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cussedness
Adept
      
Date Joined Apr 2005
Total Posts : 847
| Posted 8/18/2006 2:34 PM (GMT -5) |   | If sexist language had not been used in the posted comment that set me off on a rampage, I doubt I would ever have started these threads, or that everyone would have been caught up in them.
We've looked at a lot of interesting aspects of fiction and society in the course of these dialogs, but it was a gender slur that got it started.
For reasons that should never exist, gender slurs are tossed about with ease when we would never countenance racial slurs. Yet, essentially what is the difference? What if I had referred to Howard as a "kraut" writer? I would probably have been jumped by everyone on the board and justifiably so.
While I find the resulting dialogue between all of us fascinating and worthy, it still started because people think that using gender slurs are okay.
Janrae Frank
I have no skeletons in my closet, they are all hanging from the yardarm.
Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon the vampire, Isranon called the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits, and Waejonan the Accursed, first of sa’necari. Isranon defied his brothers and was destroyed, his descendants forced into the darkness.
Blood Rites
www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook29989.htm
website
www.janraefrank.com
Darkzone
darkzone.yuku.com | | Back to Top | | |
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xiaotien
Adept
Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 637
| Posted 8/18/2006 3:21 PM (GMT -5) | |
That aside, I still don't think there would be as much emotion over these threads if the sexist terms were dropped.
i'd have to agree.
cussedness, i give you kudos
for bringing up this topic.
from what i gather, you write
in this genre. people have to
realize it seems a direct personal
attack to her to say "the genre
is crap now cause it's pussified"
when she writes in it.
i'm not surprised that you were
up in arms.
i really can't believe every book in
this area have all gone "womanly".
i'm sure that there are still the tried
and true manly books being written.
it's just fans perhaps see an "infiltration"
of women into the genre.
yes, things do change.
it's all about being "the other".
we are fans and
writers in a genre that
some people may consider geeky
and odd, you realize.
but it seems right now,
the "pussy" is being called
the other.
i say if it's good enough for
bed, it's good enough for the
bookshelves. 
cindy p.
a little sweet, a little sour.
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Frank
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 629
| Posted 8/18/2006 4:37 PM (GMT -5) | | "I say if it's good enough for the bed, it's good enough for the bookshelves"
Here! Here! It's also good enough for these discussion threads.
Part of what I was refering to when I said content with balls was the language itself and not just the subject matter. The language in Anderson's novel is raw and harsh sounding when read aloud. Try it. Aggressive prose at it's finest, and fun to read, and all without using what we would consider specifically foul words. I'm not just talking about the gore, but the linguistic style in which the gore is described. I therefore find it ironic that anyone in this thread who wishes to defend any allegedly current unpussified fantasy would take offense to any sexist slur. | | Back to Top | | |
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cussedness
Adept
Date Joined Apr 2005
Total Posts : 847
| Posted 8/18/2006 5:09 PM (GMT -5) | | well, I have always taken some very strong offense to gender slurs. Just as I take offense to racial slurs. I would have to say it was a combination of both.
Using gender slurs in general ticks me off, it ticks me off double when it is used to refer to a type of writing because it is insulting to both writers and women.
What if I, or someone else, had labeled sword and sorcery cheap PRICK fiction? Or said that only dickwads or cockwhores write sword and sorcery? I don't think that obviously, but just what if? Or that they were all male masturbatory fiction?
How would you feel then?
I don't happen to think that all fantasy is milk toast (a non-gender slur term that I think is more applicable).
I actually think that gender terms are not good ways of defining fiction because then you are also defining gender by implication. Even using them satirically for defining fiction is just plain aggravating and asking for a fight. I will say that sometimes, in cases like this one guy's ironic icon at lj, I'm willing to let it pass. However, it still makes me wince.
I like the fact that we got to explore better territory as it pertains to big house fiction. However, I never expected that it would go in that direction. I halfway expected to be trashed and jumped on unmercifully.
Now that I've calmed down, I'm no longer certain exactly what I was feeling beyond the rage of seeing a gender slur used as a definition. When you use a gender slur a lot more is implied than the nature of the fiction. The associations of female = bad writing and male = good writing, hence female = bad writers and males = good writers, is inescapable.
A lot of people don't take the time to see all the implications of their words. That includes me when I'm angry.
Janrae Frank
I have no skeletons in my closet, they are all hanging from the yardarm.
Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon the vampire, Isranon called the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits, and Waejonan the Accursed, first of sa’necari. Isranon defied his brothers and was destroyed, his descendants forced into the darkness.
Blood Rites
www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook29989.htm
website
www.janraefrank.com
Darkzone
darkzone.yuku.com | | Back to Top | | |
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xiaotien
Adept
Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 637
| Posted 8/18/2006 5:48 PM (GMT -5) | |
And, by the way, "Cheap Prick Fiction" (hereforth adopted as CPF) and "Male Masterbatory Fiction" (hereforth adopted as MMF) I would consider in many cases both accurate and admiringly articulate and I move that we officially embrace these terms immediately! frank, i didn't think that'd offend
you for some reason. heh.
it's all a matter of perception and
being in someone else's reality and
shoes. we all have our buttons.
i, too, do not appreciate racial slurs
or sexist comments.
but then, i'm a chinese woman.
you're upfront about what doesn't
bother you, and we are about what
does. it doesn't mean that this can't
make for good discussion, tho.
cindy p.a little sweet, a little sour.
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Silent Sybil
Defender
Date Joined Aug 2006
Total Posts : 41
| Posted 8/19/2006 6:05 PM (GMT -5) | | Yea verily.
The point is no longer whether or not fantasy is 'pussified' as some of us have termed it. It is whether or not gender and racial slurs are apporpriate, here in the real world or in fantasy.
My answer to this, ladies and gentlemen, is yes and no. (someone must have seen that one coming)
My reason: Everyone has an opinion and a right to voice it and that is what everyone here has done. Our points are being proved, each in an individual way. That, my friends, is the freedom of speech. Be it gentle or rash or even emotionally heated, each man AND woman has voiced their feelings here because that is their right.
So now I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, is it right for you to limit the way someone describes something? Frank was not limiting your choice of words when you gave him your opinion. I admit, the term does put me a little on edge, but there is another word that you mentioned earlier Janrae, and that is tolerance. That term is not only for minorities or religions, it is also for opinions.
My point is, you don't have to agree with Frank or anyone else that coins the term 'pussified'. You just have to deal with it because even if the term isn't used here anymore, you are going to hear it in the real world and maybe even in your own writing. You may want to seperate your writing from the real world, but look at some of the books that are being published today. Isn't the goal of a writer in any piece of fiction to make their characters believable?
If you don't want to accept it in the real world, what makes you accept it in fiction? What, besides the obvious, is the difference beween the real world and fiction?
The irony of the world for today is:
A silent crowd (damn the subway to hell >_<) | | Back to Top | | |
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cussedness
Adept
Date Joined Apr 2005
Total Posts : 847
| Posted 8/19/2006 6:32 PM (GMT -5) | | You've made some interesting points, Sybil.
My goal in writing my novels was to get as close to the nature of humans as I could. I took my degree in Anthropology. I'm fascinated by cultures. I also tend to be a loner because I see the holes in every philosophy, religion, etc that I have encountered.
Most people who have read my first published short story Wolves of Nakesht miss the point that it is actually a complaint about the feminist community I found all around me. At the time, a lot of trashing of moderates in the feminist community was going on. I wrote Wolves of Nakesht, not just as a action fantasy, but as a metaphor for what I saw all around me.
In life, although we may object to the inequalties, they don't go away. So I have bigotry, prejudice, bad language and a search for tolerance in my novels. Most of them are damaged people who have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to achieve their victories. And, yes, there is a lot of cussing. Such as in this tiny excerpt from Blood Heresy. I use mon and myn as neuter terms.
"Some promises are to die for." The mon grinned broadly, her bloody sword point describing a taunting circle. The blade had that red-gold sheen of fine kenda’ryl, the hardest metal in existence, which held the keenest edge and strongest magical charge imaginable; all in all a very fine blade. "You promised. You broke it. Now you die."
"Bitch with a sword, now ain’t I seen everything? You pussy-eaters show up from time to time, but you never live long."
"Neither do whiz-suckers like you, you silly cockwhore," Nans laughed. Her blade weaved a devil-may-care pattern and then she sprang at him. He retreated, hard pressed to fend her off and her strikes were solid, strong, making his arm ache each time their blades met. Understanding dawned as his arm went numb.
"Yuwenghau." He spun, trying to flee. Nans’ sword connected with the small of his back, split the spine, and continued on through.
"It took you long enough," she said, contempt dripping from her voice. She wiped her sword and sheathed it.
Janrae Frank
I have no skeletons in my closet, they are all hanging from the yardarm.
Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon the vampire, Isranon called the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits, and Waejonan the Accursed, first of sa’necari. Isranon defied his brothers and was destroyed, his descendants forced into the darkness.
Blood Rites
www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook29989.htm
website
www.janraefrank.com
Darkzone
darkzone.yuku.com | | Back to Top | | |
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Raph
Stubborn Scholar
Date Joined Oct 2004
Total Posts : 260
| Posted 8/22/2006 1:07 AM (GMT -5) | |
cussedness said... I also tend to be a loner because I see the holes in every philosophy, religion, etc that I have encountered.
You sound like myself, Janrae, with one exception...I usually get along with a wide variety of people. I've come to realize that, while there are holes in every belief system (not only religious or spiritual, but political and social as well), the opposite side of the coin is also true...there are truths in every one, if you take the time to look for them. Sometimes it's a little truth, sometimes a big one, but there's always something.
I despise racism and sexism myself (along with any other type of -ism you can think of), yet I have friends who are both. I even have some close friends who are die-hard Republican  (and I'm about as liberal as they come).  Tolerance is, indeed, the key.
Mike O. | | Back to Top | | |
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cussedness
Adept
Date Joined Apr 2005
Total Posts : 847
| Posted 8/23/2006 4:18 AM (GMT -5) | | Tolerance is very important. However, I feel that tolerating intolerance leads to the continued existence of bigotry and prejudice that harms others.
I don't agree with everything that my generation of feminists did. I often felt that they argued too much about trivialities. I thought the entire attitude toward a man holding a door open was just stupid and bad manners.
However, as writers we must be responsible for the words we choose to use and what the underlying implication of them can be. Whether you choose to call it PC or just good manners, certain types of slurs are best avoided in posts and general conversation.
In fiction, we should be free to express the characterizations of our choice, because those words reflect the characters that we are depicting, rather than ourselves. When we post, we are presenting ourselves entirely by those words we speak, and posting is like speaking.
I have a daughter in college and I would not want her to find herself pigeon-holed by phrases like "pussified." She's not a grumpy old curmudgeon like myself. Sovay is an extremely sensitive soul. I don't know how many of you have young daughters, but those of you who do should take a moment to think about them and their possible reactions to the negative connotations of words that are simply a slur against their gender.
Janrae Frank
I have no skeletons in my closet, they are all hanging from the yardarm.
Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon the vampire, Isranon called the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits, and Waejonan the Accursed, first of sa’necari. Isranon defied his brothers and was destroyed, his descendants forced into the darkness.
Blood Rites
www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook29989.htm
website
www.janraefrank.com
Darkzone
darkzone.yuku.com | | Back to Top | | |
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