blicero's sexuality

[Terrance]

> 
> I think you, like Eddins, have constructed a false binary here. 

What binary has Eddins contracted? Can you provide another
example other than the ones Kai posted? Isn't it, in the 
interest of fairness and communication here, a given,  that
we should understand what it is Eddins has written first
before we make claims that he has constructed a binary? What
does Eddins mean by the apparent binaries? By the apparent
construction of Gnosticism as some sort of drive to 
transcend the earth by artificial means? It's not what you
and
Kai  have constructed here. Not by a long shot. To hang onto
the
binary, one constructed here, not in the text under
consideration w/o first determining if this binary in fact
exists is not fair or critical.  I don't want to
defend the Eddins reading anymore because I cannot defend it
against charges that have not been substantiated. If one of
you care to
post some of it and your objections to it I will glad to
respond. 

Although perhaps there has been some miscommunication here
and perhaps we can correct that, Kai's quote, taken out of
context, the second sentence of the concluding  paragraph of
a dense and
thorough, not exhaustive, essay on the character, to which
he posed the questions (questions btw that I entertained as
questions not as statements until Kai qualified them as
statements about Eddin's reading), is the  poor foundation
upon
which you have constructed your binary and attributed to the
author. 

Also, from  this bait quote, ( after noting that he was
displeased with my apparent lack of courage, or better
stated to reflect his attitude, my cowardice, as I refused
to accept his gross misreading of the text or the "Eddins
ticket I have been riding on") we have had nothing. Neither
of you seems willing, able, or even interested in the text
ostensibly representing your constructed binaries and
homophobic/zenophobic scandal. 

jbor, your own question about the sub-Imipolexity, 
was evidence that you did not have the text at
hand, had not read it or refered to it, 
since Eddins goes on to say just what you said and impled
hefailed to. 
 Kai then posted another quote pertaining to  arcane
critical theory and
only tangentially germane to the issues he had raised with
his initial questions. Now, I said you were making a jack
ass of yourself and I'm sorry for that and for my other
brash language, but I'm frustrated and a bit put off by all
of this. You complain that I have silly personas, but you
are wrong to state that I have used these to insult or
disrupt
the diologue here. I have done just the opposite, and for
all my attempts to encourage civil pluralistic debate from
day one on this list, I have been rebuffed, ridiculed, and
insulted on and off list. My silly personas for what it's
worth
have been all obviously female. I discouraged Dave Monroe
from
attempting to do what I have not been able to do, S~Z could
not, Max could not, Paul M. could not, to name but a few who
have
tried, I believe, in earnest to convince members to play the
ball and not the man. I know it would be false and stilted,
phoney even, but try a little complimentary postings from
time to time. Must we deconstruct every word, every
sentence, like literate angry young men hell bent on
vengence and sling cyber-rocks from glass houses? I am
reminded at times of the Great Ape,  who when he discovered
that if he pushed and batted an olive oil can he found in a
dump about in the forest he could be Alpha male.    



What is the
> "common order of sexuality" as represented in _GR_? Is it Roger and Jessica,
> for example, whose sexual lusts are aroused the further into the s-w London
> No-go Zone they venture for their trysts, where the danger of annihilation
> from the falling rockets becomes an aphrodisiac? In your construct of "the
> common order of sexuality" they are really only having as much "fun" and
> "social contact" as Blicero, Katje and Gottfried are, and the opportunity or
> intention to procreate is no greater.

Yup. 


> 
> I guess we will continue to disagree on Enzian's willingness as sexual
> partner: the fact that it is he rather than Weissmann who *initiates* the
> only sexual act between them which is represented in the text is very
> significant imo.

Yup, I don't disagree here, it's not an issue as far as I
know. He's willing. 
The question is not if he is willing, but if his willingness
is
symbolic of other themes. 
Aren't they? Isn't this one of the arguments you make here
often? The christain and colonial abuse of "other"? 


> 
> snip
> 
> > Blicero's Oven-game, the upside-down turned fairytale, is meant to kill
> > Hänsel aka Gottfried.
> 
> Remember that Katje's playing the Oven-game as well. There is nothing
> "upside down" about it. The witch in the fairy tale always intended to put
> Hansel and Gretel into the oven. But the point in _GR_ is that both Blicero
> and Katje are *conscious* of the reversal at the end of the fairy tale which
> sees the witch in the oven instead. It adds a perverse element of
> Schadenfreude to the game; it's perverse in that Blicero knows it's his own
> fate to be the one finally pushed into the oven and yet he still consciously
> plays out the role, delights in it in fact. But it's no more perverse than
> the game Roger and Jessica play, consciously putting each other's lives in
> jeopardy just to have, and to heighten the thrill of, sex.

Yup, both are perverse, and not perverse as either would
apply to real people, but in the text of GR both are
perverse and it is a matter of one being more so, both
are symbolic of the love death theme in GR, but the
characters and games are not the same and this makes all the 
difference, so that the binary you have here is besides the
point,  homosexual S&M games are symbolic of some of the
same things but some differences too. The connection is an
important one, the 
rockets, the fairy tale, the oven, betrayal, pointsman,
cameras, observation, 
the war, social structures, song, conditioning, all these
are present and more to 
connect these characters, their relationships, the
perversitues. The binary is
not a useful one as you have it here, but the text, although
it reverses or flip-flops
binaries doesn't cancel them all out. Black as it applies to
Greta, white as it applies to Blicero. 


> 
> I can see homophobia in the paradigm you have constructed above as well. The
> notion that one "purpose" of sexuality is, or has to be, procreation,
> doesn't really apply to the majority of human sexual encounters, whether
> straight or gay. Never has. This is not to say that *you* are homophobic, or
> to try to insult you or stop you from expressing your point of view. The
> argument you are making about the purpose of sexuality is constructed on an
> anti-homosexual, rather than an anti-procreational, foundation.

It would be if we were not talking about the perverse sexual
symbolism in a fiction, but you guys seem hell bent on
shifting the discussion to the Pope's dogma so that you can,
if only slyly play the man and not the ball. 



> 
> Yes we do. That last image of Gottfried and he in the text at 724.10 places
> Blicero in the passive role: "*Blicero is looking at him."* He is a frail
> old man: white-faced, myopic, has been chain-smoking. He is waiting for
> Gottfried to make his choice. The boy is frightened, not because he is being
> coerced into anything but because, for once, "he has a decision to make".
> The emotional intensity is electric: "*Why is he suddenly asking* . . . "

Yup, but again, Otto post is a bit lost in this, he was 
addressing Kai's term or phrase first. He asked if we see
Blicero in a passive role and you have answered that, and I
agree with you here, 
but his issue with Kai's point stands. 


> 
> By the way, who counts as a Nazi? Blicero the bureaucrat, certainly; but
> what about Katje when she is working for the S.S. in Holland? What about
> Gottfried, a German soldier? What of Pokler, Leni, Mondaugen, Thanatz,
> Greta? Perhaps not card-carrying party members, but ... supporting ...
> working for ... citizens of ... Nazi Germany ... ? Aren't they?

So? As Otto's point was that characters on both sides are
working for Them and that they can and do defect just who
counts as a Nazi
is not the point. But of course, as you note, Blicero is a
special case, this seems to have been Otto's point as well. 
> 
> For one, Kai said that Eddins' *interpretation* was homophobe and stuffy,
> and it is. It doesn't help when a simple statement like this is twisted to
> say that Kai is name-calling. 

I gave him the benifit of the doubt, more than once, I was
careful to say his questions were questions and
speculations, but he insisted, was very determined to trap
me, to frame me as you have tried to,  On list and off list.
He baited and baited, "you are a coward, I expected more."
Again, I hold no grudges, we play ball in the park, no ref,
we call the fouls, what go around come around, we talk shit,
we play hard, we get you next, but we all go smoke a blunt
and drink a 40 and we cool. But if one mother fucker keeps 
stickin his elbow in my eye I'm gunna fuck him up. 

There is an implicit heterosexual bias in the
> construction that sexuality's purpose is procreation -- even when it is
> hedged as only one of three -- because the only reason for including this in
> the "rule" of what constitutes "common" (your word) or the "natural order
> of" (Eddins's phrase) sexuality is to effect the exclusion of homosexual
> intercourse. It's as simple as that. Acts of heterosexuality which don't
> have procreation as their purpose (such as Rog and Jess's) are in fact
> equally as common and "natural" as those which do, more so. So, why is
> homosexuality being deemed to be uncommon, or "unnatural", on this score.

It's not, of course it is not, but this is the book we have,
not Eddins but GR.  The natural and anti-natural is in the
book, fuctions as a
trope.