Rationality and Irrationality
The speaker neatly divides her desires and opinions into rational and irrational ones, using metaphorical language to align irrationality with the body and rationality with the mind. For instance, she says, sexual desire has the dual effect of intensifying the body's activity even while dampening mental activity. At the start of the poem, the speaker appears to deride the irrational, albeit in a joking tone. She describes women as prone to "notions," a word that connotes frivolous or irrational beliefs and desires. However, by the end of the poem, it seems clear that the speaker is not especially upset by the conflict between her irrational body and her rational mind, nor does she entirely view the two as being in conflict. Instead, she decides to shape her reality so as to accommodate both, by giving in to sexual desire (or at least expressing it) and, at the same time, declining to subject her rational mind to the lover's unstimulating conversation.
Love and Lust
The contrasting states of love and lust are closely linked to the aforementioned states of rationality and irrationality, as well as to the related binary of mind and body: the speaker links the mind to the emotional state of love and the body to the physical state of lust. She sees these two states as being starkly distinct, at least in the particular case at hand. Her attraction to the addressee causes her to feel lust for them, but her dislike of their personality dampens the possibility of her feeling love. The presence of lust does not cause her to feel love, nor does the absence of love lessen her lust. However, the speaker goes out of her way to assure the addressee that her physical attraction to him isn't an indicator of emotional attraction: she anticipates that it will be interpreted as a sign of love and feels obligated to defend the distinction between the two.
Female sexuality
The speaker is not at all coy about describing her desire to her lover, describing "a certain zest / To bear your body’s weight upon my breast." At the same time, Millay is extremely clear about the speaker's gender, asserting it in the poem's first line and title. Therefore, the work is direct in its portrayal of a woman who experiences, and is open about, her sexuality. This was fairly risqué at the time of the poem's publication, when prevailing—albeit rapidly changing—attitudes dictated that women should remain chaste outside of marriage. What makes the poem more revolutionary is the speaker's self-assured, unashamed attitude. She is portrayed not as an object of pity or judgment, but instead as a complex and active subject in her own right.
