[LMB] Sherwooding sort of, was Misc. gender issues

[Paula Lieberman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ruth Frey" <solsticebiz at yahoo.com>


> Paula Lieberman wrote:
>    >You're taller than I am, though, waaaaaa.... there are MANY times I 
> want to
>>knock EVERYTHING on high shelves in stores onto the floor, as graphic
>>evidence of -earned- retribution for cruelty and discrimination....
>
>       Boy, I hear that one.  I work with a guy who is 6'+, and he *always* 
> puts things on the top shelves (he's not being rude, he just doesn't 
> think) -- given that I'm not the shortest person here, that's especially 
> annoying for most of us.

I heard second hand somethng over a decade ago  there was a certain amount 
of call-it-rudeness present in same-gender groups... a lesbian friend 
referred to it as "crunchy granola [young] lesbians " "-whose [impaired...] 
manners involve grabbing food off other people's plates viewing it as 
appropriate behavior and friendly community values rather than rude 
offensive behavior.-"

That was years ago, though, and I don't remember hearing her talking about 
it anymore in more recent years.
>
>>eeep on the incredible rude and uncouth turkey!

>>[How long ago was it? There was a time when there apparently was quite a
>>lot of impolite behavior going out by homosexuals, though that's about the
>>rudest case I've ever heard of!]
>
>       That was about 10 years ago -- but I think it was more of an 
> individual thing rather than a reflection of a "rudeness trend."
>
>>Hmm, these days male-male paired characters in SF/F are more marketable to
>>publishers than female paired characters...
>
>         Oh, yeah, they're all over in print SF/Fantasy (or at least in the 
> stuff I read); the original discussion was more about media SF (TV, 
> movies, etc.).  I can't help wondering if there's a bit of an influence of 
> slash showing in mainstream wirting anymore (not to bring up the dreaded 
> be-pizza'd subject in its full glory, that's a *passing* comment).

Lynn Flewelling's work has a male-male couple in a series,  Lisa Barnett and 
Melissa Scott had a couple books out with  a male-male couple as 
protagonists and had been working on another before Lisa was struck down by 
cancer, there;s some of it in Melusine by Sarah Monette, two of the ensemble 
cast of Roland Green's Starship Shenandoah series were male-male couple 
(that was last decade, however...).  Various 
vampire-werewolf-shapeshifter-witch novels in the romance section of 
bookstores, and some of the SF/F shelves ones, have same gender supporting 
character couples in them (e.g., there's  such a couple in Moon Called by 
Patrician Briggs, for that matter, various of M*rc*d*s L*ck*y's characters 
are mostly interested in the same gender (there are degrees of it in her 
work, with some characters having some amount of bisexuality... Roland Green 
had at least two ensemble characters in the Shenandoah series who were 
bi--hmm, make that three--though they were all only actively in heterosexual 
relationships or flings when on-seen in the books... there was a rather 
blunt narrational coment about gender preferences and manners and bunking 
arrangements, "and those with neither manners nor preferences were sent to 
the Army."  Actually, that series is the sort of things that I expect that 
people who like Lois' military SF would like, even though there are a much 
larger number of viewpoint characters and the tapestry spread across 
multiple books for the main plots.   Candace Shores is something of a 
combination of Cordelia mixed with some Elli Quin and some Taura.   Charlie 
Longman and another male character I can't think of, have some of Aral's 
characteristics.  Rose Liddell is a less rambunctious more reserved relative 
of Elli Quin.  The two Baernoi half-brothers... hmm, one of them has hygiene 
issues, but is a fierce fighter with much political pull, the other is a 
more sophisticated type who is not happy with his smelly pig-headed brother 
interfering in all sorts of things playing loose cannon--hmm, some of Miles 
there in the brother, but Miles-bathed-....

>  >I run in the other direction as "ultrafeminine clothing" as most of it 
> to me
>>is painful both psychically and physically. I have a VERY long memory for
>>getting -abraded- by the starched
>>as-soft-as-wire-nails-and-sticking-out-sharp-pieces "lace" that was
>>considered so CUTE and so FEMININE to put on girlchildren when I was a 
>>small
>>child.
>
>       Lace sucks, generally speaking.  I have a couple nice, soft stretch 
> lace T-shirts that I reserve for SF con wear (under a vest) or some such, 
> but that's a special dress-up thing.  And the stiff, itchy stuff is nasty.

There is lace out that that isn't furniture-stripper grade wire rasps, but 
the other stuff traumatized me.  Not only that, but to this very day, one of 
my tests for clothing is to feel the fabric, and if it's scratchy, reject 
immediately.  If it's too stiff and/or lacks the proper tactile feel to me 
(soft or smooth and not the-horrible-for-me types of finishes that a 
lot--not all-sythetics have, particularly the ones that get scratchy and 
icky in humidiy), reject.