Concluding Observations on the Mainstream Embrace of Gor

[bellatrys]

or, Get up on your pedestal, girl, so I can worship you - don't make me smack your ass back to Terra!Having had the chance to see and judge for themselves, many readers are now asking questions concerning the judgment - nay, sanity - not just of Dark Horse's editors but also the editors of the past big name publishing companies which saw fit to

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it gets interesting too where you get these intersections

[bellatrys]

and conflicts, like between the Ladies against Feminism/CWA talking about the need for female submission *and public, erzatz-19th-c modesty* - because that's Godly, but except for that it sounds just exactly like Gor. And they'd be all "fetch me my smelling salts!" for public consumption at least, over the "kinky" aspects. And I *so* want to be there with popcorn when the Godless Atheist Old-Fashioned Social/Fiscal Conservatives and the Bible-Thumping Conservatives and the Godless Atheist Pot'n'Porn Libertarians all turn on each other in melee combat. The alliances that will form and disintegrate in the course of it, like Risk only much, much more personal...

If course, these people would be sympathetic to Gor too, but they've also got an explicitly racist agenda backed up by their view of "nature,"

There's this wierd little throwaway line in Book II, Outlaw of Gor, where he says something like "we don't fight about race on Gor, we find other things to fight about" and it's all the more odd because we don't even meet *one* person this time who isn't plain vanilla through and through, so you're left thinking, "Duh, this is the Planet Of All White People, what race issues are you going to fight about - brunettes vs. blonds vs. redheads? That's not gonna work very well!" I'll have to find it again.

As for fandom being more progressive--ironically, in this case it's the mainstream that's probably more progressive.

Sometimes I think that, and sometimes I'm not sure - maybe it's just that the fanboys are a little more gauche and obvious about it, because the blogs and books that investigate mainstream culture are full of more of the same old sexism with a smirk (likewise RL.) It just doesn't come out wearing a Bronze Bikini™ so its harder to spot I think...

Re: it gets interesting too where you get these intersections

[voxwoman]

OK, I have to ask you what "CWA" is... oh. Conservative Women of America? (I work for the telecommuncations industry, and CWA is "Communication Workers of America" - the big union for all the phone techs. That was some double-take. LOL)

Concerned Women of America

[bellatrys]

a conservative "think tank" type outfit, dedicated to telling women that they don't need feminism, which has been the subject of mockery on feminist blogs in the past on account of how their leaders are mostly all men.

I doubt there's much overlap!