[Polyhedron] Are women interested in this type of fantasy?

[SemperJase]

Re: Re: Re: Can't resist any more...

No offense intended, SJ, but ...{see above}

I have no idea what you said there

I'll guess that it meant I made alarmist statements. Unfortunately the words on the screen poorly reflect tone. My thoughts on this are musings only and not a call to action.

Also please fix the grammar error in your signature, clergy is a plural group noun and does not agree with has.

You're right....thanks.

 

[David Argall]

another round

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Well for starting evidence that women do prefer men who rescue them over men they rescue, consider that men are distinctly larger than women.
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"So women prefer fat men?"

Fat is only one way a man can be larger, and is clearly not the preferred way. Note here that the average male body contains less fat than the average female body

quote:
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This is the result of large numbers of our female ancestors choosing the larger male [the one better able to rescue her and harder to rescue]. It is not the result of male force. Females of most species have little problem in finding ways to slipe in the preferred male. It can be called the result of evolution, but that is a chicken vs egg question. Evolution operates thru female choice. So we have the vote of our female ancestors, the rescuer is superior to the rescued.
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"SO that is why Fat women don't date as much, they only respect people bigger than them?"

Nothing in the quote refers to the size of the different females. However, we may note the widespread reporting of the difficulties that tall women have in getting dates. Not only does she prefer the larger male, the shorter male is aware of this tendency and doesn't even try her.

"That also explains why we are much more powerful and larger than cavemen?"

yes it does, tho in the negative sense. The female preference for larger males has declined somewhat. But it is not gone.


" love is a emotional response not a logical response, therefore you cannot really make any kind of pre judgement in this situation."

in the statistical sense, of course you can, and routinely do.


"There is just no way of making a statement on how a majority of the 6,302,508,958* people on this planet will react to this sort of romantic situation."

Quite the contrary, the feelings of the majority are fairly easy to predict, and quite mundane. Predicting each case is quite hard, but with 6 billion cases, it is no great trouble to say 5 billion or so will marry, X percent will hang out with their own sex, Y percent will ...


" How can you answer any question for people you don't know?"

Because we do know them, if not in person, then in their behavior.

 

[Ravellion]

... the history of fantasy literature; you can go back further to More's Utopia. The basis of much great fantasy is the inversion of a particular basic trope. To suggest that such a key tradition of Western literature is "completely worthless" is very unfortunate.

Well, from a literary viewpoint, the entire genre is worthless. Role reversal happened a lot better in feminist literature in the early 20th century, and the late 20th pulp sci fi really shouldn't be looked upon as a tradition.

I consider your argument to be a non argument; you seem to imply literary importance to pulp sci fi while it hardly has any. Hence, they might as well keep it in its quaint mysogynistic form: at least that has a specific and well established target demographic (though since last three decaded of th 20th century pop culture (NOT the literary world) has a trend to empowering women in physical heroic roles. The literary world will have forgotten this non issue in 50 years at most.

Rav

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Will this subgenre of space opera be as popular as the one which it inverts? Almost certainly not.

This is... interesting. I don't know how much overall popularity the kind of space opera discussed had at its peak, but AFAIK, it doesn't have a raging popularity to compete with now. Since no one has suugested a total inversion (especially the writer of the orriginal minigame) but rather a potential equalization, we can take the "sub genre" to be non sexist space opera with role reversal when apropriate to the characters.

Now lets see, can non sexist stories with some role revesal compete with the more sexist versions of the genre which spawned them? Tell you what, you name a more popular and influencial film than ALIENS in its "genre" and we can at least start the discussion...

This whole thread is a tempest in a teapot, a mountain out of a molehill, a hurdling of the flumph. We've spent days trying to sooth SJ's fears of a fractured reality over a simple comment meant to bring an outdated genre up to speed for a modern audience. And we've given some great press for this issue of Poly.

This "inversion" has already found its place in scifi and fantasy. It has been mostly unnoticed and accepted by the majority, probably caused some annoyance to the SJs of the world and added a small extra satisfaction for women who were fans in the "old days."

Kahuna Burger

 

[Sparrow]

Ok, I can't resist

I think SJs recent reply to some of the responses that female gamers have given is interesting. Essentially, he says that there is a problematic selection effect built into his question, because female gamers are atypical of females in general. I suppose I should be flattered.

But rather than taking Umbridge at the assumptions SJ seems to be making about females in general, I want to point out that claims about 'human nature' are notoriously difficult to prove. That's because the claim is about all humans across time and across all cultures. This is pretty vast territory for finding exceptions to the rule, if you ask me. Lots of speculative science fiction has its roots in anthropology (eg. Orson Scott Card, Ursula LeGuin) and both sci fi and anth. are in the business of providing counter examples to big generalizations about 'human nature'. The production of these counterexamples is to argue that gender roles (for example) are not hard-wired, and that if the rule doesn't apply cross-culturally, its probably not a good indicator of human nature. For interesting counterexamples on gender topics see the Left Hand of Darkness by Leguin for fiction and Sex and Temprement by Margaret Mead for non-fiction, both are about ineffectual men and strong women, in a sense anyway.

For the record, I am a female gamer and, I wouldn't mind buckling on the swash and rescuing an "ineffectual man" especially if he's cute. I claim the right to be just as shallow as the next guy or girl.

 

[Lamoni]

Still arguing?

I can't believe how long this thread has gone on. It seems to stir up a lot of emotions when you try to make generalizations based on gender.

I'd like to say that Women are different. They are different from men, and they are different from each other. I believe that generalizations can be made, but like any generalization, there are always hundreds of exceptions.

So, going back to the original topic. Yes, this can be played. That is the best thing about role playing. We aren't stuck into a narrow scenario like we are in computer rpg's. Instead we can adapt any adventure to our liking.

If the female character likes smart weak guys, make the guy helpless. If she likes guys much stronger than her, make the guy locked in prison after being ambushed by the king's entire evil guard. Then all she has to do is unlock him and hand him a weapon. If she likes something else, change the story to your choosing.

I feel like there are very few girls that couldn't make the scenario of girl rescues guy and falls in love with him work. If some assumptions about the scenario make this impossible, change your assumptions and alter the scenario so it does work.

Ok, I think that i have said enough and I am even starting to repeat myself from the last post I made.

 

[fusangite]

Ravellion states

Well, from a literary viewpoint, the entire genre is worthless. Role reversal happened a lot better in feminist literature in the early 20th century, and the late 20th pulp sci fi really shouldn't be looked upon as a tradition.

How do you suppose new genres become traditions? Furthermore, how can you state that space opera is a valueless genre? Surely, its value cannot simply be subjectively declared by you on the basis of its supposed literary merits. This genre has value for the thousands of people who read it.

I consider your argument to be a non argument; you seem to imply literary importance to pulp sci fi while it hardly has any.

It seems absurd to me that on a site filled with sci-fi and fantasy readers that one would dare make the sweeping declaration that an entire genre or subgenre is devoid of value based on your subjective determination of its "literary merits."

Hence, they might as well keep it in its quaint mysogynistic form: at least that has a specific and well established target demographic

Wait a minute!? Didn't you just declare the genre utterly valueless based on some kind of subjective standard for determining if it is "literary?" Doesn't such a rationale conflict with your justification for it continuing to exist in its original, allegedly unspoiled form on the basis of popular appeal? If you're going to be a snob, at least choose whether you are a popularity snob or an elitist snob; you cannot have it both ways.

(though since last three decaded of th 20th century pop culture (NOT the literary world) has a trend to empowering women in physical heroic roles. The literary world will have forgotten this non issue in 50 years at most.

So how many levels of the Literary Augur prestige class do you have!? Surely, the special ability conferred at level 2 makes you understand that there is no clear boundary between the popular and the literary. Are they not part of a continuum with no clear boundary lines?

To recap, you have argued:
1. the space opera genre is, by definition, non-literary
2. genres that are non-literary do not "deserve" to be the subject of satire, inversion or any other literary tactic
3. what happens in non-literary genres and subgenres of fiction should be exclusively determined by (a) the anticipated popularity of proposed innovations with the whole reading community and not any subset thereof nor any potential new readers; and (b) the anticipated future popularity of proposed innovations two generations hence

This way of thinking about fiction and literature is unhelpful, based on an incoherent intellectual hierarchy and premised on the existence of firm, objectively perceptible category boundaries which clearly are not there. Furthermore, in order to make your argument, you set yourself up as an arbiter of the imaginary line between popular fiction and literature and an accurate predictor of the values of society in the mid 21st century.

 

[kenjib]

Well, from a literary viewpoint, the entire genre is worthless. Role reversal happened a lot better in feminist literature in the early 20th century, and the late 20th pulp sci fi really shouldn't be looked upon as a tradition.

I consider your argument to be a non argument; you seem to imply literary importance to pulp sci fi while it hardly has any. Hence, they might as well keep it in its quaint mysogynistic form: at least that has a specific and well established target demographic (though since last three decaded of th 20th century pop culture (NOT the literary world) has a trend to empowering women in physical heroic roles. The literary world will have forgotten this non issue in 50 years at most.

Rav

There was this hack author that wrote a bunch of pulp crap in the rags of his day - pretty much equivalent to the soap operas of today. His name was Charles Dickens. Oh, and then there was that fellow that wrote those terrible hackneyed fraudulent travelogues as was the fad at his time - Robert Louis Stevenson. Then were those awful gothic horror writers too, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, etc. and those terrible early science fiction writers such as Jules Verne. Then if you want to break out of "genre" fiction of course there's the Harlem Rennaisance and other examples of works that came into their own long after they were written and ignored.

Tolkein and Lovecraft are two examples of genre fiction authors largely ignored in their day but now on the way to becoming, if not already, canonized. I would also suggest George Orwell as another very direct and specific example. I would be rather surprised if books such as Neuromancer, Dune, etc. are *not* part of the literary canon within the next couple of decades. In postmodern circles, they already are.

 

[SemperJase]

Now lets see, can non sexist stories with some role revesal compete with the more sexist versions of the genre which spawned them? Tell you what, you name a more popular and influencial film than ALIENS in its "genre" and we can at least start the discussion...

It kinda proves the point. I will concede the truth that female characters can be heroic. There is some sexual tension. But she doesn't really get the guy in the end. Again, the topic is romance. Not heroism.

We've spent days trying to sooth SJ's fears of a fractured reality over a simple comment meant to bring an outdated genre up to speed for a modern audience.

What fears Kahuna? How about stop trying to infer I'm sexist and keep it to the topic. Asking if women are attracted to men is specific situations is not sexist.

In spite of a number of clarifications on this thread, people continue to attack me as being threatened or having "fears" about women.
Feel free to email me and ask me specific questions rather than jump to hasty conclusions.

 

[Shadoe's Lady]

First off, this thread is 4 pages long, so other than the first and last posts I haven't read the whole thing. If I reiterate someone else's idea, sorry.

Why would anyone, male or female, be attracted to someone they have to save? If you just happen to save someone who maybe needed it at the time, but is otherwise a fairly strong (in all senses of the word) person then ok, sure. Or, maybe if you're the kind of person who likes to save people and the other person likes to be saved then the relationship works. But if saving someone's butt is likely to annoy you then you wouldn't be attracted to them. I don't think the gender matters.