Signal Boosting: Banks across the US are continuing to engage in shady-ass business practices.
Signal Boosting: Moondancer Drake has a new novel out.
UM defends rights of research assistants.
Michele Bachmann—-> WHAT A CANDIDATE.
I wish *I* could play ping pong too!
Appropriation is never cute.
Sexism begins early.
From Casey:
As someone over the course of the past week experienced some personal drama in my slash community, when I stumbled upon this link on Womanist Musings it gave me a lot of food for thought (it also reminded me of some comments on here from a while ago where some readers said that they take slash fics on a case-by-case basis when it comes to its depiction of queer male sexuality, even referencing being ”mansplained to” by gay men due to potentially problematic portrayals, which kinda struck me as maybe a weird facet of privilege? IDK. Also, I even made fail-tastic remark in the comments section that I’m still smarting from…curse my easily damaged ego!):
Perhaps being a writer is not all it’s cracked up to be.
The military’s reduction in forces is coming at a bad time for young people seeking employment.
DoD schools failing children.
More on EPA rules for coal burning plants.
The repeal of DADT hasn’t changed the de facto homophobia of the enlistment process.
Somebody should go see Unnatural Acts because I can’t.
Republicans lie.
Does deployment make you a single parent?
Don’t let daddy lick me again!
Racism vs. comedy.
JK! Slavery WASN’T good for black children.
Environmentalism is the new terrorism.
Honey Bee Colony Disorder has spread worldwide.
Finding 35mm from the 1980s is a bit of a challenge…
Flashback to 1906 Market Street in San Francisco.
Woman facing misdemeanor charges for vegetable garden.
HAHA SM STIRLING HAZ A SAD THAT SOMEONE CALLED HIM ON HIS RACIST BOOK. I’m so glad Jha is awesome. I couldn’t even finish that crap. He’s posting as joatsimeon.
Sworn virgins are dying out
Holy shit, Summer Glau and Peter Dinklage will be sharing the screen!
Whaaaaaaaaaat. Cyborg art.
Reactions to Arranged
From Gabbie:
Hey,
The following is from Slate and basically calls for intelligent movies to cast on-screen couples at a ‘similar’ age (no more than ten years gap, no more than five if the woman is under-25 – and even then, I STILL don’t know any couples with a ten-year gap) or at least an attraction of WHY the couple of question are together.
Catwoman’s origin story is fascinating.
Are POC leads the kiss of death in the publishing world?
From Lindsey:
“I think women are different, and I think having them in the room is crucial to a family comedy, ensemble comedy, television comedy, where half the eyeballs on your show are women. As it turns out, I think Megan’s the only female writer who’s staying this year, so now, even though Bromstad’s gone, now I’m carrying this legacy, going, “Eh, guys, we really need a half-female writing staff.” I would teach it. I think we have to stop thinking of it as a quota thing and think of it as a common-sense thing.”
This just in! Dan Simmons still Islamophobic!
The dairy industry is flipping its shit.
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“Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.” -Rep. Michelle Bachmann, April, 2009
W– ww… ww-what?
Shaun(Quote) (Reply)
Shaun,
Don’t think about it. You will break your brain.
I’ve just about given up reading anything about Bachmann. She can’t seem to get through a single appearance without saying something mind-bogglingly stupid. And the media pounces on her simple mispronounciation gaffes far more often than her dangerously restrictive and misguided policies and beliefs. I don’t care if she can’t pronounce chutzpah. I do care that she seems to believe homosexuality is a choice and that abortion should be illegal.
Sarah(Quote) (Reply)
Re: Bachmann. I’m currently reading The Myth of the Rational Voter. I’ve always had deep misgivings about representative democracy – it may be way better than other forms of government and I appreciate that, but there’s no reason to stop looking for even better systems. Democracy must ultimately fail because people don’t take it seriously – they vote for what and who feels good, regardless of the impact it’ll have. Hell, they don’t even think about the impact, or care about their families enough to care that it’ll be their kids paying for it. Bachmann, Palin, Bush – these people tell voters what they want to hear, and people are so irrational that they mistake that for intelligent thought, then go engage in some more of what they think constitutes intelligent thought when they vote for whatever the fuck was feeling kind of good this morning. Rationality never enters into it.
But going into the meta, there’s something else we need to watch very closely: either these candidates have the WORST media handlers since humans were invented (a good media handler can hide Alzheimers a la Reagan, so I think they can make stupid look reasonably intelligent), or they’re saying these hair-raisingly bone-headed things on purpose. If it’s on purpose, what is the purpose? One (incomprehensibly stupid and inaccurate) Hollywood theory is that common folk are really stupid, so movie characters must be even stupider to make the audience feel smart (because that’s what kids are after when they go to the movies – feelin’ smart). Could it be our candidates have worked out a similar theory, and it actually DOES work in politics?
Because Americans have a strange aversion to the idea their leaders might actually know how to do stuff. It reminds them of being a child and dealing with parents who know shit and wouldn’t let them stick forks in the outlet, and goddammit, now they’re all grown up, they’re gonna stick that fucking fork in that fucking outlet and their leaders better fucking back them up!
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
I’ll admit that I’m a relative outsider, since I’ve never actually been to the USA, but my theory is that most of the US problems regarding politics have their roots in the fact that the US are a deeply religious country, maybe even a theocracy.
Example: US politicians talk about abortion and whether it’s right or wrong. High profile politicians of my country (Austria) would never talk about something like that. Sure, there are those who are pro and those who are contra. No, our health insurance doesn’t cover the costs, and yes, I wish there were more abortion clinics. But politicians just don’t talk about it because abortion is in it’s heart a religious topic and in this country you can’t gain votes for that. (Unless you’re talking against Islam, then 30% of the population will vote for you. But even this topic is less about religion and more about ethnicity.)
But US politicians will say that they’re pro choice or against abortion because of !GOD! and people will vote for them. It doesn’t matter what else the politican stands for are, as long as they convince the public that they are representing the voters’s religious views.
M.C.(Quote) (Reply)
M.C.,
I agree, and it’s because the “New World” became a refuge early on for Christians who, in complete opposition to some things Jesus said, re-defined “spreading the gospel” as “forcing our ways onto other people through any means necessary.” Because so many people from round the world who shared this belief ALL came here, it remains strong. And at the core of it is the sense that it’s not wrong to force something on people as long as you’re doing it for (your version of) God and not just to be selfish. But of course, you ARE just being selfish. It’s really just that you’re so insecure in your beliefs/decision making process that you want them to be mandated so you can take no responsibility for them. Because millions of religious folk manage to think it’s none of their business how others live, so long as they’re allowed to live as they see fit.
This core belief in US culture allows us to believe:
–The law SHOULD be used to force religious practices and tenets on people who have different beliefs.
–If (I claim) Christianity says I should chop your arm off, and you refuse to let me chop your arm off, you are being intolerant toward me (this is THE classic symptom of Narcissistic Personality Disorder – evangelical Christians are, as a whole, functioning like narcissists, and probably include an unusually high percentage of actual narcissists).
–Every time some group of non-Christians campaigns for a right under the law, what they’re really doing is trying to take over the entire country and get rid of Christianity completely. Hey, only one belief set can win this fight!
So, yeah, at least to the people who feel one religion/philosophy must run the government and multiple belief systems in the same nation are incompatible, we are talking theocracy.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Re: Casey’s link about slash, which has now been taken down. (more info on that drama here: http://sf-drama.livejournal.com/3260590.html)
While neo_prodigy makes a lot of good points(bringing up straight privilege definitely needed to be said), those very points are at times mitigated by not acknowledging the amount of queer women and men that write slash. There was also quite a bit of troubling statements on his part when it came to (certain) women that I felt when too far in the extreme.
And I knew all of this before the recent sf_drama posts.
To be fair, here is a post where he talks about where he was coming from in his language: http://neo-prodigy.livejournal.com/971231.html
As for the subject itself, straight women’s problematic portrayals of two men in a romantic relationship, oh heavens yes there are a lot of things to be said there! For one thing, the implementation of the Japanese term, uke which simply means ‘bottom’ has grown into(or perhaps always was) a rather heteronormative, hell, even sexist way at looking at such a relationship. I’d love to find a more balanced discussion about that!
Ebb(Quote) (Reply)
M.C.,
I think there’s a huge number of people who will vote for their one or two near and dear issues – and abortion’s a biggie – regardless of whether or not the person they’re voting for will do them any practical good. My parents are dirt poor, always have been, and get nothing from the Republican party except a professed anti-choice stance on abortion and a pro stance on gun rights.
They don’t care about anything else. It makes me physically ill, if I’m going to be honest.
Bachmann, ugh. It’s just so horrifying to listen to her. And pointing out her gaffes only seems to make her sympathetic to those already in her corner. You know, “Stop picking on the little woman!” kind of thing.
Also horrifying is reading Yahoo! comments on boring afternoons, where every article, no matter what it’s about, is filled with “Obama is a liar!” and “Obama doesn’t care about finding us jobs!” because people can’t take time to actually look at how many jobs initiatives have been shot down by Republicans bent on opposing ANYTHING a Democrat puts forth. I don’t claim Democrats are a whole lot better in the grand scheme, but goodness gracious. Are people living under rocks? If someone on Faux News says Obama doesn’t care about job creation because he wants to tax the pants off the big corporate “job makers” (pause to laugh here), then it must be so and he needs to be booted out for … Michelle Bachmann, who will save the babies and buy you a gun.
That’s all we really need, anyway. Right?
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
Jennifer Kesler,
I would add that there is also a strong element of defining one’s own group as the “Real, True Christians” and Othering Christians who aren’t part of that group as being non-Christian. The degree to which Othered Christian groups are able to remove this label seems based on their willingness to hop on board with the rest of the beliefs you describe. Catholics and Mormons are the most visible example of this, going from being loudly denounced to becoming part of the hegemon.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
We’re learning this lesson the hard way in Pennsylvania. Our last governor was a Democrat, and wasn’t super popular, and the recent gubernatorial election came at a time when it seemed like a lot of Americans in general (or, at least, the louder ones) seemed to be fed up with Democratic politicians in general. So, enough Pennsylvanians jumped on the anti-Democrat bandwagon (that’s my theory, anyway), and voted in a governor who’s budget for 2011 includes cutting funding to public schools and universities by almost $1 billion, cutting family and human services, and making us one of the only states NOT to tax drilling, because – SURPRISE! – drilling companies have been paying for his political career for years now.
So, yeah, from a person living in a state that’s going down the toilet because people didn’t think before they voted, I really, REALLY hope that people actually research who they’re thinking about voting for. Am I optimistic? Not at all. But I can dream…
Dani(Quote) (Reply)
I can’t read the original link about slash fic, so I’m basing this off Ebb‘s links.
When it comes to slash, there are plenty of things worth complaining about. To take Ebb’s point further, I’ve seen a lot of slash fic that was so uberly heteronormative it hurt. “Semes” who are the definition of toxic masculinity and “ukes” who act like society’s worst stereotypes of PMS. Especially when you get into mpreg and things like that, the heteronormativity crops up even more frequently. That’s worth calling out.
But the misogyny and racism Neo Prodigy is spewing (again, going off Ebb’s links here…but they have screencaps, so I’m pretty confident) obliterates any value in his words, IMO. Someone else will have to step up and say it because I can’t trust anything he says. Seriously, he addresses his complaint to White women, and then when a woman mentions she’s a WOC suddenly she’s playing the race card?
Slash fic does have value, and not necessarily to the people it’s supposedly portraying. To me, and I think to a lot of other people, especially women…well, gender is something we have to think about all the damn time. Am I conforming to my expected role? Is that a sexist role or a fair one? Am I going too far, am I letting sexism control me by doing exactly the opposite? It really bothers me when my date does X, but is it really that big a deal? If I complain will he think I’m a “ball-buster”? Maybe I’m just overreacting. Or maybe I’m letting my fear of overreacting control me.
Slash (good slash, not the heteronormative shit) takes gender out of the equation. In a straight relationship, when the female character cooks dinner that’s a statement (traditional gender roles!) and when the male character cooks dinner that’s a statement (anti-traditional gender roles!) and when they take turns cooking dinner that’s a third statement altogether (modern gender roles!). In slash, when Sean cooks dinner, it’s just…Sean cooking dinner. As the reader, I don’t have to fret about Sean’s adherence to tradition or rejection of tradition or if Dimitri’s reaction makes him sensitive or castrated. I can just read about a person who likes to cook. And that absence is so refreshing. I hardly recognized the problem existed until I started reading good slash but now I notice that the difference is staggering.
So I don’t think straight out banning women from writing slash (as I’ve seen some gay men declare) is the answer. For one, that falls into the trap of only being allowed to write your own narrow demographic. For another, that ignores the queers of all genders writing slash. Should straight people be more sensitive to queer concerns, absolutely. Should half (and I’m being generous with “half”) of slash writers being required to read some Queer 101 on heterosexism and some Feminism 101 on heteronormativity, yeah, I think that might make a dent in a few thick skulls. Ban it outright…no.
This is a really sticky question for me. Is it appropriation? Much of it is. But I don’t think all of it is. I don’t think it’s fair to say that the mere act of a straight woman writing about queer men for her own satisfaction is inappropriate. I think it can be done properly. And I don’t think the mere fact of queer men not finding value in a particular slash fic makes it an appropriative fic either.
Sylvia Sybil(Quote) (Reply)
Yeah, the big thing that skeeved me out about Neo_Prodigy’s original post was that REAL (gay) MEN ARE ALL SEMES! AND THEY ALLLLLLL LOVE DOMINATING AND DEGRADING ONE ANOTHER WITH HATEFUL, ANONYMOUS ANGER-SECKS…ick.
Hearing that kinda stuff just makes me wanna be some kinda lesbian separatist (despite not being lesbian…and despite the fact that I’m sure there are lesbians who love dominating/degrading anonymous anger-sex). :S
It had been said before in the SF_Drama threads that replacing one form of sexism/homophobia (“all gay men are delicate, wilting flowers who embody all the worst aspects of stereotypical femininity”) with another (all gay men are macho no-emotions-having leather-loving sex beasts) is not helping things.
Plus, doesn’t anybody ever cry after sex? Not necessarily due to ZOMG THE BEAUTY OF SEX~~! but rather tears of joy/tearing up as a result of an endorphin rush/releasing hormones? The whole “if you cry, I will mock you ‘cuz that is a serious boner killer” sentiment N_P was saying I thought was kinda mean…
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
Well don’t forget, the ‘womenz’ can’t take rough and tumble sex nor can we be the dominate ones! For we are delicate flowers that must only endure gentle and affectionate lovings by a gentleman~
BAH!
It’s maybe just how he feels, but that feeling isn’t even true all of the time. I wouldn’t have had that much of a knee-jerk reaction with that statement(and more) if it WASN’T IN A JOURNAL ENTRY MEANT FOR GIVING ADVICE. Well, the entry is down now. So much for standing by your opinion like a ‘man.’ Whatever that means. (Side note: Why not just say “like a grown up” or something a lot less “I AM HE-MAN”? idgi) And this isn’t even the first time his brand of intersectionality has gone awry: http://theangryblackwoman.com/2009/08/02/intersectionality/
(Granted, this happened in 2009. However, it seems to me that he hadn’t learned a thing since then.)
When it comes to (bad)slash, one issue is the assumption that there is a “women’s” role and a “man’s” role, using the narrow, traditional ideals of what a woman and a man should and shouldn’t do. Whoever is in the “women’s” role(heck let’s expand that to romance in general and not just slash) they must be weeping, shorter, and/or all around more childish. Not only does this ignore women-identifying folk who don’t fit that description, it also assumes that those who do can never take charge at all! It takes away the personalities of the character and forces them into a cliche-hole. I’d argue that the ideal ‘Woman’ shouldn’t be a thing in romance at all; the Character should be a thing. Period.
Appropriation is another thing to worry about, however, as I am a bisexual woman I can only glean off of what my fellow queer men say. I’ll make my point about quick. There is a difference between supporting and fetishization. There is a difference between saying “I think these two characters belong together because they have chemistry” and saying “I thing these two belong together because THEY ARE TOTES GAY~” The differing is slight, but it’s there.
Ebb(Quote) (Reply)
There’s also the far more shallow “I think these two belong together ‘CUZ THEY LOOK TOTES HAWTT TOGETHER ZOMG!” (which is something I’ve done
)
Ah yes, I read that ABW entry when I was reading all those SF_Drama threads…
It seems to me, that in the end, Neo_Prodigy kinda fell into the same trap that the guy who wrote Foreskin Man did. There are perfectly legitimate criticisms of slash but FOR FUCK’S SAKE, DON’T JUST DOLE OUT LAZY GENDER ESSENTIALIST/REDUCTIONIST/SEXIST RHETORIC TO “PROVE YOUR POINT”.
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
Wow, that sounds almost like internalized homophobia. Definitely erasure and horizontal oppression of queer men who don’t fit his model. =T
I think the fact that the ABW link is from 2009 makes it worse. Because two years later he’s still using misogynistic language? Not cool. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that buddy’s got some “issues” with women he needs to work out before he can be an effective voice for queers or POC.
That’s a much more concise way of saying what I was trying to in my rambling post above.
Sylvia Sybil(Quote) (Reply)
There’s also his use of misogynist/violent rhetoric, both trite and creepily elaborate in his “WHY I DO NOT WANT TO EVER HAVE KIDS” post…what really sucked about that post to me was for the most part I KNEW HIS FEEL, BRO! He highlighted why he would never want kids with reasons like “I don’t want to HAVE a burden or BE a burden, I don’t want to warp my kid’s mind, I don’t have the energy or mental faculties to raise a child from birth to adulthood, etc.” but when you make some dumb anecdote about how your little sisters were “evil, manipulative and cunning, I had to brandish a tire iron to corral them” and how you’d have sex with your uber-sexy hypothetical waifu three times a day and force her to down a birth control pill beforehand as you watched her intently and checked her mouth like an animal to make sure she swallowed it….
Something I also think are kind of inconsistent/hypocritical of him is trying to convince Frank Miller that gay guys ARE NOT scary and gross by dumping a bunch of fluffy romantic pictures of gay men together whilst simultaneously telling slashers basically that “gay guys are gross and scary so stop it with your fluffy romance!”
(oh yeah, he also tells slash writers (and writers in general) to DO YOUR RESEARCH!! When his book is fucking hackneyed as shit with NO research done whatsoever (mostly concerning musical theory and two-dimensional characters…and the main character is a Gary Stu something fierce. It kinda reads like Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace only not purposely funny))
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
If those animal hats had been branded as, I dunno, PuffTuffs and marketed as good silly fun that happened to be warm and durable to boot, I might have bought one.
Jenny Islander(Quote) (Reply)
The link about Stirling’s old novel about an alternate India left me wondering: If you are marketing a book to an audience that is overwhelmingly Anglophone and if not monolingual, rarely fluent in the languages spoken by the characters in the book, and if the characters in the book are speaking half a dozen different languages, some in multiple dialects or at multiple levels of politeness, and even the English speakers are really using a constructed dialect that sounds like Hindi to (for example) an Australian–how could this have been portrayed better than the way it was portrayed? One possible fix might be to write the English dialogue in the dialect of the fictional Angrezi Raj and leave the reader to figure it out a la Riddley Walker. Considering the mess Stirling made attempting to develop Tolkien’s Elvish as a cradle tongue for a group of modern-day teens “refounding” the Dunedain Rangers (whole other book series), I’m rather glad that he didn’t try. But with the right assistance, could it have worked? But then, what about the rest of the dialogue?
Jenny Islander(Quote) (Reply)
Jenny Islander,
Yes, language is tricky. It can be difficult to write believable and unique ways of rendering different langauges. That said, if you don’t want to put the work in, then don’t write a story with characters of four or five different languages. I mean, we’re not talking the difference between English and German here. These are languages from entirely different families.
In other words, all the conquering peoples spoke standard English and all the conquered people got the funny dialects.
How would I solve the problem? I’d have nobody speak standard English. I’d research the hell out of Hindi and put some of their linguistic quirks (no definite articles, extra pronouns, something like that) and translated idioms (“the vodka is good but the meat is rotten” sort of thing) into the Anglo characters’ mouths. According to the author, their language is one third Indian with changed syntax. Show that. Let your Anglo characters sound awkward and stilted to modern readers too.
Or, hell, if you’re really lazy, have everybody speak standard English and change the format of their dialogue. The Indians speak like this. The Russians speak like this.
The Japanese speak like this.Terry Pratchett had a version of this that I thought was clever, different languages were represented by different fonts, and characters that spoke the English-parallel with an accent had their dialogue in the basic font with their H’s in their Arabic-parallel font.You’re still setting your viewpoint characters up as the default language speakers, but at least the reader isn’t parsing the other characters’ words differently.
Sylvia Sybil(Quote) (Reply)
Dai-Nippon wasn’t conquered by anybody, although if there had been a sequel, Russia would probably have tried. But I take your meaning.
Part of the theme of the book was “What if the old potboilers were rewritten with better world-building?” So the story is supposed to galumph along. Putting in several different fonts would probably throw a wrench in that. Maybe a few footnotes–? Or just putting all speech that is not in the primary language of the text in italics, regardless of language? Some passages might be rewritten to describe how the characters are talking without putting in the mannerisms. For example, the Chinese bureaucrat–
Or Narayan Singh at home with his family, after an italicized conversation with his parents–
Perhaps a revised Peshawar Lancers could borrow a trick from visual media by having visible writing be obviously not what the characters are speaking. Like Avatar: The Last Airbender (the cartoon!), in which they speak standard American media English, but matter-of-factly read and write Chinese. Maybe there could be several bits of business involving newspapers and signs in Angrezi dialect.
I do have some issues with criticisms of the characterization in the linked post, but I don’t know how much I don’t know. From this outsider’s perspective, for example, the comment about the Punjab being too hot and dry is part and parcel of that character’s practical outlook; he is intent on furthering his own career and has no time for nostalgia about an ancestral homeland that he didn’t even see until he was an adolescent or possibly an adult. This culminates in his wry observation that he has at last gotten the chance to impress the King-Emperor himself–”Under the very eye, eh, Sahib?”–but only at a point where they are all probably going to die, the King-Emperor included. But what am I missing?
Jenny Islander(Quote) (Reply)
Jenny Islander,
You seem really invested in defending this particular text — can I ask why?
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
I suppose that after years of enjoying it I am distressed to realize that I’ve just been reading Tarzan all over again. In a less emotional vein, the challenge of expressing different languages in print without disrupting the flow of the story is an interesting puzzle.
I still think that it’s enjoyable. But could it be extricated from the bad bits?
Jenny Islander(Quote) (Reply)
? That’s exactly what I said. The people from Dai-Nippon spoke in standard English because they were colonizers, not colonized.
My inner writer says: I’m not sure why different fonts would slow the story down more than different dialects of English would. In fact, I’d expect it to speed it up because you wouldn’t have to pause to translate “thee” and “thou”. But even if it did…well, basically there are two options. Either language is integral to the plotline and if the reader doesn’t know which character is speaking which language they won’t understand what’s going on. Or language is a subtle tool of your worldbuilding that brings it to life but isn’t essential. (Or a third option, the author just thought it looked cool. In which case, take the opportunity to learn.) If it’s the second, then marking each instance isn’t necessary. Mention it once or twice and move on. If it’s the first, then you do need to code languages in an obvious way. It’s not slowing the story down because the story can’t move forward without that information.
My inner sociologist says: Even if the racism is subconscious, it doesn’t matter. It’s still a problem to render Anglo dialects/languages as standard English and non-Anglo dialects/languages as Other. That was the essay writer’s point, that non-Anglos are being Otherized through their dialogue. This would be a problem for anybody and it’s one of the pitfalls “know what you write” is supposed to help you avoid. But for a writer to choose a deeply racist time period, the period when the Western world formally entrenched “We are better than Them” thinking…yeah, the writer needs to actually put some work into that. I mean, when I hear “potboiler with better worldbuilding” I expect that “better” to address issues of race. If it doesn’t, if it’s prettier on the surface but still depends on the same tropes of Mighty Whitey and the Wild Savages underneath, then it’s not better. I would even say it’s worse; at least Rudyard Kipling had the half-assed excuse of being a product of his time. What’s Stirling’s excuse?
Then again, the bit you quote above?
English has gender-divided pronouns in the third person (she/he/it). So either the author doesn’t think women are part of everyone or he doesn’t understand how language works.
Sylvia Sybil(Quote) (Reply)
Actually the blockquotes were my halting attempts to remove the exoticized English from Stirling’s prose while leaving in the way the language that was used informed the storytelling. In the passage about Narayan Singh’s homecoming, I used the wrong words to express “the Queen-Empress, my sister, and the girl who sweeps the kitchen all get called ‘you,’ but home is a place where we don’t talk like that. And now my semi-legendary dad is saying ‘thou’ to me and I sort of feel like a kid again.”
Usually the languages are used to express the complexity and cosmopolitan nature of the Angrezi Raj, so I expect it would be mostly option two.
Jenny Islander(Quote) (Reply)
I checked it out today and reread it in light of the linked post. Aw crap. Another one for the Tarzan pile.
Jenny Islander(Quote) (Reply)
I’m torn on the issue of slash-fics, as basically most people who write slash tend to, as I understand it, use it as a means of sexual fantasy and those are rarely (I hate to use the term but can’t think of another way to put it) politically correct. I’ve written many a story in which I indulged my own particular fantasies and they’d likely be labeled problematic at the very least. That doesn’t mean I think of them as the way things are in real life, or that they would be *good* things in real life. Good fantasy, bad reality is very much a phrase that applies to certain things, particularly in the realm of more fetishy related fictions. When you write things along those lines, you’re writing for yourself, and maybe some others who share your fantasy, not as a statement about . . . well, anything, really, other than ‘I find this sexy’.
Fantasies don’t always make sense, don’t always follow enlightened views, don’t always reflect the reality of what a person thinks or feels. I’m not saying they should be exempt from examination when put out for others perusal, but I think it’s a stretch to make absolute assumptions on the writers. Because I have a liking for blood in fantasy doesn’t mean my significant other is in danger of me cutting them open (non-consensually), and someone writing Mpreg doesn’t necessarily mean they have attitudes of heteronormity or homophobia. It’s likely it’s just something that pushes their buttons.
Mintywolf(Quote) (Reply)
Mintywolf,
I get where you’re coming from. And I think your point is related to my earlier point about how slash fic is often for the benefit of the one writing it, not the people it supposedly portrays. But at the same time…well, I’m going to quote Ebb again.
Fetishization can do real harm to minorities, even if the fetish piece is never read by them. That’s why there are laws against child porn, including porn that is hand drawn or computer generated. Rape fantasies can validate rape culture. Just today I was reading an article (didn’t save the link, unfortunately) about how in the early days of the LGBT movement, men of color were fetishized as exotic Others and how that is still damaging the movement to this day.
Now if my porn happens to have POC in it, that doesn’t mean I’m automatically fetishizing them. It might just be that I like looking at beautiful people and I find these people beautiful. Likewise with slash, I don’t think all slash is fetish. But it’s important to be aware of the difference.
Sylvia Sybil(Quote) (Reply)
Sylvia–
As I said, this is why I’m torn. On the one hand yes, fetishization can be harmful, on the other, for example with rape fantasies, it feels pretty shaming for people to say ‘your fantasy isn’t acceptable, change it!’ when you already had to work through guilt feelings about having the fantasy in the first place. Because, honestly, you can’t help or really change fantasies, even if their content isn’t acceptable to everyone.
So it’s a problem from either side. I don’t have any ideas of how to change that :/
Mintywolf(Quote) (Reply)
@ Sylvia and Mintywolf
Perhaps one part of this issue is knowing where the boundaries are. Slash is just another way at looking at the romantic and/or sexual relationship between two or more people-of-the-same-sex. I guesstimate that the majority of non-canon slash-fic out there isn’t about LGBT issues since most of the time the two mains are straight(straight-interpretively anyway). Even canon-wise(at least I’ve noticed in yaoi), there are quite a few “I’m not gay or at least I’m only gay for you!” romances out there. These are the folk that just don’t identify as gay or even bisexual. THAT’S the tricky part. Is this just a part of the character’s POV about their own identity or is it the opinion of the writer coming through the character’s mouth? Why would it be such a bad thing for this character to find out that they are gay/bisexual/romantic ace? Why should they take the term(s) if they feel nothing towards it(them)? The answer, if there is one, could be as fluid as many consider sexual orientation to be.
And then there’s porn/erotica. (Oh geez, this is another one where the girls call out the guys and vice versa: “How come it’s okay for you to like seeing two girls/guys doing it and me not too? That’s not cool either, is it?” But that’s another rant.) Well, again this is where boundaries should come in. I’ll be honest, I don’t see anything wrong with the idea of watching porn and reading erotica. (The porn industry is another story…) Either way, people who read/watch it want to see two(or more) people getting it on. Sometimes there’s a story there, but it’s usually about the sex. Here’s where fetishization comes in: is this person reading this NC17 slash fic for the couple(or more) who happen to be gay/bi or are they reading it for the Gay Couple(or more)?
Is that person reading a non-con fic because they inwardly think that character(ugh) ‘deserved it’ or are they reading it coming from a rough sex or S&M angle and/or they actually want to see this character recover from such an ordeal?
Here, the answer is a bit more clear…a little bit more than the romantic side anyway.
Ebb(Quote) (Reply)
I do know some. My FIL is 10 years minus 1 month older than my MIL. My best friend’s partner is 11 and a half her senior. Another friend couple also has a +10 year gap between them. A late friend was 10 years *younger* than his wife.
But Real Life™ examples aside, you totally have a point.
Nuria(Quote) (Reply)
I’m married to a guy 9 years older than me and I hate, hate, hate the prevalence of similar age gaps in Hollywood. It’s hilarious to my fellow and me when I bring up what I was doing when he first kissed a girl or went off to college, and I think a lot of my hatred of the Hollywood age gap would be mitigated if that was shown more often in movies. The idea that 20 year old actresses are playing 30 year old women makes sense to me – it’s not usually even touched on that these couples aren’t the same age, so that must be what they want us to assume?
In the case of my marriage, the age difference is very small because of our cultural timestones. We both were graduating about the same time (he has 3 degrees), got into similar music/literature at about the same respective ages (we like old stuff), and now that we’ve been together 9 year I tend to forget about it entirely.
re: above comments about USA and Christianity, the early settlers who set out for America were often the oppressed minority religion where they came from, so naturally they started letting the power of self-governance go to their heads. My dad always called the the Frat theory of power: you get heckled and slapped around, so when you take power, you do the same thing to others, completely forgetting how much you hated it when you were the one without power. My current theory on American religiosity in politics is that it’s the one short-hand for “I’m a good person, really!” that people will keep buying no matter how many Christians do horrible, unethical things. You can always ask for forgiveness! Or perhaps people tend to think of Christians as individuals more so than any non-Christian identification, so just because all these other Christian politicians were terrible people, that’s no reason to stereotype! It does baffle me, because church attendance and religious identification keep going down in the general public, but incidence in politics remains the same, if not greater. It’s even spreading to Canada!
megs(Quote) (Reply)
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