Naked Went the Gamer is posted
Frank Tarcikowski:
It got worse in Hollywood movies post 9-11, too. Take a look at the movies Basic Instinct or Devil’s Advocate or FFC’s Dracula, from the mid-90s. They don’t make them like that any more.
Ron Edwards:
Hey Jeff,
Maybe too spicy for the internet. Not even close to too spicy for this forum.
I completely agree with you about fantasy fetish porn, and more generally, about porn itself. Since I'm not especially knowledgeable about that industry, I wonder, baffled, when and how did not shaving one's bush become a fetish? I leave all questions about what the act depicts or represents or "means" aside; it's the simple reversal of plain sense in the terminology and implied values-structure that intrigues me.
One of my footnotes in the essay is, as I see it, a whole series of possible Ph.D. dissertations in the making.
Quote
The de-politicizing of fantasy and science fiction is a larger story out of the scope of this esssay, including issues of Hollywood, the re-framing of acceptable venues for fictional sex, and bookstore economics.
But I can tell you without qualification that it would never be acceptable in today's climate in academic sociology. All of those things above go hand in hand with a gruesome split between science and the rest of the liberal arts, and the fault lies firmly with the latter.
Best, Ron
Roger:
I'm not entirely convinced that Reagan or Gore or anyone else had a lot to do with this.
It's exactly the progression described in Simulation and Simulacra.
We start with a monster, and we get a picture of a monster. Then we get a picture of a picture of a monster. And so on, until there's nothing monstrous left.
It might be a tragic and lamentable progression, but that doesn't make it any less inevitable.
Of course any retro movement that's built on the basis of "let's get back to the original picture" instead of "let's get back to the original monster" is going to be a bit hollow and wan.
Ron Edwards:
Whoops, that reply was to part of Simon's post. Also, Simon, although I agree with just about everything else you posted, I don't think I agree with your misogyny suggestion. I think a lot of misogyny discussion actually masks (and over-intellectualizes) prudery at the heart of the issue, and that this deceptive conceptual tactic has been widely successful throughout the culture. I suggest instead that Andrea Dworkin's testimony at the Meese Commission reveals the actual dynamics at work: people who hate sex, or rather the enjoyment of sex, finding common ground in that despite their overt distinctions at the more superficial P.R. level, and using those distinctions as ways to bring multiple groups into support for their oppressive and genuinely evil societal designs, against those groups' interests.
Jeff, I wanted to follow up on your perceptions of Glorantha material over the years. Regarding RuneQuest specifically, I'm thinking of the particularly bland and neutered material in the Avalon Hill version. Are you talking about the material that accumulated before then, during the 1980s? What especially? I don't want to jump ahead, but it seems to me that my essay about Thed and her presentation at various stages of the publishing history is relevant here, in tune with Simon's very clear summary of fetish porn, which I agree with.
----
Roger, clearly I disagree. Instead of a progression, I see a sharp break which may be traced to specific actions and events. This may be a matter of projecting personal history onto reality (in arty moments, I fancy that I actually heard the death of a whole sector of U.S. culture, with a kind of wet snap, sometime in 1982), but if that's the case, then I can't meaningfully debate the point anyway.
The only really strong argument I can muster outside of highly psychological perceptions is that fantasy as I've construed it has not found, or rather arisen in, a new home in our culture since then.
Best, Ron
droog:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on March 24, 2010, 12:37:45 PM
Jeff, I wanted to follow up on your perceptions of Glorantha material over the years. Regarding RuneQuest specifically, I'm thinking of the particularly bland and neutered material in the Avalon Hill version. Are you talking about the material that accumulated before then, during the 1980s? What especially? I don't want to jump ahead, but it seems to me that my essay about Thed and her presentation at various stages of the publishing history is relevant here, in tune with Simon's very clear summary of fetish porn, which I agree with.
Yeah, I guess it's the 80s material I'm thinking of mainly. Cults of Prax, with the nudie sword-hilt, first appeared in 1979. But there was stuff like the publication of the cult of Uleria in Different Worlds, with a very frank look at sexuality. Even Gods of Glorantha had an abbreviated version of Thed. Then there were small things like the description of a human who catches nasty fungal diseases from having sex with an elf (Elder Races). I never felt that bowdlerisation was going on. But I'm open to the idea that it's my own history that makes me think that way. To close to the counter-culture to be objective, perhaps.
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