[LMB] Re: Slash (was OT) now Bujold Romance/Slash Meta

[Kirsten Edwards]

Kirsten:
"I would also like to add that the
"so they're boinking?" is probably 
best applied to homosexual stories 
(aka "slash"--?) as the sex therein 
really does seem to fly as an uncomplicated 
layer in the relationship"

LMB spotted my un-clarity in a heartbeat:
"I see you haven't read much slash.  
The amount of angst attached to 
(some) relationships by (some) writers 
would re-sink the Titanic."

Kirsten:
V. true (on both counts) - that should have
been "uncomplicated by ancient biological 
imperatives"  I was also rather awkward in
noting that any observation about the 
homosexual relationship in slash would probably
be v. ill-applied to real-life gay lovers.
Slash reads nothing like actual novels with
gay heroes (say, BOY MEETS BOY; hence 
my caveat)

(I also agree with you about "correcting the
right things." C.S. Lewis pointed out that one
can spot any era's excesses by reading what
the gadflies of the time were NOT going on and
on about needing to fix.)

LMB also pointed out:
"Remember, a key sign of a status emergency is a 
heated or violent response disproportionate to 
the apparent cause.  It's not a concept to 
be blithely applied to every human interaction 
to come down the pike.  Just to certain bewilderingly 
whacko ones."

Thank you for that clue-by-four. I *needed* that.
I read the original too swiftly and missed a v.
important point--my apologies)

I'll accept that access to a greater dataset: I've
read buckets of romances in the process of doing
readers advisory. Slash... Not so much. (One of these
days it's going to get Marketed In the Wider World
and I'm doomed. Or maybe it'll wait until I retire...)
And yet still, as you note:

"When the children happen, the tales move out 
of the marketing category of "romance" and into 
the category of "women's fiction", generally 
domestic dramas"

And so--? 

It's not romance any more, is it? Buckets of
anst or no, the biology of maleness and femaleness
**changes things** and romance has always been about
equals. Remember why it was--originally--only possible
as adultery?

To be free of the tyranny of biology is a terribly
appealing thing for women, rather more so, I would 
imagine than for men. 

I still think I'm on to something, if not quite the
first something that tickled my back-brain.


Kirsten "Technology is a woman's best friend; let the
*girls* keep the diamonds" Edwards



________________________________________________________________________
FREE for 30 Days! - Holiday eCards from AmericanGreetings.com
http://track.juno.com/s/lc?s=197335&u=http://www.americangreetings.com/index.pd?c=uol5637