L.J. Writes

Discussions of abuse, trauma, and mental illness follow.

I read an article about human trafficking in Texas a couple days back when a section on the mental health issues of trafficked sex workers caught my eye. The first condition mentioned was dissociative identity disorder (DID), which makes sense because prostitutes as a group suffer high rates of child sexual abuse and incest (85% and 70% respectively in the study cited). This kind of severe and repeated abuse in childhood is a leading cause of DID, so it makes sense that prostitutes would have high instances of DID. I'm not only talking about pre-prostitution trauma, either. As stated in the linked rapeis.org page the average age of entry into prostitution is 13, meaning many sex workers are still children.

( Child abuse, rape and more below the fold )

A couple of days ago I got an anonymous comment on an old post about sucky historical fiction. It's certainly not the first negative comment I've received--I have received some, especially on the Zutara posts--but it is the first, as far as I remember, that takes me to task for having a "typical feminist vibe." How dare I, for instance, say a book was ill-written just because it has a racist character? (I didn't.) Why did I think it was necessary to make an ethical and feminist criticism of a rape scene written for erotic enjoyment? (...Seriously?) And the greatest sin of all: How could I unfairly expect historical accuracy of comics, and be dumb enough to think comics are a source for historical research? (LOLWHUT NO THIS is my research, bitch.)

It was a busy two days watching Legend of Korra and working, so today I finally got around to dishing out the verbal whumping that the comment so richly deserved. I don't know how the anon found that particular post, since I have reviewed much more prominent works that some fraction of English speakers are actually likely to consume, but better not look a gift horse in the mouth.

Most of all, I wonder if this means that MRAs and assorted anti-feminists have discovered my journal and I can expect our anon to bring along friends to yell at the mean feminist. I already directed the anon to my feminism tag so they can get properly outraged. I feel like I've been preparing for this my whole life, there's so much MRA bait here. How about a book review using the dread feminist construct, rape culture? The one where I pillory a romantically-minded white knight who is no doubt a Nice Guy(TM) all around? Or the one where I criticize the rhetorical tactics of the leading MRA outlet A Voice for Men?

Could I have I finally hit the big time, at least with disgruntled sexists? One can only hope--MRAs are always so hilarious to spar with.

I read a Guernica article called La Milonguera which was about the author's experience living in Buenos Aires and rooming with a milonguera, female tango dancer whom the author gave the pseudonym Romina.

I found the piece itself sort of boring and pointless, to be honest. At places it captured the atmosphere of the city's tango scene in interesting ways, and the way Romina lost her tango career to an accident was genuinely sad. From there, though, it was just one thing after another without any clear point or context and lost steam toward the end.

( DO NOT WANT )

So try as I might to view Christopher's comment in the best light, I still find his white-knight complex about Romina disturbing. This probably has roots in my own background: My father's sincere and overwhelming desire to protect me from all harm, well into adolescence and now adulthood, all too often led to verbal and emotional abuse when I wouldn't comply with his demands and, in his eyes, endangered myself. The need to protect someone who isn't in need of it, the urge to see someone who is fully capable as being helpless--those are all too often code for a need to control the person, and I know not to trust the offer of such "protection."

I'm reading Story Engineering by Larry Brooks--almost finished it, in fact. The good news is I found it pretty helpful. I'll probably review it later on, and will use the method described in the book to outline my novels in progress.

The bad news is that the book has its share of fails when it comes to sex and relationship in stories. One of these moments involves Thelma and Louise and the others involve romance in fiction. I figured I'd get my complaints out of the way before I discuss the rest of the book later on.

( I don't think that expression means what you think it means )

The point of this post isn't to say "Larry Brooks is a terrible human being and no one should read his books!" In fact, I started out by saying his book is pretty good. Rather, this post is my attempt to unpack my own reactions. Unless I work through them thoroughly I'm going to find the ignored feelings of fear and anger coming out in other, sneaky ways, so I wanted to confront and deal with them first to give the book a fair shake.

Also, tempting as it may be when I'm feeling angry or threatened, I don't think Larry Brooks is a bad guy, either. I don't know him, but he seems to love his wife and is in most likelihood a decent guy like most men are. It would be so much easier if sexism were a matter of a few "bad apples" as some would like to believe. Instead, sexism is a hard problem precisely because it's a systematic, not personal issue--so pervasive that it sneaks into all sorts of media like this book, and because good people internalize these ideas not out of bad intentions but out of inertia. I know I'm not free of sexist ideas myself because I live in a system that perpetuates these ideas. The best I can do is critically examine and evaluate them, both in myself and it others. This is one of my attempts at that kind of critical examination.

Phyllis Ann Karr's Frostflower and Thorn and Frostflower and Windbourne were published in 1980 and 1982 respectively. The sorceress Frostflower and warrior Thorn hail from the Tanglelands, the kind of gritty, dangerous pseudo-Medieval European fantasy setting that is very much at home in the eighties and which is seeing a resurgence in the aughts and teens of this century. (If the descriptors "gritty," "dangerous," and "pseudo-Medieval" remind you of anything, Frostflower and Thorn begins with a note that it was first written during George R. R. Martin's Clarke College workshop in 1977.)

( Worldbuilding, pacing, feministing )