Bianca

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

having been a kid, I remember having a scale of values that I still consider sane: being molested is bad but being injured or killed is worse.

So I kind of agree with Paul Mackin's perspective: shocking to write about such things, but come on, war is much much worse.  And people write about it all the time, and (shockingly) commit it.

And war grinds down human values - so that Slothrop loses the automatic self-censorship; his ass-banditry in Part One being confined to adult women, and in fact it's Pointsman who (wouldn't you say?) owns the train station reverie about picking up little kids -- interesting distinction, Pointsman's reverie is all about the counterfeit of benevolent protective love and not a word about the sinister pleasure he's really anticipating, whereas preterite Slothrop actually gets the fleshly description but I think we see this as a stress-induced broaching of his innate decency...

still, yes I recoil from it in GR; and in Vineland it's a definite character flaw in Zoyd to go out with high school girls...but in both cases, it's seen as such.  QED.  We're supposed to be uncomfortable with it.