posted
Okay, I was waiting for my wife in Flotown at the Books A Million, and my first stop in the shop was the scifi/fantasy section, as it always is.
I had time, so I was looking... and I began to see a trend.
Charlene Harris, Kim somebody...and on and on and on...
SCIFI has been taken over by vampire chick romance books masquerading as scifi/fantasy. Seriously.
Now, I have no problem with women writing fantasty or scifi or romance books. if they can make a nice living at it, more power to them.
But where the hell are the men in scifi anymore? And not these brooding teenangst twilight aholes, but characters that have balls and act like men, not Hawkeye pierce wannabees or the EFFIN JOSS WHEDON BUFFY GUYS THAT ARE THERE TO ACT AS COMIC RELIEF OR SOME TEENDREAM GIRL UNICORN AND RAINBOW LOVE INTEREST?
Now, there were some male writers still up there, but half of them were writing the same freakin' female character from what I could tell.
She's buffy, but with a different setting, and a slightly different wardrobe. This one has blonde hair and a bellyshirt. This one has brown hair and a bellyshirt. This one is completely different, she has black hair and a belly shirt.
They are all fierce competitive warriors that are special with destiny. Hesus Horseyfat Praise Jebus people...
And when the guys aren't writing the same freakin character as everyone else, they are instead writing the ninety sixth book in somme world of warcroft thing. Do NONE of you have any original ideas anymore?
Can no one write a scifi story that isn't really just fantasy where the lead is a guy that actually has to use a full range of abilities, brains to figure out a scientific challenge, and the balls to act on it, including physical actions when necessary?
When in the hell did SciFi get almost completely and totally hijacked by psuedo-scifi fantasy goth chick romance? When in the hell did guys quit writing scifi, quit writing male characters unless they are spineless support for ...female psuedo-scifi fantasy goth chick romance leads? When did the actual scifi stop? Is it because we've advanced so fast that there are no writers out there that can think of any scifi that hasn't been done with all computer stuff now?
Its supremely effin disappointing is what it is.
I roll through the racks all the time, and the lack of decent male lead characters that aren't part of some same character book lines is really uninspiring, uninteresting, and depressing.
This does both suck and blow, and not in a good way at all.
And you kids, get off my damn lawn!
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
posted
First of all, Kim Harrison's books feature a witch as the main character and are NOT romance novels at all. Second, it is a fantasy series, but if you are looking for the strong, straight, male lead I suggest you look for the 'Dresden Files' series. Harry is about as ballsy-all-male as you can get and the 13 book (plus several anthology entries) can be found in any major book store.
Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
I think the problem lies in a different area.
I grew up on my mom's sci-fi/fantasy books, which were heavily slanted towards the writing of Andre Norton, Anne McCaffery, Patricia McKillip, Linda Bushyager, Tanith Lee, Ursula LeGuin, etc.
As I got older, I added Lovecraft, Howard, Moorcock, Lieber, Zelazny, Clarke, Niven, Saberhagen, etc. to that list, and noticed slowly that many of the male authors (particularly the older ones, like Lovecraft, Howard, Moorcock and Lieber) didn't have much use for female characters, other than the 'damsel in distress' or 'sex-kitten' characterizations, with all the relevance to the ongoing story of the hero of the Bond Girl of the Movie, Who Shall Never Be Mentioned Again.
Growing up reading a little from either side of the gender divide, I grew to appreciate the female authors who could write a complicated nuanced male perspective (which, pretty much, was all of them) and the male authors who could write an effective relevant female character (which was maybe half of them).
I don't think the problem with Twilight or Suki or Buffy clones is that women are writing books with female protagonists, it's that they are writing books with female protagonists that boil down into one of two tropes;
A) helpless female, surrounded by supernatural men, who generally has to be rescued from her own poor judgement (Bella)
or
B) supernaturally-empowered female, who makes terrible choices and is saved by her Chosen status / super-powers, and completely *FAILS* at any sort of strong female empowerment moment, because it isn't her character, her drive, her intuition, etc. that makes her succeed, it's something that happened to her, an external agency that thrust power upon her (at birth or later) and causes her to succeed by dint of some special status that doesn't apply to the reader, super-powers that no real world woman has, or flat-out writer's fiat. (Buffy)
In short, these books are filled with Superman (or, girls), born with something special that no other girl can do, but not a lot of self-made Batmen, who make themselves into heroes and persevere through determination.
These books, IMO, create, maintain and reinforce the moronic and sexist notion that a woman can only be a helpless victim, or a super-powered specialer-than-special champion.
No normal woman like the reader can ever be special or heroic or cool or worth reading about, because if you don't have awesome powers, you exist to get rescued by the big strong super-powered / vampire / werewolf boyfriends.
That, IMO, is the problem with this genre of fiction (and not just for women, although I think it's far more insidious in this case).
I had the same knee-jerk reaction as a child when introduced to Star Wars. I'd grown up on Star Trek, where Kirk was a farm-boy from Iowa who had demonstrated that he was better suited to command than the vastly smarter and stronger half-Vulcan science officer and friend.
In Star Wars, 'special wins.' It's not enough to be a farm-boy with a lot of heart, determination and a knack for getting one's shirt ripped off at opportune moments, no, one also has to be a super-powered messiah analogue, one of only a couple left in the entire universe. It's not enough to be Han, the hero has to be Luke, with his special destiny, chosen birth and super-powers.
That's my big issue with Twilight and Buffy analogues. Readers are reinforced that to be special, a woman has to be Luke, or else she's just stuck being Leia, destined to be captured, tortured, dressed as a slave girl and forced to serve drinks to a giant sperm.
The message of the genre is that girls can't be Han (or Indiana Jones, or James Bond), cool *without* super-powers or special destinies.
Characters like Ellen Ripley (from Aliens) or Sarah Conner (from Terminator 2) throw the wrench in that, and that's the sort of characterization that sci-fi and fantasy could benefit from seeing more of.
Sarah Conner is actually a fun example *and* counter-example, as she starts out the damsel in the first movie, and yet ends on a strong note, and turns into a much stronger character in the second movie. She evolves from the trope into the hero.
The best examples are those where the female character remains a woman, and doesn't just turn into a [edit] caricature [/edit], in the process. In the second Aliens movie, Ripley makes some emotional decisions (to go back for Newt), and has some 'victim' moments, where she's affected by nightmares, or visibly shaken by the chest-burster scene mid-movie, but she 'nuts up' and gets the job done. She doesn't do anything crazy stupid and get herself (and everyone else) killed, the way Burke did, leaving us with no impression that her 'out of control' emotions or 'hysteria' endangered everyone (unlike Burke, whose fear nearly got everyone killed, and did get himself killed).
It's not a perfect movie, but I like that Ripley remains a woman, in character, while not being trapped in either the helpless damsel or chosen butt-kicker role, where the genre tends to stick female characters.
A lesser writer would have just [edit] not bothered to develop or even think about her character [/edit], acting like a man and demonstrating no female characteristics, since that's what the audience would expect from a 'hero.' A man, in character, if not in biology.
Ripley is neither Bella nor Buffy, and I think the genre needs a hell of a lot more like her.
I also think it would make the presence of female characters in genre fiction *more* appealing to young males. We watch horror movies, and the screaming teen who freaks out and runs right into Jason's chainsaw is *not* most males ideas of a fun date, no matter how large her boobs or pouty her lips. Mostly we just shake our heads and think 'stupid.' Similarly, we look at Buffy, whose explicitly better than any man, and whose background themes include 'boyfriends suck' and 'father-figures betray and abandon you' and 'male friends are weak and useless stones around my neck' and we don't exactly get a warm fuzzy feeling there either.
Strong competent women are sexy. Helpless damsels and misandrist better-than-thou 'lessons in empowerment' are not, IMO.
Edit: Edited out phrase that offended.
[ January 24, 2011, 07:38 AM: Message edited by: Set ]
Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Nicely put, Set. But that still doesn't involve actual MEN in the books other than as background support.
I read a lot of scifi as a kid. it involved all kinds of stories. Guys trapped in planetfall with a ship thats damaged and they have to use their brains and guts to figure the situation out to live. Not necessarily to be the "big hero" and save everyone else, but just to save themselves. That's not the entire situation, of course, but you get the point. There was fantasy only in the point that the sci wasn't up to the fi yet...that there weren't spaceships that could travel between the planets yet.
But, the Fi actually had guys in it. and not just the futuristic/cro-magnon type where brawny/brainy hero saves universe and stands there with half-naked sex recepticle/female on his arm posing for a camera shot.
I looked hard at the scifi stuff that was available yesterday. I mean I spent about two hours browsing the store, most of which was in the scifi/fantasy section. There were series of books about "soldiers" fighting with laser rifles in the future, or games converted into series about guys fighting with a lot of guns and such, but that isn't scifi. Thats cowboys and indians in the future.
There's a bit of magic stuff, hell, I've mentioned Simon Green here so much people either think i work for him or are him (neither of which is true) with some decent male leads, but for real scifi stuff, where the center of the story revolves around a possible future science, which is the crux of the story, and a male lead that has brains and isn't a masochistic ahole... it ain't there.
At most, for hard scifi, the lead should be the improbable man. He should be an ordinary man, maybe gifted in one area of thought, that manages to get the job done with maybe one improbable aspect of an event to help out.
He should NOT be the impossible man. He should not be able to fall seventyfive stories straight onto the concrete sidewalk in New York and get up and walk away after landing on his head. That veers into fantasy. But a leap across space inside a three story central room in zero g to catch a wire that needs to be plugged back in with less than a minute to go...sure. It's not impossible, but it is improbable. and that little extra, just little, is what sets the hero apart.
Like I said, nothing against female characters or female writers. I've got JA Jance books out the wazzoo, and I love Gail Simone's writing to name just a few. But where the hell have they hidden all the men?
By now, I WANT to see the multitudes of buffy ripoffs lined up and dropped in sulfuric acid. And no one comes along to save them.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
quote:Originally posted by Iam Legion: First of all, Kim Harrison's books feature a witch as the main character and are NOT romance novels at all. Second, it is a fantasy series, but if you are looking for the strong, straight, male lead I suggest you look for the 'Dresden Files' series. Harry is about as ballsy-all-male as you can get and the 13 book (plus several anthology entries) can be found in any major book store.
Legion, I said they were fantasy books. I was lamenting two things. First, decent male leads. I said there were a few, but not that many lately. Second, I was lamenting the lack of SCIFI as opposed to fantasy. Fantasy being the use of magic instead of scientifically grounded fiction.
Go to the shelves, look at whats out there, and the lack of male lead SCIFI, actual scifi (and by my definition that means ideas and stories based and grounded in actual scientific thought and exploration/action, not pseudo fantasy) is glaring.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
posted
Publishing's like other media- success engenders duplication. It isn't that books with characters like you want to read aren't being written, it's that they aren't being published.
Some hugely successful TV show or movie or series will come along that'll shift things again. Maybe not to the exact lines of the characters you described, but to something different. If, that is, a producer or network or publisher has the stones to put something 'untried' out there.
As real life science progresses, harder science fiction trappings become more difficult to envision and sell, I imagine.
I wish there were more 'world-building' sci-fi- like Dune and the Pern and Darkover series. All of those have characters of all kinds taking turn as lead. They also meld 'fantasy' into sci-fi. Do you enjoy that kind of combo?
Iam Legion mentioned the Dresden Files-- the same author (Jim Butcher) writes a series called the Codex Alera that has a pretty great male lead character. It's fantasy- but I think 'hard' sci-fi readers might still enjoy it, as there aren't wizards, etc. per se.
I'd like to read a good rousing new space opera series, myself. Is that more what you want to read? Or is the science fiction of ideas?
cleome46
or you can do the confusion 'til your head falls off
posted
I would personally be really glad if, for once, these discussions could happen without equating "balls" with "courage" and especially without the denigrating phrase "Men with boobs."
The latter in particular is effing offensive. Just effing stop it.
-------------------- Hey, Kids! My "Cranky and Kitschy" collage art is now viewable on flickr. Drop by and tell me that I sent you.
From: Vanity, OR | Registered: Dec 2008
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posted
Well, Cle, I'm sorry to tell you that in a mans world, balls ARE equated with courage. It doesn't mean being bushybearded hairy chested men that thump their chests, club their women and bring them back to the cave. It simply means a non brooding, non-teen fantasy type of guy that doesn't need a committee to tell him right from wrong, to have a two hour discussion on what is needed to save everyone's life when there is only thirty minutes to explosion that kills everyone.
Basically, its the deballing of male leads that I'm finding uninteresting. And then there's the NO ROLE'S as well. I'm sorry that it offends you, but the wimpification of men (and please see the above definition as an understanding) or the "machofication" of men has effectively removed real scifi from the shelves. The men are either hapless Xander or Soldierman it seems. I know that isn't perfectly accurate. I know that not every character out there falls into that description, but the biggest impression I get perusing the shelves is just that.
It seems to be either "Game over, man!" dude or "I don't know how I feal about this, but I'm gonna try and be emotionally rational about this."
I just don't see much out there for an old school scifi fan like me. Its cowboys and indians in space, with scifi trappings, or navelgazing guy.
And as a reader, yeah, it does seem like in trying to make women "badass" they are basically writing them like men with boobs. And that does a disservice to both genders.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
cleome46
or you can do the confusion 'til your head falls off
posted
"Men With Boobs" is simply the narrow-minded reader's/viewer's way of writing off any female character who doesn't fit their own personal notion of what constitutes "womanly" behavior.
As an expression, it makes my skin crawl. It's offensive to any woman who's been told that she's not "womanly" enough because some judgmental a**hole thought she wasn't. Don't wear your hair like that. Don't speak like that. Don't think like that. Have babies. Or have more babies. Don't pursue that job. It's "unfeminine." There's something wrong with you for being like this.
I'm not a woman because of/or despite of a pair of damn milk glands, all right? If I had to surrender the damn things tomorrow (and thanks to disease, many women have had to), I'd still be a woman. To hell with anybody who pins my identity on a damn body part, one way or another.
You know what else? There are people who consider themselves women even though they were not born with women's bodies. Some have had surgery and taken hormones to gain the kind of form/image that the world at large considers "female." Some have not. But you know what? If a trans person believes in their soul that they're female, and that's how they decide to live, it's fine with me. Their boobs can be sewn on by a surgeon or they can be purchased at the five-and-dime. It's not my place to decide for them who and what they really are.
You guys ought to read back what you've written here. You make some valid points but it's hard for me to focus on them due to the obnoxious terminology that you insist on using.
If a character is one-dimensional and there's no reasonable explanation for it, that has nothing to do with how "manly" or how "womanly" they are by some objective measure. Since no objective measure actually exists. It's bad writing. If that's your real problem, maybe that's what you should say: "This character's badly written. The writer hasn't adequately sold me on why she thinks and acts as she does."
I swear, it won't hurt you. And it'll hurt some of us who already get a ton of retrograde B.S. about sex and gender a lot less.
Show some respect.
-------------------- Hey, Kids! My "Cranky and Kitschy" collage art is now viewable on flickr. Drop by and tell me that I sent you.
From: Vanity, OR | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
to my mind, we are showing respect. the term "character written like a man with boobs" is calling into question the writing skills, ability, and insight of the writer, not all women in the world. It is calling into question the obvious stereotyping. Its not derogatory to women, it's derogatory to crappy writers that don't have a clue.
the fact that we are calling that obviously crappy writing, the stereotyping of women as fitting into basically two very limiting categories, is the Ultimate respect.
When a woman as protagonist can only be written as some barely post pubescent goth chick with cut abs and who acts like all the bad definitions of a manho, then its insulting. Women are not men. Men are not women. There is more to the differences than just who's got boobs and whose got balls.
The mentality is different. Due to some idiot that limited things to either nature or nurture, not getting that reality is the melding of the two combined with the life experiences, you can take hormones, you can have surgery, you can "act" like either a male or female, but you are what you are. There is a natural range of life in each of us. At times, I'm simply a sweet, easy going guy. At other times, I'm all testosterony and would face hell with a bucket of water and you can keep the bucket.
And the same ranges exist in women. But, due to life, due to nature, due to life experiences, we are each gonna face things at a different mental state. They might be two microns off from each other, but they will still be approached from different places, even though the destination may be the same.
No, boobs are not what defines you as a woman. Neither are working ovaries, or estrogen. They are, however, a part of what makes you you. Just as the same works for men.
And sometimes, guys speak baldly. Sometimes, we don't couch things in a easy, smooth manner. Sometimes, we are the hairy chested brutes. And sometimes, women are the sweaty toothed, jealous, cub protecting mommas.
That isn't meant to be an insult, it simply is. It's not diplomatic, it's not pc. It simply is.
I for one love the strides that have been made with women and equality. I think they should be paid the same as men when doing the same job. But i don't think it necessary to deball men to make women equal. And that's what I was talking about.
Whats the old saying, there's not much difference between men and women, but vive la difference!
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
cleome46
or you can do the confusion 'til your head falls off
posted
I fail to understand why you should be the sole arbiter here of what terminology is insulting to females, or at least this female. Given that you are not, yourself, female.
Also, thanks for the "cub-protecting momma" line. It's always helpful to be reminded that a woman has to be a mother before she has the right to assume what you and countless others have apparently deemed appropriate behavior for her gender-- under circumstances that you and you alone get to decide.
Done here now, except to say that so far as your initial point: you feel set aside and ignored as a consumer of pop culture. All I can say is welcome to the world of millions of women, people of color, et al. Anyone who's not a White dude. Some small fraction of the almighty market has now informed you that you just don't rate.
Stinks, doesn't it?
Having been on the other end of that more times than I can count, and having heard you and others like you say, "That's just the companies wanting to make money" and similar dodges-- I could laugh my rear off right now. But I won't.
As usual in these discussions, you are free to respond but I won't be reading your response. Carry on.
-------------------- Hey, Kids! My "Cranky and Kitschy" collage art is now viewable on flickr. Drop by and tell me that I sent you.
From: Vanity, OR | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by rickshaw1: The mentality is different. Due to some idiot that limited things to either nature or nurture, not getting that reality is the melding of the two combined with the life experiences, you can take hormones, you can have surgery, you can "act" like either a male or female, but you are what you are. There is a natural range of life in each of us. At times, I'm simply a sweet, easy going guy. At other times, I'm all testosterony and would face hell with a bucket of water and you can keep the bucket.
And the same ranges exist in women. But, due to life, due to nature, due to life experiences, we are each gonna face things at a different mental state. They might be two microns off from each other, but they will still be approached from different places, even though the destination may be the same.
...
And sometimes, guys speak baldly. Sometimes, we don't couch things in a easy, smooth manner. Sometimes, we are the hairy chested brutes. And sometimes, women are the sweaty toothed, jealous, cub protecting mommas.
That isn't meant to be an insult, it simply is. It's not diplomatic, it's not pc. It simply is.
One of the worst excuses people ever give for justifying discrimination is, as Bruce Hornsby put it, "that's the way it is". Discrimination rears it's ugly head in many different ways, such as saying certain people shouldn't do certain things because of who they are, or saying people should behave in certain ways because of who they are. The most insidious part of discriminating is that people don't always realize they are doing it. They assume that some universal law supports their prejudices.
Rick, you have very strong notions of what makes a man a man and what makes a woman a woman, but you don't seem to leave much room for individuality. In my experience, many men are never "hairy chested brutes" who "speak baldly"; large numbers of women I've known are never "jealous, cub-protecting mommas" (I'm not sure how anyone, male or female, could be "sweaty-toothed"). Yet your posts imply that those aspects are inescapable parts of our being. Better learn to live with it, 'cause you can't change it.
In some respects, our culture at large is to blame -- it discourages men from displaying their nurturing, emotional side; it also discourages women from being take-charge and unemotional. Yet those are human traits, not male or female traits. The cultural revolution that began in the 1960s has challenged such deeply ingrained notions, fostering the idea that people should be free to be who they are, regardless of gender.
Why not treat the protagonists and writers of books (science fiction or any other genre) as individuals, not as representatives of whatever gender they happen to be? If you don't like vampire/goth novels, fine. But to say that there are no decent male characters in them is a hard generalization to support, unless you've read every one of them.
[ January 23, 2011, 07:38 PM: Message edited by: He Who LSHes ]
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Good, cause i don't want this to escalate any more than it already has. Look, I don't know the experiences you've had in life, and you don't know mine. I am married to one of those sweaty toothed mammas... and she's a damn fine woman. It isn't deragotory. Its one of the most powerful drives in human nature. No, I don't get to determine what insults everyone.
but, as you've noted, you seem to take everything i have ever written to heart. For some reason, I seem to, without trying or even knowing I am, get under your skin. And thats a bad thing.
I've backed off several times out of respect for both you and Legionworld. Apparantly, yours is the only opinion, and a very touchy one at that, that matters to you. I wasn't in this post talking to you directly, or even indirectly. I was lamenting the lack of something that I grew up with and miss, guys with intelligent, guts, and the ability to use them.
So, in the interst of this board and the respect I have for you, how bout we just avoid each other here. I dont' know the problems you seem to have had in the past, but I'm tired of being their target.
And if others think my time here has come to an end, I'll respect them and move on. But otherwise, rather than turn this place into a war zone like far too many other boards, I'll just not post to you and you don't post to me. I'm here for freindship, not to play whipping boy to whatever problems you've had with others in the past. If this is stating things to obviously for folks... they just have to say the word.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
quote:Originally posted by rickshaw1: The mentality is different. Due to some idiot that limited things to either nature or nurture, not getting that reality is the melding of the two combined with the life experiences, you can take hormones, you can have surgery, you can "act" like either a male or female, but you are what you are. There is a natural range of life in each of us. At times, I'm simply a sweet, easy going guy. At other times, I'm all testosterony and would face hell with a bucket of water and you can keep the bucket.
And the same ranges exist in women. But, due to life, due to nature, due to life experiences, we are each gonna face things at a different mental state. They might be two microns off from each other, but they will still be approached from different places, even though the destination may be the same.
...
And sometimes, guys speak baldly. Sometimes, we don't couch things in a easy, smooth manner. Sometimes, we are the hairy chested brutes. And sometimes, women are the sweaty toothed, jealous, cub protecting mommas.
That isn't meant to be an insult, it simply is. It's not diplomatic, it's not pc. It simply is.
One of the worst excuses people ever give for justifying discrimination is, as Bruce Hornsby put it, "that's the way it is". Discrimination rears it's ugly head in many different ways, such as saying certain people shouldn't do certain things because of who they are, or saying people should behave in certain ways because of who they are. The most insidious part of discriminating is that people don't always realize they are doing it. They assume that some universal law supports their prejudices.
Rick, you have very strong notions of what makes a man a man and what makes a woman a woman, but you don't seem to leave much room for individuality. In my experience, many men are never "hairy chested brutes" who "speak baldly"; large numbers of women I've known are never "jealous, cub-protecting mommas" (I'm not sure how anyone, male or female, could be "sweaty-toothed"). Yet your posts imply that those aspects are inescapable parts of our being. Better learn to live with it, 'cause you can't change it.
In some respects, our culture at large is to blame -- it discourages men from displaying their nurturing, emotional side; it also discourages women from being take-charge and unemotional. Yet those are human traits, not male or female traits. The cultural revolution that began in the 1960s has challenged such deeply ingrained notions, fostering the idea that people should be free to be who they are, regardless of gender.
Why not treat the protagonists and writers of books (science fiction or any other genre) as individuals, not as representatives of whatever gender they happen to be? If you don't like vampire/goth novels, fine. But to say that there are no decent male characters in them is a hard generalization to support, unless you've read every one of them.
Because they are representatives, and poor ones right now. They are very one dimentional derivative characters from what I gather. I mentioned above that obviously NOT ALL fit my perception. I don't know how to say it any better. However, right now I would say that our culture ONLY supports the nurturing side of men. Men are no longer allowed to be strong unless it falls into a very narrow description.
But I wont apologize for having my own tastes. Like i said in my resonse to cle, If I need to move on, just say the word.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
posted
The decision to "move on" is entirely yours, Rick. I don't want you to leave. I enjoy your posts, even when we disagree--no, especially when we disagree. It's good to have a viewpoint that challenges my own. It helps me to clarify my own thinking.
But only you can decide if enough is enough. If you're going to post strong opinions on any given topic, you have to be prepared for some to disagree with you and for some to even take offense.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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