Pornography

[Lycidas at worldnet.att.net]

Paul Mackin wrote:
> >
> 
> I have a problem with identifying the pornography of GR with cruelty and
> brutality. I know the fact that Bianca is said to be only eleven or
> thereabouts will be taken by some as implicit proof of cruelty. However in
> the context of the actual goings on this is rather lame. It is even true
> that later on Bianca dies and this may be ascribed to earlier
> mistreatment. 

What happens to Bianca? We get several conflicting stories,
right? Why? Who the Hell is she anyway? And why does Greta
beat her? Why does Slothrop have sex with her? Guilt?
Anti-paranoia? Why does Orpheus look back? 

However again this is remote from the actual scene aboard
> the Anubis. In other words we really have to derive the purported cruelty
> intellectually and from logic rather from direct experience with the
> immediate events. To extend this a little, so-called S&M doesn't have to
> involve actual cruelty and in GR doesn't to any marked degree. 

 Again, I am not suggesting that S&M is cruel, only that in
GR, S&M functions as metaphor for dehumanizing cruelty. 
Homosexuality also functions as metaphor, metaphor for
sterility and death. 

This is not a comment on what Pynchon thinks of sex or love
or erotica or my opinion of such, only how sex functions as
metaphor in GR.