Book specifically says (whitefonted for Objects in Space stuff) that his order didn't allow for sex, which means for me that other denominations/orders might (similar to the current different denominations of Christianity's rulings on their clergy's sex lives) .

For that matter, is there a logical reason why a religious person could not have sex no-strings? Knowing as little as we do of Book's religion (except that it's vaguely Christian)?

From Objects in Space:

BOOK
 Well, no. 


 JAYNE
 Not ever never? 


 BOOK
 Some orders allow Shepherds to marry, 
 but I follow a narrower path. 


 JAYNE
 But, I mean, you still got the urge. 
 They don't... cut it off, or nothin'? 


 BOOK
 Mm, no, I'm more or less intact. 
 I just... 


 BOOK sits down at the kitchen table. RIVER quietly enters the kitchen
area. 


 BOOK (cont'd)
 ...direct my energy elsewhere. 


 JAYNE
 You mean like masturbating? 


 BOOK
 I hope you're not thinking of taking 
 orders yourself. 

Huh -- I'd forgotten that part. Thanks for the correction.

Well, they could have had Inara/Nandi instead of Mal/Nandi. Two old friends getting together to talk about how things have changed--and Nandi trying to find out why Inara left, and Inara dancing around the subject--might have told us a lot more about Companions, and Inara's view of the role and herself, without hitting the cliche of Man Goes to Save Whorehouse, Gets Laid by Grateful Whore.

Nandi: (quiet, in the afterglow) I knew he was stuck on you, Inara. I didn't know it went both ways. (pause) I'm sorry.

Inara: (rolling over; view of her back) [whatsherpregnantname] needs help. (starts dressing)

--only, you know, with decent dialogue.

Actually, that would have been splendid.

But I honestly think that more TV shows would have gone for Mal stoically resisting temptation and not getting laid, because he's harbouring feelings for Inara. I'd have been far more irritated and incredulous if he'd not had The Sex.

I'm still stuck on the core/rim dichotomy in attitudes toward the companions. Wasn't whatever planet featured in Train Job on the rim? (All I recall is that it was dirt-poor and people were dying for the lack of medicine--sounds rim-y.) And didn't Inara kind of waltzed in and saved Mal and Zoe because she, as a companion, commanded respect?

I think the *idea* of having a class of well-educated prostitutes be considered respectable was an interesting one. I just wish the writers were consistent about it. Why not have them be respectable everywhere? I mean, if this is for the sake of keeping up Mal/Inara UST, they could have other, more interesting reason to keep them apart. Inara was pro-Alliance in the war, and Mal doesn't strike me as someone who would lightly regard ideological differences. They could have played with the class distinction angle, with Inara in a much loftier position than Mal in the social echelon. Anything but the whole "because you are a whore" thing, which just 1) makes nonsense of the entire premise about companionship, and 2) renders itself susceptible to annoying stereotyping.

Anyone want to deconstruct the gender issues surrounding the fact that when Mal gets some from Nandi and not Inara, his insinuated-by-plot soulmate, Nandi dies?

Don't forget to also deconstruct the fact that in essence Inara causes her death. That's got to mean something too.

Don't forget to also deconstruct the fact that in essence Inara causes her death. That's got to mean something too.

CATFIGHT!

*ahem*

I mean: Casual Sex Is Bad and It's All the Woman's Fault. 'Cause men, y'know, just incapable of participating in decisionmaking with regards to The Sex, but Women should Know Better and Get Punished.

I'm thinking of bringing back the random capitalization of Important Concepts all on my own.

Nutty said most of what I thought better than I could already. I'd love to see an ME show that addressed more subtle forms of cultural gender bias that occur in otherwise egalitarian spaces, like My Breasts Don't Have Radar That Locates Office Supplies, Fucko. Maybe someone will ask Fred from Angel to fax something and she can behead them with an ingenious device. :)

In general, I love the way the show subverts stereotype with the Wash/Zoe & Zoe/Mal dynamics & GettingSome!Kaylee, though, so I'm willing to cut a little slack. Hooray for Hot Married Sex & non-UST M/F friends!

Sometimes someone dies because that character dies, not because they are a Symbol of Gender Issues.

Sometimes people ask where the staplers are kept because they don't know and You Look Like Someone Competent.

On the other hand... Gender Bias baflles me anyway.

I tend to make coffee in any office I'm working in if the pots are in need of it and I'm bored on break. I have been surprised by how surprised the women are near the coffee brewing machine.

It never occured to me until college that a perfectly capable man IRL would ask the nearest woman to make coffee instead of doing it himself. I thought it was an old TV stereotype.

At my last job, it was pathetic that no one bothered to show me where the supplies were and I had to ask several people over the course of two weeks. Usually "in the supply room, around the other side" was the most common answer, male or female.