Safe Sex is No Fun

[Greg Montalbano]

On Fri, 22 Mar 1996 16:37:20 -0500 (EST) you said:
>
>
>On Fri, 22 Mar 1996, Robert Bruno wrote:
>
>> Something tells me that there ain't too many women subscribed to this list...
>> I just get the feeling that women aren't as turned on by Pynchon's
>> writing as men are
>>
>> Maybe some lady subscribers can comment?
>
>Out of curiosity I browsed through the some 300 addresses on the
>list, but alas in the overwhlemingly proponderant majority of cases
>addresses are not sex specific--you can't tell. Damn.
>
>I had an idea a while back but suppressed it. Everybody (or whoever
>wanted to) would start using anonymous mailings. This is easy to do
>these days on the Internet with so called "remailers".
>
>The advantage might be it could help avoid sex- and other-
>stereotyping that I got a sneaking feeling we are all prone to in
>bad ways. You could sign your own name, adopt a pseudonym, or be truly
>anonymous.
>
>It's a racical idea and not free of danger:
>
>It might be disorienting. Too much stereotyping is bad, but some may be
>necessary for efficient communication. We _do_ adjust our way of speaking
>and listening according to who we perceive the other party to be. Doing too
>much of this was the problem in the first place. But maybe some of it is
>necessary. Anyway it's a possibility.
>
>It would no longer be easy to communicate with one individual as
>opposed to the whole list. There'd be the rigmarole of finding
>his or her addreses. You'd have to post an all-list query. "Would
>the woman who said if TRP were her son she would wash his mouth
>out with soap and make him stand in the corner, please get in touch with
>such and such address." Of course you wouldn't necessary know it was a
>women, so the gross stereotypying I have just been guity of wouldn't
>be so apt to happen.
>
>Now you see why I suppressed the idea.
>
>Maybe stereotyping isn't so bad.
>
>				P.
"Adjusting our way of speaking and listening according to who we perceive the
other party to be" may be desirable (or unavoidable) when speaking to someone
in person;  however, it seems to me that on the list we are using a form of
communication that is purposely distanced, that demands a heavier reliance
on what words are written and how they are assembled (isn't that a large
part of what literature is all about?).
There ARE definite personas that arise from the screen -- but I believe the
"sterotypes" we assing to the writers' ideas and feelings as discussed in
this list tell us some unpleasant things about oursevles, rather than about
the speaker.  Are we MORE or LESS willing to listen to/ empathize with
a speaker/writer if they are the same sex?  Gender has a large place in
the reading and writing of literature, but I'm not sure if this is a ...
(come on, greg, what word are you searching for?) ... "right" way of
expressing it.

For a more lucid and valid treatment of this, I HIGHLY recommend Ursula
LeGuin's DANCING AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, a collection of essays, speeches
and articles on a number of subjects including literature and gender, politics
and gender, "civilization" and gender, sex and gender ... you get the idea.

Ms LeGuin is the most intelligent, insightful writer on many of these topics
that it's been my good fortune to discover; rather than simply expounding her
ideas, she never fails to do the hard work of seeing them through as far as
possible.....not bad for a woman (& a housewife).