[LMB] An article referencing Herself at sequentialtart

[Sylvus Tarn]

On Mon, 2006-08-21 at 09:40 -0400, Paula Lieberman wrote:

> The political issues arise where people don't appreciated being excoriated 
> and condemned for "alternate sexuality" lifestyles when the people involved 
> are consenting adults--who appreciates being called e.g. "pervert" and being 
> the subject of hell and brimstone sermons and targeted by ambitious 
> politicians looking for Causes to campaign and hatemonger with?   Being 
> thrown in jail and having the key tossed for consenting sexual activity in 
> private with other adults, is a political issue in the sense that if the 
> laws direct that,  those people who engage in the forbidden activites, or 
> are attracted to it, risk their freedom sometimes even talking about it!
> 
> When I was in high school I looked up the sections of the Massachusetts 
> General Laws on the subject of "Laws against Chastity."  They kept 
> mentioning "the unnatural act" without further definition--presumably Ethan 
> of Athos and his partners, would be condemned to long unpleasant jail 
> sentences.  Later those laws were generally set aside, but that was -later-. 
> The lifestyles on Athos, in some parts of the world even today I think, can 
> carry a capital crime death sentence punishment--it's why one of the 
> foreignors who came to what today is the USA and fought for USA indepence, 
> came across the Atlantic in the first place apparently, he'd been identified 
> as engaging in homosexual activity and in his case it wasn't going to be 
> tolerated, he was facing a probably death sentence if he stayed in Europe!
> 
> BDSM activities involve a range of particular tastes and activities, and 
> some people enjoy various of them and not others, and some people are 
> indifferent to all of, and some people get squicked by some or all.  But 
> them, some people love tomatoes and some are massively allergic to them. 
> The Kushiel books, Mercenaries by Angela Knight, etc.,  have content in them 
> that involves consensual BDSM sexual activities, someone who finds them 
> outright offensive, those books are not suitable reading material for... nor 
> are the books by e.g. Sharon Green involving spanking (I was checking to see 
> if there had ever been a sequel written to a particular novel published by 
> DAW before DAW Books dropped her work; it was not one that involved 
> spanking--however, there apparently is a particular market segments that 
> likes books with spanking in them, and the bottom line of commercial fiction 
> is that it is -commercial--one writes what one can get -paid- for so one can 
> keep the roof over one's head, the food on the table, clothing, 
> transportation...), or all those vampire-werewolf paranormal books that have 
> all sorts of kinks in them (furry!).  If the material is too squicky for the 
> particular reader or the reader otherwise can't or doesn't want to deal with 
> the content, there are lots of -other- books around that focus on vanilla, 
> and sometimes even some that lack "adult content" completely or almost 
> completely.

Uh, I've let loose a floodgate here, and must most humbly request any
pardon if I offended (didn't *think* so...) My point is that one expects
intolerant amtaliban types to excoriate;  but feminists, whose motto is
`women are people' ought to be a little more patient with other
downtrodden groups.  

Yet, evidently they do, as with lavender menace back then/bsdm now.
Sigh.

> And there are some parts of e.g. the romance 
> market, that explicitness is almost mandatory!

Much to my sorrow, cuz I love romance, and innuendo, but erotica either
bores me to tears, or embarresses me.

> 
> There are publishers which specialize in particular areas--Circlet Press 
> publishes SF/F explicit material, especially BDSM and same gender erotica 
> and sapient interspecies sex  ("practices rishathra!").  There are 
> publishers which probably would tend to not do explicit, I'm thinking of 
> e.g. Bethany  House and other Christian fiction publishers, there's the 
> entire subgenre of Christian SF/F where there is strong use of allegory.   I 
> know there is a lot of it out there, but it tends to be distributed through 
> e.g. Christian bookstores, I haven't seen any of it lately in the SF/F 
> section at e.g. Barnes & Noble.  It doesn't get me as a reader, for reasons 
> including a strong aversion to most allegory, and not having the particular 
> outlook that resonates positively with most overtly strongly 
> Christian-focused fiction.   I prefer more literal interpretation of 
> characters and situations than looking for allegory, and the particular 
> tacit assumption core values involve a worldview that I don't have.

Hm.  You want allegory, read OS Card's Wyrms, all time least favorite
book by that author.  I think allegory done well---like anything done
well---is fine.  But all the Christian romance I've encountered has been
pretty heavy-handed stuff, usually following a redemptive plotline in
which the love of god and the christian protagonist redeems the
non-christian character.  There's isn't `space' in those sort of books
for allegories.

Though I believe Laura Kinsale wrote a wonderful romance in which a
Quaker protagonist does *not* convert her lover (or, conversely, give up
her own very strong faith), though she quite literally saves him from
the madhouse.  But it's not christian romance per se.

> The work was written in the mid-1960s, like 1965 or 1966, which was a long 
> time ago in terms of gender relations and roles and expectations in the 
> USA--back when it was written, there were NO female airline pilots--they 
> were de facto banned by Northwest, American, Pan Am, United, Delta, etc.--  
> no female military pilots--first class of them was in 1976 or 1977, no women 
> attending military academies or the Coast Guard Academy or the Merchant 
> Marine academy, there were laws restricting the work that women could do and 
> the hours they could work.... fiction has be to looked at through a filter 
> of -when- it was written and what the culture was like, that it was written 
> in and for.  Marion Zimmer Bradly in the 1960s or 1950s wrote a novel with a 
> female starship captain, and it was rejected because of that, publishers 
> wouldn't publish a book by her with a female starship captain.  Van Vogt had 
> gotten away with having one in the 1940s, as an exception, but he at the 
> time I think was a much bigger name writer than MZB when her book was 
> getting rejected.
> 

I know.  So why is Austen and Bronte and even Heyer ok, but not
McCaffrey?  Couldn't say.  Personal quirk, mebbe.  Bradley's starship
captain:  too bad.

> Dragonflight/the stories that it consists of, were written out of a society 
> which DID restrict women, and which those attitudes in the book, were less 
> restrictive that the general US culture at the time.

So do you think that Pernese culture was chauvenist because the author
was unable to slip full-bore equality past her editor, or because she
was still internalizing her 50s/60s culture?   I happen to think the
latter; and that it got *worse* as more books were written. (Something
got worse, anyway.  Really, I prefer to see an author get better.  It's
sad to watch stories go downhill.) 

Or maybe it's just listening to her and her son talk about Pern as if it
were a hamburger franchise, whose IP rights have to be protected at all
costs.  Talk about squ/icky!

> 
> > certainly wouldn't.  And I thought Menolly (and the author) should've
> > gone with her heart, that is the old Harper (Robinton, Robinson,
> > something like that, I think---it's been *many* years), who was, let's
> > be honest both her father-figure and twue wuv, however much Menolly &
> > author tried to transfer her affections to the young guy---even if there
> > *was* a 50 year age difference.  The one about the telekinetic was
> 
> Again, those works were written in a different time than today and reflect 
> different social conditions and assumptions and values.

So they do---but it wasn't all that long ago that sort of thing was
quite a bit more acceptable, even expected---in fact the whole plotline
of the Convenient Marriage, which as I recall was copyrighted in the
40s, depended upon the age difference of the protagonists, the younger
of whom was a child (``turned 17'').  So McCaffrey's position reflected
a stiffening, rather than relaxation, of assumptions and values.

I should note, I have a bit of the feeling we're talking past each other
somewhat, and hope, therefore, that isn't coming across as
obnoxious/willfully blind/etc.


sylvus tarn
http://rejiquar.com