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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 2801793" data-attributes="member: 2205">Thank you, I know my A Princess of Mars quotes very well.  I said you had to read the books carefully to realize that for someone who was naked, there were an awful lot of mentions of clothing and ornaments on them that clearly indicated that they weren't naked in an NC-17 sense of the word.  Several times "breast ornamentation" is mentioned on the women, and it's clear that it is fairly substantial breast ornamentation; it saves Sola's life when Sarkoja attempts to kill Dejah Thoris, for instance, and Sola jumps in between them.  John Carter himself does an amazing amount of things with his "harness" that clearly indicates that it had plenty of cloth on it.And, as I already said, the Victorian concept of nakedness does not actually imply complete nakedness.  Just because ERB said naked doesn't mean he meant it in the same way as we take it now.No, it's not.  ERB never explicitly describes what folks are wearing, although except in some exceptional circumstances, as in when John Carter first arrives on Barsoom, it is clear that they are wearing a fair amount of something because he's always mentioning a ton of harnesses and ornaments and capes and all kinds of things.  Since the books are not clear on exactly what the characters wearing, you have to look beyond just the word "naked" and interpret from other clues internal to the text as well as the cultural frame of reference in which ERB lived and wrote.I think both literally naked and slave-girl Princess Leia style "clothing" are both valid interpretations of what is written, and frankly, I think even even more substantial covering than that is not beyond what ERB might well have meant.</blockquote>

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