What are the themes of The Catcher in the Rye?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: What are the themes of The Catcher in the Rye?
Position‹4 of 5›: The Catcher in the Rye is about sexuality
Argument‹3 of 3: Holden Caulfield hires a prostitute

In chapter 13, Holden accepts an offer from an elevator operator to have a prostitute sent to his hotel room. Before she arrives, Holden contemplates his history of failed sexual experiences. When he is unable to have sex, he gets angry and frustrated and blames Sunny for making him depressed.

The argument

The episode in which Holden Caulfield hires a prostitute is offered as the clearest evidence that The Catcher in the Rye is a novel about sexuality — not because of what happens, but because of what fails to happen and why. It is the closest Holden comes to having sex, and he cannot follow through with the act. The reason is a condition he cannot meet: if he does not feel emotionally connected to someone, he cannot have sex with them. The moment the woman arrives at his hotel room his mood changes to nervous and uncomfortable, the anticipation collapsing as soon as the encounter becomes real. What the scene exposes is that Holden cannot separate love and sex. He rejects the prostitute because he knows nothing about her, and knowing nothing about her is precisely the arrangement he has paid for. The transaction is designed to require no connection, which is why it fails for him specifically. At the same time he wishes to be like other teenage boys, who date plenty of girls. His inexperience is not something he is content with; it is a distance between himself and his peers, and it leads him to become further isolated. His substitute request makes the underlying need explicit. Instead of seeking sex, Holden asks the prostitute for something he desperately needs: a friend to talk with. The woman, though friendly, is confused by the request and leaves without comforting him — and so the one encounter in which he asks directly for connection ends with the connection refused. A scene in which a teenager cannot have sex without intimacy, cannot obtain intimacy by paying for it and is left lonelier than before is a scene about sexuality. On this reading it shows what the novel is about.

Premises

[P1]When Holden hires a prostitute, he cannot go through with it because he cannot separate sex from emotional connection. [P2] His nervousness and his wish to be like other dating teenagers reveal his anxiety about sex and inexperience. [P3] This struggle with intimacy deepens his isolation. [C] Therefore, Holden's encounter with the prostitute shows that The Catcher in the Rye is about sexuality.

Counter-arguments

Holden is afraid to have sex because the prostitute is the same age as him. He views her as innocent, so he does not want to corrupt her. Like Jane Gallagher, he struggles to see the prostitute as mature and capable of handling her own decisions. Because Holden wants to preserve her innocence, he is not able to have sex with her.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] This is not why he doesn't have sex with the prostitute.