some comments and a question

[Vaska Tumir]

Hello there, all you fellow Pynchonites!

Vaska the intimidating sexist scholar strikes back.  Resubscribed less than
36 hours ago and first thing I see is Dana's witty little note [re.
something Charles had said?], followed by Chris slamming into Dana for not
respecting her [whose, I'm no longer sure] "deflowering," as they used to
say.  As for Dana's post, I thought Pynchon had used similar "spread legs"
and "open book" images, all in the same sentence and appropriately
juxtaposed, given the context, right at the beginning of a _V_ chapter.  But
maybe the high blood pressure I'm trying to take care of has got me
prematurely senile, too, who knows...  

As for this ob/gyn discussion that seems to be going on, listen guys: my own
sweet blushing-shy papa is one of "them," so watch what you say or else....
And, as it happens, the worst gynaecologist I've ever had was a woman
determined to scare the living daylightlights out of me.  A pure power-trip
for her, of course.  Almost suceeded, had it not been for those male ob/gyns
I immediately went to for a second opinion.   Another example of *my*
sexism, perhaps?

And, to wrap it up -- my keyboard is shot to hell so I have to pound away to
get anything out of the cranky machine -- what on earth is wrong with saying
one's first sexual encounter was "inconsequential"?  Less precocious than
Chris, at 16 I decided I'd had enough of that virginity stuff hanging over
my head like some D-sword, and as Robert, my then boyfriend, imagined
getting me to bed with him would somehow confirm "possession rights" on the
deflowerer (sorry, any sensitive souls out there, but I still can't help but
laugh at such lunacy), it seemed a perfectly apposite occasion to solve my
little problem with our cultural incsriptions of virginity, deflowering, and
sex [this was in the mid- 70s, in ultra-Catholic Malta, so the old double
standard was as alive and well as any male-supremacist would wish it to be].
Wouldn't call the experience "inconsequential" exactly -- it did for me
precisely what I'd wanted it to, freed me for a guilt-free sexual life sans
the possessively deranged boyfriend -- but the memory it evokes is of a
purely technical nature, to put it thusly....

So let's have it for diversity, I say, and yes, I -- the unreconstructed
feminist that I am -- still think many a nanny is but a power-tripper in
disguise.  Not for nothing did the appellation get stuck onto Mrs Thatcher,
she of the glorious Falklands War, remember? 

Now, what I'd like to know is this -- since someone has kindly quoted the
Mittelwerk post that may or may not have set off the Dana-Chris war of
words, not sure -- did Chris do a proper little job on our pussy-obsessed
friend out there, too?  Or not?  Anyone care to send me a copy of *that*?

Vaska the Terrible