45k words and counting
Julia Jones
Trashy Porn Novel. It hit 45k words just before lunch, which is longer
than a standard novel in some porn markets, and half way to what I was
told is a good "first novel" length in mainstream SF. And it still only
has five sex scenes so far. On the other hand, it has five sex scenes,
some of which are fairly explicit. They're going to get even more
explicit in the next 45k words. It could be fun trying to find a
market...
--
Julia Jones
The suespammers.org mail server is located in California; do not send
unsolicited bulk e-mail or unsolicited commercial e-mail to my suespammers.org
address.
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
(Julia Jones) wrote:
> It's official. The "Sold as a Sex Slave! (TM)" thing is no longer a
> Trashy Porn Novel. It hit 45k words just before lunch, which is longer
> than a standard novel in some porn markets, and half way to what I was
> told is a good "first novel" length in mainstream SF. And it still only
> has five sex scenes so far. On the other hand, it has five sex scenes,
> some of which are fairly explicit. They're going to get even more
> explicit in the next 45k words. It could be fun trying to find a
> market...
Heh.
How explicit is explicit?
I _think_ I've just got away with 'explicit', in terms of action and
vocabulary. Or at least, I hope I have, on account of if you take those
scenes out, the story doesn't make sense. And they /were/ in the synopsis
when they bought it...
Dunno about you, but if I hadn't done some Trashy Porn(TM) before this
particular book, I couldn't have attempted those particular sex scenes.
The difference, I guess, being that between sexual fantasy and sex in this
uncertain real world? Something like that, anyhow. Sex as a deep part of
someone's everyday self, as opposed to sex as entertainment? Maybe just
that this particular sex could only happen between these two particular
people.
Now I'm trying to remember what the difference between 'explicit' and
'graphic' is supposed to be.
Mary
Julia Jones
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk writes
>
>How explicit is explicit?
My beta reader says "very". (This was not a complaint...)
So far it's been the quivering virgin, and then ex-virgin, not enjoying
it. Or rather, enjoying it but being very, very upset that he's enjoying
it (before his owner took pity on him and stuffed him full of
tranquillisers). So he's been desperately trying to ignore what's going
on, which means he's not reporting it to the reader in quite as much
detail as he will be once he stops getting upset about enjoying it. But
more than enough detail to put it on Channel 4 rather than late night
BBC2. I hope Channel 4 rather than Channel 5.
This did start as a Trashy Porn Novel. It shows.
>
>I _think_ I've just got away with 'explicit', in terms of action and
>vocabulary. Or at least, I hope I have, on account of if you take those
>scenes out, the story doesn't make sense.
Which is my problem:-) By the way, when can we buy this piece of
appalling pornography you are inflicting on the world?
> And they /were/ in the synopsis
>when they bought it...
<grin>
And I'm worried that putting them in the synopsis will ensure that it
isn't bought. But I was told at Baycon that there's a mainstream market
for stuff with explicit sex, even gay explicit sex, so I'm feeling a
little less twitchy now. In fact, there were complaints that explicit
sex seems to be compulsory nowadays.
Beta reader is watching me type this over netmeeting and says that you
squick her because of violence, not smut. It's very well-written, it
would probably be less of a problem if it wasn't...
>
>Dunno about you, but if I hadn't done some Trashy Porn(TM) before this
>particular book, I couldn't have attempted those particular sex scenes.
>The difference, I guess, being that between sexual fantasy and sex in this
>uncertain real world? Something like that, anyhow. Sex as a deep part of
>someone's everyday self, as opposed to sex as entertainment? Maybe just
>that this particular sex could only happen between these two particular
>people.
Practice does help. At least nowadays I don't get told that it sounds as
if I'm writing a lab report, which is what the editor who saw my first
ever piece of slash said. It was a lot better after she'd gone over it
with a red pen:-)
>
>Now I'm trying to remember what the difference between 'explicit' and
>'graphic' is supposed to be.
>
Um... maybe whether it's *supposed* to arouse the reader, as opposed to
doing it by accident? <snigger> Not really sure, although there is a
difference, to my mind at least.
--
Julia Jones
"The Syndicate" - a heartwarming tale of geek love among the stars. Volumes 1
and 2 available now from http://www.amatory-ink.co.uk Details and free sample
chapters at http://www.julesjones.com/fiction/syndicate/syndicate.htm
David Friedman
Julia Jones <julia...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
> >Now I'm trying to remember what the difference between 'explicit' and
> >'graphic' is supposed to be.
> >
> Um... maybe whether it's *supposed* to arouse the reader, as opposed to
> doing it by accident?
On the whole, I don't find much correlation between either explicit or
graphic and how arousing a passage is. I'll take Casanova over modern
mass market porn any day. Seduction is sexier than acrobatics.
David Friedman
Graydon <o...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> In <443FaFkQ...@jajones.demon.co.uk>, Julia Jones
> <julia...@myrealbox.com> onsendan:
> > And I'm worried that putting them in the synopsis will ensure that it
> > isn't bought. But I was told at Baycon that there's a mainstream
> > market for stuff with explicit sex, even gay explicit sex, so I'm
> > feeling a little less twitchy now. In fact, there were complaints that
> > explicit sex seems to be compulsory nowadays.
>
> Have you read :The Fall of the Kings:?
>
> Ought to give you a relatively current benchmark for 'amount of gay sex
> that passes without comment'.
My impression is that ff gay sex is a lot more acceptable than mm gay
sex. Certainly that's true for heterosexual male readers, and I think
it's true for heterosexual female readers as well, although less sure.
Ross Smith
>
> Now I'm trying to remember what the difference between 'explicit' and
> 'graphic' is supposed to be.
Graphic is when you draw them a diagram. Explicit is when you include
the full assembly instructions.
--
Ross Smith ......... r-s...@ihug.co.nz ......... Auckland, New Zealand
"As Unix guru types go, I'm sweet, patient, and comprehensible.
Unfortunately, Unix guru types don't go very far in that direction.
I used to think this was a personality flaw." -- Elizabeth Zwicky
Brian M. Scott
<r-s...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
>> Now I'm trying to remember what the difference between 'explicit' and
>> 'graphic' is supposed to be.
>Graphic is when you draw them a diagram. Explicit is when you include
>the full assembly instructions.
Really? I've always understood 'graphic' as the stronger of the
two descriptions.
Brian
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
julia...@myrealbox.com (Julia Jones) wrote:
> In message <bcavsg$jgm$1...@thorium.cix.co.uk>,
> mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk writes
> >
> >How explicit is explicit?
>
> My beta reader says "very". (This was not a complaint...)
Heh.
>
> So far it's been the quivering virgin, and then ex-virgin, not enjoying
> it. Or rather, enjoying it but being very, very upset that he's
> enjoying it (before his owner took pity on him and stuffed him full of
> tranquillisers). So he's been desperately trying to ignore what's going
> on, which means he's not reporting it to the reader in quite as much
> detail as he will be once he stops getting upset about enjoying it. But
> more than enough detail to put it on Channel 4 rather than late night
> BBC2. I hope Channel 4 rather than Channel 5.
Ah, that's useful. I think this might just squeak onto BBC2 late at
night... <does mental review> ... um, no, that'd be Channel 4, in fact.
At least it isn't pay-per-view. <g>
>
> This did start as a Trashy Porn Novel. It shows.
You say that like it's a /bad/ thing...
> >
> >I _think_ I've just got away with 'explicit', in terms of action and
> >vocabulary. Or at least, I hope I have, on account of if you take
> those
> >scenes out, the story doesn't make sense.
>
> Which is my problem:-) By the way, when can we buy this piece of
> appalling pornography you are inflicting on the world?
With luck, November -- at least, the UK edition. Eos haven't said what
their publication date is, yet. (Duh, I guess I should probably have
asked them... :)
For other appalling pornography, you may apply to Ms Roxanne Morgan at X
Libris. I have to start channelling her on Monday, for the next opus...
>
> > And they /were/ in the synopsis
> >when they bought it...
>
> <grin>
>
> And I'm worried that putting them in the synopsis will ensure that it
> isn't bought. But I was told at Baycon that there's a mainstream market
> for stuff with explicit sex, even gay explicit sex, so I'm feeling a
> little less twitchy now. In fact, there were complaints that explicit
> sex seems to be compulsory nowadays.
I'm obviously not reading the right books! Where is all this compulsory
sex appearing? And why haven't I noticed, dammit?
There was talk, back at the synopsis stage, that Eos might do _1610_ as a
mainstream historical novel, rather than SF. I rather hope they do,
because it would be fascinating to see it come out as historical in the
USA and SF in Britain. <g>
I notice the barriers between mainstream and 'quality' historical novel
seem very blurry right now -- THE DREAM OF SCIPIO (forget the author but
he did AN INSTANCE OF THE FINGERPOST), which I just finished, could
equally well have been a historical, but looks like mainstream/general
fiction in its publication. Shame the SF/mainstream borders aren't fuzzy
like that.
> Beta reader is watching me type this over netmeeting and says that you
> squick her because of violence, not smut. It's very well-written, it
> would probably be less of a problem if it wasn't...
Ah. Yes. There is that.
You don't happen to have a reference from her as to which bit of violence
made her chuck what book? I'm always keen to get reader feedback in that
area.
_1610_ has some violence, too. :( OTOH, done a little differently from
how I have been doing it.
Me to Protag: "OK, let's see how this sword-fight looks through your
perceptions... /What?!/ No, that's not what I want at all!"
Protag, giving me that look down his nose which gets him into so many
duels: "This, or nothing."
Me: <gromph!> <sulk> <sulk LOTS!>
> >Dunno about you, but if I hadn't done some Trashy Porn(TM) before this
> >particular book, I couldn't have attempted those particular sex scenes.
> >The difference, I guess, being that between sexual fantasy and sex in
> this
> >uncertain real world? Something like that, anyhow. Sex as a deep
> part of
> >someone's everyday self, as opposed to sex as entertainment? Maybe
> just
> >that this particular sex could only happen between these two particular
> >people.
>
> Practice does help. At least nowadays I don't get told that it sounds
> as if I'm writing a lab report, which is what the editor who saw my
> first ever piece of slash said. It was a lot better after she'd gone
> over it with a red pen:-)
<choke, splutter!> Ah, the 'insert tab A into slot B' School of Trashy
Porn Writing...
> >
> >Now I'm trying to remember what the difference between 'explicit' and
> >'graphic' is supposed to be.
> >
> Um... maybe whether it's *supposed* to arouse the reader, as opposed to
> doing it by accident? <snigger> Not really sure, although there is a
> difference, to my mind at least.
You know, you might have something there. :) At least in the sense of
whether the reader's supposed to be paying primary attention to the
characters or to the shagging...
Mary
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
<ddfr-B43E0A.2...@dsl081-079-101.sfo1.dsl.speakeasy.net>,
dd...@daviddfriedman.com (David Friedman) wrote:
As far as I can tell (from net slash and published fiction) there's a
_huge_ female readership for MM sex. Many of these female are
self-proclaimed straight women, FFIW. The female audience for FF sex is
tiny. I don't know why.
The prime interest in FF sex seems to be from bi or lesbian women, and
straight men.
OK, this is entirely unscientific in the nature of the survey; it's just
what I've picked up while reading widely in the area, and writing some
Bassets Allsorts Trashy-Porn(TM).
Mary
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
wrote:
> mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
> >
> > Now I'm trying to remember what the difference between 'explicit' and
> > 'graphic' is supposed to be.
>
> Graphic is when you draw them a diagram. Explicit is when you include
> the full assembly instructions.
:-))
In that case, this one varies between graphic and explicit...
Mary
James Wallis
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk writes
><choke, splutter!> Ah, the 'insert tab A into slot B' School of Trashy
>Porn Writing...
I used to edit various things for various departments of Virgin
Publishing, which was and is an enthusiastic purveyor of all colours and
shapes of smut. Their imprints included Nexus (male), Black Lace
(female), Trojan (gay) and Sapphire (lesbian) -- I was waiting for them
to launch Rover, but they never did.
After a few manuscripts, despite the ludicrous pseudonyms that most of
the authors use (Penny Birch? Delver Maddingley?) I quickly learned how
to tell whether a writer was male or female. Typically, female authors
would describe feelings and sensations, inner thoughts, and would do
interesting things with viewpoints and emotional responses. Male authors
described what'll fit where if you push it.
I have to continually repress memories of one SF novel that postulated a
future where the population is kept in line by frequent spankings. And
sadly I wasn't the editor on the novel that took a stab at blending the
Japanese trend for tentacle-porn with elements of the Cthulhu mythos.
And if having people tell you that they love your work gives you an odd
feeling, then... a friend of mine was once waxing lyrical about her
first Black Lace book and how it had changed her life, and I had to
admit I'd written large chunks of it, the original ms not being up to
scratch. Said friend is now a professional sex-expert. My karma is good.
--
James Wallis
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> And if having people tell you that they love your work gives you an odd
> feeling, then... a friend of mine was once waxing lyrical about her
> first Black Lace book and how it had changed her life, and I had to
> admit I'd written large chunks of it, the original ms not being up to
> scratch. Said friend is now a professional sex-expert. My karma is good.
Scribbles down note about Yet Another Thing To Buy In The States Now
That The Euro Is So High.
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan - ada...@despammed.com - this is a valid address
homepage: http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
English blog: http://annafdd.blogspot.com/
Blog in italiano: http://fulminiesaette.blogspot.com
Julia Jones
<ddfr-B43E0A.2...@dsl081-079-101.sfo1.dsl.speakeasy.net>,
David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.com> writes
>My impression is that ff gay sex is a lot more acceptable than mm gay
>sex. Certainly that's true for heterosexual male readers, and I think
>it's true for heterosexual female readers as well, although less sure.
I write m/m because that's what I want to read, for roughly the same
reasons that straight men like reading f/f. So do a *lot* of other
straight women, sometimes, very, very badly (still shuddering from some
horror my Partner In Crime found and showed to me yesterday). And quite
a few bi/lesbian women, some of whom are deeply embarrassed about it:-)
According to the guidelines of certain publishers, we don't exist - I've
seen one or two that say very bluntly that women don't like to read
about That Sort Of Thing, so don't put even a hint of it in. Which is
why my nervousness about finding a market.
Especially as the suits at the conglomerates are typically middle-aged
men, who don't want to believe that anyone could like that queer stuff
when they could be reading about mud-wrestling Amazons instead.
Julia Jones
>julia...@myrealbox.com (Julia Jones) wrote:
>>
>> And I'm worried that putting them in the synopsis will ensure that it
>> isn't bought. But I was told at Baycon that there's a mainstream market
>> for stuff with explicit sex, even gay explicit sex, so I'm feeling a
>> little less twitchy now. In fact, there were complaints that explicit
>> sex seems to be compulsory nowadays.
>
>I'm obviously not reading the right books! Where is all this compulsory
>sex appearing? And why haven't I noticed, dammit?
Yes, that was my reaction. Although I wasn't certain whether this was
because the great upsurge in sex has only happened in the last three
years, when I have not actually been reading anything new on account of
having had my short-term memory trashed by medication. (I'm getting
better, I even hope to be able to tackle Ash in the near future.)
>
>There was talk, back at the synopsis stage, that Eos might do _1610_ as a
>mainstream historical novel, rather than SF. I rather hope they do,
>because it would be fascinating to see it come out as historical in the
>USA and SF in Britain. <g>
It would be interesting (amusing) to see how the reviews in the
mainstream press differed.
>
>I notice the barriers between mainstream and 'quality' historical novel
>seem very blurry right now -- THE DREAM OF SCIPIO (forget the author but
>he did AN INSTANCE OF THE FINGERPOST), which I just finished, could
>equally well have been a historical, but looks like mainstream/general
>fiction in its publication. Shame the SF/mainstream borders aren't fuzzy
>like that.
>
One of the things you missed was the discussion about Margaret Atwood's
latest it's-not-sf-it's-a-Real-Novel...
>>
>> Practice does help. At least nowadays I don't get told that it sounds
>> as if I'm writing a lab report, which is what the editor who saw my
>> first ever piece of slash said. It was a lot better after she'd gone
>> over it with a red pen:-)
>
><choke, splutter!> Ah, the 'insert tab A into slot B' School of Trashy
>Porn Writing...
Wasn't quite *that* bad. The trouble was that I'm a practising
scientist, and for many, many years my writing had been lab reports --
and it showed. If you've spent years with that sort of very detached
writing style, it can be a bit difficult to shake it off. The solution,
obviously, was to get in lots of practice at writing in a more engaged
style:-)
You know, I've only just realised why I almost always write in third
person, even when I'm writing porn.
Julie Pascal
"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in message
news:3ee9a3ec....@enews.newsguy.com...
I thought explicit was when it's absolutely clear
what is going on. Um...ok, I think I have an
example of non-explicit...I *think* that in the book
_Mirror Dance_ that Lilly Jr. gives Miles a blow
job. I'm not *sure* because it doesn't say so...quite.
I think of explicit as making clear what exactly
happened and graphic as including all the gory
details.
--Julie
Lori Selke
You've got it entirely backward when it comes to the written word.
(If you were talking about porn vids, you'd be right. Which brings up
interesting cultural questions.)
Lori
--
se...@io.com, se...@mindspring.com, http://www.io.com/~selk
"It must be art for sure if somebody wants to destroy it."
-- Carol Emshwiller
Suzanne A Blom
Julie Pascal <ju...@pascal.org> wrote in message
news:bccs0...@enews3.newsguy.com...
Tim S
And in passive voice? And with an Abstract at the start? And numbered
references for the practical procedures?
Tim
Julia Jones
<T...@timsilverman.demon.co.uk> writes
least that I have a slightly unnerving tendency to combine gurlie
interest in interior monologue with describing in great (graphic?)
detail what will go where when you push hard enough. But I did just
about manage to avoid passive voice in my first piece. Mostly. After
being edited. I'm a lot better at it now:-)
Chris Johnson
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
> In article <443FaFkQ...@jajones.demon.co.uk>,
> julia...@myrealbox.com (Julia Jones) wrote:
> > And I'm worried that putting them in the synopsis will ensure that it
> > isn't bought. But I was told at Baycon that there's a mainstream market
> > for stuff with explicit sex, even gay explicit sex, so I'm feeling a
> > little less twitchy now. In fact, there were complaints that explicit
> > sex seems to be compulsory nowadays.
>
> I'm obviously not reading the right books! Where is all this compulsory
> sex appearing? And why haven't I noticed, dammit?
I can't speak for really recent stuff, but I've got William Gibson
and John Varley that are bloody explicit in their way. The William
Gibson is the bit in Neuromancer when mirror-eyesockets-lady says
'Don't. Fingerprints' which was a nice way to use the sex to further
illuminate the character's reality. The John Varley is the Titan series,
which goes from very softcore indeed, to stuff like 'her giant hindpenis
slithered imposingly from its sheath', which definitely made my eyes go
*poing!* in 'did I really just read that?' mode.
I'm very curious if it's got any more intense since then :)
> > >Now I'm trying to remember what the difference between 'explicit' and
> > >'graphic' is supposed to be.
> > Um... maybe whether it's *supposed* to arouse the reader, as opposed to
> > doing it by accident? <snigger> Not really sure, although there is a
> > difference, to my mind at least.
> You know, you might have something there. :) At least in the sense of
> whether the reader's supposed to be paying primary attention to the
> characters or to the shagging...
I've often exploited this by providing cues of a 'you're not supposed
to be simply slavering over this description! There are consequences
also being expressed here!' nature. Of course, I consider it a fault of
mine that I wimp out and fail to write really trashy porn. It's a bit
like failing to write happy characters- to some extent if characters are
having REALLY great sex, the whole level of conflict might be out the
window unless they're setting up trouble for themselves.
So I end up with 'against the background of a World Gone Mad!' and I
have to trust that my readers will be naughty enough to simply enjoy the
spectacle even if the characters aren't responding to it with nice
enjoyment.
*snicker* which gives me various outrageous ideas that have loads of
story value, some of which are mind-meltingly explicit in all sorts of
colorfully shocking ways. What if my canid, innocent-perky male alien is
tricked into sex with a Tompar assassin? His race lock like dogs, and he
doesn't have any idea that the Tompar (lizard-snake aliens) are
superstrong everywhere. Presto, the (female) assassin has our lad's FULL
attention and they both must awkwardly make their way to unlock the
locked door (or whatever) or the threat is, our boy's going to end up
with serious physical injury. Our lady snake-lizard gets to lead our
hero about by the pelvis ;)
Of course, there's no telling whether people would be _aroused_ by
such a peculiar (and amusing) scenario, but that's their affair. :)
Chris Johnson
David Friedman
Julia Jones <jaj...@suespammers.org> wrote:
> I write m/m because that's what I want to read, for roughly the same
> reasons that straight men like reading f/f. So do a *lot* of other
> straight women, sometimes, very, very badly (still shuddering from some
> horror my Partner In Crime found and showed to me yesterday). And quite
> a few bi/lesbian women, some of whom are deeply embarrassed about it:-)
> According to the guidelines of certain publishers, we don't exist - I've
> seen one or two that say very bluntly that women don't like to read
> about That Sort Of Thing, so don't put even a hint of it in. Which is
> why my nervousness about finding a market.
So far it sounds as though it's your reading of the market, based on
your own feelings and those of people you know, vs the reading of people
in the business of selling books. You might want to look for market
evidence to support your reading--books that according to the
publishers' theory shouldn't sell but that in fact did.
It occurs to me that it would be interesting if webbed porn sites--I'm
thinking in particular of text porn--had some mechanism by which readers
could state their own sexual preferences, thus generating data on what
sort of stories the various categories of readers liked. One advantage
for the site and the reader is that it might be used in improving
algorithms for suggesting to the reader what to read next.
Also, might it be worth looking for publishers where the relevant
decisions are made by women, if you think the problem is male editors
misreading female tastes?
David Friedman
Graydon <o...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> Well, possibly; the sex in :The Fall of the Kings: is almost all
> male-male, and there's quite a bit of it.
_Point of Hopes_ and its sequel have a good deal of m/m interaction in
the background, but nothing that comes close to pornography.
David Friedman
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
> > My impression is that ff gay sex is a lot more acceptable than mm gay
> > sex. Certainly that's true for heterosexual male readers, and I think
> > it's true for heterosexual female readers as well, although less sure.
>
> As far as I can tell (from net slash and published fiction) there's a
> _huge_ female readership for MM sex. Many of these female are
> self-proclaimed straight women, FFIW. The female audience for FF sex is
> tiny. I don't know why.
>
> The prime interest in FF sex seems to be from bi or lesbian women, and
> straight men.
I assume the reason heterosexual men don't like mm sex in books is that
it not only doesn't turn them on, it upsets them--makes them identify
with activities they think of as ugly or perverted. I have a rather
casual impression that heterosexual women don't have a similar reaction
to ff sex. I have an impression, more generally, that men tend more
towards the extreme of the spectrum while women have a broader
distribution of tastes--more at least somewhat bisexual, fewer hardline
homo or hetero. But that's from second hand sources.
Darkhawk (H. Nicoll)
> I have an impression, more generally, that men tend more
> towards the extreme of the spectrum while women have a broader
> distribution of tastes--more at least somewhat bisexual, fewer hardline
> homo or hetero. But that's from second hand sources.
I think it's hard to tell how much of that is innate and how much of
that is cultural; male homosexuality is generally reviled in large parts
of the mainstream culture that I'm most familiar with, while female
homosexuality in the same mainstream is neutral or even positive. (More
likely to be positive if it's available for vicarious participation.)
--
Heather Anne Nicoll - Darkhawk - http://aelfhame.net/~darkhawk/
They are one person, they are two alone
They are three together, they are for each other.
- "Helplessly Hoping", Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Brian M. Scott
<dd...@daviddfriedman.com> wrote:
[...]
>It occurs to me that it would be interesting if webbed porn sites--I'm
>thinking in particular of text porn--had some mechanism by which readers
>could state their own sexual preferences, thus generating data on what
>sort of stories the various categories of readers liked. One advantage
>for the site and the reader is that it might be used in improving
>algorithms for suggesting to the reader what to read next.
In general such sites are already heavily categorized.
[...]
Brian
Brandon Ray
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
>
>
> As far as I can tell (from net slash and published fiction) there's a
> _huge_ female readership for MM sex. Many of these female are
> self-proclaimed straight women, FFIW. The female audience for FF sex is
> tiny. I don't know why.
>
> The prime interest in FF sex seems to be from bi or lesbian women, and
> straight men.
>
> OK, this is entirely unscientific in the nature of the survey; it's just
> what I've picked up while reading widely in the area, and writing some
> Bassets Allsorts Trashy-Porn(TM).
>
But it also matches my experience (in reading, I hasten to
add). Although I've noticed this mostly on the net; I do
not recall seeing scads of mass-market hardcopy novels being
sold that appear to include MM sex. Unless it is concealed
in some of the romance titles that are largely marketed to
women?
I would not venture to guess why women enjoy reading MM
(since I am not a woman). It seems to me that at least part
of the reason men enjoy reading FF, is that they envision
themselves being invited to join the party.
Julia Jones
<ddfr-203681.1...@dsl081-079-101.sfo1.dsl.speakeasy.net>,
David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.com> writes
>In article <0O5m3mGr...@jajones.demon.co.uk>,
> Julia Jones <jaj...@suespammers.org> wrote:
>
>> I write m/m because that's what I want to read, for roughly the same
>> reasons that straight men like reading f/f. So do a *lot* of other
>> straight women, sometimes, very, very badly (still shuddering from some
>> horror my Partner In Crime found and showed to me yesterday). And quite
>> a few bi/lesbian women, some of whom are deeply embarrassed about it:-)
>> According to the guidelines of certain publishers, we don't exist - I've
>> seen one or two that say very bluntly that women don't like to read
>> about That Sort Of Thing, so don't put even a hint of it in. Which is
>> why my nervousness about finding a market.
>
>So far it sounds as though it's your reading of the market, based on
>your own feelings and those of people you know, vs the reading of people
>in the business of selling books. You might want to look for market
>evidence to support your reading--books that according to the
>publishers' theory shouldn't sell but that in fact did.
It's a tricky one because my direct experience of this is with slash
fanfic - and while a lot of people (including some gay men) say that
they got into slash because they always liked romantic m/m porn but
couldn't get much or any of what they wanted in the mainstream, there
are other things going on in slash fiction that you wouldn't necessarily
get out of porn/erotica that didn't draw on an existing background.
>
>It occurs to me that it would be interesting if webbed porn sites--I'm
>thinking in particular of text porn--had some mechanism by which readers
>could state their own sexual preferences, thus generating data on what
>sort of stories the various categories of readers liked. One advantage
>for the site and the reader is that it might be used in improving
>algorithms for suggesting to the reader what to read next.
I went with the British micropress that I did for _The Syndicate_ partly
because the editor was specifically interested in genre fiction and was
happy to try the sort of stuff I write. He's publishing a wide variety
of stuff, so it might be interesting to ask him what he's managing to
sell.
>
>Also, might it be worth looking for publishers where the relevant
>decisions are made by women, if you think the problem is male editors
>misreading female tastes?
>
This may not be an improvement. There are plenty of women who really
don't like That Sort Of Thing, for whatever reason, and it's clear that
it's never occurred to some of them that other women do. Twice in the
last couple of years I've seen one particular UK newspaper columnist
banging on about isn't it disgusting that men like lesbian porn, us
women would never want to watch gay men. I have a feeling that this may
be the case with one of the aforementioned guidelines.
I think it's probably a question of finding a senior editor or manager
who is aware that a substantial number of women are interested in m/m
and is willing to at least contemplate the idea, even if said editor
does not share that taste. Earlier this week I was talking to a friend
who has a bit more contact with the business than I do, who said that
there is at least one middle-aged male manager who is aware of That Sort
Of Thing (as in slash) and does not like it at all, but is also not
going to say no if one of his editors says she thinks she can sell an
anthology of good m/m sf erotica that is not playing fast and loose with
someone else's copyright.
Jesse Hajicek
> I would not venture to guess why women enjoy reading MM
> (since I am not a woman). It seems to me that at least part
> of the reason men enjoy reading FF, is that they envision
> themselves being invited to join the party.
Personally, I don't so much imagine joining the party as simply
appreciate the aesthetics. Well, usually. But the best theory I've heard
for the popularity of MM slash, doujinshi, and (recently more common)
comics and books among a female audience is as follows:
Men are often emotionally opaque, and tend to front as tough; it's very
appealing to see them in situations that break this barrier, and even
more interesting to see *two* of these strange creatures attempting to
get through each other's opacity.
Maybe that's it. Maybe it's pure prurience. I just know there's a story
I keep trying to write, I keep getting it *almost* right, and as a
result I'm on my *third* separate fictional gay couple. This is getting
me a reputation as a yaoi fiend. Oh well. If I ever get to the space
opera, it's het all the way -- why won't anyone believe me? :)
-J
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
<ddfr-1FACFC.1...@dsl081-079-101.sfo1.dsl.speakeasy.net>,
dd...@daviddfriedman.com (David Friedman) wrote:
> In article <bccd84$ajs$1...@thorium.cix.co.uk>,
> mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
>
> > > My impression is that ff gay sex is a lot more acceptable than mm
> > > gay sex. Certainly that's true for heterosexual male readers, and I
> > > think it's true for heterosexual female readers as well, although
> > > less sure.
> >
> > As far as I can tell (from net slash and published fiction) there's a
> > _huge_ female readership for MM sex. Many of these female are
> > self-proclaimed straight women, FFIW. The female audience for FF sex
> > is tiny. I don't know why.
> >
> > The prime interest in FF sex seems to be from bi or lesbian women,
> > and straight men.
>
> I assume the reason heterosexual men don't like mm sex in books is that
> it not only doesn't turn them on, it upsets them--makes them identify
> with activities they think of as ugly or perverted.
Doesn't that rather assume they think of non-het sex as perverted, rather
than as something that just doesn't register? (Or do I just know too many
men who have either missed out on, or unravelled, the social conditioning
aimed at men?)
> I have a rather
> casual impression that heterosexual women don't have a similar reaction
> to ff sex.
Possibly there's more 'didn't register on my radar' than 'euw yuk!', but
there's plenty of 'euw yuk' around, nonetheless.
> I have an impression, more generally, that men tend more
> towards the extreme of the spectrum while women have a broader
> distribution of tastes--more at least somewhat bisexual, fewer hardline
> homo or hetero. But that's from second hand sources.
I'd love to know where you get that idea from. Or where the second-hand
sources get it from.
And you've left out all the stuff that isn't covered by het, homo and
bi...
Mary
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
Ray) wrote:
>
>
> mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
> >
> >
> > As far as I can tell (from net slash and published fiction) there's a
> > _huge_ female readership for MM sex. Many of these female are
> > self-proclaimed straight women, FFIW. The female audience for FF sex
> > is
> > tiny. I don't know why.
> >
> > The prime interest in FF sex seems to be from bi or lesbian women, and
> > straight men.
> >
> > OK, this is entirely unscientific in the nature of the survey; it's
> > just
> > what I've picked up while reading widely in the area, and writing some
> > Bassets Allsorts Trashy-Porn(TM).
> >
>
> But it also matches my experience (in reading, I hasten to
> add).
But of course. :)
> Although I've noticed this mostly on the net; I do
> not recall seeing scads of mass-market hardcopy novels being
> sold that appear to include MM sex. Unless it is concealed
> in some of the romance titles that are largely marketed to
> women?
It used to be that you couldn't move in fantasy and SF for MM sex, selling
very well -- Marion Zimmer Bradley, Elizabeth Moon's early work, Mercedes
Lackey, and probably a few more names that escape me. Delany, for a
different take on it. Whether this is still the case, I don't know.
Like the net, FF was more difficult to find. (I can only remember Joanna
Russ, there must be more...)
It used to drive me potty that publishers of women's porn would say, oh,
well, we don't want too much MM sex, women don't read it -- until I
realised that they were bothered about their 25% or 50% crossover _male_
readership, who were the ones they really thought would be put off by MM
scenes. And they needed those sales. [1] Didn't seem to occur to them
that they might have gathered a female readership larger than the male one
they might lose.
(I put MM in anyway, and the books are still in print, so I allow myself
to feel quietly vindicated, even if I have no real idea if that's anything
to do with it!)
> I would not venture to guess why women enjoy reading MM
> (since I am not a woman). It seems to me that at least part
> of the reason men enjoy reading FF, is that they envision
> themselves being invited to join the party.
The women/MM theory used to be the exact opposite -- that because the
participants were both oriented towards males, there was no chance the
woman could be invited to join, and hence there'd be no sexual anxiety on
her part.
Whether this theory ever held water, I have not the slightest idea...
Lesbians not of the men's-magazine variety have a lot to say about the
male gaze, and the absolute unlikelihood of a man being invited to join
in. I do feel men have either confused lesbianism with bisexuality in
that case, or just don't know what 'lesbian' _means._
Not that I get too worked up about what anybody does with who in fantasy,
since that's rather what fantasy's for, but I would like to send the
Accuracy Police around to adjust the naming conventions.
Oh, the other theory about women and MM sex scenes -- stemming a lot from
early TV slash, K/S and Blake's 7 in particular -- is that a female
reader can get to see men behaving more in a manner that society restricts
to women, e.g. caring about each other's emotional and sexual feelings,
being tender, etc., as well as being go-all-night sex machines. And it
therefore reassures women, as well as turning them on, because women like
to think men have something other than empty space between their ears.
Again, dunno how far this theory holds up under scrutiny, but I've
certainly seen it put forward.
I don't have a theory, myself -- to me, it seems odd that women don't
appear to like FF as much as they like MM, and that men may be put off by
MM. But people often leave me feeling that I was dumped on this planet by
a passing galactic freighter, so I'm used to it. <g>
Mary
[1] Presumably the male porn lines also need their 25% or 50% [2]
crossover female readership, but since females will read other things than
MM, they probably will continue to keep them.
[2] It seems extraordinarily difficult for publishers, never mind us
humble mortals, to get good statistics on who is buying porn, and who's
buying what versions. Talking to editors leaves me with the impression
that 50% of the male porn is bought by women, and 50% of the female porn
by men. Which would make the whole division ludicrous... <FX: waves to J
Wallis Esq> James, you got any figures on this?
Laura M. Parkinson
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
>In article <3EEA6499...@avalon.net>, pub...@avalon.net (Brandon
>Ray) wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > As far as I can tell (from net slash and published fiction) there's a
>> > _huge_ female readership for MM sex. Many of these female are
>> > self-proclaimed straight women, FFIW. The female audience for FF sex
>> > is
>> > tiny. I don't know why.
>> >
>> > The prime interest in FF sex seems to be from bi or lesbian women, and
>> > straight men.
>> >
>> > OK, this is entirely unscientific in the nature of the survey; it's
>> > just
>> > what I've picked up while reading widely in the area, and writing some
>> > Bassets Allsorts Trashy-Porn(TM).
... Do I even want to ask what Bassets Allsorts Trashy-Porn is?
I'm just... twinging at the fact that it includes a name of a dog.
>> >
>>
>> But it also matches my experience (in reading, I hasten to
>> add).
>
>But of course. :)
>
>> Although I've noticed this mostly on the net; I do
>> not recall seeing scads of mass-market hardcopy novels being
>> sold that appear to include MM sex. Unless it is concealed
>> in some of the romance titles that are largely marketed to
>> women?
>
>It used to be that you couldn't move in fantasy and SF for MM sex, selling
>very well -- Marion Zimmer Bradley, Elizabeth Moon's early work, Mercedes
>Lackey, and probably a few more names that escape me. Delany, for a
>different take on it. Whether this is still the case, I don't know.
Hrm, but was that really more MM sex, or MM... teasing, and hinting? I
don't think I read most of the above, but remembering Lackey's stuff
offhand, I remember various male attractions and pairings, but nothing
explicit. At least, in what I read.
>Like the net, FF was more difficult to find. (I can only remember Joanna
>Russ, there must be more...)
>
>It used to drive me potty that publishers of women's porn would say, oh,
>well, we don't want too much MM sex, women don't read it -- until I
>realised that they were bothered about their 25% or 50% crossover _male_
>readership, who were the ones they really thought would be put off by MM
>scenes. And they needed those sales. [1] Didn't seem to occur to them
>that they might have gathered a female readership larger than the male one
>they might lose.
>
>(I put MM in anyway, and the books are still in print, so I allow myself
>to feel quietly vindicated, even if I have no real idea if that's anything
>to do with it!)
You go!
>> I would not venture to guess why women enjoy reading MM
>> (since I am not a woman). It seems to me that at least part
>> of the reason men enjoy reading FF, is that they envision
>> themselves being invited to join the party.
>
>The women/MM theory used to be the exact opposite -- that because the
>participants were both oriented towards males, there was no chance the
>woman could be invited to join, and hence there'd be no sexual anxiety on
>her part.
>
>Whether this theory ever held water, I have not the slightest idea...
>
>Lesbians not of the men's-magazine variety have a lot to say about the
>male gaze, and the absolute unlikelihood of a man being invited to join
>in. I do feel men have either confused lesbianism with bisexuality in
>that case, or just don't know what 'lesbian' _means._
I don't know if it's really that... I mean, I think the whole "ooo
what I wouldn't give to be in on that" angle is what attracts me to
some MM stuff, while really in my head I know "hey, these guys are gay
- they have no interest in girls. I wouldn't be allowed to join."
Really, knowing one thing in your head, and another in your... er...
aesthetic sense, you can have two quite different things going on at
the same time. If that makes any sense.
Besides, to me, imagining myself included in a MM pairing makes about
as much sense as imagining myself included in sex with, say, a hot
movie star. Like Orlando Bloom, just to pick a name out of thin air. I
figure the chances of me ending up in *either* scenario are damn close
to nil, but that doesn't stop the fantasies. ;)
>Not that I get too worked up about what anybody does with who in fantasy,
>since that's rather what fantasy's for, but I would like to send the
>Accuracy Police around to adjust the naming conventions.
>
>Oh, the other theory about women and MM sex scenes -- stemming a lot from
>early TV slash, K/S and Blake's 7 in particular -- is that a female
>reader can get to see men behaving more in a manner that society restricts
>to women, e.g. caring about each other's emotional and sexual feelings,
>being tender, etc., as well as being go-all-night sex machines. And it
>therefore reassures women, as well as turning them on, because women like
>to think men have something other than empty space between their ears.
>
>Again, dunno how far this theory holds up under scrutiny, but I've
>certainly seen it put forward.
>
>I don't have a theory, myself -- to me, it seems odd that women don't
>appear to like FF as much as they like MM, and that men may be put off by
>MM. But people often leave me feeling that I was dumped on this planet by
>a passing galactic freighter, so I'm used to it. <g>
Hrm. For my own part, along with some of the above, I think part of it
is just... well... voyeurism, and aesthetic appreciation - even if
what's going on is only in your mind's eye. Being a straight female
(or at least very very far at that end of the spectrum, if you see
sexuality as a spectrum more than "three categories), if I want to
look in on two hot, sweaty, naked bodies, I'd rather be watching guys,
thankyouverymuch. I can find girls pretty, but I'm not really
*attracted* to them.
*snipping footnotes*
Brandon Ray
Jesse Hajicek wrote:
>
> Maybe that's it. Maybe it's pure prurience.
Jesse, I was interested in everything else you said, too --
but I just want to bask for a moment in the perfection of
the idea of "pure prurience". ;)
Julia Jones
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk writes
>
>It used to drive me potty that publishers of women's porn would say, oh,
>well, we don't want too much MM sex, women don't read it -- until I
>realised that they were bothered about their 25% or 50% crossover _male_
>readership, who were the ones they really thought would be put off by MM
>scenes. And they needed those sales. [1] Didn't seem to occur to them
>that they might have gathered a female readership larger than the male one
>they might lose.
<fx: penny drops>
That explains quite a lot...
>
>Lesbians not of the men's-magazine variety have a lot to say about the
>male gaze, and the absolute unlikelihood of a man being invited to join
>in.
I have seen m/m slash criticised on a Blake's 7 list for the same
reason, by someone who appeared to be female but who didn't like and
didn't approve of slash for reasons other than being homophobic. (Or so
she claimed.)
<snip>
>
>Oh, the other theory about women and MM sex scenes -- stemming a lot from
>early TV slash, K/S and Blake's 7 in particular -- is that a female
>reader can get to see men behaving more in a manner that society restricts
>to women, e.g. caring about each other's emotional and sexual feelings,
>being tender, etc., as well as being go-all-night sex machines. And it
>therefore reassures women, as well as turning them on, because women like
>to think men have something other than empty space between their ears.
>
>Again, dunno how far this theory holds up under scrutiny, but I've
>certainly seen it put forward.
I've seen it put forward, I think there's some truth in it for some
women some of the time. Although anything trying to apply standard slash
theories to Blake's 7 is going to have problems, especially with
"because they luurve each other". I have learnt to be careful what I say
about slash because the stuff I read isn't quite... normal... by the
standards of the hearts'n'flowers fandoms. There are one or two
academics I'd quite like to introduce to Oblaque...
Personally I like all of the above, plus the idea of two or more
well-hung guys. There is also the illicit pleasure of doing something
forbidden. And the malicious pleasure of taking two all-action heroes
from a show where the token woman is there as a Bad Conduct Prize and
doing things with them that would cause the target male audience to
faint. And being able to write very thinly disguised rants about sexual
suppression. And being able to write thinly disguised rants about sexual
suppression being used to control a population. (I know where that one
comes from, reading too much Philip Jose Farmer at a young and
impressionable age, although he was doing it with het.)
And as someone plaintively said when a group of us got all deep and
meaningful about this, "Am I the only one who thought, 'Wahey, it's the
fucking'?"
--
Julia Jones
Who has two CDs worth of downloads from alt.binaries.erotica.gaymen...
Julia Jones
Parkinson <lpark...@mindspring.com> writes
>Hrm. For my own part, along with some of the above, I think part of it
>is just... well... voyeurism, and aesthetic appreciation - even if
>what's going on is only in your mind's eye. Being a straight female
>(or at least very very far at that end of the spectrum, if you see
>sexuality as a spectrum more than "three categories), if I want to
>look in on two hot, sweaty, naked bodies, I'd rather be watching guys,
>thankyouverymuch. I can find girls pretty, but I'm not really
>*attracted* to them.
Yes, that as well. I think I left an explic^w spelt-out version of that
out of my post.
Heather Jones
>
> Brandon Ray wrote:
>
> > I would not venture to guess why women enjoy reading MM
> > (since I am not a woman). It seems to me that at least part
> > of the reason men enjoy reading FF, is that they envision
> > themselves being invited to join the party.
>
> Personally, I don't so much imagine joining the party as simply
> appreciate the aesthetics. Well, usually. But the best theory I've heard
> for the popularity of MM slash, doujinshi, and (recently more common)
> comics and books among a female audience is as follows:
>
> Men are often emotionally opaque, and tend to front as tough; it's very
> appealing to see them in situations that break this barrier, and even
> more interesting to see *two* of these strange creatures attempting to
> get through each other's opacity.
The theory I've heard on women and MM texts is that it's an
additive combination of the following:
- romances involving people who do active and exciting things are fun
- romances involving egalitarian relationships are fun
- MF romances have extreme difficulty being egalitarian
- men are more able to do interesting and exciting things
Ergo: fun romances involve an egalitarian, hence same-sex,
couple, doing active and exciting things, hence male.
Mind you, several of these premises don't work for me, so stories
with MM relationships simply have to be well-written, as far as
I'm concerned.
Heather
--
*****
Heather Rose Jones
hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu
*****
David Friedman
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
> > I assume the reason heterosexual men don't like mm sex in books is that
> > it not only doesn't turn them on, it upsets them--makes them identify
> > with activities they think of as ugly or perverted.
>
> Doesn't that rather assume they think of non-het sex as perverted, rather
> than as something that just doesn't register? (Or do I just know too many
> men who have either missed out on, or unravelled, the social conditioning
> aimed at men?)
It indeed assumes that. But I think the assumption is consistent with
the evidence.
...
> > I have an impression, more generally, that men tend more
> > towards the extreme of the spectrum while women have a broader
> > distribution of tastes--more at least somewhat bisexual, fewer hardline
> > homo or hetero. But that's from second hand sources.
>
> I'd love to know where you get that idea from. Or where the second-hand
> sources get it from.
I probably got it from Richard Posner's _Sex and Reason_, since that's
the only book I can think of that I have read in recent years that goes
into such matters. I expect he cites his sources.
Brooks Moses
Has anyone done the porn story that's a fictional lab report from the
lab section that college Human Sexuality courses never have? That's
probably one of the sorts of ideas that only really works once, but if
the once hasn't happened yet, it sounds like potentially a great fit for
that aspect of Julia's style.
- Brooks
Ross Smith
>
> Has anyone done the porn story that's a fictional lab report from the
> lab section that college Human Sexuality courses never have? That's
> probably one of the sorts of ideas that only really works once, but if
> the once hasn't happened yet, it sounds like potentially a great fit
> for that aspect of Julia's style.
Have you seen _Monty Python's The Meaning of Life_?
--
Ross Smith ......... r-s...@ihug.co.nz ......... Auckland, New Zealand
"As Unix guru types go, I'm sweet, patient, and comprehensible.
Unfortunately, Unix guru types don't go very far in that direction.
I used to think this was a personality flaw." -- Elizabeth Zwicky
Chris Dollin
> I would not venture to guess why women enjoy reading MM
> (since I am not a woman). It seems to me that at least part
> of the reason men enjoy reading FF, is that they envision
> themselves being invited to join the party.
There is at least one case where this is Not True.
--
Did Someone Speak? Hedgehog
http://www.electric-hedgehog.net/reviews/2003-03-merlin-conspiracy.html
Helen
(possibly limited) experience, I agree totally with Mary's post above.
I don't know any straight women who like/read/write FF sex, but MM sex
is fine. I suspect that finding an FF scene in a novel wouldn't turn a
straight woman off (it wouldn't bother me, for instance) in the same way
that MM sex seems to affect a lot of straight me, but neither would I be
very interested and would probably start skimming to get back to the
story.
Helen
--
Helen, Gwynedd, Wales *** http://www.baradel.demon.co.uk
Helen
o.uk writes
>
>There was talk, back at the synopsis stage, that Eos might do _1610_ as a
>mainstream historical novel, rather than SF. I rather hope they do,
>because it would be fascinating to see it come out as historical in the
>USA and SF in Britain. <g>
>
>I notice the barriers between mainstream and 'quality' historical novel
>seem very blurry right now -- THE DREAM OF SCIPIO (forget the author but
>he did AN INSTANCE OF THE FINGERPOST), which I just finished, could
>equally well have been a historical, but looks like mainstream/general
>fiction in its publication. Shame the SF/mainstream borders aren't fuzzy
>like that.
>
I wonder where/how they draw the line? I mean _Aberystwyth Mon Amour_ by
Malcolm Pryce is just as much an alternate reality as Jon Courtenay
Grimwood's Arabesk series, yet the former was in the mainstream section
and the latter says "File Under Science Fiction" on the back cover, and
that's were it was.
Mary K. Kuhner
Brandon Ray <pub...@avalon.net> wrote:
>I would not venture to guess why women enjoy reading MM
>(since I am not a woman). It seems to me that at least part
>of the reason men enjoy reading FF, is that they envision
>themselves being invited to join the party.
For me, both MM and FF are sexier than MF. I have seen so many
listless, by-the-numbers, or forced MF romances that it's hard for
me to react with other than "yeah, right" unless it's *really*
well done, whereas MM and FF seem fresher and less forced.
If the proportion in fiction shifted, probably this effect would
go away--I hope that wouldn't mean that all three would stop sounding
sexy and I'd have to look for erotica involving three-sexed Things
from Alpha Centauri....
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Dan Goodman
news:3EEAC581...@cits1.stanford.edu:
Been done a number of times in amateur porn.
--
Dan Goodman dsg...@visi.com
Journal: http://dsgood.blogspot.com
Mary K. Kuhner
Julia Jones <julia...@jajones.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>This may not be an improvement. There are plenty of women who really
>don't like That Sort Of Thing, for whatever reason, and it's clear that
>it's never occurred to some of them that other women do. Twice in the
>last couple of years I've seen one particular UK newspaper columnist
>banging on about isn't it disgusting that men like lesbian porn, us
>women would never want to watch gay men. I have a feeling that this may
>be the case with one of the aforementioned guidelines.
Are there actually subgenres of lesbian porn written to be appealing
to women and lesbian porn written to be appealing to men? I could
understand finding the latter a bit offputting.
I'm reminded of my boyfriend (now husband) and I sampling the fleshpots
of San Francisco. We went to a show with two women strip-dancers,
nominally lesbian themes, but it was all to the audience and not to
each other. And at the end, with a kind of air of defiance, the two
women did one dance that *was* for each other. I thought it was
gorgeous and oddly moving, though I'm not sure it was sexy. The audience
audibly didn't care for it.
The lap-dancing later on made it clear that being a nominal lesbian
was not meant to imply that you wouldn't get it on with a male
customer if only those inconvenient laws weren't in the way. And
that just squicked both of us.
(Jon used the experience later in a roleplaying game; probably the
most unpleasant single set of villains I've ever seen him do operated
out of a theater like that one. I recognized it halfway through and
went "eeew, you remember it too.")
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Julia Jones
<mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu> writes
>In article <vtMQvXn+...@jajones.demon.co.uk>,
>Julia Jones <julia...@jajones.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>This may not be an improvement. There are plenty of women who really
>>don't like That Sort Of Thing, for whatever reason, and it's clear that
>>it's never occurred to some of them that other women do. Twice in the
>>last couple of years I've seen one particular UK newspaper columnist
>>banging on about isn't it disgusting that men like lesbian porn, us
>>women would never want to watch gay men. I have a feeling that this may
>>be the case with one of the aforementioned guidelines.
>
>Are there actually subgenres of lesbian porn written to be appealing
>to women and lesbian porn written to be appealing to men? I could
>understand finding the latter a bit offputting.
>
porn to spend money on, it won't be lesbian. But my impression from what
other people have said is that yes, there are separate subgenres,
although as always there's a large cross-over. As has already been noted
by someone who was in a position to know, you can often tell whether it
was written by a man or woman.
As for slash, most of the f/f slash I've read has been written by men
who hang out on a slash-friendly list where they're the minority.
Whether it's a case of self-selecting sample, or whether they've picked
up (deliberately or unconsciously) aspects of female porn writing style
I don't know, but they tend to write stuff that the women enjoy reading
as fiction even if they don't find it arousing.
Zeborah
> Julie Pascal <ju...@pascal.org> wrote in message
> news:bccs0...@enews3.newsguy.com...
> >
> > I thought explicit was when it's absolutely clear
> > what is going on. Um...ok, I think I have an
> > example of non-explicit...I *think* that in the book
> > _Mirror Dance_ that Lilly Jr. gives Miles a blow
> > job. I'm not *sure* because it doesn't say so...quite.
> > I think of explicit as making clear what exactly
> > happened and graphic as including all the gory
> > details.
> >
> Actually, I believe he stops her from doing that.
The previous message made me pull the book last night out of the box
where I'd packed it for the post, and search and skim and then start to
just read, until *far* too late in the night. So I can say with
authority that he does stop her from doing that, but only after a
minute...
(It's still not explicit. Maybe she was kissing his thigh or his
bellybutton or something. But it's pretty darn implicit.)
Zeborah
--
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz2000
Kangaroo story wordcount: 36727 words
Brandon Ray
Chris Dollin wrote:
>
> Brandon Ray wrote:
>
> > I would not venture to guess why women enjoy reading MM
> > (since I am not a woman). It seems to me that at least part
> > of the reason men enjoy reading FF, is that they envision
> > themselves being invited to join the party.
>
> There is at least one case where this is Not True.
I am quite certain you are right about that. That's why I
said "at least part of the reason", albiet I should have
said "some men" rarther than just "men".
Brandon Ray
Oh, how interesting -- and I do mean that -- because I'm
precisely the opposite. On those occasions when I do
encounter FF or MM romance in a story, it almost invariably
seems forced; I can almost hear the author saying, "Look --
see how open-minded and unconvential I'm being? Isn't that
neat and clever of me?"
Which may very well be unfair to the various authors. It
may also be that I've simply found the wrong books.
Dan Goodman
news:bcfh5b$uf2$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu:
> In article <vtMQvXn+...@jajones.demon.co.uk>,
> Julia Jones <julia...@jajones.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>This may not be an improvement. There are plenty of women who really
>>don't like That Sort Of Thing, for whatever reason, and it's clear
>>that it's never occurred to some of them that other women do. Twice in
>>the last couple of years I've seen one particular UK newspaper
>>columnist banging on about isn't it disgusting that men like lesbian
>>porn, us women would never want to watch gay men. I have a feeling
>>that this may be the case with one of the aforementioned guidelines.
>
> Are there actually subgenres of lesbian porn written to be appealing
> to women and lesbian porn written to be appealing to men?
Yes, indeed.
> I could
> understand finding the latter a bit offputting.
>
> I'm reminded of my boyfriend (now husband) and I sampling the
> fleshpots of San Francisco. We went to a show with two women
> strip-dancers, nominally lesbian themes, but it was all to the
> audience and not to each other. And at the end, with a kind of air of
> defiance, the two women did one dance that *was* for each other. I
> thought it was gorgeous and oddly moving, though I'm not sure it was
> sexy. The audience audibly didn't care for it.
>
> The lap-dancing later on made it clear that being a nominal lesbian
> was not meant to imply that you wouldn't get it on with a male
> customer if only those inconvenient laws weren't in the way. And
> that just squicked both of us.
>
> (Jon used the experience later in a roleplaying game; probably the
> most unpleasant single set of villains I've ever seen him do operated
> out of a theater like that one. I recognized it halfway through and
> went "eeew, you remember it too.")
Reminds me of the one time I tried seeing a striptease show. It was
advertised as an amateur contest.
The MUSIC WAS LOUD, LOUD, LOUD! Rock music turned up as high as the
sound system could manage.
It started with a professional. She looked as if she had about thirty
years of experience.
I left at that point.
Pat Bowne
"Heather Jones" <hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu> wrote
>
> The theory I've heard on women and MM texts is that it's an
> additive combination of the following:
>
> - romances involving people who do active and exciting things are fun
>
> - romances involving egalitarian relationships are fun
>
> - MF romances have extreme difficulty being egalitarian
>
> - men are more able to do interesting and exciting things
>
> Ergo: fun romances involve an egalitarian, hence same-sex,
> couple, doing active and exciting things, hence male.
>
Another theory which I've seen given by slash writers is that if you want to
explore a non-egalitarian relationship, doing it in a MF setting brings in
too many confounding issues of sexism and gender roles. So that
particularly for women who want to write those kind of stories, MM is much
simpler to deal with.
I think it's true, by the way. The few bits of non-egalitarian MF porn I've
seen were mostly revolting, not because they were porn but because they came
across as so woman-hating. The gender issue entirely swamped whatever else
the author may have thought s/he was doing.
pat
Brian M. Scott
<e...@electric-hedgehog.net> wrote:
>Brandon Ray wrote:
>> I would not venture to guess why women enjoy reading MM
>> (since I am not a woman). It seems to me that at least part
>> of the reason men enjoy reading FF, is that they envision
>> themselves being invited to join the party.
>There is at least one case where this is Not True.
|{x : This_Is_Not_True(x)}| > 1.
Brian
Seebs
Brandon Ray <pub...@avalon.net> wrote:
>Oh, how interesting -- and I do mean that -- because I'm
>precisely the opposite. On those occasions when I do
>encounter FF or MM romance in a story, it almost invariably
>seems forced; I can almost hear the author saying, "Look --
>see how open-minded and unconvential I'm being? Isn't that
>neat and clever of me?"
Hmm.
Somewhere between the first Callahan books and the most recent one, Spider
Robinson started triggering that response in me. I don't know where. It's
just that they moved from an accumulation of freaks to an accumulation of
freaks which seemed a little too intentional.
>Which may very well be unfair to the various authors. It
>may also be that I've simply found the wrong books.
Dunno. In Mercedes Lackey, I always find myself thinking that the gay
characters are there for the benefit of the people about whom the Onion
wrote the article "Area 15-Year-Old Only Homosexual In The Whole World".
Someone did a series (can't remember the name of the writer, but the first
book was _Luck In The Shadows_) which was set in a world in which bisexuality
was fairly normal, or at least, the number of same- and opposite-sex pairings
in brothers was pretty close to equal... This struck me as bordering on
offensively pushy. In particular, the "if you weren't so prudish, you'd
be bi" thing seems to be tailor-made to support the idea that gay people are
being gay *on purpose*, which is the root of a great deal of anti-gay violence
and sentiment.
It's hard to balance the desire to not preserve prejudices against realistic
evaluations of how likely or unlikely a given outcome is. To the best of my
knowledge, although homosexuality shows up in a number of species, it is never
*common*. (Distinguish from things like bonobos, where sexual activity in
general is much more common; I'm just talking about the underlying
orientation.) I suspect this follows from biology, at some level, and any
time I see a writer who has more than about 10-20% gay characters, I start
suspecting an agenda, which always bugs me...
-s
--
Copyright 2003, all wrongs reversed. Peter Seebach / se...@plethora.net
http://www.seebs.net/log/ - YA blog. http://www.seebs.net/ - homepage.
C/Unix wizard, pro-commerce radical, spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon!
Consulting, computers, web hosting, and shell access: http://www.plethora.net/
Boudewijn Rempt
<...>
> Twice in the
> last couple of years I've seen one particular UK newspaper columnist
> banging on about isn't it disgusting that men like lesbian porn, us
> women would never want to watch gay men.
Queen Victoria reborn!
<...>
--
Boudewijn Rempt | http://www.valdyas.org
Boudewijn Rempt
>>
> It's possible that there's a US/UK cultural divide here, but in my
> (possibly limited) experience, I agree totally with Mary's post above.
> I don't know any straight women who like/read/write FF sex, but MM sex
> is fine. I suspect that finding an FF scene in a novel wouldn't turn a
> straight woman off (it wouldn't bother me, for instance) in the same way
> that MM sex seems to affect a lot of straight me, but neither would I be
> very interested and would probably start skimming to get back to the
> story.
That's what I do with The Fall of the Kings -- I'm not sure why, because
it's all quite capably written. But men don't interest me much -- in the
flesh, as it were. Perhaps that's why women like MM and men like FF --
look, not just _one_ but _two_ people to get interested in. And no
competetion around. Or something like that.
Irina Rempt
> That's what I do with The Fall of the Kings -- I'm not sure why,
> because it's all quite capably written. But men don't interest me much
> -- in the flesh, as it were. Perhaps that's why women like MM and men
> like FF -- look, not just _one_ but _two_ people to get interested in.
> And no competetion around. Or something like that.
What about bi people? I'm interested in men, and in women, but I'm like
Mary in that MM and FF both tend to turn me on more(1) than MF. Perhaps
that's because in MF there's always an implicit undercurrent of power,
and in same-sex scenes if there's power in play it has to be explicit
or I don't notice. Any bi males around who might like to pipe up?
The point is probably that I'm turned off immediately and completely by
sex as a power game.
Irina
(1) Not "interest me more"; I'm only talking about the carnal aspect.
Any well-done romance between people I like, whatever their respective
genders, appeals to me.
--
Vesta veran, terna puran, farenin. http://www.valdyas.org/irina/
Beghinnen can ick, volherden will' ick, volbringhen sal ick.
http://www.valdyas.org/~irina/foundobjects/ Latest: 11-May-2003
Joshua P. Hill
wrote:
I think that's pretty much it. And those who aren't gay or bi are
often made uncomfortable by seeing members of their own gender engage
in same-sex contact, because whether for reasons physiological or
psychodynamic or some combination of both, it triggers aversive
behavior. (I read about an interesting study not long ago that
apparently found that women with higher estrogen levels are more apt
to be attracted to aggressive, highly masculine men.)
Josh
Boudewijn Rempt
> Such as, say, accurately portraying Elizabethan or High Medieval
> aristocracy?
>
It's also relevant to do the counting real well: vide the thread on
perceived take-over of women in newsgroups. In our church we have two (used
to be three) homosexual couples. Meaning three adults, since one of the
adults doesn't belong to the parish at all, and three children. Outside our
parish we're regarded as the gay Orthodox Parish in the Netherlands. But
there are many, many more heterosexual couples in our parish. A gay couple
bags your attention, the second ditto, and the scores of hetero couples are
all but forgotten.
<...>
>
> 'homosexual' dominance behavior -- mounting, say -- is common in social
> species of mammal.
>
And, from my own observation, avians. There are two sources for the
generalised three-some marriage patter in the society I'm writing about:
the idea that when two people are earning, one can stay at home and teach
the children, and care for them, and ducks.
Suzanne A Blom
Zeborah <zeb...@netaccess.co.nz> wrote in message
news:1fwkogm.152wp52uro8tkN%zeb...@netaccess.co.nz...
impossible. My condolences. ;-)
Thanks for the confirmation.
Boudewijn Rempt
> *blink*
>
> (It makes sense, but three couples is lost in the noise hereabouts from
> what my limited churchgoing acquaintaince have to say.)
>
We're a small parish; forty people, including children, on the register.
We're growing; a year or two ago, an ordinary Sunday would've seen thirty
people in Church; nowadays we think we've got a meager attendance if we've
got fifty.
Heather Jones
> Are there actually subgenres of lesbian porn written to be appealing
> to women and lesbian porn written to be appealing to men? I could
> understand finding the latter a bit offputting.
I'm not sure that I'd call them "subgenres" so much as "entirely
separate universes that happen to converge on the same motif".
It's not just the written genres -- videos and, as you note, live
shows. It's only been fairly recently (i.e. within the last
couple decades) that the idea has caught on that someone might
actually create this stuff with lesbians as the _intended_
audience. And one of the things that made it a very viable
marketing decision was that the stuff designed for male consumers
tends to be a rather unsatisfactory substitute.
I have no particular idea how lesbian-targeted porn comes across
to the het-male-who-like-hot-girl-on-girl-action market. I know
that selected straight men of my acquaintance have been
appreciative of particular instances of lesbian-targetted porn,
but that's not quite the same question.
Marilee J. Layman
<lpark...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>On Sat, 14 Jun 2003 00:57:16 +0000 (UTC),
>mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
>
>>In article <3EEA6499...@avalon.net>, pub...@avalon.net (Brandon
>>Ray) wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > As far as I can tell (from net slash and published fiction) there's a
>>> > _huge_ female readership for MM sex. Many of these female are
>>> > self-proclaimed straight women, FFIW. The female audience for FF sex
>>> > is
>>> > tiny. I don't know why.
>>> >
>>> > The prime interest in FF sex seems to be from bi or lesbian women, and
>>> > straight men.
>>> >
>>> > OK, this is entirely unscientific in the nature of the survey; it's
>>> > just
>>> > what I've picked up while reading widely in the area, and writing some
>>> > Bassets Allsorts Trashy-Porn(TM).
>
>... Do I even want to ask what Bassets Allsorts Trashy-Porn is?
>
>I'm just... twinging at the fact that it includes a name of a dog.
I think Bassets Allsorts are a kind of mixed candy.
--
Marilee J. Layman
Handmade Bali Sterling Beads at Wholesale
http://www.basicbali.com
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
Ray) wrote:
I'd think almost certainly you've found the wrong books. :) It's as
possible to write FF and MM as being 'conventional' -- in the 'I'm not
making a fuss about this' sense -- as it is to write FM in a 'oh my god
I'm writing about SEX!!!' tone.
Mary
Brandon Ray
Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
>
> >
>
> It's also relevant to do the counting real well: vide the thread on
> perceived take-over of women in newsgroups. In our church we have two (used
> to be three) homosexual couples. Meaning three adults, since one of the
> adults doesn't belong to the parish at all, and three children. Outside our
> parish we're regarded as the gay Orthodox Parish in the Netherlands. But
> there are many, many more heterosexual couples in our parish. A gay couple
> bags your attention, the second ditto, and the scores of hetero couples are
> all but forgotten.
Sure. And I think it's clear that many activities that are
taken for granted by hets will draw stares (at the least) if
done by two people of the same sex. There are people in
this country who literally don't even notice if a man and
woman greet with a hug and a kiss on the cheek (depending on
the setting, and your personal tolerance of PDAs) and then
sit down to have lunch holding hands. But let two men or
two women do the exact same thing, and they are "flaunting".
Like the man said -- it's a tough line to walk in fiction.
And, I imagine, even tougher in real life if you're on that
side of the street.
Dan Goodman
news:3eeb9177$0$1097$3c09...@news.plethora.net:
> Someone did a series (can't remember the name of the writer, but the
> first book was _Luck In The Shadows_)
Lynn Flewelling.
> which was set in a world in
> which bisexuality was fairly normal, or at least, the number of same-
> and opposite-sex pairings in brothers was pretty close to equal...
> This struck me as bordering on offensively pushy. In particular, the
> "if you weren't so prudish, you'd be bi" thing seems to be tailor-made
> to support the idea that gay people are being gay *on purpose*, which
> is the root of a great deal of anti-gay violence and sentiment.
In Arthur C. Clarke's _Imperial Earth_, both homosexuality and
heterosexuality are classed as mental illnesses.
Heather Jones
>
> "Heather Jones" <hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu> wrote
> >
> > The theory I've heard on women and MM texts is that it's an
> > additive combination of the following:
> >
> > - romances involving people who do active and exciting things are fun
> >
> > - romances involving egalitarian relationships are fun
> >
> > - MF romances have extreme difficulty being egalitarian
> >
> > - men are more able to do interesting and exciting things
> >
> > Ergo: fun romances involve an egalitarian, hence same-sex,
> > couple, doing active and exciting things, hence male.
> >
>
> Another theory which I've seen given by slash writers is that if you want to
> explore a non-egalitarian relationship, doing it in a MF setting brings in
> too many confounding issues of sexism and gender roles. So that
> particularly for women who want to write those kind of stories, MM is much
> simpler to deal with.
I just had a real *duh!* moment because, of course, in my WIWFR
the main romance-related theme (played out among four women) is
the difficulty of finding and enjoying True Love when you've got
massive baggage of social and political power inequities in the
way. And the particular things I'm expoloring in that aspect of
the story (which isn't necessarily the major theme of the story)
simply couldn't be done similarly in a mixed-gender context (and
not simply because it would cut down on the number of possible
"who's with whom" connections). Well, maybe it _could_ be done,
but certainly I'd have no interest in doing it.
Heather Jones
> Dunno. In Mercedes Lackey, I always find myself thinking that the gay
> characters are there for the benefit of the people about whom the Onion
> wrote the article "Area 15-Year-Old Only Homosexual In The Whole World".
The gut-level feeling I've always had about Lackey is that, to
some extent, she's writing bootstrap slash -- that is, writing
with a slash-oriented sensibility, but just happening to use
original material.
Joshua P. Hill
>In Arthur C. Clarke's _Imperial Earth_, both homosexuality and
>heterosexuality are classed as mental illnesses.
I love it. IIRC, Clarke also had his protagonist sleeping with another
boy many years before such things were deemed "acceptable."
Josh
David Friedman
Graydon <o...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> I suspect this
> > follows from biology, at some level, and any time I see a writer who
> > has more than about 10-20% gay characters, I start suspecting an
> > agenda, which always bugs me...
>
> Such as, say, accurately portraying Elizabethan or High Medieval
> aristocracy?
I don't think this is as clear a matter as you make it sound. Boswell
argues that homosexuality, or at least homosexual sentiments, were
common and accepted in most of medieval Europe up to about the 12th
century. But although he makes a persuasive case, I don't think he has
yet persuaded everyone else in the field to agree with him.
One of his central arguments is that we observe very similar terminology
for men talking about close male friends and for men talking about
female lovers. But it's worth noting that in our society there is a lot
of overlap between words and gestures associated with erotic love and
those associated with parental love. We hug our children, we cuddle our
children, some of us refer to them as "sweetheart" or "darling." But
parent/child incest is one of the strongest taboos we have. So although
I think he makes an interesting case, I also think it's too soon to take
his view of the matter as simple historical fact.
David Friedman
se...@plethora.net (Seebs) wrote:
> It's hard to balance the desire to not preserve prejudices against realistic
> evaluations of how likely or unlikely a given outcome is. To the best of my
> knowledge, although homosexuality shows up in a number of species, it is never
> *common*. (Distinguish from things like bonobos, where sexual activity in
> general is much more common; I'm just talking about the underlying
> orientation.) I suspect this follows from biology, at some level, and any
> time I see a writer who has more than about 10-20% gay characters, I start
> suspecting an agenda, which always bugs me...
My memory from Posner's _Sex and Reason_ is an estimate of about 3-5% of
men being homosexual in the strong sense of the term, with a comment
that it seemed, so far as one could tell, to be true across cultures.
On the other hand, reading Boswell's description of ancient Rome, it
sounded as though homosexual or bisexual men were about as common as
heterosexual men. If so, that supports the idea that a large fraction of
the male population is at least potentially homosexual, given the right
culture. I don't know which is right.
Darkhawk (H. Nicoll)
> Seebs wrote:
>
> > Dunno. In Mercedes Lackey, I always find myself thinking that the gay
> > characters are there for the benefit of the people about whom the Onion
> > wrote the article "Area 15-Year-Old Only Homosexual In The Whole World".
>
> The gut-level feeling I've always had about Lackey is that, to
> some extent, she's writing bootstrap slash -- that is, writing
> with a slash-oriented sensibility, but just happening to use
> original material.
A friend of mine wrote recently in her journal that Lackey writes
fanfic; your guts are not alone.
--
Heather Anne Nicoll - Darkhawk - http://aelfhame.net/~darkhawk/
They are one person, they are two alone
They are three together, they are for each other.
- "Helplessly Hoping", Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Cally Soukup
> My impression is that ff gay sex is a lot more acceptable than mm gay
> sex. Certainly that's true for heterosexual male readers, and I think
> it's true for heterosexual female readers as well, although less sure.
This heterosexual female reader finds mm sex scenes far, far more
h/o/t/ interesting than ff sex scenes.
--
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend
to the death your right to say it." -- Beatrice Hall
Cally Soukup sou...@pobox.com
R. L.
<hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu> wrote:
/snip/
>The gut-level feeling I've always had about Lackey is that, to
>some extent, she's writing bootstrap slash -- that is, writing
>with a slash-oriented sensibility, but just happening to use
>original material.
What does 'slash' mean?
R.L.
David Friedman
Cally Soukup <sou...@pobox.com> wrote:
> David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.com> wrote in article
> <ddfr-B43E0A.2...@dsl081-079-101.sfo1.dsl.speakeasy.net>:
>
> > My impression is that ff gay sex is a lot more acceptable than mm gay
> > sex. Certainly that's true for heterosexual male readers, and I think
> > it's true for heterosexual female readers as well, although less sure.
>
> This heterosexual female reader finds mm sex scenes far, far more
> h/o/t/ interesting than ff sex scenes.
That seems to be a fairly common response here, suggesting that my
impression on that may well have been mistaken.
Pat Bowne
"Darkhawk (H. Nicoll)" <dark...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:1fwkbln.11tzl5l16get8aN%dark...@mindspring.com...
> Heather Jones <hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> > Seebs wrote:
> >
> > > Dunno. In Mercedes Lackey, I always find myself thinking that the gay
> > > characters are there for the benefit of the people about whom the
Onion
> > > wrote the article "Area 15-Year-Old Only Homosexual In The Whole
World".
> >
> > The gut-level feeling I've always had about Lackey is that, to
> > some extent, she's writing bootstrap slash -- that is, writing
> > with a slash-oriented sensibility, but just happening to use
> > original material.
>
> A friend of mine wrote recently in her journal that Lackey writes
> fanfic; your guts are not alone.
>
I've had the same response, but why? What are the 'marks of fanfic-dom' that
we're reacting to?
Pat
Pat Bowne
"R. L." <sssnoss@sssssspamssssssss> wrote in message
news:45fc1bf9297b79c2...@free.teranews.com...
relationship between two of the original show's characters. TV being what it
is, the characters were probably presented as heterosexual in the original
show. I don't know that this is a requirement for something to be classed as
'slash' though -- frex, would 'Will and Grace' fanfic suggesting a
relationship between Will and Jack be classed as slash? Some expert
enlighten me. (Wierdly enough, though, I've never seen any W&G fan fiction
of any sort. Is the impetus absent if the original characters are
homsexual?)
Pat
Brian M. Scott
[...]
>Someone did a series (can't remember the name of the writer, but the first
>book was _Luck In The Shadows_) which was set in a world in which bisexuality
>was fairly normal, or at least, the number of same- and opposite-sex pairings
>in brothers was pretty close to equal...
Lynn Flewelling.
>This struck me as bordering on offensively pushy.
Couldn't have been *too* bad, since I didn't even remember it.
<g> Seriously, I suspect that this has a large cultural
component; if it's done well, it doesn't bother me at all. I
notice it in Lackey because she makes such a bloody point of it.
[...]
Brian
Darkhawk (H. Nicoll)
> "Darkhawk (H. Nicoll)" <dark...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> news:1fwkbln.11tzl5l16get8aN%dark...@mindspring.com...
> > A friend of mine wrote recently in her journal that Lackey writes
> > fanfic; your guts are not alone.
> >
> I've had the same response, but why? What are the 'marks of fanfic-dom' that
> we're reacting to?
Hummmmm.
*draws on the gang for brainstorming*
This is what we've come up with:
- escapism: people in miserable circumstances spirited away to Lives Of
Excitement Where They Can Find Love.
- Mary Sue Lookalike Contest: the superspecial character who goes
through horrible suffering and either dies, leaving everyone around
grief-stricken, or manages to pluckily survive and Get The Guy. Or dies
and gets the guy anyway through fiat or transformation into a Magical
Spirit of the Forest.
- moralising.
- occasional pot shots at mainstream groups (the friend who made the
initial comment was feeling sarcastic about snarky comments about
Christianity).
- excessive italics.
- unpolished feel (though that may be a result of a case of 'I don't
need an editor!' for all I know)
- sparkly magical animals.
- lots and lots of Fisher-Price My First Sexual Experience character
situations.
Charlton Wilbur
> Dunno. In Mercedes Lackey, I always find myself thinking that the
> gay characters are there for the benefit of the people about whom
> the Onion wrote the article "Area 15-Year-Old Only Homosexual In The
> Whole World".
>
> Someone did a series (can't remember the name of the writer, but the
> first book was _Luck In The Shadows_) which was set in a world in
> which bisexuality was fairly normal, or at least, the number of
> same- and opposite-sex pairings in brothers was pretty close to
> equal... This struck me as bordering on offensively pushy.
Lynn Flewelling. I just finished reading it, oh, three weeks ago?
I didn't like the gay characters in Mercedes Lackey or in Lynn
Flewelling; it seemed to me that here were two authors who were
perfectly capable of imagining complex societies with all sorts of
weird things going on, and yet the gay characters had the *same*
issues with the *same* gender stereotypes as in 1990s USA. This
completely failed the plausibility test. In neither case was the
situation terrible enough to prevent me from finishing the first book
in the series, but in neither case was the first book in the series
compelling enough to make me seek out the second book. Which was a
shame, because before Flewelling got into the whole sexual orientation
thing, the book was a rather good yarn.
I can think of other books that don't evoke that particular reaction
-- Eleanor Arnason's _Ring of Swords_ handles things rather deftly, as
does Ellen Kushner's _Swordspoint_. I wish there were more like
those.
Charlton
Charlton Wilbur
> My memory from Posner's _Sex and Reason_ is an estimate of about
> 3-5% of men being homosexual in the strong sense of the term, with a
> comment that it seemed, so far as one could tell, to be true across
> cultures.
>
> On the other hand, reading Boswell's description of ancient Rome, it
> sounded as though homosexual or bisexual men were about as common as
> heterosexual men. If so, that supports the idea that a large
> fraction of the male population is at least potentially homosexual,
> given the right culture. I don't know which is right.
Well, the problem is, how do you define "homosexual"? Boswell and
Posner are probably using different definitions; at a guess, they're
both measuring expressed homosexuality, but in different ways.
Suppose we have a scale on which to measure the amount of same-sex
attraction a person has, ranging from 0% (not at all interested in
same-sex contact; never even has a passing fantasy or curiosity about
it) to 100% (not at all interested in opposite-sex contact; never even
has a passing fantasy or curiosity about it).
Given that definition, what Posner is saying is that 3-5% of the male
population has so much attraction for the same sex (i.e., in the
85-100% range on the scale) that they will express it regardless of
censure or social mores. What Boswell is saying is that the social
norms in ancient Rome were such that 50% of men had sufficient
attraction for the same sex (i.e., in the 30%-100% range) that they
could explore that attraction without penalty, and so did. Both
Boswell and Posner can be correct, especially if they're measuring
different things that only appear superficially to be the same thing.
I think that this method of thinking can also explain the different
preponderances of male and female homosexuality among (say) college
students. It's a lot more socially acceptable for women to be
bisexual or lesbian than for men to be bisexual or gay, and so the
women who try lesbian relationships are in the 50%-100% range; while
it's much less socially acceptable for men, and so the men who try gay
relationships are in the 80-100% range.
I could probably go on at length, but it's late. More tomorrow, if
the thread's still going on and nobody's said what I'm thinking.
Charlton
Heather Jones
Well, significant emotional pandering and button-pushing is
certainly an element. A strong streak of Mary-Sueishness. A
fairly tight feedback loop to the cultural fads of the expected
readership. (I say this having rather enjoyed her books at the
beginning ... until I started getting very disturbed by a number
of her underlying messages.)
Irina Rempt
[why Mercedes Lackey is essentially fanfic]
> Well, significant emotional pandering and button-pushing is
> certainly an element. A strong streak of Mary-Sueishness. A
> fairly tight feedback loop to the cultural fads of the expected
> readership. (I say this having rather enjoyed her books at the
> beginning ... until I started getting very disturbed by a number
> of her underlying messages.)
Yes, me too. It got especially disturbing when I checked out some of the
online fan communities and stumbled on a kind of entrance exam for one
(don't know which, I think of it as "so you want to be a Herald") that
entailed, among other things, writing an essay about the American
Constitution.
Irina
--
Vesta veran, terna puran, farenin. http://www.valdyas.org/irina/
Beghinnen can ick, volherden will' ick, volbringhen sal ick.
http://www.valdyas.org/~irina/foundobjects/ Latest: 11-May-2003
David Friedman
Graydon <o...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> >> Such as, say, accurately portraying Elizabethan or High Medieval
> >> aristocracy?
> >
> > I don't think this is as clear a matter as you make it sound.
>
> Wasn't referencing Boswell at all.
>
> The utter and complete lack of secular comment about Roger fitz Haimo,
> on the other hand, is I think well past indicative.
Reference? I'm not familiar with him.
David Friedman
Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@mithril.chromatico.net> wrote:
> David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.com> writes:
>
> > My memory from Posner's _Sex and Reason_ is an estimate of about
> > 3-5% of men being homosexual in the strong sense of the term, with a
> > comment that it seemed, so far as one could tell, to be true across
> > cultures.
> >
> > On the other hand, reading Boswell's description of ancient Rome, it
> > sounded as though homosexual or bisexual men were about as common as
> > heterosexual men. If so, that supports the idea that a large
> > fraction of the male population is at least potentially homosexual,
> > given the right culture. I don't know which is right.
>
> Well, the problem is, how do you define "homosexual"?
That's why I specified "in the strong sense of the term." But Posner's
view, as I remember it, was that male tastes were concentrated near the
ends of the distribution.
...
> Given that definition, what Posner is saying is that 3-5% of the male
> population has so much attraction for the same sex (i.e., in the
> 85-100% range on the scale) that they will express it regardless of
> censure or social mores.
I don't think so. I think what he is saying is that that fraction
unambiguously want to have sex with men and not with women. Many of them
might choose not to act on that desire if doing so is sufficiently
costly. But my memory was that he thought the number from there to being
about equally interested in men and women wasn't very large.
> What Boswell is saying is that the social
> norms in ancient Rome were such that 50% of men had sufficient
> attraction for the same sex (i.e., in the 30%-100% range) that they
> could explore that attraction without penalty, and so did. Both
> Boswell and Posner can be correct, especially if they're measuring
> different things that only appear superficially to be the same thing.
It is logically possible that 3% are homosexual in the strong sense and
50% in the weak sense, but I don't think it is consistent with Posner's
view of the situation as I remember it. I could be wrong. I remember he
also discusses the Mediterannean pattern where the insertive partner
isn't thought of as homosexual.
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
jinx...@sover.net (Chris Johnson) wrote:
[...]
> *snicker* which gives me various outrageous ideas that have loads of
> story value, some of which are mind-meltingly explicit in all sorts of
> colorfully shocking ways. What if my canid, innocent-perky male alien
> is tricked into sex with a Tompar assassin? His race lock like dogs,
> and he doesn't have any idea that the Tompar (lizard-snake aliens) are
> superstrong everywhere. Presto, the (female) assassin has our lad's
> FULL attention and they both must awkwardly make their way to unlock
> the locked door (or whatever) or the threat is, our boy's going to end
> up with serious physical injury. Our lady snake-lizard gets to lead our
> hero about by the pelvis ;)
I _like_ that one.
And its inherent likelihood to turn into comedy as well as porn. :)
> Of course, there's no telling whether people would be _aroused_ by
> such a peculiar (and amusing) scenario, but that's their affair. :)
You can't know, and maybe we shouldn't worry...
Mary
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
> On Sat, 14 Jun 2003 00:57:16 +0000 (UTC),
> mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
>
> >In article <3EEA6499...@avalon.net>, pub...@avalon.net (Brandon
> >Ray) wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > As far as I can tell (from net slash and published fiction)
> > > there's a
> >> > _huge_ female readership for MM sex. Many of these female are
> >> > self-proclaimed straight women, FFIW. The female audience for FF
> > > sex >is
> >> > tiny. I don't know why.
> >> >
> >> > The prime interest in FF sex seems to be from bi or lesbian women,
> > > and
> >> > straight men.
> >> >
> >> > OK, this is entirely unscientific in the nature of the survey;
> > > it's >just
> >> > what I've picked up while reading widely in the area, and writing
> > > some
> >> > Bassets Allsorts Trashy-Porn(TM).
>
> ... Do I even want to ask what Bassets Allsorts Trashy-Porn is?
>
> I'm just... twinging at the fact that it includes a name of a dog.
<snicker>
Sadly, it's much less trashy than it sounds. 'Bassets Allsorts' is a
brand of sweets, where the bag contains a number of different types of
sweet. When I'm doing the Trashy Porn novels I work on the principle of a
chapter for everybody (as far as one can get 'everybody's' fantasies into
60,000 words).
I suspect, from looking around, that 'all chapters on one particular
theme' sells better. But I get bored easily.
And X Libris don't allow bestiality, so no Basset hounds. Unless, I
suppose, they're in the background and engaged in congress with others of
their own kind. :)
>
> >> >
> >>
> >> But it also matches my experience (in reading, I hasten to
> >> add).
> >
> >But of course. :)
> >
> >> Although I've noticed this mostly on the net; I do
> >> not recall seeing scads of mass-market hardcopy novels being
> >> sold that appear to include MM sex. Unless it is concealed
> >> in some of the romance titles that are largely marketed to
> >> women?
> >
> >It used to be that you couldn't move in fantasy and SF for MM sex,
> selling >very well -- Marion Zimmer Bradley, Elizabeth Moon's early
> work, Mercedes >Lackey, and probably a few more names that escape me.
> Delany, for a >different take on it. Whether this is still the case, I
> don't know.
>
> Hrm, but was that really more MM sex, or MM... teasing, and hinting? I
> don't think I read most of the above, but remembering Lackey's stuff
> offhand, I remember various male attractions and pairings, but nothing
> explicit. At least, in what I read.
It's been so long since I read them that I don't remember. I have a
feeling it was fairly plain about the fact that relationships were going
on, but the text stopped outside the bedroom door -- or even, before a
kiss.
I've probably read too much NC17 slash now to be satisfied with that. <g>
>
> >Like the net, FF was more difficult to find. (I can only remember
> Joanna >Russ, there must be more...)
> >
> >It used to drive me potty that publishers of women's porn would say,
> oh, >well, we don't want too much MM sex, women don't read it -- until
> I >realised that they were bothered about their 25% or 50% crossover
> _male_ >readership, who were the ones they really thought would be put
> off by MM >scenes. And they needed those sales. [1] Didn't seem to
> occur to them >that they might have gathered a female readership larger
> than the male one >they might lose.
> >
> >(I put MM in anyway, and the books are still in print, so I allow
> myself >to feel quietly vindicated, even if I have no real idea if
> that's anything >to do with it!)
>
> You go!
<makes note for next volume> :)
>
> >> I would not venture to guess why women enjoy reading MM
> >> (since I am not a woman). It seems to me that at least part
> >> of the reason men enjoy reading FF, is that they envision
> >> themselves being invited to join the party.
> >
> >The women/MM theory used to be the exact opposite -- that because the
> >participants were both oriented towards males, there was no chance the
> >woman could be invited to join, and hence there'd be no sexual anxiety
> on >her part.
> >
> >Whether this theory ever held water, I have not the slightest idea...
> >
> >Lesbians not of the men's-magazine variety have a lot to say about the
> >male gaze, and the absolute unlikelihood of a man being invited to
> join >in. I do feel men have either confused lesbianism with
> bisexuality in >that case, or just don't know what 'lesbian' _means._
>
> I don't know if it's really that... I mean, I think the whole "ooo
> what I wouldn't give to be in on that" angle is what attracts me to
> some MM stuff, while really in my head I know "hey, these guys are gay
> - they have no interest in girls. I wouldn't be allowed to join."
> Really, knowing one thing in your head, and another in your... er...
> aesthetic sense, you can have two quite different things going on at
> the same time. If that makes any sense.
Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Responses are going to have ambiguities
in them. The 'it's safe to watch', the 'invite me in!', and maybe the 'I
like to identify with males' from time to time, too. And doubtless
further shadings of meaning.
>
> Besides, to me, imagining myself included in a MM pairing makes about
> as much sense as imagining myself included in sex with, say, a hot
> movie star. Like Orlando Bloom, just to pick a name out of thin air. I
> figure the chances of me ending up in *either* scenario are damn close
> to nil, but that doesn't stop the fantasies. ;)
Omigod is there anyone in the /universe/ who doesn't want to shag
Legolas!!
There are several rather good slash stories based on that theme,
actually...
<startles out of reverie> What were we saying? Oh yes. Fantasies should
never be restricted by reality: what's the point of /that?/ <g>
>
> >Not that I get too worked up about what anybody does with who in
> fantasy, >since that's rather what fantasy's for, but I would like to
> send the >Accuracy Police around to adjust the naming conventions.
> >
> >Oh, the other theory about women and MM sex scenes -- stemming a lot
> from >early TV slash, K/S and Blake's 7 in particular -- is that a
> female >reader can get to see men behaving more in a manner that
> society restricts >to women, e.g. caring about each other's emotional
> and sexual feelings, >being tender, etc., as well as being go-all-night
> sex machines. And it >therefore reassures women, as well as turning
> them on, because women like >to think men have something other than
> empty space between their ears.
> >
> >Again, dunno how far this theory holds up under scrutiny, but I've
> >certainly seen it put forward.
> >
> >I don't have a theory, myself -- to me, it seems odd that women don't
> >appear to like FF as much as they like MM, and that men may be put off
> by >MM. But people often leave me feeling that I was dumped on this
> planet by >a passing galactic freighter, so I'm used to it. <g>
>
> Hrm. For my own part, along with some of the above, I think part of it
> is just... well... voyeurism, and aesthetic appreciation - even if
> what's going on is only in your mind's eye. Being a straight female
> (or at least very very far at that end of the spectrum, if you see
> sexuality as a spectrum more than "three categories), if I want to
> look in on two hot, sweaty, naked bodies, I'd rather be watching guys,
> thankyouverymuch. I can find girls pretty, but I'm not really
> *attracted* to them.
I think I see where you're at. Does that affect your view of MF porn, or
is MM preferable for that reason there too?
Mary
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
(Julia Jones) wrote:
[...]
> One of the things you missed was the discussion about Margaret Atwood's
> latest it's-not-sf-it's-a-Real-Novel...
The question there being, should I be sorry I missed it, or relieved? :)
Coincidentally, I was having this discussion with Best Beloved a month or
so ago, but generally rather than in regard of any particular author. As
a fact of publishing it's been true for thirty years to my personal
knowledge; I don't know why it /still/ makes me spit. Shoulda got used to
it by now...
> >>
> >> Practice does help. At least nowadays I don't get told that it sounds
> >> as if I'm writing a lab report, which is what the editor who saw my
> >> first ever piece of slash said. It was a lot better after she'd gone
> >> over it with a red pen:-)
> >
> ><choke, splutter!> Ah, the 'insert tab A into slot B' School of Trashy
> >Porn Writing...
>
> Wasn't quite *that* bad. The trouble was that I'm a practising
> scientist, and for many, many years my writing had been lab reports --
> and it showed. If you've spent years with that sort of very detached
> writing style, it can be a bit difficult to shake it off. The solution,
> obviously, was to get in lots of practice at writing in a more engaged
> style:-)
Practice, practice, practice... (Or should that be 'practise'? I'm
permanently stuffed on that one, now. :)
>
> You know, I've only just realised why I almost always write in third
> person, even when I'm writing porn.
Ah ha!
I do first person in non-porn novels, but I don't think I could in the
porn. It was difficult enough doing the sex in _1610_ in first person...
Mary
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this (Helen) wrote:
> In article <bccd84$ajr$1...@thorium.cix.co.uk>, mary_...@cix.compulink.c
> o.uk writes
> >
> >There was talk, back at the synopsis stage, that Eos might do _1610_
> as a >mainstream historical novel, rather than SF. I rather hope they
> do, >because it would be fascinating to see it come out as historical
> in the >USA and SF in Britain. <g >
> >I notice the barriers between mainstream and 'quality' historical
> novel >seem very blurry right now -- THE DREAM OF SCIPIO (forget the
> author but >he did AN INSTANCE OF THE FINGERPOST), which I just
> finished, could >equally well have been a historical, but looks like
> mainstream/general >fiction in its publication. Shame the
> SF/mainstream borders aren't fuzzy >like that.
> >
> I wonder where/how they draw the line? I mean _Aberystwyth Mon Amour_ by
> Malcolm Pryce is just as much an alternate reality as Jon Courtenay
> Grimwood's Arabesk series, yet the former was in the mainstream section
> and the latter says "File Under Science Fiction" on the back cover, and
> that's were it was.
<shrug>
The line gets drawn at the value judgement.
I thought it used to be drawn on the inclusion of SF 'furniture' -- tropes
like FTL, genetic engineering, etc -- but that's no longer the case, if it
ever was. Or maybe the quality of the writing, but that's dubious too.
(SHIKASTA in mind, here.) And it isn't even where the narrative emphasis
lies -- which you could maybe make a case for in the Pryce, but then look
at Grimwood, as you say. Jon could equally well be doing weirdshit
mainstream.
So I think it happens where someone up the editorial tree says 'we'll
publish this as X', and 'X' is thereafter is. And in borderline cases
that decision is going to be based purely on "we think we can sell 5000
copies of this as mainstream but 10000 copies as fantasy", or vice versa.
As to how much that's a self-fulfilling prophecy...
Mary
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
ja...@erstwhile.demon.co.uk (James Wallis) wrote:
> In message <bccd84$ajr$1...@thorium.cix.co.uk>,
> mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk writes
> ><choke, splutter!> Ah, the 'insert tab A into slot B' School of
> > Trashy >Porn Writing...
>
> I used to edit various things for various departments of Virgin
> Publishing, which was and is an enthusiastic purveyor of all colours
> and shapes of smut. Their imprints included Nexus (male), Black Lace
> (female), Trojan (gay) and Sapphire (lesbian) -- I was waiting for them
> to launch Rover, but they never did.
:-)
Oddly enough, I prefer the Nexus books to the Black Lace ones; the BL
ones I've read have tended to be a bit on the wussy side -- presumably
that was their remit? This was in the days when BL was edited by a woman
who I've met and, embarrassingly, have forgotten the name of.
>
> After a few manuscripts, despite the ludicrous pseudonyms that most of
> the authors use (Penny Birch? Delver Maddingley?) I quickly learned how
> to tell whether a writer was male or female.
I'd settle for knowing whether Penny Birch is one person or several. If
'Penny Birch' is one person, they're another one who want shooting on the
grounds of being unreasonably prolific. <g>
> Typically, female authors
> would describe feelings and sensations, inner thoughts, and would do
> interesting things with viewpoints and emotional responses. Male
> authors described what'll fit where if you push it.
Oddly enough, of the one 'female' author for Nexus whom I know to be male
(being an acquaintance of mine) this didn't seem to be the case, but I'll
take your word for the rest of them. I'm not terribly well-read in the
field.
>
> I have to continually repress memories of one SF novel that postulated
> a future where the population is kept in line by frequent spankings.
John Norman is still writing, then? :)
> And sadly I wasn't the editor on the novel that took a stab at blending
> the Japanese trend for tentacle-porn with elements of the Cthulhu
> mythos.
Oh, euw. If there's anything that'll get a euuwww! out of me, it's the
concept of tentacle porn. Poor old Squid-head.
> And if having people tell you that they love your work gives you an odd
> feeling, then... a friend of mine was once waxing lyrical about her
> first Black Lace book and how it had changed her life, and I had to
> admit I'd written large chunks of it, the original ms not being up to
> scratch. Said friend is now a professional sex-expert. My karma is good.
Now /that's/ cool.
Mary
Boudewijn Rempt
>
> Omigod is there anyone in the /universe/ who doesn't want to shag
> Legolas!!
>
Yes. Definitely.
--
Boudewijn Rempt | http://www.valdyas.org
Elizabeth Shack
K. Kuhner) wrote:
>For me, both MM and FF are sexier than MF. I have seen so many
>listless, by-the-numbers, or forced MF romances that it's hard for
>me to react with other than "yeah, right" unless it's *really*
>well done, whereas MM and FF seem fresher and less forced.
Regarding, say, romances in (not porn or erotica) novels, the MM and
FF are more likely to take me by surprise, because I see them less
often. I get so used to seeing male character + female character =
couple.
--
Elizabeth Shack
eas...@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~eashack
Elizabeth Shack
>Someone did a series (can't remember the name of the writer, but the first
>book was _Luck In The Shadows_)
Lynn Fl... uh, book is at home in a box. Has lots of l's and a w.
Ends in ing.
>which was set in a world in which bisexuality
>was fairly normal, or at least, the number of same- and opposite-sex pairings
>in brothers was pretty close to equal... This struck me as bordering on
>offensively pushy.
Didn't bother me much, quite liked it....
>In particular, the "if you weren't so prudish, you'd
>be bi"
...except for that. But I can believe that in some cases it's true,
so it still didn't bother me much.
Irina Rempt
> mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
>>
>> Omigod is there anyone in the /universe/ who doesn't want to shag
>> Legolas!!
>
> Yes. Definitely.
Me neither; I'd rather have Aragorn or the *real* Faramir (i.e. not the
movie version).
Mary K. Kuhner
Brandon Ray <pub...@avalon.net> wrote:
>There are people in
>this country who literally don't even notice if a man and
>woman greet with a hug and a kiss on the cheek (depending on
>the setting, and your personal tolerance of PDAs) and then
>sit down to have lunch holding hands. But let two men or
>two women do the exact same thing, and they are "flaunting".
As someone who's married to a pretty Asian guy with waist-
length hair, I've been made very aware of this. I like to think
I'm doing a bit of work for public acceptance when I'm out in
public with him, because the mistake is *so* common and the
reactions so...varied.
In Seattle I think that his gender (or the perception thereof) is
an issue but his race isn't; when we're in other US cities I
don't feel as sure. We got warned once, in Eastern Washington,
that folks around there didn't like Indians (with, I thought,
some implication of "especially dating white women"). Took
both of us a moment to work through *that*. Long hair again.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
bo...@valdyas.org (Boudewijn Rempt) wrote:
> mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
> >
> > Omigod is there anyone in the /universe/ who doesn't want to shag
> > Legolas!!
> >
>
> Yes. Definitely.
I give thanks.
And... ah... that would include Boromir, too, at a guess?
I /have/ read too much bad slash fiction recently. :)
Mary
Laura M. Parkinson
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
>In article <ottkevs8glcl2uf8d...@4ax.com>,
>lpark...@mindspring.com (Laura M. Parkinson) wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 14 Jun 2003 00:57:16 +0000 (UTC),
>> mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
>> >> > OK, this is entirely unscientific in the nature of the survey;
>> > > it's >just
>> >> > what I've picked up while reading widely in the area, and writing
>> > > some
>> >> > Bassets Allsorts Trashy-Porn(TM).
>>
>> ... Do I even want to ask what Bassets Allsorts Trashy-Porn is?
>>
>> I'm just... twinging at the fact that it includes a name of a dog.
>
><snicker>
>
>Sadly, it's much less trashy than it sounds. 'Bassets Allsorts' is a
>brand of sweets, where the bag contains a number of different types of
>sweet. When I'm doing the Trashy Porn novels I work on the principle of a
>chapter for everybody (as far as one can get 'everybody's' fantasies into
>60,000 words).
Oh how boring!
Er... the explanation, not the writing style. :)
>I suspect, from looking around, that 'all chapters on one particular
>theme' sells better. But I get bored easily.
>
>And X Libris don't allow bestiality, so no Basset hounds. Unless, I
>suppose, they're in the background and engaged in congress with others of
>their own kind. :)
Heh. But... but... those soulful eyes!
And I guess the next question would be... "but what about weiner
dogs?"
But then I'm a sick person.
>> >It used to be that you couldn't move in fantasy and SF for MM sex,
>> selling >very well -- Marion Zimmer Bradley, Elizabeth Moon's early
>> work, Mercedes >Lackey, and probably a few more names that escape me.
>> Delany, for a >different take on it. Whether this is still the case, I
>> don't know.
>>
>> Hrm, but was that really more MM sex, or MM... teasing, and hinting? I
>> don't think I read most of the above, but remembering Lackey's stuff
>> offhand, I remember various male attractions and pairings, but nothing
>> explicit. At least, in what I read.
>
>It's been so long since I read them that I don't remember. I have a
>feeling it was fairly plain about the fact that relationships were going
>on, but the text stopped outside the bedroom door -- or even, before a
>kiss.
That's pretty much how I remember it, though I think there were a few
kisses here and there. Or at least one or two.
>I've probably read too much NC17 slash now to be satisfied with that. <g>
Hrm... I definitely need to read more porn. *grins*
*snipping a bit for brevity*
>> Besides, to me, imagining myself included in a MM pairing makes about
>> as much sense as imagining myself included in sex with, say, a hot
>> movie star. Like Orlando Bloom, just to pick a name out of thin air. I
>> figure the chances of me ending up in *either* scenario are damn close
>> to nil, but that doesn't stop the fantasies. ;)
>
>Omigod is there anyone in the /universe/ who doesn't want to shag
>Legolas!!
Probably.
But that just means that there's more for me!
>There are several rather good slash stories based on that theme,
>actually...
>
><startles out of reverie> What were we saying? Oh yes. Fantasies should
>never be restricted by reality: what's the point of /that?/ <g>
Damn reality. *sulk* Why won't it just go away?
>> >Oh, the other theory about women and MM sex scenes -- stemming a lot
>> from >early TV slash, K/S and Blake's 7 in particular -- is that a
>> female >reader can get to see men behaving more in a manner that
>> society restricts >to women, e.g. caring about each other's emotional
>> and sexual feelings, >being tender, etc., as well as being go-all-night
>> sex machines. And it >therefore reassures women, as well as turning
>> them on, because women like >to think men have something other than
>> empty space between their ears.
>> >
>> >Again, dunno how far this theory holds up under scrutiny, but I've
>> >certainly seen it put forward.
>> >
>> >I don't have a theory, myself -- to me, it seems odd that women don't
>> >appear to like FF as much as they like MM, and that men may be put off
>> by >MM. But people often leave me feeling that I was dumped on this
>> planet by >a passing galactic freighter, so I'm used to it. <g>
>>
>> Hrm. For my own part, along with some of the above, I think part of it
>> is just... well... voyeurism, and aesthetic appreciation - even if
>> what's going on is only in your mind's eye. Being a straight female
>> (or at least very very far at that end of the spectrum, if you see
>> sexuality as a spectrum more than "three categories), if I want to
>> look in on two hot, sweaty, naked bodies, I'd rather be watching guys,
>> thankyouverymuch. I can find girls pretty, but I'm not really
>> *attracted* to them.
>
>I think I see where you're at. Does that affect your view of MF porn, or
>is MM preferable for that reason there too?
Hrm, good question. I'd say if I had a choice, I'd go with MM, then
MF, then FF as far as my level of interest goes. Just as a general
indicator of course - if given a choice between two specific scenes,
where the MM was just written from a viewpoint that you can sense of
"ooo, look at this illicit stuff that I'm being bold enough to write!
How kinky it is!" vs. a FF scene that actually developed the
characters, really brought you into the story, etc., I'd go with the
latter.
Then again, it's always just bad when a sex scene turns you off from a
book more than it turns you on. See also: Piers Anthony.
Of course, back to the question, it also might depend on how
thoroughly I can identify with the female character, in a MF pairing.
;)
Boudewijn Rempt
> I give thanks.
>
> And... ah... that would include Boromir, too, at a guess?
>
> I /have/ read too much bad slash fiction recently. :)
>
No Boromir doesn't need to apply either. Nor Galadriel, Arwen, Faramir or
Gandalf. In fact, I don't think there's anyone in Lord Of the Rings, either
movie or book, who'd I like to know carnally.
Julia Jones
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk writes<snip>
>>
>> Hrm, but was that really more MM sex, or MM... teasing, and hinting? I
>> don't think I read most of the above, but remembering Lackey's stuff
>> offhand, I remember various male attractions and pairings, but nothing
>> explicit. At least, in what I read.
>
>It's been so long since I read them that I don't remember. I have a
>feeling it was fairly plain about the fact that relationships were going
>on, but the text stopped outside the bedroom door -- or even, before a
>kiss.
Ah, smut-eating asterisks.
>
>I've probably read too much NC17 slash now to be satisfied with that. <g>
There are smut-eating asterisks in slash as well. Which is all very well
when graphic descriptions of the actual in'n'out aren't essential to the
story, but an early issue of Fire & Ice nearly got bounced off the wall
because a story that appeared to be all about the in'n'out suddenly went
all coy at the vital moment.
>Omigod is there anyone in the /universe/ who doesn't want to shag
>Legolas!!
>
Not as far as I'm aware. At least, not anyone of the appropriate
orientation, and some people seem to have discovered that previously
unknown to them they are of the appropriate orientation. But I'm
actually rather more partial to Haldir.
--
Julia Jones
The suespammers.org mail server is located in California; do not send
unsolicited bulk e-mail or unsolicited commercial e-mail to my suespammers.org
address.
David Friedman
Graydon <o...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> In <ddfr-EE8915.0...@dsl081-079-101.sfo1.dsl.speakeasy.net>,
> David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.com> onsendan:
> Companinion to William II of England; he's a witness on a pile of
> surviving legal documents. You might try :Joan of Arc and Richard III:
> Sex, Saints, and Government in the Middle Ages:, Wood, Charles T. which
> (if I'm remembering correctly) has a good bit on how upset people
> weren't with either him or Red William.
>
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/019506951X/
> 102-2296250-9467337?vi=glance>
Thanks.
Tim S
> mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
>>
>> Omigod is there anyone in the /universe/ who doesn't want to shag
>> Legolas!!
>>
>
> Yes. Definitely.
Yes, at least two people. Very definitely.
Tim
Zeborah
> What about bi people? I'm interested in men, and in women, but I'm like
> Mary in that MM and FF both tend to turn me on more(1) than MF. Perhaps
> that's because in MF there's always an implicit undercurrent of power,
> and in same-sex scenes if there's power in play it has to be explicit
> or I don't notice. Any bi males around who might like to pipe up?
>
> The point is probably that I'm turned off immediately and completely by
> sex as a power game.
I'm mostly opposite: I like power games a lot, whether or not they
include sex; it's the messing with minds that I like. But the, er,
equipment inherently involved with MM is more obviously symbolic than
that inherently involved with FF; MF is okay but I prefer a more even
game, where the underdog can turn the tables, or attempt to turn the
tables, or think s/he had turned the tables and then discover--
Symbology can of course be overwhelmed by psychology, and that's my
ideal anyway. I'm really not that much interested in a tug-of-war on
the bed; it's the mind-stuff that starts long before, continues during,
and never finishes after, that's more interesting for me.
(It's not so much that I like sex as a power game; more that I like
power games as sex. Or something, I think. Complicated.)
It's just that in the fandom I'm most familiar with the men were the
easier characters to write about in this sort of way. The women were
mostly viewed (by the mostly-female fans, in general) either as ditzes
or bitches, except for a certain one who got her own class as an evil
psycho bitch who should be hung, drawn and quartered, her ashes
scattered on unconsecrated ground, and her black and twisted soul damned
to the deepest parts of hell for all eternity.
It's hard to write a good power play between the never-do-wrong hero and
the never-do-good bitch. Wish I'd tried with the ditz, though. (She's
only a ditz on the surface, not underneath, but she kept pursuing the
hero, and the mostly-female fans were awfully possessive of him.)
Where was I? Oh yes, revealing my inner psychology. Never mind.
Suffice to say that though my tastes weren't quite unique to me in the
fandom, they were in something of a minority.
Zeborah
--
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz2000
Kangaroo story wordcount: 36727 words