I've got no issue with B&D in instances. As an assertion that that's the way the world works, and there are ingrained gender roles in it? Fuck that noise. Not interested.
Bester: Mal. Whaddya need two mechanics for? Mal: I really don't.
'Out Of Gas'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
§ ita § - Mar 22, 2011 6:57:16 pm PDT #14122 of 28287
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
DavidS - Mar 22, 2011 6:58:54 pm PDT #14123 of 28287
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
Wow, that was illuminating about my own biases because I realized while reading his words that I associate a highly latinate vocabulary as highly bullshit. (It is, of course, the core language of law and medicine, but also politics.)
It just screams to me as ungrounded NerdNerdNerd. (Not in the good way.)
DavidS - Mar 22, 2011 7:00:22 pm PDT #14124 of 28287
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
As an assertion that that's the way the world works, and there are ingrained gender roles in it? Fuck that noise. Not interested.
I come from an opposite school where Wrong Thinking is intriguing. The consensus and the middle space is well mapped, but outliers reveal something.
§ ita § - Mar 22, 2011 7:02:01 pm PDT #14125 of 28287
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
I read three or four of his books. I've had bullshit revealed. I don't need to read the 25 others to learn anything about him, the world, or myself.
DavidS - Mar 22, 2011 7:12:50 pm PDT #14126 of 28287
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
I don't need to read the 25 others to learn anything about him, the world, or myself.
Well, there are definitely diminishing returns in his books. The thing that's interesting to me is not the rightness or wrongness of his ideas (spoiler alert: he's wrong), but that it has so much play. There was an article a long time back in Salon about all the bondage communities built around his stuff. I was boggled to see it had endured and even thrived. That's telling. Not that he's right, but that he's hitting a nerve.
I'll also note that while he's a pretty crappy writer in general, there are some action scenes that really stick out in my mind as being particularly thrilling. The Tarn (giant falcon) race in Assassins of Gor was a total fist-pumping moment for me.
§ ita § - Mar 22, 2011 7:14:50 pm PDT #14127 of 28287
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
The action isn't what stuck with me.
The comments on the article have a pretty funny reprint of a "houseplants of Gor" parody that sums up so much.
DavidS - Mar 22, 2011 7:16:03 pm PDT #14128 of 28287
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
The action isn't what stuck with me.
What, you couldn't past being told you were innately submissive?
Atropa - Mar 22, 2011 7:18:08 pm PDT #14129 of 28287
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.
I just tried to read that interview, and my eyes tried to simultaneously drift from boredom AND roll out of my head. No thanks.
(Also, never got into the Gor books, and thought they were massively silly.)
§ ita § - Mar 22, 2011 7:19:40 pm PDT #14130 of 28287
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
What, you couldn't past being told you were innately submissive?
I would have read just about anything for sex at that age. I found my first limit.
Consuela - Mar 22, 2011 7:58:48 pm PDT #14131 of 28287
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix
I read a few of those books when I was in high school (they were in the SF shelf in the school library! scandalous!), and I got bored after the sex & bondage & lectures about the inherent submissiveness of women began to leave no room for the adventure plots with giant hawks and weird insect gods. I thought the world-building was creative (if crack-addled), and I liked the adventures, but dude, they got boring.