Wonderful review! The summary: What does a girl want? According to Heinlein: spanking, gangbangs, and washing dishes and the youtube video had me in stitches.
The notion that this guy who has been a rich and powerful corporate patriarch for the last few decades would let another man turn him over his knee and give him a spanking. And have an orgasm as a result.
Are you aware of the concept of male gaze? John Berger wrote in his book Ways of Seeing: Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female.
If you think of Smith's enthusiasm for being an attractive, sexually active woman despite a lifetime of heterosexuality as an expression of the male gaze then the plot does make sense to me.
You may occasionally hear his stalwart defenders waxing with neckbeardy enthusiasm about "Heinleinian women," who are generally strong (for a certain value of "strong"), independent (for a certain value of "independent"), super-competent female characters. They are also always, always, hyper-feminine and super-hot male fantasies.
The first and last Heinlein book I read was "Time Enough for Love." And I did read that in HS which is when I did most of my old skool scifi reading. Suffice to say, I was not a fan. On one hand Heinlein does have actual female characters which a lot of old skool scifi authors don't bother with. You allude to this with the phrase "Heinleinian Women." Can't really say that there's a commensurate archetype for "Asimovian Women" or "Zelaznian Women."
But the fact that practically all of his female characters serve as a source of sex or nurturing for his male characters is such rage-inducing component of his novels. I don't think I can read his classics without bursting a blood vessel. Yeah, his women are free love proponents and not virginal but its the kind of rancid free love that's about making sex available on tap to the male. Not an uncommon view that blights a lot of hippie writers. Remember reading Steppenwolf at the same time as Heinlein and eye-rolling at that scene where the protagonist Harry and his friend Pablo trade nights with Marie without even consulting her because Harry needs some sexy nurturing to ameliorate his existential crisis.
no subject
The notion that this guy who has been a rich and powerful corporate patriarch for the last few decades would let another man turn him over his knee and give him a spanking. And have an orgasm as a result.
Are you aware of the concept of male gaze? John Berger wrote in his book Ways of Seeing: Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female.
If you think of Smith's enthusiasm for being an attractive, sexually active woman despite a lifetime of heterosexuality as an expression of the male gaze then the plot does make sense to me.
You may occasionally hear his stalwart defenders waxing with neckbeardy enthusiasm about "Heinleinian women," who are generally strong (for a certain value of "strong"), independent (for a certain value of "independent"), super-competent female characters. They are also always, always, hyper-feminine and super-hot male fantasies.
The first and last Heinlein book I read was "Time Enough for Love." And I did read that in HS which is when I did most of my old skool scifi reading. Suffice to say, I was not a fan. On one hand Heinlein does have actual female characters which a lot of old skool scifi authors don't bother with. You allude to this with the phrase "Heinleinian Women." Can't really say that there's a commensurate archetype for "Asimovian Women" or "Zelaznian Women."
But the fact that practically all of his female characters serve as a source of sex or nurturing for his male characters is such rage-inducing component of his novels. I don't think I can read his classics without bursting a blood vessel. Yeah, his women are free love proponents and not virginal but its the kind of rancid free love that's about making sex available on tap to the male. Not an uncommon view that blights a lot of hippie writers. Remember reading Steppenwolf at the same time as Heinlein and eye-rolling at that scene where the protagonist Harry and his friend Pablo trade nights with Marie without even consulting her because Harry needs some sexy nurturing to ameliorate his existential crisis.