Ancient LJ catchup, #2

[annathepiper]

This one is for watermelonpunch, from whom I have several pending comments. This one is from this thread, in which I'd been ranting against the legislation that a man in Alabama wanted to get passed about banning books with gay characters in them from public libraries down there.

Unfortunately a lot of romance novels, historically, have had that sort of 'helpless young female forced into sex against her initial consent with big brawny male but later discovers that she likes it' thing going on.

I think what put me off of it was that it went a little farther beyond just a 'helpless young female gets shown a thing or 2 about sex by the grown man of the world', the girl was a tomboy, and very independent... And he straightened her out with that too. Pfft.

"He had been a considerate and gentle bedmate ever since, but, unless Ramoth and Mnementh were involved, he might as well call it rape."

I have no idea of the book or story you're talking about. But yeah, why say it that way? The most gentle intercourse is still rape if it's done by force - say at gun point. And the most violent intercourse is not rape if it's consensual.

I'm put off by authors who somehow think it's "exciting" or "sexy" somehow to bandy about that word. Sort of makes the author seem somehow uneducated about the issue... Or worse, it could even make them sound flippant about the topic of rape.
Though I think the reality is probably that the author is unskilled. Was this an established author with experience who wrote that? My guess is it's probably rather common among writers inexperienced in writing erotic descriptions.

I've also noted that there seems to be a youth slang jargon becoming popular, to use the term "raped" instead of the more traditional "screwed".
I've also noticed that "rape" also seems to be used now as a variation of geek speak, replacing (or appending) "owned" (or "pwnd"). I've heard homophobic young men to brag about "raping" another guy... in a video game. It always struck me - do they realize how that sounds?

But then I've never even understood the term "screwed" or "fucked", meant as "taken advantage of" or "beaten" or how that got started. But this kind of pinpointed it for me - roots of misogyny in some way:
http://www.petebevin.com/archives/2005/01/09/homophobia.html
You know, somehow a lot of people think, even if only subconsciously, that it's a bad thing to be on the "female end" of sex?

And this isn't just about sexist heterosexual men with sexist attitudes. It's across the board.
I've seen as much sexism from gay men as I have from straight men. And so it wasn't at all surprising really once I learned about a rather widely social construct among many gay men (some claim all, but I doubt that), to categorize themselves and others into "tops" or "bottoms". And tops pair with bottoms, and not with each other.
And there are gay men who are reluctant to admit to being "a bottom", and the ones who say they're both - other gay men will chuckle and say "He just doesn't want to admit he's a bottom."
Now, mind you, I don't understand why they all wouldn't be both - being both would make a hell of a lot more sense to me. But I even moreso don't understand why the guys would consider it to be at all embarrassing to being a "bottom" anyway.
And let's be clear here, this isn't about sexuality - in that it's not about homosexuality... Because as far as I've ever known, there's no categorization among lesbians this way at all.

Indeed. Murder is illegal, and yet, I don't see anyone campaigning for removing all books that contain murders from public shelves.

Yes. And even moreso - any books about real murders!

That's the analogy I've used when talking about that JFK assassination video simulation. It would appeal more to crime buffs than teen video gamers. And yet there's all this outrage over that. Well then, they'd have to get rid of the History Channel... Or is it the Discovery Channel?
I haven't had cable in years myself, but I know there's one cable station that some of my friends jokingly call it "the murder network". Kind of like some of my friends call that Lifetime Network "The Victims Network"

That serial killer has a LiveJournal... and "celebrity status". I think that's definitely more disturbing than a crime buff or a conspiracy buff tinkering with a computer simulation of the JFK assassination.

Indeed, I get annoyed when you have an independent tomboy type suddenly turn all femmy and frilly just because she's in love. Not that I have anything necessarily against being femmy or frilly, but if you're actually a tomboy, you should not have to change yourself in order to win true love. Grf.

The book I was quoting up above was the very first Dragonriders of Pern book by Anne McCaffrey--Dragonflight. The context is that F'lar, rider of bronze Mnementh, has brought Lessa into Benden Weyr and she's Impressed gold Ramoth. Once Ramoth is old enough to mate, bronze Mnementh flies her, which means their riders mate too. The implication here being not only that F'lar wants Lessa in his bed even when their dragons aren't involved, he actually takes her to bed at those other times--and that she is NOT a willing bedmate. That's the part that always bugged me about that quote, that F'lar has forced his attentions on Lessa outside the mating of their dragons--and continued to do so.

What's really weird about that one quote, too, is that F'lar doesn't otherwise seem to be an asshole, and certainly he and Lessa eventually develop a relationship that for me to this day is still the strongest pairing in any Anne McCaffrey book I've ever read. But that one little quote niggles.

I hadn't been aware of the slang usage of "raped" coming into play. Ugh. How... unpleasant.

Interesting thought you raise about the possible connection between misogyny and homophobia--certainly, when I see someone exhibiting one attitude, they seem likely to exhibit the other as well. So I could buy it. I'm not a hundred percent sure, though, whether the terms "top" and "bottom" don't get used in lesbian circles as well as gay ones. My female partner aside, I'm rather on the fringes of queer culture. Others on my Friends list might be better able to comment.

As for murder vs. homosexuality in books... yeah, it all goes back to our society finding violence more socially acceptable than anything but the most vanilla sexuality. So nobody bats an eye at murder and violence and such all over television and movies and books--or at least, not as much of an eye at depictions of sexuality, I must grant, since I am aware that there are organizations out there that complain about the levels of violence in public media as well.

Comments

[celandineb.livejournal.com]

Re: the Dragonflight quote, I've never interpreted it as meaning that F'lar was having sex with Lessa against her will (mating flight accepted). I have always assumed it meant that by custom, after the dragons mated, they shared quarters and a bed, but not that they were necessarily having sex in that bed. That interpretation is based on their other interactions, that they do develop a close relationship, and that F'lar as you say "doesn't otherwise seem to be an asshole."

As for "top" and "bottom" among lesbians, yes the terms are or have been used, certainly in the context of s/m, sometimes it appears more generically as equivalents of "butch" and "femme". There's a fairly lengthy discussion of it in chapter 10 of Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America, by Lillian Faderman (1991).

[annathepiper]

I expect that most readers are meant to take your interpretation, yeah--since I'd be really surprised if any of Anne McCaffrey's heroes were the sort that would bed a woman against her will. Still, the way she crafted that sentence just... sits wrong with me. Maybe it's because I've been working on my own writing, and I've grown more conscious of the need for proper word choices.

I'd had something niggling in the back of my mind about "top" and "bottom" in the s/m context, yeah, but I wasn't absolutely sure so I didn't mention it. Thanks for the pointer to the book!