Wait...WHAT?

[serai]

.

So...did any of you have any idea that Anne McCaffrey is a fucking loon?


It’s a proven fact that a single anal sex experience causes one to be homosexual. The hormones released by a sexual situation involving the anus being broached, are the same hormones found in large quantities in effeminate homosexual males. For example, when I was much younger I knew a young man who was for all intents and purposes, heterosexual. He was mugged, and involved in a rape situation involving a tent peg. This one event was enough to have him start on a road that eventually led to him becoming effeminate and gay.

-- From a transcript of a Q&A with Anne McCaffrey, at the Weyr Horror Stories message board thread, message dated Thursday Jan 22, 2004.


I've never read any of her books, because frankly I've got better things to do with my brain than stuff it with silly-ass dragon fantasies, and now I'm thinking I'm VERY VERY GLAD that none of my money ever went to supporting this batshit moron.

Comments

[vshendria.livejournal.com]

Oh, my god. That is unspeakable. I read some of her books when I was a teen but have long since lost any interest in them. If I were, I would now boycott them.

For some reason, I always assume that fantasy and sci-fi writers are liberal-minded. Apparently not.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Oohhhh dear. No, they are not necessarily liberal at all. Orson Scott Card is one example of a decidedly NON-liberal SF writer. This broad is another. And of course there's Lord L.Ron. No, saying science fiction is necessarily liberal is like saying paganism is liberal - some is, some isn't. And the bits that aren't, REALLY aren't.

[lindmere.livejournal.com]

Great googly moogly! That may be one of the most ignorant, ill-informed and just plain batshit things I've ever read.

Yeah, and dopey dragons suck.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Insane, isn't it?

And yeah, I remember when I worked at Dangerous Visions, a sci-fi bookstore here in L.A. Seeing the half a million books under this woman's name, I couldn't for the life of me imagine why anyone would waste their time on such tripe. But then, there were a LOT of series in that store that seemed like a waste of time to me.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Well, I like the early books -- and, quite frankly, since all of the dragonriders except the queen rider were male, and dragons in heat invariably caused their riders to have a really really really good time with each other, this quaint misconception of hers (a single example doth not a generalization make) did lead her to inventing an entire society which was dependent on the good will and efforts of a bunch of guys who were fucking each other. And some of them quite possessive of each other, too, in a 'this isn't just about the dragons' kind of way. And no one judges them for it either!

But she has gotten a bit strange in her old age.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

An author's fiction and reality don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. After a few years of reading Fandom Wank, I've certainly learned that.

[ink-gypsy.livejournal.com]

This quite surprises me. Pern, the world McCaffrey created, has always been a place where sexuality isn't an issue. In fact, one of the storylines in Dragonseye, my favorite of her books, involves two male dragon riders who are lovers. I would never have expected her to speak so ignorantly about homosexuality. Perhaps old age has addled her brain. She has turned the reins of Pern over to her son, Todd, who after several collaborations with his mother, is now writing the world on his own. Maybe that's a good thing.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Well, there are more than a few women writing slash who nonetheless think homosexuality is evil and wrong, so I'd have to say that her little stories prove nothing at all. Like I said, I'm glad I never read any of them, especially given the falsity of her "world construction".

[ink-gypsy.livejournal.com]

women writing slash who nonetheless think homosexuality is evil and wrong

That surprises me even more. How can you write something you have such distaste for?

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Don't ask me for an explanation; I think it's bugfuck insane. But there've been very amusing Wanks along just these lines. You can't fathom some minds.

[samena.livejournal.com]

Whuh? This guy was raped with a tent peg and this caused him to be gay? That's the bigest crock of s##t I've ever heard. Undoubtedly the experience had a deep psychological effect on him, and it may have caused him to change his life, but I doubt it "made" him gay, if he didn't already have those tendencies within him. And I severely doubt that the act itself - the actual being raped with a tent peg - made the guy go: 'hey, that was fun! I think I want to do this for the rest of my life!'

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Yeah, weird, isn't it? Kinda reminds me of the guys who think that raping a lesbian will "cure" her. What the hell kind of sick mind entertains thoughts like these?

[strangerian.livejournal.com]

This was mentioned in at least one previous LJ-and-blog, um, concatenated conversation, in 2004. It might have been something raying out from the "id vortex" discussion (wasn't that in late 2004?) spread over numerous LJ posts and comment threads and blogs and whatnot, or it might have been sparked by a different initial post at roughly the same time.

It was startling to say the least that McCaffrey, once lovable or at least very readable as action fantasy, spouted this kind of nonsense at the end of a 40-year career. It does bring to mind that while she'd invented at least one society based on lots of male dragonriders having sex with each other (in the background), the surface storylines often tended to have conservative gender roles and relationships, some of them extremely regressive by any feminist standard.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Hm, not that surprising or unusual. Like I commented to ink_gypsy above, there are fic writers who love to write about guys doing each other but still think being gay is a sin. Just because a writer puts gay people in her stories doesn't mean she actually approves of their existence, or knows jack shit about the subject.

As to whether this was part of some pan-LJ thing, I don't know. I tend to stay away from that kind of far-ranging circle jerking, myself.

[biting-moopie.livejournal.com]

the surface storylines often tended to have conservative gender roles and relationships, some of them extremely regressive by any feminist standard.

They really are. It was why I gave up on her work. The Menolly books were great (although I might discover some fail if I re-read them, it's been a while) but McCaffrey has some serious issues that made for uncomfortable reading.

[lijahlover.livejournal.com]

WTF?

OMG is she strange or what?

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd say so. Maybe she was always of this mind, and just never said anything about it before. After all, filling your stories with gay characters doesn't mean you actually like actual gay people.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

*boggle*
Just...*boggle*.

(Btw, I know I've said weird conservative-like things in the past, but I'm over that! I'm a centrist now. And even back then in those weird days, I never thought homosexuality was wrong! Just in case I was meant to be one of those slash writers mentioned in another comment...)

[serai1.livejournal.com]

What? No! I've never heard you say anything along those lines. I was talking about ficcers I've seen pilloried on Fandom Wank. They can get really insane.

Also, glad to hear you've distanced yourself from the more, shall we say, special brand of political thinking in America. Things are getting seriously batshit over on that side of the fence.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Ah, whew. Well, there was some point at which some post or another of mine led another slasher to conclude that I "wanted government in the bedroom", which sounds about as un-sexy as possible to me. :) But hey, at least we're not Twilight fans. Now THERE'S an insane group--even more so because the canon material itself is insane.

Yeah, if nothing else, being centrist is far better for my career as a writer. Too much loyalty toward just one side doesn't help my ability to sympathize with all types of characters, which I need to be able to do. Also, politics makes nobody happy, as far as I can tell. So yeah. :)

[biting-moopie.livejournal.com]

LOLOLOLOL I remember this from FW. There's a 'tent pegs make you gay' meme there as well. McCaffrey is batshit. I liked the first few Pern books but then her issues with gender and class became apparent and I couldn't enjoy them anymore. So don't worry, you're not missing anything much.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's funny how so many people tend to assume all SF is very liberal and tolerant. There are some rather nasty people writing in this genre, and you can't always tell right off the bat. For example, I remember being severely disappointed when Orson Scott Card turned out to be such an asshole.