I'm rereading the Darkover series by Marion Zimmer Bradley, and have been in a discussion with
jillbertini where I've noted and have been trying to explain how/why those books (especially but not exclusively Thendara House made me aware of and okay with my not-straight sexuality
(
Read more... )
Comments 12
Anyway, I said that Darkovan society didn't change my reaction to non-straight sexuality, as my reactions has always been neutral to positive. My uncle, the main male in my life when I was a child, is gay and had a long-standing partnership while I was growing up. In fact, his partnership was the longest single relationship I knew about for many many years. I grew up with non-straight sexuality as a normal part of life and didn't learn that it was a "bad" thing until I was old enough to be horrified at the people trying to convince me.
I'm glad that the Darkover books show non-straight sexualities so clearly, though.
Stasia
ETA: Damn, I miss the older style of cover art. Wow.
Reply
*nods* I have an aunt who had a long-term relationship with another woman (which has been over now for many years, but at one point when there was a family reunion, her partner was shown on the family tree that someone had created for the occasion), so there was that later on, but OTOH when I was younger that was never *talked* about. It existed, but wasn't overtly acknowledged, at least not to my generation (although my dad and his siblings might have discussed it amongst themselves).
Reply
Yeah, I don't remember my uncle's relationship being talked about much, but it wasn't NOT talked about. It was just, well, who Morrie was. No one in my family treated him or his partner any differently than any of the other family members. My family's a bit odd, maybe.
Stasia
Reply
Reply
I think what got me re: discovering sexuality through books was the matter-of-fact way that MZB presented characters who were not straight. There were conflicts (internal and external) regarding their sexual identities sometimes, but not always; the culture portrayed accepted that many/most (higher caste, at least) adolescents would form strong same-sex bonds that might include sex, and in fact those bonds were preferable at that age to heterosexual experimentation (which had negative social impact especially for girls, but to some extent also for boys; there's a double standard but it's not always as differentiated as one might expect). So the description of a society where it was accepted, even normal, to be bisexual - even if in some ways the expression of that was limited by age, i.e. people were normally expected to marry and/or have children after a certain age - reassured me that whatever I felt along those lines was not wrong, that there could be places where it was ( ... )
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
I started out reading MZB, but didn't always keep up as new novels were published.
I stopped reading when the introduction to one book (I forget which) explained that a certain town had a different geographical location in this book than another book(s) for plot reasons. pfft.
OK, I'm guilty of similar myself, but I remember thinking her reasoning seemed silly.
Reply
Leave a comment