Seamus Heaney's poem, Punishment, and the documentary, Sex in a Cold Climate, Irish girls' view of love and sex was forever tainted due to the public treatment and ridicule they received. In Punishment, Heaney describes a personal experience in which he saw a young girl tarred and feathered in public for having loved a British soldier. Additionally, Sex in a Cold Climate focuses on four women and their tragic experiences in Ireland's Magdalene Asylums. Furthermore, drawing on Punishment and Sex in a Cold Climate, I will discuss the relationship between sexual desires and punishment and argue that Irish girls were deprived of a normal love and sexual life. In Seamus Heaney's Punishment (1975), he recalls a specific but terrible moment in his life. The Irish rebellion against Britain remained significant to the nationalism of Ireland and the Irish people; furthermore, those who betrayed Ireland were severely punished. According to Enda Duffy, Heaney observed a young woman, naked and bald, ready to be hanged outside the church where she was being tarred and penalized for falling in love with a British soldier (Duffy 6/4/10). Heaney calls this woman a “little adulteress” and “[his] scapegoat” to show the woman's betrayal of her country (Heaney ln 23, 28). This situation is distorted due to the nationality of the soldier: if the soldier were Irish, the couple would be socially acceptable but why t...... middle of paper...... they are deprived of this and have a love and one sex life becomes a privilege. Works Cited Crowley, Una, and Rob Kitchin. “Producing 'Decent Girls': Governmentality and the Moral Geographies of Sexual Conduct in Ireland (1922-1937).” Gender, Place, and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 15.4 (2008): 355-372. Academic research completed. EBSCO. Network. May 28, 2010.Heaney, Seamus. Selected poems from "Opened Ground" by Seamus Heaney (York Notes Advanced). New York: Longman, 2000. Print. Sex in a cold climate. Director Pietro Mullan. Perf. Kate Christie, Sean Colgan, Daniel Costello (II). Miramax Home Entertainment, 1998. DVD.Smith, James M. “The Politics of Sexual Knowledge: The Origins of Ireland's Containment Culture and the Carrigan Report (1931).” Journal of the History of Sexuality 13.2 (2004): 208-233. Academic research completed. EBSCO. Network. May 28 2010.