Femminist criticizm of sex scenes

[Alfred001]

I was reading this article in the New York Times from 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/books/review/Roiphe-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

and it talks about the criticism some male writers (it mentions Mailer, Roth, Updike) received from feminists over their sex scenes, but it isn't quite explicit about what exactly the criticism was.

I'm new to literature and haven't read any of the books mentioned nor was I alive when they were published and had this criticism leveled at them, so I'm curious as to what exactly they were criticized for.

The article is a bit longish so here are some of the portions that mention this criticism:


For a literary culture that fears it is on the brink of total annihilation, we are awfully cavalier about the Great Male Novelists of the last century. It has become popular to denounce those authors, and more particularly to deride the sex scenes in their novels. Even the young male writers who, in the scope of their ambition, would appear to be the heirs apparent have repudiated the aggressive virility of their predecessors.

After reading a sex scene in Philip Roth’s latest novel, “The Humbling,” someone I know threw the book into the trash on a subway platform. It was not exactly feminist rage that motivated her. We have internalized the feminist critique pioneered by Kate Millett in “Sexual Politics” so completely that, as one of my students put it, “we can do the math ourselves.” Instead my acquaintance threw the book away on the grounds that the scene was disgusting, dated, redundant.

By the way, what WAS this feminist critique by Kate Millett in "Sexual Politics?"


In the intervening decades, the feminists objected; the public consumed; the novelists themselves were much decorated.

The same crusading feminist critics who objected to Mailer, Bellow, Roth and Updike might be tempted to take this new sensitivity or softness or indifference to sexual adventuring as a sign of progress (Mailer called these critics “the ladies with their fierce ideas.”)

The "new sensitivity" etc. refers to the tendency in current writers.

[MANICHAEAN]

One of the most difficult things to write about is sex.
It can range from veiled references of an obscure nature a la George Elliot or Gibbon, to downright crude rutting, as I've read occasionally on Lit Net, where the odd individual is seeking to try the patience of the moderator.
The secret lies in getting the balance between the physical and the emotional.

As for feminists and their views I really don't give a fishes tit. You cannot dictate, or seek to regulate unduly the basic instincts of the genders.

[Vota]

I am all for a certain level of realistic equality between the sexes, and feminism that directly deals with these issues on a practical level is ok by me.

Feminism that goes beyond this is often in my not so humble opinion outright hostile to the male sex, and attempts the undermine the foundations that have been built by men of talent and action by slandering and poo pooing them, while they provide nothing of real substance and benefit with these criticisms.

No one can deny that women have been repressed and abused throughout the ages, but there has never been a time where the gap between equality has been so low. The problem is that as we near parity there seems to be a growing and scarily prevalent feminist viewpoint permeating much of western thought. Quite frankly it worries me a little. I have seen nothing that leads me to believe that this type of thinking is superior or more balanced.

I would also venture to add from my own personal experiences, that what women say they want often drastically differs from what they subconsciously want and openly respond to, so I tend to take feminist criticism of male authors' sex scenes with a dump truck full of salt.

[Clopin]

Vota are you referring to http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty_Shades_of_Grey ?

[Pompey Bum]

As for feminists and their views I really don't give a fishes tit.

Heh heh. Now, now, Manichaean, such language! :nono:

Which is part of my point, really. As one of the old coots on the site, I can remember when Portnoy's Complaint was considered "Heaven-knows-anything-goes" literature because it talked about sexuality at all, and especially because it used vulgar but common terms for body parts. The notion that Roth would one day considered one of the great names in literature would have dropped jaws. Personally, I remember finding the sex scenes in Portnoy's Complaint somewhat dehumanizing, especially those involving prostitution. But others might say no, that's what guys are like, or (more cravenly) that's what guys used to be like in those days. To me, it doesn't matter. It's a book. On a personal level, individual males are free to say, "Oh yeah, been there, done that, know what he means"; or perhaps "Ah yes, but no, I can see how I differ from that." (In my case, btw, I found Portnoy's Complaint hysterically funny because I did know what he meant, but I also found myself saying, quite often, "Uh-uh. Not me").

Socially it's another matter, of course. Individual males may have had the choice, but not females. That specific double standard changed quickly with the advent of feminist writers like Erica Jong. What some of today's feminists may not see (or may not want to see?) is that if Portnoy's Complaint had not been published in 1969, Fear of Flying would not have been published in 1973. The changes that the one helped to establish opened the way for the other. And (even harder for some feminists to stomach), Portnoy's Complaint would not have been published in 1969 if Henry Miller's The Tropic of Cancer had not been published in the main stream market in 1961 (followed in the United States by three years of obscenity trials before Miller was cleared).

My point is that the literary world that many women and men take for granted today did not spring fully armed like Athena from the thunder god's head. We had to fight for it. And while it is true that many of the books in the front lines of that fight contributed to an ongoing social devaluation of women, they also helped to create a new intellectual (and publishing) environment in which women could fight for themselves. That does not justify the devaluation, but it does give credit to authors who deserve it.

[Vota]

I was referring to nothing Clopin. Those are my thoughts and opinions, based off my experience and reading.

[MANICHAEAN]

As a similar “old coot,” let me add my perspective on the matter in greater detail. The original title of this thread related to the feminist criticism of sex scenes, but I would like to expand beyond that rather constricted viewpoint.

Let’s take the “sex scene” itself first of all. You can; do it, read about it, write about it, or view it. Have I missed any of the other senses? Dream it perhaps, smell it (a bit kinky), listen to it (actually quite a turn on depending on the authenticity of the vocals).

So take them one by one and let’s endeavour objectively to determine if criticism has the potential to be valid.

1. Actual Sex: The ultimate. Cannot be beaten in my book for engaging so comprehensively, all the physical, emotional and spiritual senses. Not that it’s always been a success, having been engaged in a few horror stories over the years.

2. Reading about it: There is such a divergence, (or more poignantly), an evolvement here. My original reading of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” did not exactly put snap into my celery. It was controversial back in the 60’s, basic and colloquial in its usage of the English language; but then I had not read much of Lawrence at the time, and did not benefit much. It expanded my vocab a bit, but apart from that I don’t think it corrupted either me, “or ones servants” in any way.

3. Viewing it: I grew up at a time after the war when the nearest one got to visual sex were dubious nudist magazines with titles like “Health & Efficiency.” Really laughable now and with the added bonus of private parts fuzzed out. Then came the revolution: Playboy, Hustler and their ilk ranging from soft images that were sensual to my mind, to explicitness that I would now consider; dangerous, demeaning, and unbalanced. Then there were the “blue films” of the sex act, which from a man’s point of view, always, (whatever the quality) left an aftertaste of; frustration, shame and unfulfillment.

4. Which brings us to the ability to, successfully write or read about “the dirty deed.” I cannot at the moment honestly bring to mind any really successful portrayals of sex scenes, but then that is likely due to the authors I have indulged in: Poe, Hesse, Clavell, Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Balzac, Heller, Bulgakov, Lermontov, Wilde, Shakespeare, Le Carre, Deighton, Greene, Waugh, Hemingway, Gibbon, Fleming, Forsyth, Turgenev, Gogol, Dickens, Stendhal, Lawrence and Chandler. More enjoyment was found in writing my own, as in the long running saga “Murder in Accra,” in which I effectively got down on paper my fascination at the time, of sex with African women. Read all about it in old editions of Short Story Sharing.

So, in conclusion, does this personal experience result in a devaluation of women or men? In my own case, I think not, though I recognise the danger for others. Whatever, if anything, that I have; watched, read, written or indulged in regards sex, has given me a greater insight and appreciation of this most basic and important instinct in both genders. Greene called it “la petite mort,” the little death, and it is this description that encompasses I think, both the extremes and even the rejuvenation in the act itself.

[Pompey Bum]

Let us face it, Manichaean, we are Georgians in the age of Victoria: Fielding and Sterne lost in a fog of Dickenses. There are still things worth fighting for, but there are also things to be given up with a wise smile. That is the tragedy of aging. And the comedy is that after a certain point you don't give a fish's tit.

Ironically it is maturity that our commissars lack. Not that a degree of immaturity is not essential to the sex act. But sex gets airbrushed out of today's books because--well actually it's to broaden the potential market. And (this is the immature part) there's a different market for "naughty books." *Sigh* I read classic literature and Man-Bookerish modern novels. Amazon is convinced I am gay. Either that or a horny, straight, female librarian. One way or another, they try to sell me these hard-body-male (to judge by the photographic covers) "naughty books," with titles like "Steve's Tool Kit," every time I visit the site. It's apparently what their predictive software tells them I'm most likely to buy. I mean, don't get me wrong. I like health and efficiency as much as the next guy. But I am a heterosexual, and I have never had much use for pornography in any case, hardcore or merely "naughty." Still it seems other lovers of the classics are more efficient.

The decline of explicit sex scenes in 21st century novels does not bother me nearly as much as the loss of honesty in the critique of erotic love. So much is proscribed by the imperatives of political correctness that I'm afraid young people are going to have to learn about mature sexual relations on the street. It should make for some interesting marriages.


I cannot at the moment honestly bring to mind any really successful portrayals of sex scenes, but then that is likely due to the authors I have indulged in: Poe, Hesse, Clavell, Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Balzac, Heller, Bulgakov, Lermontov, Wilde, Shakespeare, Le Carre, Deighton, Greene, Waugh, Hemingway, Gibbon, Fleming, Forsyth, Turgenev, Gogol, Dickens, Stendhal, Lawrence and Chandler.

Well, if we're not actually talking about Bang Bang Lulu, it seems to me that Tolstoy has much to say about the possibilities and limits of sexual love, especially in the parts of War and Peace about Pierre's marriage to Helene. Dostoyevsky explores similar themes in the various relationships in The Idiot, although like Tolstoy, he often shows what might have worked by showing what didn't. Graham Greene (in Brighton Rock) likewise uses Pinkie Brown's confusion about mature sexual love (and respectfulness to women) to illuminate through the use of negative images. John LeCarre portrays a poignant sexual relationship between Leamas and the young English Communist wannabe he takes up with in The Spy Who Came In From the Cold; and he centered The Constant Gardener on a mature if tragic marriage. As far as Edward Gibbon goes-- oh you dog! :)

[MANICHAEAN]

On one occasion when,(what seems like yesterday), Churchill addressed the troops in North Africa, his speech started with, “I speak to you today from this famous amphitheater in Carthage, where once the air was rent by the screams of Christian virgins as they were devoured by the Roman lions. Upon reflection, I may not be a lion, but I am certainly not a virgin!” I firmly believe Pompey, that as we move with remorseless acceleration towards the final aging precipice, that this is both a realistic and healthy attitude to adopt.

I’m gratified to learn that you are not gay despite the Amazon profiling. I have, in a number of instances informed my daughters that I am considering coming out of the closet, but am invariably met by screams of laughter. Why are senior citizens so disrespected these days!

Regards your usage of pornography, or more correctly lack of interest in it, don’t worry. It is a prejudice you can overcome. You have obviously never appreciated the nuances of “Debby Does Dallas.” In fact you might actually surmise that good taste and humour are a contradiction in terms, like a chaste whore.

The instances of sex scenes that you give, in relation to the different authors is interesting, for since we seem no longer to write about the union with God, writing about sex has become the ultimate test for the writer: to communicate the uncommunicable. Lawrence I think got the closest to it in so far as he tried to portray this sex relationship as in a real sense an act of communion, a giant step forward from the Victorian era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby. As for Gibbon, I can only quote his reference on the subject that “My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the obscurity of a learned language.”

The one that really interests me is Greene. He was a serial womanizer; whether his mistress Lady Catherine Walston to whom he dedicated “The End of the Affair”, or partaking of a string of fallen angels around the globe. He always seemed to be attracted to “dangerous” women, but that seemed to bring out the creativity in him.

[Pompey Bum]

On one occasion when,(what seems like yesterday), Churchill addressed the troops in North Africa, his speech started with, “I speak to you today from this famous amphitheater in Carthage, where once the air was rent by the screams of Christian virgins as they were devoured by the Roman lions. Upon reflection, I may not be a lion, but I am certainly not a virgin!” I firmly believe Pompey, that as we move with remorseless acceleration towards the final aging precipice, that this is both a realistic and healthy attitude to adopt.

On a spectrum of Roman lion and Christian virgin, I see myself as a silverback gorilla moving benignly if inexorably toward three-toed sloth. Age spares us nothing.


Regards your usage of pornography, or more correctly lack of interest in it, don’t worry. It is a prejudice you can overcome. You have obviously never appreciated the nuances of “Debby Does Dallas.” In fact you might actually surmise that good taste and humour are a contradiction in terms, like a chaste whore.

There was a fair number of hardcore pornographic magazines around my freshman dormitory. Boys would look at them together and laugh. I guess it was a kind of bonding experience, although personally I found them about as sexy as a Pap smear. I don't like porno movies either. (The faked orgasms make me miss my old girlfriends too much). Actually, to be serious, the issue for me is volition. That is of course an ethical issue. But for me it is also a libidinous one. Perhaps it's vanity, but I find it exciting when the lady actually wants to take her clothing off and wiggle around. If I know better (and at this point, I do), then I just feel like I'm being manipulated. Of course, as Ian Dury pointed out long ago, manipulation has its charms. But not with porno movies. Not for me.


Lawrence I think got the closest to it in so far as he tried to portray this sex relationship as in a real sense an act of communion, a giant step forward from the Victorian era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.

Well yes, but the problem with Lawrence is that you have to plough through page after page of graphic sex scenes before you get to the good bits about game keeping. :)

[kiki1982]

Interesting discussion.

The feminists might enjoy the libertine stories of the 18th century then.

From tricking men into thinking they were virgins (with sponges drenched in pigs' blood concealed in bed posts, to make a few extra bob :D) to orgies and SM. And the descriptions! Quite remarkable.

Though if 50 Shades of Grey is better, I'll eat my hat (and that's written by a woman).

Saramago's description of Silva and Maria Sara in his Siege of Lisbon was definitely cuter then, down to the 'wrestling with the bra' detail :lol:. And he was old by that time. Well, OK, I think about 70. Maybe that's not 'old' per se.

Some feminists do take things too far.
Not to mention that everyone (and every woman) does sex differently. It's not because we are emancipated, that we have to like doing everything equal, which is why 50 Shades of Grey has been so popular: because it's not equal and he's your dominant master (or that's how far I've got). And that's probably what contributes to the romance of Austen: men are domineering. Maybe that's what we secretly want, in spite of what feminists have been telling us for the last 50 years. Or maybe from time to time, who knows?

[Delta40]

Didn't realise it was a problem myself. Mind you, it is hard to swallow unrealistic context. My mother devoured Mills & Boon paperbacks. They are a universe nobody is ever going to enter!

[Pompey Bum]

From tricking men into thinking they were virgins (with sponges drenched in pigs' blood concealed in bed posts, to make a few extra bob :D) to orgies and SM. And the descriptions! Quite remarkable.

Personally I was never taken in by the pig's blood trick, although I tried to find less confrontational ways of letting the lady know I was on to her. "Well, I should be getting you back to the slaughterhouse!" and "Hey, someone's having pork tonight!" got me out of more than one awkward moment, I can tell you.


Not to mention that everyone (and every woman) does sex differently.

Indeed. Maybe there's a future for sex after all. :)

[AuntShecky]

Long before you could buy Playboy and Penthouse and Hustler magazines at the drugstore, the only place young boys could find photos of topless women was in the school library. I can remember back in grade school there was always a cluster of six or seventh grade males tittering over the pages of National Geographic. I suspect what raises feminist hackles is that explicit depictions of hetereosexuality in movies and more or less "mainstream" books, mags, website and --obviously--venues featuring soft- and hardcore porno tend to reduce females to a mere collection of body parts rather than human beings -- "objects." The long-term problem with this is that young men in the habit of consuming vast quantities of this stuff carry the mindset over into real-life, where they expect their girlfriends to look and act just like the fantasy figures.

From a "literary" standpoint, the problem is much simpler:


One of the most difficult things to write about is sex.


You got that right.

Whenever someone tries to write seriously about the subject, nine times out of the ten the result is embarrassingly bad. You might recall a few years back when Tom Wolfe --not Thomas Wolfe, Tom Wolfe, the "Bonfire of the Vanities" guy in the white suit-- unfortunately included sex scenes in his novel about a college co-ed. The passages were allegedly so dreadful, he almost got laughed out of the New York literary world.

Everybody's heard the famous assessment by Lord Chesterfield: "The pleasure is momentary, the position is ridiculous, and the expense is damnable." Likewise Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the longtime companion and (most likely platonic) sweetheart of George Bernard Shaw remarked that she didn't mind where people made love as long as they didn't do it in the streets and frighten the horses."

MAN, you're also right about the author of Lady Chatterley's Lover, although let me remind you what Lawrence ("The Alexandria Quartet") Durrell said him: "Lawrence makes a good [you-know-what] seem like the Taj Mahal." BTW, I like Pompey Bum's line above about having to plow through all the steamy stuff to get to the "good bits about game-keeping."

More funny lines in the replies here: "putting the snap in my celery" (MAN) and Pompey Bum's confession that faked orgasms make him miss his old girlfriends too much. And Pompey's line that Amazon thinks he's gay because the site keeps pitching items like "Steve's Tool Kit" reminded me how the Book of the Month Club thought I was a lesbian because I once ordered a book by Virginia Woolf. Her novel was part of a collection of "Pink Triangle Classics"-- a pigeon-holing, marginalizing niche if I ever heard one.

So there's a clue: it's almost impossible to write about --or even mention sex -- without joking. It's the nature of the beast. The harder you try to treat the subject seriously, the more ludicrous the result. Double entendres and puns seem to materialize out of nowhere and pop into your prose.

So my advice is, whenever you want to depict a sex scene, keep in mind that the unavoidable comedy may very well rear its madcap head. But don't treat the subject too casually either. Back in the day hippies used to promulgate the theory that sex was just like shaking hands, to which some folks replied, "Then why not just shake hands with the girl? It's a whole less messier."

[Ecurb]

Good post, Aunt Shecky.

Literature is at its best when it is dramatic, and the essence of drama (as an art form) is dialogue. In general, dialogue drives novels; description just sets the scene. Plenty of interesting dialogue goes on in bed -- but it's usually before or after the actual sex.

[Pompey Bum]

Literature is at its best when it is dramatic, and the essence of drama (as an art form) is dialogue. In general, dialogue drives novels; description just sets the scene. Plenty of interesting dialogue goes on in bed -- but it's usually before or after the actual sex.

"Is the aqualung really necessary?" panted Urana, her bosom heaving with each syllable.

"Oui, ma cherie," Gaston rasped Frenchly. "It is for the others, those who risked all on the final assault."

Later, as the ducks settled lazily on the gray Yangtze, and the sulphur taste of the city hung heavily on their lips, she found the temerity to ask: "It wasn't about my bassoon recital, was it? It was never about my bassoon."

Gaston shrugged. "Do you want me to pretend?" he whispered playfully in her good ear. "Wouldn't you rather just feel alive?"

"I would," Urana murmured to herself, wishing Gaston would go fetch a face cloth.


FIN

[Eiseabhal]

Urbana? Oh yes! The girl with the ear.

[Pompey Bum]

MAN, you're also right about the author of Lady Chatterley's Lover, although let me remind you what Lawrence ("The Alexandria Quartet") Durrell said him: "Lawrence makes a good [you-know-what] seem like the Taj Mahal." BTW, I like Pompey Bum's line above about having to plow through all the steamy stuff to get to the "good bits about game-keeping."

I almost mentioned Durrell myself. He holds a peculiar place in my literary heart, since I devoured his books at 18 (I can actually still recite passages by heart) but have had little to do with them since those days. I've read that his books are somewhat out of favor at the moment, being considered "pretentious and misogynistic" by some (the quote is from a New York Review of Books introduction to a collection of novels by his hated rival Olivia Manning). I read something similar (about pretentiousness in any case) in Piers Brendon's smartly written but irritatingly PC history, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire.

Durrell may have been "pretentious and misogynistic" for all I know. I wouldn't have been able to spot the former at 18, I am sure; and what does a boy that age really know about women (in distinction from all the delicious things he is learning)? I hesitate to reread The Alexandria Quartet in middle age for fear I would hate it. It would be a block from the cathedral of my life that has fallen into the sea (heh heh--well maybe he was a bit pretentious). But I remember that he was exploring various aspects of human love in the books, as well as experimenting with novelistic form. And I cannot help but suspect that (whatever Durrell's actual culpability in misogyny may have been), that part of the charge of may lie in his close friendship with Henry Miller (in Paris between the wars?) I read Miller about the same time and remember loving his wild, pre-beat prose (although the "erotic" bits were anything but a turn on). But unlike my memory of Durrell, I clearly recall thinking that women deserved a hell of a lot better than they got with Miller. Still I must confess that I liked some of Miller's books, too.

It's interesting to me that Olivia Manning's star hasn't risen much in Durrell's eclipse. She's not "vaginally challenged" as Miller and Durrell were. (:)) And she wrote about shifting tensions between the sexes (at least I think she did-I bought six of her books yesterday, but won't be starting any of them for some time). But the introduction suggests Manning may be making a come back these days. Amazon quotes Lauren Elkin (who apparently writes for the Daily Beast) as saying: “The metaphorical war between the sexes is amplified by the nonmetaphorical war raging all around. . . . It was Manning’s ability to paint the complex relationship between gender and power with wit and sensitivity in her wartime novels that makes her an important 20th century writer.” And Sarah Waters (lesbian Victorian ghost stories, right?) calls them: "Fantastically tart and readable.” My ancient and beloved father told me they were pretty good, too, which is the reason I bought them.

This is from the introduction:

Manning’s reputation has fluctuated since her death, and her account of colonial Egypt in particular has been somewhat overshadowed by Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet. Like Manning, Durrell was a refugee from the other side of the Mediterranean, who arrived in Egypt looking for safety and stability but found inspiration for his writing. Manning (like her character Harriet) worked as a press attaché at the American embassy in Cairo; Durrell occupied the same position for the British. But they were very different people and very different writers, and while Durrell sought to dazzle with his prose and to play with the possibilities of structure to reveal his characters, Manning wrote with pared-down precision. She was not alone in finding his writing, like his character, pretentious and misogynistic: As the writer Jan Morris, one of Durrell’s admirers, accepts, “the [Alexandria] Quartet is not without pretension, in concept as in performance.” Durrell was equally unflattering about Manning, calling her “the hook-nosed condor of the Middle East” and accusing her of being determined to be “dans le movement,” implying that she was not. While Durrell was intent on exposing and celebrating modern love, Manning wished to reveal the many facets of horror in war. Two things they had in common were a talent to turn firsthand experiences into compelling prose and a consummate ability to conjure the spirit of a place.

Manning’s relative obscurity may in part be explained by her work’s indifference to the trends and topics of the 1960s and ’70s. She did not play with novelistic form, nor did she examine the political or sexual revolution like her more celebrated contemporaries Doris Lessing and Iris Murdoch. Though a very vocal supporter of women’s rights, she was not perceived as a feminist writer. Moreover, and perhaps more important, she wrote her best work late in a life that had seen a steady stream of work, her first novel appearing in print fifty-one years before the last. Although it was widely praised, there was no surprise about The Levant Trilogy.

[MANICHAEAN]

First of all, let me apologise to Alfred001 for the hijacking of his original thread. This especially applies to Pompey Bum and myself; both of whom, you may be unaware also hold double O prefixes, but which in our instances incorporate decimal points due to our extreme ages.

Kiki. Thank you for your pointer to Saramago’s “Siege of Lisbon,” and for your gratifying, but tentative acknowledgement of women appreciating dominant male partners.

Aunty. Your efforts to get this literary mob under control with a reasoned and balanced perspective is much appreciated; but please indulge “the usual suspects” that are enjoying themselves immensely. Also please note that Scheherazade has not intervened, despite some pretty close sailing to the wind, and thus we must still be within the Lit Net boundaries of propriety and polite society.

Ecurb. I must take issue with you regards dialogue in bed being limited to either pre or post “the dirty deed.” I’ve had some quite interesting conversations “in situ” over the years, and not just limited to “Who’s your Daddy?”

Pompey. What can I say? Your vignette on “Gaston the Frenchie” caused consternation here in the Singapore Head Office when I read it and burst out laughing. Harmony and self-control you must understand are the mantras of my Japanese colleagues. Aunty warned of the dangers of writing seriously about the sex act, as humour has the potential to interject itself. You ignored that pit fall and went straight for the punch lines. Would you be interested in seeing how I deal with the sex act in my own efforts at writing?

[Pompey Bum]

First of all, let me apologise to Alfred001 for the hijacking of his original thread. This especially applies to Pompey Bum and myself; both of whom, you may be unaware also hold double O prefixes, but which in our instances incorporate decimal points due to our extreme ages.

Well, mine is just a license to split infinitives. I do have a learners permit to kill, though.


Pompey. What can I say? Your vignette on “Gaston the Frenchie” caused consternation here in the Singapore Head Office when I read it and burst out laughing.

Thank you. Your praise inspired me to go back and write the dirty parts:

"Gaston, you piglet!" Urana inveighed, flushed with ambivalence but driven to new heights by his persistent sniggering. "Finger my keys! Vibrate my reed! Play me like the antiquated woodwind instrument I am!"

"Zut alors!" sprake Gaston, momentarily forgetting his manners.

"Oh my Gallic leek! Ouvrir la fenetre! Ou est le crayon? Le crayon est sur la table!"

The rhythmic gulp of the aqualung filled the vacuum of her galaxy as Urana approached tenor clef. "Aiyo! Aiyo! Wo ai ni!" she cried, until Gaston grew weary for his native tongue.

"Mon Dieu!" he ejaculated.

"That last one was pretty immature," Urana managed, her breathing labored, her voice still husky with lust. "You should be ashamed of yourself."

"I am, cherie," Gaston quipped with a saturnine wink. "God knows I am."


Would you be interested in seeing how I deal with the sex act in my own efforts at writing?

Do your worst! :)

[Ecurb]

Here's my "talking in bed" story that I posted on LitNet some time ago:

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?79668-Virginia-the-Hockey-Hater

[Pompey Bum]

"...pick-up players...showing the puck...before pulling it away"

No wonder she kicked you out of bed.

[Ecurb]

Hey! I did mention learning "something about the ineffable nature of physical joys." That could refer to hockey -- or to sex.

[Pompey Bum]

Hey! I did mention learning "something about the ineffable nature of physical joys." That could refer to hockey -- or to sex.

True, although sometimes it's better to let the ineffable eff. :)

[MANICHAEAN]

In response to popular demand, (OK, one person), and in the interests of trying to illustrate the points I have made in relation to this thread, I have followed by sending Chapters 1-7 of my unfinished novel “A Murder in Accra.”

You will find the sexual encounters of our hero Detective Inspector Rossow on the Dark Continent embedded within.
I have deliberately not picked out any particular sections, as I believe it essential to view the narrative as a whole; a process which I believe in common parlance, and in this particular instance is referred to as “foreplay”

When you come to the parts, (alluded to by Pompey Bum) as “not about game keeping,” your reactions will no doubt vary according to the many viewpoints expressed so far. These, if I might remind you range from:
1. The interjection of unintentional humour.
2. The use of dialogue.
3. Whether either participant is reduced to becoming “an object.”
4. The balance between what one might call “a clinical sexual survey,” and “gross, offensive pornography.”

With that, I throw myself on your mercy.
Regards
M.

[MANICHAEAN]

A Murder In Accra.
By Manichaean. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 1. Arrival:

The British Airways flight to Accra International was smooth and Rossow had been booked business class, in deference he thought to his long frame, or was the boss back in London actually mellowing to him?

The plane came in on time, in the middle of one of those rainy season downpours that gives you qualms that touchdown with a machine this size and at that speed will result in one God Almighty skid. But then; tyre contact was made, the weight of the moving plane gently lowered and the engines went into reverse, quickly bringing the aircraft into a sedate taxiing across the runway to the Arrivals Terminal.

Have you noticed how airports vary so much across the globe? Not so much in the architecture & layout, as in the atmosphere they evoke once you enter their realms. In Frankfurt, passengers scurry like rodents from one side of the airport to another to get connecting flights. In Jamaica on the other hand you slow down immediately you leave the plane. No "Yardie" is going to get hypertension for nobody. "Soon come" is the national standard.

But Mother Africa has an atmosphere of its own. And yet it’s hard to put your finger on it. Perhaps it's because suddenly you are the odd man out with the white skin, perhaps it’s the latent tension in the air, almost as if you have arrived for the first time from another planet. Your senses sharpen up and you become so much more aware of that around you.

As Rossow was only carrying a hold all and briefcase he cleared Customs quickly, leaving in his wake the inevitable shake down of returning Ghanaians with multiple taped carton boxes and items that most Africans consider as hand luggage like; fold up prams, television sets & even a car windscreen if he was to believe his eyes.

Presenting his passport at the Immigration Desk there was too much eye contact & body language on their part.

"First time in Ghana Mr Rossow?"

"Yes, first time"

"Nature of your visit?"

"Business"

At that point he saw her.

Tall, dark, strong profile in the sharp crisp uniform of a Ghanaian woman police officer.

She stepped from wherever she had been standing behind the Immigration Desk & spoke gently into the official's ear, as if to say; "I'll take it from here"

The Immigration Officer nodded, gave Rossow another eye contact as if some clandestine pact had been acknowledged and stamped the passport.

Rossow stepped through to meet his benefactor.

"She was cool." That was the first thing he noted about her.

A little shorter than he was, with that striking calmness that some African women carry with such confidence.

"Good morning Detective Inspector Rossow. My name is Police Sergeant Emelia Banfo of the Ghanaian Police and I'm the liaison officer assigned to you."

Long slender fingers, cool to the touch were extended for a formal greeting.

"Please follow me. The car is outside."

Declining that she carried his hold all, he gave up his briefcase and followed her through the crowds, noting in transit the superb *** & long slender legs beneath the formal constabulary uniform.


Chapter 2. The First Day:

It was a full initial schedule, first checking into the Labadi Hotel and then through the turmoil of Accra traffic to meet Matthew Bennett, the touchstone of British Intelligence attached to the Embassy and whose existence was loosely concealed behind some title of Research Officer or whatever. Then onto make contact with the senior Ghanaian police officer leading the investigation into the recently missing British Ambassador and a local night club owner.

Chief Inspector Kwesi Jay was a depressing prospect; the uniformed type so prevalent in some countries. Big office, rigid upright stature, chest big enough to adorn with a box full of ribbons and the usual earnest platitudes as to what was being done to get things resolved in an expedient manner. Scotland Yard would have loved him. But you could sense he was not front line. In fact it reminded Rossow of a rerun of "Casablanca" and the phrase "Round up the usual suspects!"

Matthew Bennett on the other hand was more useful, if you adopted that peculiar British way of becoming attuned to what he did not say, as opposed to what he did say. Small and slightly chubby, he did not on first meeting stand out, but then after a very short time you sensed his sharpness, focus and the depth of his educational background.

"Strange bedfellows actually, Tan and Kretzler" he said.

"Night club owner & British Ambassador"

"Could never see in reality what they had in common. But they were in each other's company a lot."

"Did they mix socially?" Rossow asked.

"Depends what you mean by socially. Kretzler's wife could not abide Tan. He was not invited round for dinner with the Ambassador you understand. But then you can sympathize with her priorities. Tan with his business dealings and his ownership of a night club in Jamestown were not exactly on a par with drinks & nibbles at the Embassy do's. But then Tan had some sort of hold over him."

"What about Tan? What’s the story on him?" Rossow asked.

"You had to tread carefully" Bennett said.

"He was amiable enough, but you never really knew what his motives were. It was almost like some kind of game he was playing, one against the other. Not sure he understood it himself. He just played his funny little Chinese game as the cards were dealt. Pretend to be a friend, impart a confidence on someone you both knew and then absorb into his memory whatever response you came up with. Next thing you know, he is going through the same ritual with the same mutual friend you were talking about in the first place. Except this time you were on the agenda."

"Thanks Matthew" Rossow said.

"If you don't mind I'm not going to get bogged down in day to day enquiries. I would like to dig around the edges and see what I can uncover."

"Fine" said Bennett. "But if you are poking around locally, take Police Woman Banfo with you. In uniform, or casual as suits your purpose."


Chapter 3. The Night Club:

He held a cigarette comfortably between the fingers of one hand down by his side. He put the other hand flat on the white tablecloth, then looked across the busy tables towards the central space on the floor where the dancers prowled under shifting coloured lights.

A magnet to some, whilst an index of dissipation to others; these dives appear as if only existing after dark, like ghouls; sinful playgrounds of meridian pleasure from the norms of conventional daytime existences.

Cigarette & cigar smoke laced the air. A group of Ghanaians smartly attired stood drinking scotch, the women sipping cocktails. To one side what appeared to be the gambling rooms, and beyond the partially drawn curtains, light blazed down on a roulette table.

Twin negresses writhed their bodies on an aluminum stage, the perceptible sweat from the spot lights highlighting the suppleness and flexibility of their muscle tone. Pelvic contortions; slow, deliberate and mind controlling were executed, the male patrons being both focused & aroused by the performance.

No contrived smiles from either dancer. The bodies belied the faces. The mouths implied, "I won't give you a damm thing". The bodies with strong breasts and proud hips said “You can have anything you can take."

Rossow shot a look at Banfo to determine if she was shocked. But no, this cop was a trooper. A look of mild amusement on her lips as she watched the billed Mandy and Brandy arching their backs on the stage floor; the dark, almost purple sheen of their tight buttocks clenched together as they attained an inverted "U". Slim, dark and lovely, reeking with sex.

At midnight Rossow & Banfo left for his hotel, suspicions unaroused by the Club's management, staff and other patrons. Another white man with his attractive indigene girlfriend, indulging a taste for late night drinking and amusement in the seedy Jamestown environs.


Back at his suite Rossow discussed with Banfo on how to proceed. Some shake up was required to effectively open windows on this enquiry.

“One thing Ghana was not”, thought Rossow, “was Bogota, Mexico City or any of the other kidnap capitals of the world.”
“And then again, if it was a kidnapping, then going for the British Ambassador was top dollar, and what was this connection with Tan, the local business guy? Both according to reports had left Accra's Sagittarius Club in Tan's Mercedes on Wednesday morning around 1am two weeks ago and had not been seen since.”

The file given him by London was sparse regards relevant detail, and not much help except as background information. Ghana, as he knew, like so many African countries had its fair share of economic & social problems: poverty, corruption, decaying infrastructure, tribalism etc., but then kidnapping was not normally associated with it. Unlike Nigeria along the coast which had grasped the monetary potential of seizing foreigners. If Ghana had its own more home grown demons it comprised scam artists, child prostitution, a growing underground porn industry & the still prevailing belief in juju or witchcraft. Analytically most of its crimes were from pick-pockets, fraudsters & armed robbers. There was an overlay of crimes like the roadside magician tricksters and money doublers who were remotely influenced by juju-marabout mediums and other spiritualists. Rossow in fact remembered reading in one report where the Ghana Police Service had arrested a leading armed robber, Atta Ayi, in a suburb of Accra. Huge amulets and other paraphernalia, prepared for him by various juju-mediums, were concealed around his body.

The Ghana Police Service had no option but to confront these mediums, (exotic, yet sinister individuals mostly working for the politically corrupt elites, criminals and gangs), as they were highly feared in that society, based on the belief that they could wage spiritual reprisals from their unknown and dark hideaways.

Although Rossow felt that this was a potential aspect worth giving attention to, it was still confusing, for whatever angle one took it always seemed to come back full circle. In Rossow's professional experience of police work, as original sin is the mother-fluid of historians, so is human malice the staple of crime. One can view it either from an angle of calculation, or there are quite simply people who commit crimes of passion or hatred and once committed, these characters just walk out, invariably not caring to cover their tracks.

This appeared not to be the case here.

"No quick fix" said Rossow.

"Last place that Tan & Kretzler were seen was the Club we just left."

"No option but to continue to visit, to mingle, to watch & see what’s under any rocks we are obliged to lift and peer under."


Chapter 4. The Night Club Manager:

Over the next few weeks, Rossow endeavored to build up a close, and on the face of it, a surprisingly attainable relationship with the Ghanaian Club Manager, Obi Biston. The individual concerned was of a rotund & somewhat dubious disposition, as befits adequately the profession he had adopted. But he grew, apparently and genuinely to enjoy the Englishman's company.

Rossow was a drinker and likewise Biston was a fellow traveler; displaying behind the outward attire of sharp business suits; a thickened and glossy skin, too noticeable facial veins, and the bright glitter in the eyes so prevalent in those to whom alcohol contributes a significant aspect in their lives.

There developed almost imperceptibly between them, a male bonding affinity for the venial aspects of life, whose foundations were securely laid in an appreciation of; expansive conversation, expensive alcohol & sassy looking women.

Let's just look for a moment at this aspect of Rossow's makeup. For some of the time he drank for the pure glow of it, at other times back in London with associates & bureaucrats, for more palpable results. Yet like few others, he was capable of staying canny while drinking, of keeping his head. Morality perhaps would argue that this is never an excuse for carousing, but it was in Rossow's nature to believe that you could drink with the Lucifer himself and adjust the balance of evil over a few rounds of Jack Daniels. It was not that he found conventional methods of police work boring, or more radical methods frightening. It was that they simply did not occur to him. He'd always been a man of transactions. The tried and tested mantra would always be to believe that the best way to untie any Gordian knot, short of bribery, was booze. As a sideline it also was a means of celebrating the general succulence of life.

In addition, as if these attributes were not commendable in his profession, Rossow had the characteristic salesman's gift of treating men he might have disliked as if they were spiritual brothers and it would deceive many so completely that they would always believe him a friend.

Thus Obi Biston suitably deceived, found him refreshingly different from the standard sleazy underclass of night club patrons, both in his lack of pretentiousness uncommon in a white man and in his freewheeling, imaginative manner of conversation. As the relationship developed, the two invariably sat at the same table & exchanged confidences in whispered tones, from which Emelia, (playing the secondary role), was excluded.

"Next week I'm going up to my place in Kumasi for the week end" Obi informed.

"How about coming up as my guest? No need to bring Emelia" he suggested.

"A bit of variety will do you no harm. Mandy and Brandy will be there" he murmured with a knowing look.

'Sounds good to me" Rossow replied.

"Look forward to seeing a bit more of the country."

Obi looked him in the eye again; nothing furtive about this drunk. But still he had that empty feeling of having miscounted the trumps. No reason for it at all that he could discern. Maybe it was the steely quality about the man. No whimper, no bluster, just the smile, the voice and the unforgetting eyes.

That evening at their customary debrief in the hotel, Emelia was apprehensive of his intentions.

"What if things go wrong, what backup?"

Rossow took her head in his hands and kissed her.

That night he worked her body with an intensity and an ardor that left them both with the physical & mental limpness of damp rags. She initially assumed the role of a compliant body offered up and her eyes remained closed. But as he worked away, she affected initially, reluctant small moans until the suppression was too much and then she broke. The cries became screams as she lost control completely and collapsed on the bed face down, rivulets' of sweat laying like a channel on the indent of her spine as her body convulsed in a series of arched back climaxes.


Chapter 5. Kumasi:

The quartet of Biston, Rossow & the Twins arrived in the northern Ghana town of Kumasi on Friday evening, as the light crimson globe of the African sun disappeared with dying strength to somewhere below the skyline. As if the gods had thrown a switch, darkness followed hard on the heels of dusk, suitably accompanied by the insect night symphony.

Biston's SUV had deftly guided upcountry from the capital for three hours, through chicken scratching villages with open sewers & non-descript towns with even more non- descript inhabitants. Rossow had sat insulated from this external reality, amiably chatting with Obi in the front, while the fragrance of the two females behind had caressed their nostrils and their senses.

The house was on the outskirts of the gold mining hub of Kumasi central, situated behind high walls. Large iron gates were guarded by a sinister Taurag from Chad. Swathed in a long blue robe and a black turban head wrap, and equipped with a crude sword & steel cable whip, he seemed to symbolize an earth bound angel of death.

The garden was rich in foliage and luxuriant in variety, obviously tendered on a regular basis. Once past the gate guard post, the main house structure came into view; spacious and two storeys with a balcony on the first floor and a tiled veranda on the ground. Burglar bars on every window.

Like most African households of any substance, it was organized. An elderly steward greeted them at the entrance and two muscular young boys were already emptying the SUV of luggage and carrying it to the rooms. No doubt in the background were a retinue of: cooks, house servants, gardeners and drivers, all intent in making an impression on "Olga Obi" & his baturi guest.

Upstairs, Rossow was shown to his room. King sized bed in purple with crisp white sheets turned down, marble floor with beige rugs, soft bedside lamps & over adequate heavy drapes that led out onto the balcony & the Ghana night.

The dining room was substantial and impressive. There was a lot of teakwood and red lacquer. Gold frames glinted high up on the walls, and the ceiling was remote and vague, like the recent dusk of the hot day.

Over a traditional dish of egusi & pounded yam eaten by hand, Obi was noticeably more relaxed than normal. The outward facade of affability associated with running the night club was left three hours down the track in Accra. This is where he inhaled the provincial air, took the waters, did his thing & to Rossow, more importantly and with a bit of luck, let his guard down.

The girls looked great, spoke or murmured approvingly when appropriate by African standards and added to that almost homely occasion, an indispensable something that women of beauty have.

After dinner, the two men repaired on their own to the veranda where the steward brought two beers on a silver tray. Obi, ostensibly leaning to measure the coolness of the bottles with the rear of his hand, lowered his head towards Rossow conspiratorially.

"I'm glad you came up Gary. I like your company.
I would guess our tastes are very much the same."

Small red veins were visible on the periphery of his eyes.

"Thanks for inviting me Obi. It's always a pleasure to relax in good company" said Rossow with more than an element of conviction.

Obi leaned in even closer; almost as if the entire army of domestics were hidden in the bushes, their ears attuned to the latest in gossip & intrigue that is the staple diet for those whose daily existence is lacking in excitement.

"Which of the girls would you like tonight?" Obi asked.

Rossow somewhat flippant, the result no doubt of the drink & a natural indolence replied; "If they are identical twins I really don't see the distinction!"

Obi gave a laugh deep in his leathery throat.

The drinks over, they rose like two soldiers embarking on a joint mission, warmly shook hands and ascended the stairs to their respective bedrooms, shaking hands again before parting and wishing each other good night.


Chapter 6. One Half Of The Twins:

The room was unoccupied when Rossow entered, his bags had already been emptied and the contents diligently laid out, or hung away in the spacious inbuilt mahogany receptacles. Sitting on and testing the bed, he removed his shoes & socks and felt the coolness to his feet from the marble floor. Pulling off his shirt & slipping out of his slacks & pants he made for the shower.

Cold water stung his torso. Soaping himself down he washed away the almost imperceptible clinging body smell that one attains in hot humid climates, irrespective of the lack of any more serious physical exertion than sitting in an air conditioned car and relaxing over dinner. It was the primitive odor of man existing.

Emerging from the shower he had not heard her slip in. The two shaded side lamps were on and she lay on the bed facing him, slender dark hands cradling her chin, long straightened hair falling down across her shoulder blades barely concealing the obtuse naked angle of her back and the firm globes of a compact backside. He moved forward, visibly aroused.

The night was one of raw sexual exhibitionism on the part of the twin. He in turn responded with a savagery and an intensity he did not know he possessed. With the sweat alternately dripping & mingling from one interchangeable body onto the next, they respectively endeavored to outmanoeuvre and gain dominance over the other, until she finally climaxed, her limbs breaking into a protracted series of violent shocks and waning aftershocks of muscle contractions and spasms.

She lay as if dead, drained limp of all except the ability to maintain a song of soft breathing, the sweet clean smell of exhaustion. He lay awake in a twilight unrest, and the moon, filtering its surreal presence through the gap in the drapes, outlined the blended curves & mounds of her body beside him.


Chapter 7. The Ju Ju Mask:

Rossow slipped noiselessly out of bed and gently lifting the large briefcase from beside the wardrobe, he entered the bathroom. Once inside, he retrieved a small flat object, in its turn concealed in a coarse embroided cloth bag. Opening the bathroom door he surveyed the sleeping form on the bed. Slow, methodical breathing. The nadir of infinity. Not a muscle moved. With the grace & fluidity that big men are sometimes endowed, he put the briefcase back in its original place, slipped on his shorts & left the room.

Obi’s suite was at the end of the passage. Rossow paused outside, stationary and to one side, lowered his head slightly and listened. Outside in the night the noise of the insects was still audible, a dog howled somewhere across Kumasi town triggering others off in successive canine wailing. Deep from downstairs in the kitchen, a fridge kicked in and switched on, humming.

Rossow turned the handle gently, the touch applied by his grip as sensitive as his senses would permit. It swung open noiselessly two inches & on the bed he observed two dormant figures.

Obi lay on his back snoring through an open dry mouth, his arm across his midriff, the sheet up to his navel. One horny foot protruded from the bed edge. Adjacent, Mandy (or was it Brandy?) was handcuffed to the head board face down. What appeared like welts on her buttocks were barely perceptible.

Rossow entered in slow movements from the side & drew from the bag an object which he laid beside Obi’s face.

It had been supplied a week before from the Accra Police Depository by Emelia. As it lay there Rossow was struck once again by the revulsion it evoked. Composed of a stuffed fabric parody of a man’s face, the entombed apertures of mouth, eyes & nostrils were all sealed up with heavy, distinctive black cord stitching. The unhealthy, greasy grey hue of the visage did not engender one to perceive an image of benevolence. That is, in addition to the cheeks having been splattered and enlivened with the blood of some ritualized, slaughtered cockerel.

Rossow turned to leave, but his eyes met those of the supposedly sleeping twin. He read pain, yet calm in them and she did not scream. He left the room.

[YesNo]

I am not completely following the thread, but I enjoyed the story, Manichean.

It seemed strange that the police woman went to bed so soon with Rossow, but it sounded like she had a good time. Also, I would have thought that Obi would not have wanted to put welts on Mandy or Brandy's body since that would have been harming his business asset.

[Pompey Bum]

When you come to the parts, (alluded to by Pompey Bum) as “not about game keeping,” your reactions will no doubt vary according to the many viewpoints expressed so far. These, if I might remind you range from:
1. The interjection of unintentional humour.
2. The use of dialogue.
3. Whether either participant is reduced to becoming “an object.”
4. The balance between what one might call “a clinical sexual survey,” and “gross, offensive pornography.”

Thank you, Manichaean. Here is my analysis:


But then; tyre contact was made, the weight of the moving plane gently lowered and the engines went into reverse, quickly bringing the aircraft into a sedate taxiing across the runway to the Arrivals Terminal.

“gross, offensive pornography”


"Good morning Detective Inspector Rossow. My name is Police Sergeant Emelia Banfo of the Ghanaian Police and I'm the liaison officer assigned to you."

Long slender fingers, cool to the touch were extended for a formal greeting.

"Please follow me. The car is outside."

Dialogue. And it does move the plot, as Ecurb promised it would. But may I suggest anticipating some of Emelia and Rossow's personal chemistry, and giving her speech pattern more local color? Something like:

The singsong cadence of her voice piqued the field anthropologist in his pants. "Hello Bwana. Welcome to Ghana! Would you care for a banana? I'm sure you'll enjoy all our African fauna. Say, how about you and I slip into the sauna? I know I wanna."

Just a thought.


Chapter 2. The First Day:

I suggest changing the chapter title to: "Accra Phobia"


"But if you are poking around locally, take Police Woman Banfo with you. In uniform, or casual as suits your purpose."

Whether either participant is reduced to becoming “an object.”

It would help if Rossow were to punch Bennett in the stomach for his comment. Or if that's too insensitive, perhaps he could step on his foot really hard. Somehow or other this story needs a moral compass.


The bodies belied the faces.

More alliteration would help here. Perhaps: "Their bellies belied their bellicosity." It gives your prose that bongo-rhythm effect you're going for.


The bodies with strong breasts and proud hips said “You can have anything you can take."

You're getting close to sexism again. One of these dancers really needs to be a guy. How about rebilling the act as "Brandy and Alexander"?


That evening at their customary debrief in the hotel

The interjection of unintentional humour.


One horny foot protruded from the bed edge.

Ditto. (That sounds like one horny foot).


That night he worked her body with an intensity and an ardor that left them both with the physical & mental limpness of damp rags. She initially assumed the role of a compliant body offered up and her eyes remained closed. But as he worked away, she affected initially, reluctant small moans until the suppression was too much and then she broke. The cries became screams as she lost control completely and collapsed on the bed face down, rivulets' of sweat laying like a channel on the indent of her spine as her body convulsed in a series of arched back climaxes.

That's it! I warned you that I found this sort of thing disturbing. Redeeming artistic value be damned! "To lay" is a transitive verb! :)

[kiki1982]

I only read that little bit quoted by Pompey, but THAT WAS FANTASTIC! :p

And I don't care what feminists make of that, I loved it.

[MANICHAEAN]

YesNo.

Yes you are right. After all Emelia was an officer of the law, and technically still on duty to have jumped into the sack with this big hairy copper so soon. Did not even check his warrant card, the shameless hussy. Regards the SM, men are such beasts sometimes.

Kiki1982
Thank you for the support and your stand against PC.

Pompey Bum

As ever, a constructive and objective review. Were you ever in the teaching profession?
Actually when I looked at some of your comments, they opened up cracks in the edifice of my writing which were not initially apparent e.g.

1. The plane landing as “gross, offensive pornography.” If one gets the imaginative juices going, then I suppose it’s not that far removed from the visual image and implications of a train entering a tunnel. Hitchcock used it in one film I believe.

2. Emelia’s suggested patois dialogue is interesting but I’m afraid I must decline. Spoken English by reserved, good looking women, (especially when in uniform), is I think so much more endearing to a man’s ears.

3. “Accra Phobia.” Oh Dear!!

4. “This story needs a moral compass.” Really? I thought it was obvious. Absolute filth obscured by an overlay of heavy prose.

5. More rhythmic alliteration? Good point. “Randy Rossow rogered ruthlessly.”

6. The implication of sexism is akin the one of feminism, upon which this thread was initially based. I always use real life examples or experience in my stories; and in this instance, Mandy and Brandy were two actual barmaids that used to come up every weekend from Edmonton to Fort McMurry in Alberta to serve in the Podollon Pub. Mandy was a physical training instructress, slim but with great muscle tone and used to arm wrestle the oil worker patrons; whilst Brandy who had what 19th century writers referred to as “a fine neck,” had the disconcerting habit of looking you in the eye and bending forward when pouring a drink. Oh, and I forgot to mention, Mandy liked girls. Will that suffice to refute the charge?

7. “Debrief.” You got me bang to rights guv. It’s a fair cop.

8. Likewise with “horny foot.” It’s amazing how this stuff creeps in when you review it carefully.

9. “rivulets' of sweat simmered and steamed like latent heat from a volcanic eruption on the indent of her spine.” Overkill?

[Iain Sparrow]

Good post, Aunt Shecky.

Literature is at its best when it is dramatic, and the essence of drama (as an art form) is dialogue. In general, dialogue drives novels; description just sets the scene. Plenty of interesting dialogue goes on in bed -- but it's usually before or after the actual sex.

Dialogue before sex... oh yes, certainly... after though, no way.
After sex it's a token cuddle, then I just rollover and go to sleep.

I think every writer who believes they can pen a convincing sex scene, should first imagine their parents as the characters in the story. For those of us who had the unfortunate experience as kids to at one time or another burst in too early in the morning to wake mom up so she could make breakfast, only to see mom and dad grinding it out... sex is better left to the imagination, and not written on the pages of a book.

[MANICHAEAN]

Chapter 8. The Talk Before Dawn:

Rossow slipped back into his room, too tense to sleep. So after a short time, he went out onto the balcony, ostensibly to think & reflect on what he had just seen.

The body on the bed inside stirred, and with casual abandon threw the inner thigh of one long dark leg onto what she had anticipated would be the adjacent body of her recent lover.

Realizing he was not there and awakened by the breeze of colder air from the open balcony door, she sat up. Seeing him outside, she slid into a pair of green satin briefs & joined him.

She sat in a chair opposite.

"How now?" she whispered.

Gary smiled inwardly. How to ever understand a woman! An hour ago with total abandon she was unashamedly, even perversely naked. Now, almost as if formally appropriate for the occasion, she had clothed her lower half and yet still exhibited like a proud banner her unadorned breasts across from where he sat.

Gary asked; "What makes you tick Mandy?"

"How do you mean?" she responded.

"You and your sister act like upper class whores and yet there must be something more?"

"You do not understand whores batouri." she flashed back with anger.

"If so you would never have asked such a question!"

Mandy leaned back contemptuously, stung by the suddenness of the earlier rebuke and a pulse beat in her throat, brown and supple in the moonlight. She was exquisite and deadly, and nothing would ever touch her.

"You do not know much about whores, baturi." she repeated.

"They are always most respectable. Except of course the very cheap ones."

There was a refinement and sharpness in her voice now. It intimated an impression of concealed intelligence that he had not perceived before; so effectively had she executed, with consummate felicity the role model of a compliant, almost submissive, African woman.

"I do not draw a sharp line between business and sex," she said evenly.

"And you cannot humiliate me. Sex is a net with which I catch fools. Some of these fools are useful and generous. Occasionally one is dangerous."

"Sex is a wonderful thing," Gary responded. "When you don't want to answer questions."

She sighed loosely; slowly half hooded her eyes, then put her hand up almost as a casual dismissive wave.

She gave her head a toss and swung the soft, loose, jet black hair around her cheeks and watched him to see how hard it hit home.

All the dark sheen from her face had gone now, but behind her eyes, something watched and waited.

She turned her head and looked at him squarely. She shook her head a little again. "Believe me, I'm not worth it - even to sleep with."

"No matter how many lovers a woman may have," she said softly, "There is always one she cannot bear to lose to another woman. I had one once who was the one."

"I must have men, but the man I loved is dead. I killed him. That man I would not share."

"Obi saved me from being caught and therefore I owe him. And family being family, that includes my sister in his debt as well."

Gary looked at her.

The edifice of resistance had crumbled slightly, and like a muted whisper, or the subtle awareness of a light breeze on the cheek, bits of this jigsaw were being coerced to assume their allotted positions; and thus to reveal to Rossow a flickering of the real composition he was determined to view.

[Pompey Bum]

I think every writer who believes they can pen a convincing sex scene, should first imagine their parents as the characters in the story.

I surrender. :yikes::yikes::yikes:

[Pompey Bum]

Were you ever in the teaching profession?

Oh you know, research. ;-)


Actually when I looked at some of your comments, they opened up cracks in the edifice of my writing which were not initially apparent

I'm glad to hear it. I don't get the opportunity to open many cracks these days. Edie who?


“Randy Rossow rogered ruthlessly.”

Yes, and perhaps...

Randy Rossow rogered ruthlessly.

"Bravo! Bravo!" brayed bra-less Brandy, brashly brushing bronze breasts against the brawny brute.

"But maybe you're Mandy, you mammiferous minx!" murmured the martinet, manipulating the mammalia of her mammaform mounds and moaning like a manzello.

You have to keep these things out of the gutter you know.


whilst Brandy who had what 19th century writers referred to as “a fine neck,”

Oh yes, I'm familiar with the fine Victorian neck. That and the "noble carriage." Interestingly enough, Victorian gentlemen had "good legs," a term still in use (although it meant something different in those innocent times).


"rivulets' of sweat simmered and steamed like latent heat from a volcanic eruption on the indent of her spine.” Overkill?

For me, yes, but then I'm not a big fan of sweaty women. Still, in for a penny in for a pound:

The gaping geysers of her porous pores poured out florid floods of fluid, licking lava over lush loins, presently pooling prettily against pert portions of her proud pudendum.

You're a friend, so that's on the house (I know, I know: that's what she said :)).

[WyattGwyon]

Dialogue before sex... oh yes, certainly... after though, no way.
After sex it's a token cuddle, then I just rollover and go to sleep.

I think every writer who believes they can pen a convincing sex scene, should first imagine their parents as the characters in the story. For those of us who had the unfortunate experience as kids to at one time or another burst in too early in the morning to wake mom up so she could make breakfast, only to see mom and dad grinding it out... sex is better left to the imagination, and not written on the pages of a book.

You are apparently reading the wrong authors. William Gaddis has written a handful of sex scenes in his novels. Every one is pitch perfect and either excruciating, excruciatingly funny, or both. The two in Carpenter's Gothic are particularly well done.

[MANICHAEAN]

Iain Sparrow:

I was tempted to reply immediately when I first saw your post, but thought it best to see what the responses of others were. Both Pompey Bum and WyattGwyon I think covered it adequately.

I honestly could not relate either to the phrase “grinding it out,” or to imagine ma and pa “at it,” prior to writing a sex scene. If such were the case, I believe therapy would be essential to recover.

Anyway, each to his own.

Best regards
M.

[MANICHAEAN]

Well I’m still sitting here in the main office in Singapore waiting to get permission to get on site. But luckily I have Lit Net Forums and other sites to fill in the hours between 7.30am to 7pm.

So, although we might be moving away somewhat from the title of this thread, I will subject you to a daily chapter of “A Murder in Accra.” Chapters 1-8 as any avid readers might surmise have dealt mainly with sex. We now move into the realm of dirty deeds on an international perspective; involving various intelligence agencies, all of whom are complete fantasy concepts on my part.

[MANICHAEAN]

Chapter 9. The Chinese Mirror:

Sam Tan was the smoothest-looking Chinaman that you had ever seen. He talked in a disparaging way like an Englishman and was dressed in a white suit with a silk shirt and black tie. Ostensibly, he was the missing, kidnapped night club owner from Accra, but to anyone who may have been present that evening, he was far removed from that adverse set of circumstances.

He was in a basement room in Kumasi, the door was secured and there were two other persons present. One was an exhausted looking British Ambassador named Rob Kretzler, who for the record was kidnapped. The other was a second Chinaman, except for the fact that he was a mirror image of the Ambassador. Plastic surgery had seen to that, and for now, the new Rob Kretzler was studying even closer, the original version to add further to his repertoire of acquired speech, gestures & mannerisms.

It was a forced dialogue that lay between them, like the breath of a jackal in the company of man. Sam Tan, who the Ambassador had thought was his friend, had betrayed him.

Sam himself, caring little for such sentiments endeavored to treat it all rather superficially.

“Rob, don’t be silly. Just see our point. We require your cooperation. Just talk to my colleague here”.

Betrayal is an ugly word. But then the Ambassador was pragmatic enough to realize that although you may not like evil, it should still be recognized. He was only too aware of his circumstances. He was a prisoner and a lot of work had been put into the unnerving caricature of himself that sat opposite; watching with an intense predatory focus, his very being.

[YesNo]

You are apparently reading the wrong authors. William Gaddis has written a handful of sex scenes in his novels. Every one is pitch perfect and either excruciating, excruciatingly funny, or both. The two in Carpenter's Gothic are particularly well done.

I'll see if I can find "Carpenter's Gothic". Does anyone have any other examples of both good and bad sex scenes.

Regarding seeing one's parents having sex, I suppose that could be as unnerving as catching one's children having sex. I remember on a vacation listening to the groans of a female in the condo above the one we were renting. It wasn't as loud as the noise I imagined Emelia made, but loud enough to recognize what was going on.

Now, what if she were my mother or daughter? I guess it wouldn't really matter as long as she's not my wife. It is not so much the age of those having sex as the relationships they are in. In the case of Emelia her relationships were not established which is why I thought having sex with Rossow was premature. It is sort of a waste of the character too early in the story.

I liked the phrase, "you may not like evil, it should still be recognized", in your latest chapter, Manichaean.

[Pompey Bum]

This has potential as a musical, Manichaean. Also, I would be remiss in my duties as an unpaid consultant if I didn't advise you to start writing towards a video game tie in. (A fellow's got to eat).


You are apparently reading the wrong authors. William Gaddis has written a handful of sex scenes in his novels. Every one is pitch perfect and either excruciating, excruciatingly funny, or both. The two in Carpenter's Gothic are particularly well done.

Richard Russo's hilarious Nobody's Fool includes one of the only realistic literary depictions of a sexual relationship that comes to mind in a modern American novel. I don't remember if it has explicit sexual scenes--sort of, I think, though not many. And it is only a sub-plot. The main character has had a long term sexual affair with the wife of an personal enemy, although as they have aged (he is in his 60s now), they haven't really kept it going. But they still get together from time to time for sex, and to give one another advice. But they clearly love each other. By calling it "realistic," I don't mean that it is meant to depict a typical sexual relationship, just that Russo's writing and dialogue make it seem believable--even mature. That's what missing from descriptions of sexual love in other many other authors: it all just seems a little far fetched.

[Pompey Bum]

Does anyone have any other examples of both good and bad sex scenes.

Here is the worst I've ever read. It's from Sheshenko, a novel by the otherwise outstanding historian, Simon Sebag Montefiore. It won an award for bad writing about sex. I'm not kidding.

Inside, the room was dark, lit only by the lurid scarlet of the electric stars atop each of the eight spires of the Kremlin outside the window. They backed on to a bed that sagged in the middle, the sheets rancid with what she later identified as old sperm and alcohol in a cocktail specially mixed for Soviet hotels. She wanted to struggle, to reprimand, to complain, but he grabbed her face and kissed her so forcefully that a lick of flame burned her to the core.

His hands pulled her dress off her shoulders and he buried his face in her neck, then her hair, scooping up between her legs. He pulled down her brassiere, cupping her breasts, sighing in bliss. 'The blue veins are divine,' he whispered. And in that moment, a lifetime of unease about this ugly feature of her body was replaced with satisfaction. He licked them, circling her nipples hungrily. Then he disappeared up her skirt.

She pushed him away from there, once, then twice. But he kept returning. She slapped his mouth, quite hard, but he didn't care.

'No, no, not there, come on, no thank you, no...' She cringed, closing her eyes bashfully.

'You're beautiful,' he said.

Could that be true? Yes, he insisted and he swiped her with his tongue. No one had ever done this to her before. She shivered, barely able to control herself.

'Lovely!' he said.

She was so ashamed she actually hid her face in her hands. 'Just don't!'

'See if you can pretend it isn't happening!' was his suggestion as he buried his face in her. When she finally looked down, he peered back at her, laughing. I've got a lover, she thought, incredulous. His irrepressible carnality enthralled her. It was like the first time with her husband, her only other lover - but then it was not like that at all. In fact, she reflected, this is me losing my real virginity at the hands of this infernal, lovable, Jewish clown who is so unlike any of the macho Bolsheviks in my life.

He's a madman, she thought as he made love to her again. Oh my God, after twenty years of being the most rational Bolshevik woman in Moscow, this goblin has driven me crazy!

He eased out of her again, showing himself.

'Look!' he whispered as she did. Was this really her? There he was between her legs again, doing the most absurd, lovely things to places behind her knees, the muscle at the very top of her thighs, her ears, the middle of her back. But the kissing, just the kissing, was heavenly [...] He made her forget she was a Communist [...]

[kiki1982]

I'm still laughing :lol:

I'm not sure what the problem is, the bit where 'he disappear[ed] up her skirt', the icky bits in between (swiped her with his tongue) or the Communist bit.

[Pompey Bum]

I'm still laughing :lol:

I'm not sure what the problem is, the bit where 'he disappear[ed] up her skirt', the icky bits in between (swiped her with his tongue) or the Communist bit.

Disappearing up her skirt was the funniest for me. I got the image of the Bolshevik lady turning around and around the sleazy hotel room, wondering where that boy could be. And his voice emanating from her skirt: "Thank you, thank you, and for my next trick..."

[MANICHAEAN]

Iain Sparrow:

Excuse me if my earlier response to the comments you made regards love and sex scenes was rather offhand. What I’m trying to get across, in an inexcusable cack handed manner might better be illustrated by one of my favourite authors, Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis in his “Apologia” ; basically a defence against accusations of using magic to gain the attentions (and fortune) of a wealthy widow in Roman times. Being a student of the Platonist philosophy in Athens, his take on take on love and sex was expostulated as of a higher and lower form as in the following extract:

“But I will forbear to enlarge upon those deep and holy mysteries of the Platonic philosophy, which, while they are revealed to but few of the pious, are totally unknown to the profane; how, that Venus is a twofold goddess, each of the pair producing a particular passion, and in different kinds of lovers. One of them is the "Vulgar", who is prompted by the ordinary passion of love, to stimulate not only the human feelings, but even those of cattle and wild beasts, to lust, and commit the enslaved bodies of beings thus smitten by her to immoderate and furious embraces. The other is the "Heavenly" Venus, who presides over the purest love, who cares for men alone and but few of them, and who influences her devotees by no stimulants or allurements to base desire”

Best regards
M.

[MANICHAEAN]

Simon Sebag Montefiore. Sweet Lord, does this boy have talent!

If any more of this is read by me, I am in serious danger of losing my job through laughing.

Let me though just give you my own reactions:

“They backed on to a bed that sagged in the middle, the sheets rancid with what she later identified as old sperm and alcohol in a cocktail specially mixed for Soviet hotels.”

Potential elements of confusion here, which raise more questions than answers: Was she in the habit of having DNA samples taken of bed sheets she had been gone down on? / Was this a cocktail of sperm one part, (matured in barrels over many years) and Stolichnaya 3 parts with a twist of lemon, shaken not stirred? If so, I am unfamiliar with it, despite having indulged in many a vodka cocktail in Moscow.

“Kissed her so forcefully that a lick of flame burned her to the core.”

One can only surmise that the vodka from the Soviet hotel cocktail was self-combustible.

“His hands pulled her dress off her shoulders and he buried his face in her neck, then her hair, scooping up between her legs.”

He really comes across as a rather athletic proletariat Jewish goblin.

'The blue veins are divine,' he whispered.

Whatever turns you on baby!

“And in that moment, a lifetime of unease about this ugly feature of her body was replaced with satisfaction.”

And the wart on her nose?

“Then he disappeared up her skirt.”

Hello, hello, anybody home?

'No, no, not there, come on, no thank you, no...'

I’m not that sort of girl.

'You're beautiful,' he said.

He certainly had a way with words!

“He swiped her with his tongue.”

Thank God that was clarified. I thought for a minute, it might have been his American Express card.

'See if you can pretend it isn't happening!' was his suggestion as he buried his face in her.

Think of England, (Sorry, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) Ok, Mother Russia then.

“This infernal, lovable, Jewish clown who is so unlike any of the macho Bolsheviks in my life.”

Outside on the Kremlin Square and despite the snow, Putin rode bare chested on a white charger. Inside Topol was contemplating a salt beef sandwich on rye when all this frolicking was over.

“Oh my God, after twenty years of being the most rational Bolshevik woman in Moscow, this goblin has driven me crazy!”

Behind the two way mirror the KGB operative made a mental note to make a gulag reservation for this broad once his shift was completed.

“He eased out of her again, showing himself.”

Ah ha. A flasher! This bit might have evoked suitable appreciation for any readers of a gay disposition.

“Doing the most absurd, lovely things to places behind her knees.”

Oh no, not again, my imagination is already at breaking point!!

“He made her forget she was a Communist.”

What a final punch line. Had she inclinations to join the Tea Party?

On a more serious note, I get the impression that poor old Simon was getting so worked up when writing this, that he did not realize the humour it contained. Which is exactly the point made by so many contributors to this most enjoyable thread. But then at the same time one does not want a clinical “bang bang, thank you mam” when dealing with this subject. By definition; there is lust, there is humour, and there are the most ridiculous and the most adventurous positions. Is it carnal? Yes, but if you have imagination and wit and enterprise by both participants, it is the very touch of Heaven itself. Vive L’amour.

[YesNo]

Here is the worst I've ever read. It's from Sheshenko, a novel by the otherwise outstanding historian, Simon Sebag Montefiore. It won an award for bad writing about sex. I'm not kidding.

In trying to find this bad sex award, I think it comes from an annual award given by "The Literary Review". Here's a comment on the award by Amanda Hess: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/12/02/bad_sex_awards_2013_susan_choi_manil_suri_and_jona than_grimood_nominated.html

In reading through some of the winners, I don't see what's all that bad about them. It is nice to win an award considering the publicity that brings. It probably helps sales.

[MANICHAEAN]

Chapter 10. East Meets West:

The real name of Samuel Tan’s colleague in the Kumasi basement, on that particular evening was Han Fei Tzu. Back in China he had occupied many positions ranging from lecturer, to undertaking itinerant civil engineering work. What was not common knowledge was his graduation in this latter discipline from England quite a few years earlier.

He had not liked the English, but was adept enough to conceal it, for he possessed those Chinese virtues of reserve and patience which sat well upon the immobility of his yellow countenance. Now he was obliged to employ these traits in dealing with the Ambassador seated in front of him. From time to time the latter uttered old-fashioned words which forced him to grope mentally for comprehension, and of course he could feel the chilling contempt and insolence to his person.

“Ah these English” he thought. “They travelled all over, up and down the world, not to acquire information but rather to leave the impress of their superiority as a race. It was most amusing. They would suffer amazing hardships to hunt the snow-leopard; but in the Temple of Five Hundred Gods they would not take the trouble to ask the name of one!”

The Ambassador knew that his safety lay in pretense. That and the phase of mental activity that men called courage, which barred the ingress of the long cold fingers of fear. He possessed it, and immeasurable was the calm evoked from this knowledge. After all, public school had been much worse than this!

He knew also that he was getting under the skin of Han, for, unlike Tan, you could sense that he seemed more susceptible to slights, however tangentially they were delivered. Thus he made sure to play on that breach of Chinese etiquette to wear spectacles while speaking to an equal. The Chinese invariably remove their glasses when conversing. One thing is quite certain: they do not like being looked at through a medium of glass or crystal, and normally it would cost a foreigner nothing to fall in with this harmless prejudice.

Whereas Tan was but a caricature of a Chinaman, having wallowed so long in the lower pits of Western surroundings, Kretzler felt that this manifestation of himself opposite, had been at some stage in his life one of the literati.

“It is strange,” he reflected “That men of education and apparent good birth will invariably fall the swiftest and the lowest.”

[108 fountains]

This is an interesting thread to say the least! While it's all good fun, what I am enjoying most is the story "A Murder in Accra." I'm not sure how long it will eventually be, but with the introduction of the Ambassador and the Chinese characters in the last couple of chapters, it's beginning to turn into a novel, a real spy-thriller. The first several chapters were the most interesting, I thought. I can't wait to find out what happens with the Ju Ju Mask - why Rossow laid it beside Obi's head and what's inside it - if I remember correctly, Ju Ju Masks carry a message inside, but the message is meant to remain there and remain a secret. The whole story so far is well-constructed with MANICHAEAN's usual good writing skills and style.

[Pompey Bum]

“His hands pulled her dress off her shoulders and he buried his face in her neck, then her hair, scooping up between her legs.”

He really comes across as a rather athletic proletariat Jewish goblin.

True. And then there is the troubling question of what exactly he was scooping up between her legs. Cellulite? Baggy Bolshevik bloomers? Or perhaps he was just a journalist getting the first real story about what was going on "up between her legs." It's no wonder the poor lady forgot she was a communist. Historically speaking, a lot of people did.


On a more serious note, I get the impression that poor old Simon was getting so worked up when writing this, that he did not realize the humour it contained.

Maybe. But (again, to be serious), Montefiore is one of the most engaging historians working today. Really. Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar may be the most gripping work of non-fiction I've ever read. Montefiore based it (partly) on office memoranda and little personal notes that were passed back and forth between Stalin and his top goons at meetings ("Ha, Molotov, you're ugly!"--that kind of thing) which became available when archives were opened after the Cold War (and which have long since been slammed violently shut). It's fascinating, moving, and utterly chilling. And (believe it or not, at this point) it's exceptionally well written.

So I think the point may be that the line between fiction and non-fiction may not be so easily crossed. That has a Stalinist feel to it, too. Kind of like East Berlin.


Which is exactly the point made by so many contributors to this most enjoyable thread. But then at the same time one does not want a clinical “bang bang, thank you mam” when dealing with this subject. By definition; there is lust, there is humour, and there are the most ridiculous and the most adventurous positions. Is it carnal? Yes, but if you have imagination and wit and enterprise by both participants, it is the very touch of Heaven itself. Vive L’amour.

I think part of the problem is that sex involves a heightened physical and emotional state. But stylistically, you're not supposed too get "overwrought" in good modern fiction. So what do you do when the lady really does pant like a bulldog in estrus? Or when the gentleman throws caution to the wind and gives it the ol' scoop between the legs, only guessing at what he's actually scooping? What happens when, emotionally speaking, iron nails really do rip your lungs?

Oh sorry, that's from The Naked Name by Sanjida O'Connell. Another winner. (Admittedly I've edited it down to its most ridiculous lines. Still, iron nails, dissolving faces, eyes like underwater rocks and bones, and of course, sweet, sweet dolphin love...):

He felt as if he had been pierced through with iron nails that tore his lungs as he tried to breathe...Her skin was smooth and she felt sleekly muscled, like a dolphin might..Their tongues met and he felt himself dissolve, like wax melting in the heat...She moaned softly as he entered her; in the firelight her eyes widened and glowed and he could see into their depths as if into the green shallows of the sea where waves whisper over rocks and bones.

Now 'at's amore!

[YesNo]

As far as those "iron nails" go, O'Connell is just trying to be "poetic", which one could describe as ridiculous writing, but people do it. Hopefully the novel was entertaining enough for an adequate number of readers to enjoy it and justify marketing the product.

I agree with Manichaean that sex "is the very touch of Heaven itself".

[Ecurb]

I agree with Manichaean that sex "is the very touch of Heaven itself".

Hmmm. It always seemed more "earthy" than that, to me. Love is heavenly; sex is earthy.

[Pompey Bum]

To me, sex is a kind of "separate peace" that lovers negotiate between themselves, against the needs and interests of rest of the world. "Heaven and earth" is just what people holler when the time comes. :)

[YesNo]

Hmmm. It always seemed more "earthy" than that, to me. Love is heavenly; sex is earthy.

I see the earth as a reflection of heaven and my wife as an incarnate goddess. The dualism between love and sex vanishes.

[Ecurb]

Tell that to your wife, YesNO, not to us! I think I may use it on my girlfriend (with your permission). Let me see if I have it right: "I think you are a Goddess, in whose incarnation the dualism of love and sex vanishes!" I'll report back tomorrow with the results (it might work, or I might just get laughed at).

[Iain Sparrow]

Tell that to your wife, YesNO, not to us! I think I may use it on my girlfriend (with your permission). Let me see if I have it right: "I think you are a Goddess, in whose incarnation the dualism of love and sex vanishes!" I'll report back tomorrow with the results (it might work, or I might just get laughed at).

I can just imagine if I try that line on the woman I'm seeing right now... I do believe this would be her reply, "if you're asking for anal sex again, the answer is still no". :)

[WyattGwyon]

I'll see if I can find "Carpenter's Gothic". Does anyone have any other examples of both good and bad sex scenes.

Regarding seeing one's parents having sex, I suppose that could be as unnerving as catching one's children having sex. I remember on a vacation listening to the groans of a female in the condo above the one we were renting. It wasn't as loud as the noise I imagined Emelia made, but loud enough to recognize what was going on.

Now, what if she were my mother or daughter? I guess it wouldn't really matter as long as she's not my wife. It is not so much the age of those having sex as the relationships they are in. In the case of Emelia her relationships were not established which is why I thought having sex with Rossow was premature. It is sort of a waste of the character too early in the story.

I liked the phrase, "you may not like evil, it should still be recognized", in your latest chapter, Manichaean.

The scenes in Carpenter's Gothic make my skin crawl and make me cringe respectively, because of the way the woman involved remains uninvolved. Good depictions of bad sex.

[YesNo]

The scenes in Carpenter's Gothic make my skin crawl and make me cringe respectively, because of the way the woman involved remains uninvolved. Good depictions of bad sex.

I have read the first chapter and I was also puzzled by the passivity of the female with respect to her brother and husband. The dialogue isn't quite how I would like it, but overall it seems like dialogue that fear and anxiety would be driving as both of these characters project their hostility onto her. It is well done. I can see how the sex will likely be bad, but I expect it to be described well.

[YesNo]

Tell that to your wife, YesNO, not to us! I think I may use it on my girlfriend (with your permission). Let me see if I have it right: "I think you are a Goddess, in whose incarnation the dualism of love and sex vanishes!" I'll report back tomorrow with the results (it might work, or I might just get laughed at).

I don't tell her that. It is really "show don't tell" in these relationships. However, that is how I think of her.

I don't recommend that you, or Iain Sparrow, tell your wives or girlfriends that either. If you would like to experiment, try to see her that way and see what objections come to your mind. Many of those objections would be traced to metaphysical biases, such as, "She can't possibly be a goddess in a materialistic universe".

If you would like more of this kind of thinking, I recommend Sally Kempton's "Awakening Shakti" and a collection of essays called "Kundalini Rising".

[Pompey Bum]

Many of those objections would be traced to metaphysical biases, such as, "She can't possibly be a goddess in a materialistic universe".

Yes, that was my wife's first concern when I mentioned it to her. (And just a suggestion, but show and tell has never lost it's charm for us--something for both ;-)).

[Clopin]

I agree with Manichaean that sex "is the very touch of Heaven itself".

Pffft, well... mileage must vary, you're lucky haha.

[MANICHAEAN]

Chapter 11.The Catalyst:

As Obi Biston emerged from his sleep on that bright African morning; he had at first a difficulty in comprehending that which lay before him on the pillow. Like a man who awakes; in a strange bed, in a new country after a long flight, time was suspended. Then when the senses are gradually marshaled into some semblance of order, mental coordination kicks in. The hideousness of the shock of seeing the mask hit him at such a moment. He tried to mouth a sound, but nothing came. He threw himself backwards with all the uncoordinated force that his body could muster away from the object. Backwards he jostled and heaved himself, over the obstacle of Brandy’s adjacent body; and falling off the opposite side of the bed, he hit his head on the floor, scrambled to his feet, threw open the bedroom door and ran screaming naked down the corridor.

Gary Rossow met him and with some difficulty restrained his shaking torso. He perceived the frenzied eyes and the streams of sweat that ran down Obi’s face. Mandy appeared from Rossow’s bedroom and also attempted to calm him. By now, the whole household was awake and came rushing up the stairs; an incoherent babbling mass of servants, directionless & unable to comprehend. Rossow quietly proceeded to Obi’s bedroom. Brandy still lay tied down, a knowing expression on her face. He untied her and gently drew a robe across her shoulders. She looked at the mask that lay on the bed and she understood perfectly what it was and who had put it there. But she was calm and self-contained. “A tough lady,” Gary thought. He took the mask and wrapping it in a towel took it back to his room. It had done its work and he was now ready to take any advantage of Obi’s shocked vulnerability, to uncover the information he had till now been striving to obtain.


A week later though, things had not transgressed quite as originally hoped. Despite the pot having been well and truly stirred, some strange developments and inter-relationships transpired. Brandy, for a start, said not a word on the subject of that night, whilst at the same time grew closer to Rossow. A shared unbroken secret existed between them. She was, Rossow was soon to discover, a much softer version of her more world-wise cynical sister.

The servants, as was to be expected, discussed and speculated in hushed whispers; but the biggest change was in Obi himself. He withdrew to all extents and purposes from all that which was around him and he began to drink even more heavy. Brandy in the meantime moved out from his bed and joined that of her twin sister in Rossow’s. The latter of course was in no condition to complain about such an arrangement, but the morose silence of Obi whenever approached he found disconcerting. He had hoped to open him up, but the aspired effects of the mask catalyst were not materializing.

As the days progressed Rossow was able to perceive Obi’s remorseless decline; as exhibited in the deadness of his face, the puffed eyelids and the bloodshot whites. He knew the significance: the red corpuscle was being burnt out by the fires of alcohol. Rossow was more or less familiar with alcoholic types. In the genuinely dissipated face there was always a suggestion of slyness in ambush, peeping out of the wrinkles around the eyes and the lips. Yet upon Obi’s face there were no wrinkles, only shadows in the hollows of the cheeks and under his lower lids.

Mandy tried to approach him also, but with even less success. She was able to note the little beads of sweat under the cracked lower lip. He was in misery; he was paying each day for the preceding night's debauch. His clothes were still smartly pressed and his linen white. The servants saw to that. There was though something tragic in the grim silent manner of his drinking. Shot after shot went down his throat, but never an expression changed his face.

The alcohol did not cheer, but then it was never meant to. Neither did it fortify him with false courage. It simply enveloped him in a mist of unreality. It offered relief to a brain which stupefied by the fumes grew dull. He thought back to his African roots; the primitive beliefs in the world of witchcraft that had been with him since childhood in the little village he had grown up in. So different from that of his Chinese associate Samuel Tan with whom he had worked for so many years. He remembered Sam telling him once of dead animals left on the red tiled roofs of Canton in China. "Pigs and fish,” Sam had explained. “To fend off the visitations of the devil. After all,” he had continued, “We Chinese have the right idea. The devil is on top, not below. We aren't between him and heaven; he is between us and heaven!"

Obi felt that it was so illustrative and characteristic of that race; who pay such unbounded reverence to a powerful dead they felt could harm them. He knew that in every Chinese house stand small wooden tablets bearing the names of deceased parents, grandparents, and earlier ancestors. Plates of meat and cups of wine are on certain occasions set before these tablets, in the belief that the spirits of the dead occupy the tablets and enjoy the offerings.

One evening towards the end of the week, Obi sat motionless in the chair by the window whilst the others sat quietly at dinner. He wiped the sweat from his chin and forehead. His hand shook so violently that he dropped his handkerchief, and he let it lie on the floor because he dared not stoop. He rose to charge his glass from the sideboard, but there came a noise of crashing glass. He had knocked over the siphon and looking bewildered, steadied himself and walked out of the dining room.

Aside from that occasion though, and except for the dull eyes and the increasing pallor of his erstwhile dark face, there was nothing else really to indicate that he was deep in liquor. He did not stagger in the least. And in this fact Rossow sensed, lay his danger. The man who staggers, whose face is flushed, whose attitude is either noisily friendly or truculent has some chance; liquor bends him eventually. But men of the Obi type, who walk straight, they break swiftly and inexplicably.

Later that night Obi hung himself, and in the morning Rossow cut him loose from the cord that was stretched across the room. His body had been suspended with the head tilted forward at a limp angle from the self-applied worldly restraint. The eyes were infinity and the chair lay, like death's accessory sprawled across the floor.

Sometimes we feel we have destinies, when we only have destinations.

[Pompey Bum]

you're lucky haha.

A man who loves his wife is a lucky man.


Sometimes we feel we have destinies, when we only have destinations.

Nice.

[YesNo]

So different from that of his Chinese associate Samuel Tan with whom he had worked for so many years. He remembered Sam telling him once of dead animals left on the red tiled roofs of Canton in China. "Pigs and fish,” Sam had explained. “To fend off the visitations of the devil. After all,” he had continued, “We Chinese have the right idea. The devil is on top, not below. We aren't between him and heaven; he is between us and heaven!"

Tan's attitude about the devil makes sense to me. It looks like Obi didn't generate the information Rossow desired, but he now has both twins.

[YesNo]

Yes, that was my wife's first concern when I mentioned it to her. (And just a suggestion, but show and tell has never lost it's charm for us--something for both ;-)).

It probably depends on the context. From a Christian perspective, it might be the same as looking at one's spouse as a future "saint". To what extent can one hold grievances against such beings?

[YesNo]

I am all for a certain level of realistic equality between the sexes, and feminism that directly deals with these issues on a practical level is ok by me.

Feminism that goes beyond this is often in my not so humble opinion outright hostile to the male sex, and attempts the undermine the foundations that have been built by men of talent and action by slandering and poo pooing them, while they provide nothing of real substance and benefit with these criticisms.

No one can deny that women have been repressed and abused throughout the ages, but there has never been a time where the gap between equality has been so low. The problem is that as we near parity there seems to be a growing and scarily prevalent feminist viewpoint permeating much of western thought. Quite frankly it worries me a little. I have seen nothing that leads me to believe that this type of thinking is superior or more balanced.

I would also venture to add from my own personal experiences, that what women say they want often drastically differs from what they subconsciously want and openly respond to, so I tend to take feminist criticism of male authors' sex scenes with a dump truck full of salt.

I have been trying to make sense out of the reference to feminism in this thread and I agree with your position. Not being near a university, feminism doesn't come up for me.

Feminism seems to need three things:

(1) The belief that something called "gender" exists separate from biological sex.
(2) Gender is "socially constructed" by the culture. Literature would be one social construction of gender.
(3) The social construction of gender leads one to the social construction of "grievances" that need to be addressed.

When I was an undergraduate, prior to the inventions of ways to do brain scans, there was a belief that if one gave boys dolls and girls trucks that would alter their gender, leaving their biological sex alone. If this were true, then this would provide evidence for (1) and (2). One researcher, John Money (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Money), believed this, but a questionable treatment of a patient David Reimer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer) revealed doubts. Also brain scans showed that more of what was associated with gender is part of brain "organization".

Grievance politics should always be questioned since those with a grievance may be part of the problem, although grievances do provide a way for society to improve.

So I am left wondering how feminist literary criticism works in the 21st century.

[Clopin]

Gender being a social construct is about as scientifically valid as young earth creationism. The earth is 6000 years old, and gender is a social construct as statements are both equally disprovable.

I won't derail the thread though... but I could.

[MANICHAEAN]

Chapter 12. New Horizons:

From then on the pace of events quickened. Rossow and the twins attended Obi’s hastily arranged funeral, before the body was transported back to the village compound where he had been born. Going through his things, a notebook was found among the deceased’s possessions containing contacts and addresses in and around Accra and Kumasi. One entry that caught Rossows eye was under the name of Tan, the missing night club owner and at the side, added at a later date in pencil and bracketed the name of one Han Fei Tzu. This address was subsequently checked by the local Ghanaian CID and the property found to be empty. In fact abandoned would have been a better description as it had showed signs of recent occupation, inclusive a lockable basement with a slept in bed and other items indicating usage.

At the same time Samuel Tan turned up, or more correctly, floated up to the surface at the port of Tema on the Gulf of Guinea. He had been strangled and the coroner was able to determine a reasonably accurate estimate of the time of his demise. From there, Emelia looking for any potential interconnecting events happened to note that a Chinese registered tanker had set sail for Macau in about the same period.



About six weeks later, the aforementioned tanker arrived in Macau and from there, heavily sedated, the British Ambassador was transported under great secrecy to the ancient Chinese quarter of Canton, or Guangdong as it is known in contemporary parlance.

In the daytime at this location the streets are invariably filled with the original confusion of mortal existence. There exists to those not accustomed to the Far East an overall impression of turmoil; with shouting, jostling and the milling congestion of both people and traffic that on occasions suddenly breaks and flows in opposite directions.

Thus as Kretzler regained consciousness, apart from this background noise, he also perceived something more disturbing, the ceaseless undercurrent of a more basic sound—the guttural Chinese tongue. That and his new prison. He had been drugged for the whole of the voyage from Ghana and it was only now that he was coming to terms with his new surroundings.

Outside, from the air in a narrow street that was not even eight feet wide, his nostrils discerned smells impossible to define; but occasionally the pungent odour of Chinese incense drifted in. Converging roofs shut out all but a hand's breadth of the sky. If it came at all, it was fleeting. There were streets that boiled and eddied with beings who; worshipped strange gods, ate strange foods, and diffused strange suffocating smells. These were less like streets than labyrinths hewn through an eternal twilight. It was only when one came into a square that daylight had a positive quality. To a stranger free to roam, his interest would have stumbled from object to object. Rows of roasted duck brilliantly varnished, strange vegetables, baskets of melon seed and water-chestnuts, men working in teak and black wood, fan makers, preserved eggs, bird's nests and shark fins, rosewood furniture and delicately painted ceramics.

One would also have glimpsed examples of one particular aspect of Chinese penury upon entering any square given over to fresh food. Carp, and roach so divided that even the fins, heads and fleshless spines were sold; whereas elsewhere the delicacies of chicken feet, gizzards and pigs head were sold.

There were doorways to peer into, dim cluttered holes with shadowy forms moving about, traditional medicine establishments, fortune tellers and garbage collectors. Elsewhere blocks of jade on the way to the cutters —jade white and veined, and the translucent emerald green type valued for luck and good fortune.



Through this crowd proceeded Mr Chien. He wore a long coat, and a hat with a turned up brim. Balanced on his nose were disproportionately large tortoise-shell spectacles. A thin white moustache drooped from the corners of his mouth and ragged wisps of whiskers hung like a flimsy curtain from his chin.

He was that rare flower in Red China, an independent intellectual. At a time when others of his ilk were under house arrest or worse, he was valued by the State for his independent thinking. His voluntary defection many years ago from Chang Kai Sheik to Chairman Mao was a perceived testament to his loyalty. To the authorities, he served a singular purpose in the scheme of progress; that of a trusted elder. He had been assigned at this juncture to be the current minder and evaluator of the captive British Ambassador; a task which he looked forward to with interest and anticipation.

It had added a new dimension to his life, for until recently he had only indulged his whimsical fancies in being a part time lecturer at a local university where alternate thinking from the mental status quo was rarely encountered.

At other times, more perhaps for his own amusement he posed as a Canton guide. He was tall, slender, and suave. He spoke English with astonishing facility and with a purity which often embarrassed tourists he happened to meet. He had made his headquarters at the Victoria on the Sha-mien, and generally met the Hong-Kong packet in the morning. Foreign tourists normally left Hong-Kong at night by way of the Pearl River and arrived in Canton the next morning. There Chien presented his black-bordered card to such individuals as seemed likely to require his services.

Conceited in character he saw himself as a philosopher and usually his charges bored him with their interrogative chatter. And being a Chinaman in blood and instinct, he had an aversion to spinster tourists; women were born to have children, particularly male children.

It was approaching the evening as he crossed a narrow canal, which during the day was always choked with rocking sampans, over and about which swarmed men and women and children. But as the sunset approached, the swarming abruptly ceased and even the sampans appeared to draw closer together with the quiet of water-fowl. There was as everywhere at night in China the original fear of darkness.

But for the moment he was proceeding to meet his new charge.

Chien turned over in his head the options open to him on how to approach and handle the Englishman he was about to meet. He had been reported as being “difficult” back in Ghana. It was reasonable to presume that by the position he had attained, that he was educated and cultured and understood the norms of Chinese customs and acceptable behaviour. Thus Chien planned to treat him initially as a Chinese visitor. Being a prisoner would be a restraint to the norms of courtesy, but he could perhaps be conducted as a gesture by his host to a reception-room, being careful to see that he was always slightly in advance. Likewise the act of sitting down would be simultaneous, so that neither party would be left standing whilst the other was seated. If he chose to be more attentive, he might even take a cup of tea from his servant's hands and himself arrange it for his guest. He would enquire of family or more to the point children; for to Chien women took no part in Chinese social entertainments. It was not even permissible to enquire after the wife of one's guest. Her very existence to be ignored. A man may however talk with pleasure about his children, especially if his quiver was well stocked with boys.

Thus, as mentally prepared as was feasible at this stage, the Chinaman made his way down the narrow street to address the task his masters had set him.

[MANICHAEAN]

Beyond Feminism. Huffy Puffy in General.

I really find myself getting uptight lately over things that other people seem to regard as a state of normalcy. Could it be anything to do with age, loss of Empire, or perhaps even the more perverse and irritating aspects of modern communications?

Let’s examine these and please feel free to shoot me down, (or even have me put down) if what I say is unreasonable.

1. Age:

I first realized that I had reached a certain age when about thirty years ago a policeman in London called me “Sir,” and he was not being sarcastic either. I suppose in a way I was quite flattered at the time. It was another milestone I’d reached in society, but since then the situation has increasingly taken a turn for the worst. My doctor kept asking me when I was going to retire, and my banker was even worst. Mind you, I’d made my first million sterling by then, and you always know when you have arrived, when they fly in from offshore to visit you, instead of the other way around. No, it was statements like, “Is your will up to date?” or “Have you given consideration to the need for long term care?” Perhaps it was regarded as flippant on my part that I intended to spend, or get rid of every penny before I slaked off my mortal coil, and the last cheque would be to the undertaker which would bounce. Likewise, my idea of long term care envisaged being taken care of by an ex-Rio carnival dancer cum nurse, somewhere in the vicinity of Copacabana beach. Bugger a senior citizens home in Kent. I had also gained inspiration from that story by Frederick Forsyth of being buried at sea in a gold coffin, thus confounding those sages who informed that “You can’t take it with you.”

2. Loss of Empire:

This may seem to many a strange gripe, but you must admit there was a certain stability in international affairs, and standards were more respected at the time of the British Empire. The formula was simple. We went in with the army or positioned a warship offshore and took control of large tracts of the globe, ostensibly before the French, Spanish, Germans or Portuguese did. The result was we imposed a unifying knowledge of the English language, (no aberrations with Microsoft Word Check in those days), imposed law and order, taught the inhabitants how to play cricket and gave them membership of the Commonwealth where they all got to have a common appreciation of the British sovereign and sing God Save the King / Queen. Unfair and colonial? Of course it was. Having fought over a long history every race and country then existing, (with perhaps the omission of Thailand and the Eskimos), they generally all acquiesced in what seemed a more peaceful planet. There were of course the odd insurgencies e.g. the Crimea, the Boers, the Mau Mau, Napoleon, the Opium Wars and the Kaiser, but overall there were no cyber-attacks, international terrorists or nuclear warfare scenarios. There also seemed, (and I am now showing my age), a degree of manners and maturity of behaviour. One queued, gave up a seat to a woman, did not wear torn jeans, have tattoos on ones spine, studs through the tongue or regard oneself as poverty stricken in not owning a TV, fridge, car or the latest brand of trainers.

3. Communications:

Although I think I’m as involved as any other inhabitant of Earth in modern communication,(despite having no desire to Tweet), I cannot relate to those persons who like zombies walk around oblivious to traffic or other pedestrians, constantly viewing their smartphones, or seemingly having a mad conversation with themselves in a public place though an apparently hidden mouth piece. As for those that upon landing by plane immediately activate their phones to inform “I’ve landed,” “I’m getting off the aircraft now,” “I’m walking down the ramp.” Lord have mercy!

Right. Well that's that off my chest!
M.

[Pompey Bum]

1. Age:I first realized that I had reached a certain age when about thirty years ago a policeman in London called me “Sir,” and he was not being sarcastic either

My rite of passage also involved a policeman. He pulled my car over because, unbeknownst to me, one of my brake lights was out. I'm pretty sure he really wanted to see if my seatbelt was on (a largely unenforcible law, but you need a pretext in a free society, etc.) My belt was on, but the truth is that I had been going about five miles over the speed limit. So I was basically screwed.

I watched the cop, maybe 26 years old, get out of his car and strut--jack boots and all--slowly to my car with look of cold restraint on his face. As I opened the passenger side window and he saw me, that face melted. I might as well have been grandpa on Christmas morning. "Oh wearing your seatbelt, good for you! You know, you've got a brake light out. You'll want to get that taken care of. Have a good day now, and hey, slow down just a little!" It took me a minute or two to figure out just what had happened after he left. That was about ten years ago. I've been pulled over exactly three times since (usually for speeding) and let go 100% of those times.

Women go through the same thing. A friend told me she was walking her dog early one morning when she noticed a car slow down behind her. "Oh great!" she thought. As it pulled by, a window opened and the male driver called out, "Beautiful dog!" As he drove off, she told me, she looked down at her dog and said, "You know, ten years ago that would have been my *ss."


2. Loss of Empire:This may seem to many a strange gripe, but you must admit there was a certain stability in international affairs, and standards were more respected at the time of the British Empire. The formula was simple. We went in with the army or positioned a warship offshore and took control of large tracts of the globe, ostensibly before the French, Spanish, Germans or Portuguese did. The result was we imposed a unifying knowledge of the English language, (no aberrations with Microsoft Word Check in those days), imposed law and order, taught the inhabitants how to play cricket and gave them membership of the Commonwealth where they all got to have a common appreciation of the British sovereign and sing God Save the King / Queen. Unfair and colonial? Of course it was. Having fought over a long history every race and country then existing, (with perhaps the omission of Thailand and the Eskimos), they generally all acquiesced in what seemed a more peaceful planet. There were of course the odd insurgencies e.g. the Crimea, the Boers, the Mau Mau, Napoleon, the Opium Wars and the Kaiser, but overall there were no cyber-attacks, international terrorists or nuclear warfare scenarios. There also seemed, (and I am now showing my age), a degree of manners and maturity of behaviour. One queued, gave up a seat to a woman, did not wear torn jeans, have tattoos on ones spine, studs through the tongue or regard oneself as poverty stricken in not owning a TV, fridge, car or the latest brand of trainers.

The Empire was a little before my time, except for Cyprus, and Kenya, and the Gulf of Aden--that sort of thing. But I can understand a certain amount of nostalgia for it among the British. There were terrorists in those days, though, even the occasional militant Islamist (remember the Mahdi army?) And the Opium Wars were probably more than an aberration. Still, to be honest, when I look at the hell that much of Africa is now, I sometimes wonder how much of a benefit it was to a place like Nigeria to have become independent when it did. Putting such considerations aside, however, the British Empire was a grand historical epoch that deserves to be better understood and more written about than it is now. That doesn't, of course, excuse the "aberrations," but the judgment of PC seems to be to pretend that the Empire never happened. Better to understand the truth--warts and all. Clio can be a funny girl sometimes. And hell hath no fury like a muse scorned.

By the way, I've found some amazing primary sources on the Empire (officer's memoirs, soldiers diaries, etc) available for free downloads at Gutenberg and Internet Archive. If you're interested, I'll can give you the titles.


3. Communications:Although I think I’m as involved as any other inhabitant of Earth in modern communication,(despite having no desire to Tweet), I cannot relate to those persons who like zombies walk around oblivious to traffic or other pedestrians, constantly viewing their smartphones, or seemingly having a mad conversation with themselves in a public place though an apparently hidden mouth piece. As for those that upon landing by plane immediately activate their phones to inform “I’ve landed,” “I’m getting off the aircraft now,” “I’m walking down the ramp.” Lord have mercy!

Sorry, what? I was texting. :)

[Clopin]

You guys are cute :)

[MANICHAEAN]

Clopin:

Thank you for the "cute" bit. I've not been called that since I was a cabin boy with Lord Nelson.

Pompey:

Yes please. The Gutenberg references would be most interesting.

YesNo:

Where have you been? The Golden Oldies are running amok!

[MANICHAEAN]

Chapter 13. The Release:

The missing British Ambassador, Rob Kretzler turned up suitably bedraggled & confused on an Accra lay-by early one morning in June, at the same time that his erstwhile night club owner associate, Sam Tan had floated up dead in a harbour further along the coast. After some initial confusion, in which a white man was observed by early morning commuters stumbling along the tarmac, the police were contacted. A squad car arrived and the driver concerned quickly recognized beneath the facial stubble and unkempt appearance, the features incorporated in the missing person’s picture that had adorned their station walls throughout Ghana over the last two months.

Routine official procedures quickly kicked into gear, with the Ambassador being taken to a private hospital under close guard to assess his medical condition, the Accra Embassy was informed, who in turn informed the Foreign Office, the papers had their headlines and eventually the individual concerned was returned to the more than adequate bosom of his wife.

This final event was of course, the crux and litmus test of the entire deception. Would those who knew him so intimately, recognize the man that had been withdrawn so abruptly from their lives and who now stood before them. Thus, upon eventually arriving back at his official residence in the diplomatic sector of Accra, he dismissed his driver and aide, then moved with purposeful strides towards the wife at the door, whom he recognized from a photograph previously given him by his Chinese handlers in Kumasi. She rushed forward and threw herself at him, holding him close to her in that manner that loved ones use to express happiness and relief, whilst gaining tactile reassurance in the reality of the person they hold.


As the weeks went by and the initial whirl of all these dramatic events subsided, a more normal routine was established. The British after all do not like a fuss. The Chinaman, to all extents and purposes started to breathe more normally, having attained the impression that his impersonation of the role of Rob Kretzler, Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Ghana had been successfully executed.

But there were changes.

Not so much noticed among work staff at the Embassy; as he had cultivated a familiar tendency to alternate between a persona somewhat gruff and taciturn, to that of a more relaxed bon homie style, either style of which was dependent purely upon what the occasion required.

No, the main change was in his sex life, or to put it more correctly in that of his wife’s. She was still considered in many circles to be a handsome and intelligent woman. Thus, when the returned Ambassador first surprised his wife in the shower one morning as she soaped herself down and took her from behind, this was completely out of character. Not that she minded. In fact she found it quite an exciting development. Their love life over the years had gone somewhat stale as the years of marriage had piled up and it had seemed at the time that the Ambassador had indulged more his taste for brandy and association with that dubious nightclub character Tan, than an appreciation of his wife’s physical talents. Before the kidnap, their stale liaisons in the bedroom had been a physical union of sorts. It was not so mundane a routine as keeping in time to the church bells on a Sunday afternoon after the roast; but then it had never been something to be mentioned in dispatches either. Now however, Rob appeared to require a regular session every morning before dawn, and he was not adverse either to returning home unannounced at lunch time to put her through her paces again. She smiled inwardly at this attention, for she was in fact flattered at still being perceived desirable, and she put it down to the trauma he had suffered and his re-evaluation of what was now important in his life.

For Tzu, nothing could have been further from the truth. Back home in China he had looked with both fascination and distain upon those European women with their withdrawn reserve and haughty demeanors. Now, he was in a position to avail himself with selfish abandon to that which was previously unattainable, and the object of this attention had no option as a wife but to comply. The disconcerting thing was though, that even after the initial shock of sessions of an imaginative variety on his part, she did not resent his attentions, but participated with endeavors that were both commendable and which displayed a side of her nature which she had never previously explored.

[MANICHAEAN]

Feminist Nihilism:

There is one topic that seems to be on everybody’s lips at the moment and that is whether feminist criticism is a form of nihilism?

From CNN to Fox News prominent anchor-women are posing the question, “Is the sex scene and its portrayal in literature a negation of one of the reputedly meaningful aspects of life?” The feedback so far has been mixed. A professor from the Harvard Business School felt that from his own research over the years that it was a form of metaphysical nihilism, in that there was in fact no sex, only abstract objects of different genders; itself an interpretation of an extreme form of skepticism that seemed to deny all existence. Another viewer from Alabama phoned in to point out that a distinction more relevant in the Deep South was between it being of an epistemological form of the creed where all knowledge of the act is denied, or it being nihilism of an existential nature where it had no intrinsic meaning or value anyway.

My own take on the sex scene thing has been adequately covered and is on record, but if I might move on to nihilism in general, I find it is of a thoroughly depressing nature.

If under nihilism morality does not inherently exist, but is abstractly contrived, and if life is without objective meaning, purpose or intrinsic value, what is the point? But then it is variants of this question in response to events, (invariably of a dire nature), that gives us the clue. It is a form of fatalism yes, but also a means of coping, as can be discerned for example in Turgenev’s “Fathers and Sons’” or Chekhov’s “Three Sisters.” Thus there is hope, which perhaps even Nietzsche in his long winded way came to recognize, albeit via a rather dramatic route.

Which brings us to the question as to whether today’s nihilist writers deserve that title?

One that initially comes to mind is the French writer, Houellebecq, and I note that his new novel “Submission” deals with a scenario of a futuristic France with a Muslim President. It comes out hot on the heels of the Charlie Hebdo attack but that surely must be coincidence.

It appears not to be nihilistic as such, unlike a former novel of his, “Atomized,” where the narrative focuses almost exclusively on the bleak and unrewarding day-to-day lives of two half-brothers who seem devoid of love, with one becoming a sad loner, wrecked by his upbringing and failure to individuate, while the others’ pioneering work in cloning removes love from the process of reproduction.

No. In “Submission,” if I understand the author’s comments correctly, it is not a doomsday scenario as such, but an invitation to evaluation of social changes that may occur in France. It is not Islamophobic, but explores a fictional world and tests the boundaries of what is possible, but not yet reality. If so, then it involves a kind of ambivalence that characterizes enduring literature.

[YesNo]

My rite of passage also involved a policeman. He pulled my car over because, unbeknownst to me, one of my brake lights was out. I'm pretty sure he really wanted to see if my seatbelt was on (a largely unenforcible law), but you need a pretext in a free society, etc. My belt was on, but the truth is that I was probably going about five miles over the speed limit.

My rite of passage keeps occurring every time I get carded by a helpful cashier who wants to know if I am old enough for her to offer me the senior discount.

[Pompey Bum]

Yes please. The Gutenberg references would be most interesting.

Well, I thought about it Manichaean, but really, how fair would that have been to the LitNetters who come here to read a thread about feminism? :) :) :)

Anyway, I started a new thread about history, histories, and historical novels, and included all of the titles there. I have a lot of thoughts about the British Empire, so let's talk about it on that thread--also anything else anyone wants to talk about where history and writing is concerned.

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?81055-History-Histories-and-Historical-Novels

[MANICHAEAN]

And there is me thinking that they had come to read about Detective Inspector Rossow getting his leg over in Darkest Africa!

[108 fountains]

I want to read about Inspector Rossow, MANICHAEAN. I might be the only one, but that's what I come here to read. I have to say though, I wish you had explained Obi's violent reaction to the Ju Ju mask. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the next installment.

[YesNo]

Feminist Nihilism:

I hadn't associated feminism with nihilism, but in doing some searches it looks like there might be some link.




From CNN to Fox News prominent anchor-women are posing the question, “Is the sex scene and its portrayal in literature a negation of one of the reputedly meaningful aspects of life?” The feedback so far has been mixed. A professor from the Harvard Business School felt that from his own research over the years that it was a form of metaphysical nihilism, in that there was in fact no sex, only abstract objects of different genders; itself an interpretation of an extreme form of skepticism that seemed to deny all existence. Another viewer from Alabama phoned in to point out that a distinction more relevant in the Deep South was between it being of an epistemological form of the creed where all knowledge of the act is denied, or it being nihilism of an existential nature where it had no intrinsic meaning or value anyway.

Perhaps sex scenes need to be "meaningful". But what does that mean? As I understand it at the moment, sex needs to be portrayed as pointing to something else, intending something else. That something else becomes its meaning.

[MANICHAEAN]

108 fountains:

Thank Goodness I've got at least one reader interested, but bear with me today for posting the next episode, as I have to go into town to open up a local banking account. Will try later.

Regards the ju ju mask, Africans in general and West Africans in particular have this tremendous inner fear of the power of what they term "ju ju." I suppose the nearest I can get to it in the West is "Satanism", or in earlier times "witchcraft." We might not know it in our personal lives, or even understand it, but it generally provokes inner disquiet. These ju ju masks are the equivalent of a warning of harm, of death, or of a curse put on one. To wake up to one on the adjacent pillow is a bit like in the Godfather film waking up with a severed horses head in the bed.

YesNo:

Sorry, that whole bit was a bit tongue in cheek. I suppose I could try a reasonable explanation about sex being meaningful in its expression of deep love if undertaken in the right mood, but honestly I was just playing around. I find the whole scenario of some of those participants on Fox & CNN taking themselves so seriously on the most banal and venial of topics, that I invariably either turn it off, or turn it on its head.

Best wishes
M.

[MANICHAEAN]

Chapter 14. Deceptive Appearances:

To all outward appearances the case was solved. Chief Inspector Kwesi Jay of the Ghanaian Police claimed credit for the rescue of the missing British Ambassador, even though the latter had more “turned up” than been retrieved from harm’s way. Tan’s murderer’s remained unknown and at large, but that seemed small beer in the scheme of things.

Rob Munster, Head of Scotland Yard was pleased in a good result for his statistics and even Obama mumbled a few sentences of benediction at a press conference. Mind you, at this stage of his presidency he needed all the friends he could get and thus, unconvincing ghosts of the “Special Relationship” crept tentatively back into diplomatic parlance.

Of the front line players in the drama, Detective Inspector Rossow was not that averse to being recalled back to the UK. The reality of maintaining one African woman police sergeant and two ex-night club strippers in his bed was proving untenable, if not dangerous for his career prospects. You can only take being a team player so far!

In the meantime, Han Fei Tzu, now to all appearances the released British Ambassador, continued to dig deep into the secrets open to him and to pass them back on a regular basis to his Chinese masters.

And then of course, the biggest deception and betrayal of them all was a man captive in Canton. Rob Kretzler had been admirably endowed for the diplomatic career he had undertaken. He had throughout his rise possessed extraordinary vitality which gave him the confidence to gamble well; common sense, an excellent brain and a permanent but controlled skepticism. These, coupled with an ability to make people like him without ever liking or trusting them in return, and an incapacity for either remorse or pity, which had carried him to where he was now.

And where he was now was tensely sitting on a bamboo chair in a loose fitting combination of dark cotton top and pants cut just below the knees facing his interrogator.

[YesNo]

At the rate Rossow gets women to stay in bed with him, he should have no problem getting a new team together in the UK.

I half-thought those comments about nihilism where humorous. No matter what you put into a search engine something will come back.

[Pompey Bum]

Well, I thought about it Manichaean, but really, how fair would that have been to the LitNetters who come here to read a thread about feminism? :) :) :)


Sorry, that whole bit was a bit tongue in cheek.

Oh yes, mine, too. Or sarcastic, which is the nearest thing a dull mind like mine can get to wit. But I find it ironic that the LitNet feminist thread has become the de facto "boys tree house." Kiki used to bring a much needed civilizing effect here, but even she doesn't scramble up the ladder anymore. And one wonders whatever happened to poor Alfred001, our founder. Perhaps Blofeld got him.

But I digress. I'm glad you were only joking about skepticism being a form of nihilism. I don't believe it is, but then as a philosophical skeptic, I can only strongly suspect that it is not.

Anyway, the Detective Inspector Rossow saga is well written and heavy on style, but it is noir (or maybe a spoof of noir in some ways), which is not really my thing. I am finding the juju theme interesting, though. I had some brushes with magic of various shades of gray when I lived in Africa. There was a case of a child who was castrated for spell parts, which was pretty traumatic to the area where I lived. The folks who did that were black witches who lived way out in the bush (the local soldiers actually went out and busted one of them). They were dangerous people and nobody else would go near them unless they really hated someone and wanted a curse. I always thought of them as a bunch of thugs, quite frankly.

But there all sorts of lesser witches who used to come in out of the forest from time to time. There were these scary feral "clowns," not comics but geeks (in the old carnival sense of the word) and beggars who traveled around, a little like "gypsies" in the old days. They would sort of mock the society they had rejected by doing things in reverse. A lot of the men dressed as women, for example, and their begging spiel used to start with an apology for being so much richer than their mark. They used to take money for casting spells, too. People used to warn me that they were bad and that I should keep well away from them, but really they were mostly harmless and totally full of sh*t. What they were was beggars and bargain basement prostitutes who tried to amuse or scare people into giving them money. The only curse they were likely to give you was syphilis.

I remember running into a real witch out in the bush one night, though. The village--more of a small town--were I lived was surrounded by jungle for hundreds of miles and the forested periphery was the "alternative" social hub on a Saturday night. There was always something crazy happening somewhere. One night I was walking along a path with some African friends when we came on a group of people surrounding a dead infant. The baby had died of something infectious, and the parents had arranged for a witch to conduct a kind of seance in which she became possessed with its spirit. The witch was marked as outside the norm by her outlandish dress: a sequined miniskirt and feathered boa (which she got from God knows where). She was drinking palm wine that was probably spiked with a hallucinatory bark that the locals used for talking to dead ancestors; alternately crying and speaking in a weird, childlike voice. We weren't the only spectators there. There was a small crowd of Saturday-nighters like us who were also drinking and checking out the weirdness in the woods. After a while, my friends told me that we should go, so we did. Apparently the "child" was saying that he was frightened--that he was surrounded by ghosts with white faces. They were afraid that might be taken as a slur against me, so we split. Ghosts are such racists.

I had one or two other weird experiences with African witchcraft, but none of them left me with the impression that it was much more than spooky humbug. It's fun in stories, but that's about it.

[Alfred001]

Has anyone here read the first post? Six pages of people stating opinions on topics that are either random or at best have the vaguest relation to the highly specific questions I asked. I get the sense some people here just like writing posts in hyper elaborate and ornamental language.

Has anyone got any answers to the SPECIFIC questions I asked in the first post?

[YesNo]

I'll see if I can answer some of the questions, but I have more questions than answers myself.



I'm new to literature and haven't read any of the books mentioned nor was I alive when they were published and had this criticism leveled at them, so I'm curious as to what exactly they were criticized for.

I've read Updike's Rabbit books long ago, but only vaguely remember them. I thought the first one was entertaining.



By the way, what WAS this feminist critique by Kate Millett in "Sexual Politics?"


I haven't read Millett's writing, but this is what I think the feminist critique is based on.

1) There is an hypothesis that something called "gender" exists outside of biological sex.
2) This gender can be "socially constructed". This makes it a part of politics, because it is not determined by our biology. One way to socially construct gender is through literature, so literature needs to be criticized if the social construction is not in line with political ideology.
3) The belief in the social construction of gender leads to the "social construction of grievance" which can be released through political activity.

I am not in favor of reducing our reality to unconscious objects whether they are quantum particles, selfish genes or neurons, so I don't really mind there being something called "gender" on top of or a conscious manifestation of biological sex. In other words, consciousness is non-trivial and primary. So, I don't really mind (1).

I think consciousness does socially construct our reality. So I don't mind (2) although we have to keep civil liberties in mind.

I don't, however, think there is adequate ground in either (1) or (2) for the social construction of grievance in the case of gender.

[Pompey Bum]

Oh Y/N, you are such a good guy.

Welcome back, 001. I thought Manichaean's reference to fish mammalogy answered most of your concerns quite eloquently.

[Alfred001]

I'll see if I can answer some of the questions, but I have more questions than answers myself.



I've read Updike's Rabbit books long ago, but only vaguely remember them. I thought the first one was entertaining.



I haven't read Millett's writing, but this is what I think the feminist critique is based on.

1) There is an hypothesis that something called "gender" exists outside of biological sex.
2) This gender can be "socially constructed". This makes it a part of politics, because it is not determined by our biology. One way to socially construct gender is through literature, so literature needs to be criticized if the social construction is not in line with political ideology.
3) The belief in the social construction of gender leads to the "social construction of grievance" which can be released through political activity.

I am not in favor of reducing our reality to unconscious objects whether they are quantum particles, selfish genes or neurons, so I don't really mind there being something called "gender" on top of or a conscious manifestation of biological sex. In other words, consciousness is non-trivial and primary. So, I don't really mind (1).

I think consciousness does socially construct our reality. So I don't mind (2) although we have to keep civil liberties in mind.

I don't, however, think there is adequate ground in either (1) or (2) for the social construction of grievance in the case of gender.

Of course, I'm not referring to feminism in general, I know what feminism is, I'm referring to feminist critique of sex scenes from the period the article refers to (Mailer and other writers mentioned).

[YesNo]

Of course, I'm not referring to feminism in general, I know what feminism is, I'm referring to feminist critique of sex scenes from the period the article refers to (Mailer and other writers mentioned).

What is feminism today anyway? I'm just guessing with the three points I presented earlier.

I think the attempts to raise children in a gender-neutral way promoted when I was an undergraduate have now been discredited along with other beliefs about sexuality once brain scans were invented. People would still have believed those things in the days of Mailer and Updike.

If we had a specific text of a sex scene with a corresponding text of a criticism of it, that might help focus the discussion.

[MANICHAEAN]

I think it only right that Alfred001, being the originator of this thread has his question answered i.e.

What is the explicit criticism by feminists of sex scenes as portrayed by authors like: Mailer, Roth, Updike and Bellows?

Lisa Tuttle cites two of the goals of feminist criticism as: (1) to resist sexism in literature and (2) to increase awareness of the sexual politics of language and style.

If we take this at face value, then under Point 1 we do not even get off the ground with writing about sex. Remember we are talking about the physical act of “sex,” unless that is we are watering it down to a Barbara Cartland concept of “love” and “romance.” Cuddles instead of rutting.

As for Point 2 it’s a kind of indirect warning of Taliban proportions regards the limitations of language usage.

Keeping this in mind, let’s look at some of the authors mentioned and see where they stand regards this feminist criteria.

Philip Roth:

Mention was made of “The Humbling,” Roth's 30th book about an aging stage actor whose empty life is altered by a counterplot of unusual erotic desire. In it Roth has one sex scene where because of Axler's dodgy back, we learn that Pegeen "mounted him" and he assists her by saying: "You're on a horse. Ride it." We are also enlightened that he "worked his thumb into her ***" and "later he put his **** in there". "Did it hurt?” he asked her. “It hurt, but it's you,” she replies. Later he warms up a bit and Pegeen unveils her extensive range of erotic equipment, inclusive a green strap-on dildo which proves no match for Axler's penis, and which Pegeen contemplates lovingly before telling him: "It fills you up... the way dildos and fingers don't."

If this is indicative of the general tone of the book, it appears to fail Tuttles feminist criteria on both counts.

One critic at the time made the observation that “the language is vibrant, the sex is smutty,” whereas another described it more as “an old man's sexual fantasy dressed up in the garb of literature.” Mind you Roth was 76 years old at the time he wrote it and perhaps with impotence creeping up he was getting a bit kinky in his musing.

John Updike:

For an example on the work of this author I have chosen “Couples.” It focuses on a promiscuous circle of ten couples in a small Massachusetts town at a time of increasingly flexible American attitudes toward sex in the 1960s. Actually I always find Updike’s description of sex rather clinical, so perhaps Ms Tuttle might not have been so offended on Criteria No 1. In fact for a novel about fornication, “Couples” has very little sex in it. What can be mistaken as sexual tension stretches throughout the book, the kind of frustration that comes to people when they begin to realize that their lives have no direction and no meaning. “Couples” seemed to be a story not of sexuality or debauchery, but rather of loneliness.

To an interviewer's question about the difficulty of writing scenes about sex, Updike replied: "They were no harder than landscapes and a little more interesting. It's wonderful the way people in bed talk, the sense of voices and the sense of warmth, so that as a writer you become kind of warm also. The book is, of course, not about sex as such: It's about sex as the emergent religion, as the only thing left."

On Criteria No 2 however I think Updike would have been found wanting. There is a scene toward the end of the novel where the main character, Piet Hanemas, is discussing a separation with his wife, Angela. Piet “found Angela upstairs in the bathtub. The veins in her breasts turquoise, the ghost of a tan distinct on her shoulders and thighs, she was lying all but immersed, soaping her pudenda...Her breasts slopped and slid with the pearly-dirty water; her hair was pinned up in a psyche knot, exposing tenderly the nape of her neck.” This is an intimate scene, but then Piet, contrite that his affair has been revealed, and willing to make amends, suddenly comes down with diarrhoea and proceeds to empty his bowels in shattering bursts alongside Angela's attempt to have a conversation of the heart.

Norman Mailer:

For this author I can only draw from the excellent article noted by Alfred in the New York Times entitled “The Naked and the Conflicted” by Katie Roiphe.

“Mailer’s most controversial obsession is the violence in sex, the urge toward domination in its extreme. A sampling: “I wounded her, I knew it, she thrashed beneath me like a trapped little animal, making not a sound.” “He must subdue her, absorb her, rip her apart and consume her.” It is part of Mailer’s philosophy that violence is good, natural and healthy, and it is this in his sex scenes that provokes.”

This would thus be a no no for Ms Tuttle on both counts.

One other section of the Roiphe article I like and find appropriate to conclude on was the extract:

“It would be too simple to call the explicit interludes of this literature pornographic, as pornography has one purpose: to arouse. These passages are after several things at once — sadness, titillation, beauty, fear, comedy, disappointment, aspiration. The writers were interested in showing not just the triumphs of sexual conquest, but also its loneliness, its failures of connection.”

[YesNo]

Those were good examples.

Referencing the Taliban is a reminder that when literary criticism becomes political it can justify censorship.

I wonder what sex scenes would be acceptable.

[MANICHAEAN]

Oh, something involving cross dressing I would imagine.

[Pompey Bum]

Or perhaps earthworms, where both parties become pregnant.

[Alfred001]

I think it only right that Alfred001, being the originator of this thread has his question answered i.e.

What is the explicit criticism by feminists of sex scenes as portrayed by authors like: Mailer, Roth, Updike and Bellows?

Lisa Tuttle cites two of the goals of feminist criticism as: (1) to resist sexism in literature and (2) to increase awareness of the sexual politics of language and style.

If we take this at face value, then under Point 1 we do not even get off the ground with writing about sex. Remember we are talking about the physical act of “sex,” unless that is we are watering it down to a Barbara Cartland concept of “love” and “romance.” Cuddles instead of rutting.

As for Point 2 it’s a kind of indirect warning of Taliban proportions regards the limitations of language usage.

Keeping this in mind, let’s look at some of the authors mentioned and see where they stand regards this feminist criteria.

Philip Roth:

Mention was made of “The Humbling,” Roth's 30th book about an aging stage actor whose empty life is altered by a counterplot of unusual erotic desire. In it Roth has one sex scene where because of Axler's dodgy back, we learn that Pegeen "mounted him" and he assists her by saying: "You're on a horse. Ride it." We are also enlightened that he "worked his thumb into her ***" and "later he put his **** in there". "Did it hurt?” he asked her. “It hurt, but it's you,” she replies. Later he warms up a bit and Pegeen unveils her extensive range of erotic equipment, inclusive a green strap-on dildo which proves no match for Axler's penis, and which Pegeen contemplates lovingly before telling him: "It fills you up... the way dildos and fingers don't."

If this is indicative of the general tone of the book, it appears to fail Tuttles feminist criteria on both counts.

One critic at the time made the observation that “the language is vibrant, the sex is smutty,” whereas another described it more as “an old man's sexual fantasy dressed up in the garb of literature.” Mind you Roth was 76 years old at the time he wrote it and perhaps with impotence creeping up he was getting a bit kinky in his musing.

John Updike:

For an example on the work of this author I have chosen “Couples.” It focuses on a promiscuous circle of ten couples in a small Massachusetts town at a time of increasingly flexible American attitudes toward sex in the 1960s. Actually I always find Updike’s description of sex rather clinical, so perhaps Ms Tuttle might not have been so offended on Criteria No 1. In fact for a novel about fornication, “Couples” has very little sex in it. What can be mistaken as sexual tension stretches throughout the book, the kind of frustration that comes to people when they begin to realize that their lives have no direction and no meaning. “Couples” seemed to be a story not of sexuality or debauchery, but rather of loneliness.

To an interviewer's question about the difficulty of writing scenes about sex, Updike replied: "They were no harder than landscapes and a little more interesting. It's wonderful the way people in bed talk, the sense of voices and the sense of warmth, so that as a writer you become kind of warm also. The book is, of course, not about sex as such: It's about sex as the emergent religion, as the only thing left."

On Criteria No 2 however I think Updike would have been found wanting. There is a scene toward the end of the novel where the main character, Piet Hanemas, is discussing a separation with his wife, Angela. Piet “found Angela upstairs in the bathtub. The veins in her breasts turquoise, the ghost of a tan distinct on her shoulders and thighs, she was lying all but immersed, soaping her pudenda...Her breasts slopped and slid with the pearly-dirty water; her hair was pinned up in a psyche knot, exposing tenderly the nape of her neck.” This is an intimate scene, but then Piet, contrite that his affair has been revealed, and willing to make amends, suddenly comes down with diarrhoea and proceeds to empty his bowels in shattering bursts alongside Angela's attempt to have a conversation of the heart.

Norman Mailer:

For this author I can only draw from the excellent article noted by Alfred in the New York Times entitled “The Naked and the Conflicted” by Katie Roiphe.

“Mailer’s most controversial obsession is the violence in sex, the urge toward domination in its extreme. A sampling: “I wounded her, I knew it, she thrashed beneath me like a trapped little animal, making not a sound.” “He must subdue her, absorb her, rip her apart and consume her.” It is part of Mailer’s philosophy that violence is good, natural and healthy, and it is this in his sex scenes that provokes.”

This would thus be a no no for Ms Tuttle on both counts.

One other section of the Roiphe article I like and find appropriate to conclude on was the extract:

“It would be too simple to call the explicit interludes of this literature pornographic, as pornography has one purpose: to arouse. These passages are after several things at once — sadness, titillation, beauty, fear, comedy, disappointment, aspiration. The writers were interested in showing not just the triumphs of sexual conquest, but also its loneliness, its failures of connection.”

First, thanks for dealing with the actual topic.

I have to say, I don't quite understand your criteria, though.

On the first criterion, why is even just writing about sex considered sexist?

Regarding the second criterion, I'm not sure where Tuttle would see sexual politics at work in language and style, not sure what would be an example of that.


Has anyone read that Kate Millett article, Sexual Politics? I've been meaning to read it since I started this thread, but I've been so gosh darn busy, never can seem to get around to it.

But anyway, what I suspect I would find in that article, and what I suspect the critique that the NYTimes article is referring to is, generally, is the stuff you quoted about Mailer. That these guys wrote about sex as an act of domination and conquest. That a woman is being taken and she submits and she is being dominated physically and in terms of wills.

I suspect that this is, what you might call, the traditionalist view of sex. I suspect that if we talked to folks a century ago or two, or any time before that, that is how they would see sex.

And what the feminists want, I speculate, is for it to be an equal thing. Two parties consent and they are equal in the act, no one is dominating anyone, no one is being rough with anyone, no one is taking anyone, there's no sense of aggression and they are equal in this thing.

To put it bluntly, she is just as much ****ing him as he is ****ing her. Or actually, I think they'd say that no one is ****ing anyone. That's too aggressive a word.

This is what I suspected the critique was when I first read that article.

Hopefully, next time I check into this thread I'll have had time to read the actual article that is referenced in the NYTimes article :)

[YesNo]

But anyway, what I suspect I would find in that article, and what I suspect the critique that the NYTimes article is referring to is, generally, is the stuff you quoted about Mailer. That these guys wrote about sex as an act of domination and conquest. That a woman is being taken and she submits and she is being dominated physically and in terms of wills.

I suspect that this is, what you might call, the traditionalist view of sex. I suspect that if we talked to folks a century ago or two, or any time before that, that is how they would see sex.

A "traditionalist" view of sex is how males and females relate based on their biology. This not something that is in the past. We haven't changed our biology, but we do know more about our biology after the development of brain scans. See Young and Alexander's "The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex, and the Science of Attraction" for a survey of this research.

The feminist view is that this is more cultural than biological. If they are right and the cultural factor plays a big role, then this forms a ground upon which a politics of grievance with all its self-righteousness can be socially constructed. What I see recent neuroscience saying is that there is little science justifying such politics.

It is not just feminists who are affected by this neuroscience. Religious groups who think being gay is a phenomenon that can be culturally modified are also required to question their positions. If one wants to turn a gay man into a straight man, it will require more than going to church. It will require at a minimum a brain transplant which I don't think is possible without a full body transplant.

Taking this neuroscience seriously doesn't mean that we do not have free will. The neuroscience just shows the constraints upon which we can exercise our freedom.

[MANICHAEAN]

Alfred001:

It’s my pleasure. After the way we treated the question in your original thread, I thought it the least I could do.

When you get your hands on the Kate Millett article on Sexual Politics please share, as I for one would be interested.

One of the most fascinating things about this whole concept of what is sexist is its will of the wisp nature and meaning. Just when you think you have it defined and put into neat compartments, up pops an exception to the rule or a blurring at the edges.

Thus take for example what you term the traditionalist view of sex. I’m sure male dominance was to the fore in the sex lives of our early ancestors. Not much I would think in the way of courting, seduction and foreplay in the caves of those days. So when did it start to change? I have always believed that the greatest strength of a woman lies in her vulnerability and perhaps even the most lustful Viking invading our shores occasionally succumbed to the odd affectionate embrace.

Consider the argument that extremes of feminine status attract the opposite extremes of sexual behaviour on the male part. In Victorian England I believe that women, especially in the upper classes, were very much placed on pedestals with rigid social constraints on what was considered propriety. This must have evoked within the male, over heated feelings and unrestrained dominance once the bedroom door was closed and he was free to give vent to his genetic cave man traits. But then would that necessarily result at the other end of the scale, in one going through a ritual of courtship with a wanton slattern? I think not.

More confusing still is the aspect of do women want to be dominated? Does “no, no, no” really mean “yes, yes, yes” and “why the hell have you stopped?” I suppose there are out there, (if one is to believe the periodicals), those women that want to be in charge, of “doing the “f-----g” as you put it, and even some, not adverse to the prospect of handcuffs, but that I must confess, is not within my own experience.

YesNo

I’ve tried to view broad aspects of the evolvement of how the genders sexually relate and they seem to me to be of both a biological and a cultural nature. I would however be interested to know what exactly does neuroscience demonstrate on the subject? If we do not have free will on sex, (heterosexual in this instance), is it limited by the cultural arguments the feminists make?

[YesNo]

YesNo

I’ve tried to view broad aspects of the evolvement of how the genders sexually relate and they seem to me to be of both a biological and a cultural nature. I would however be interested to know what exactly does neuroscience demonstrate on the subject? If we do not have free will on sex, (heterosexual in this instance), is it limited by the cultural arguments the feminists make?

I'll try to get Young and Alexander's survey from the library tomorrow. From my memory what it demonstrates is that the brain is different between males and females. The sexual differentiation into male and female occurs first followed by an organization of the brain later. During this second phase is when the possibility of a straight or gay organization of the brain occurs. The chemicals supporting pair-bonding have been identified. These include both the pleasure for sexual union and the pain should a couple split. Being able to remember who one had sex with is also part of the brain without which pair-bonding would not be possible. In this the female does the babying and the male does the protecting. The result is a pair that cares more for their offspring than a non-pair-bonding species.

It is possible for a person to intentionally modify the brain just as a person can intentionally decide to gain or lose weight. I don't think this can change the sexual organization of the brain. Culture may affect what we choose to do, but the biological constraints are not as open as feminists (at least during Millet's time) believed nor as some religious groups believe is possible in trying to convince a gay person to become straight. When one considers nature and nurture there is a third component, the individual's choice, that is often ignored.