Portrayals of Rape in Fiction: An Exploration of Where It’s Done Wrong or Right and Why

By:  TempestRants
Portrayals of Rape in Fiction: An Exploration of Where It's Done Wrong or Right and Why

I’ve been thinking about writing this post since the Take Back The SciFi Redux panel at WisCon where we talked about media that portrayed rape in a horrid, sketchy way but also mentioned some media that did it well. The latter list was very small, as you can imagine.

I’ve railed against the way writers of books and television shows and movies use rape at least twice before. But there are obviously some people who still don’t get it, and they don’t know why they don’t get it. What makes the portrayal of rape in book X palatable to me, but the portrayal in book Y sends me into a fit of rage?

There are three books I’ve read in recent years that make excellent examples – two bad examples, one positive example:

Below is a description of each book that contains spoilers for the story and possible triggers for those who’ve been raped or sexually assaulted, so please take care when clicking. Though my hope is that the issues raised will be more helpful than harmful. Click here to read.

Random Political Blog Post

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets

So, Carly Fiorina. I feel like that woman is really crazy and should not be a senator. But here’s some other things I do know about her.

  1. She really wanted HP to merge with Compaq. Really. She even fought the son of one of the founders of the company to make this thing happen, and the fight was nasty. But the merger happened, and then  HP became the biggest computer manufacturer in the world. Though there was a dip for a time, the company is the biggest today, and much of that is due to her insistence on that merger. Because, really, HP computers were kind of a joke before then. Now you can’t walk through a college campus without seeing a ton of HP laptops looking sad and depressed next to the much cooler Macs.
  2. Walter Hewlett warned that if HP focused on the personal computer market, they would lose the lead they had in printers. Remember when HP’s printers were the best, hands down? The merger ended that. So, uh, thanks Carly?
  3. A lot of the shit she got as CEO of HP seemed to me, at the time, to be fueled not by her actual management, but by sexism. She was the first female CEO of a Fortune 20 company and Forbes named her one of the most powerful women in America. And whenever a woman gets too powerful, people bring out the knives. Now, it may be true that she wasn’t a great CEO. But so much of the rhetoric about her at the time (that I remember) was so tinged with sexist overtones, that I always had a hard time believing she was as bad as men said she was.
  4. All that aside, she should not be a senator. She thinks that other Republicans are demon sheep. That’s not healthy.

Magazine / eBook Coding Project Meetup At ReaderCon

By:  TempestGeekitude
Magazine / eBook Coding Project Meetup At ReaderCon

Since a good number of the people who are interested in helping with and hammering out details on the eBook Magazine project I posed about will be at Readercon in a few weeks, I think it would be a good idea to have a meetup there. I know there are several of you interested who won’t be there, so hopefully I can get together with you online to make sure we know about the skill sets, availability, and ideas of everyone who wants to be involved.

For the peeps who’ll be at Readercon, how does meeting during the dinner break (yes, over actual dinner) on Saturday sound?

For the online component of this project, people seem to use Google Sites to good effect for organizing such things. Would anyone be interested in setting up one of those with both public and private areas?

If You Build This, Magazines Will Come

By:  TempestTechnology
If You Build This, Magazines Will Come

During WisCon I had a brief conversation with Jed Hartman about my continued sadness that more online magazines don’t have an eBook version of their stories so I can easily load them on my eReader and thus read more fiction. He agreed that Things Must Be Done, but there are questions of logistics and reader/audience desires plus the technology to make it all happen. We came to the conclusion that making this work is about more than just creating an eBook version of the magazine, but also delivery and access. There’s a niche here that needs filling, but in order to do that, we’re going to need coders.

I want to propose an open source coding project and gather coders around me to make it happen, but I have no flippin’ idea how to do that. I also want to get some more feedback on this idea and work out the kinks. Luckily, I have a blog, so I totally know how to do that. So here are the questions, issues, problems, and goals I see surrounding all of this.

  1. Relatively easy eBook creation. Though programs like Calibre can create EPUB (and other eBook format) files, Tobias Buckell recently pointed out to me that this is not the optimal solution. He equated it to people using Microsoft Word to create web pages. Yes, the program can do it, but the code it generates is from hell. Not fit for anyone except really clueless newbies. We wouldn’t want that for these eBooks. So a primary aspect is to figure out who or what will generate clean code for EPUB.
  2. How many eBooks? Many online magazines do the monthly or semi-monthly thing, but for those that publish every week, do readers want an eBook for every story, or is one per month good?
  3. Free or Not Free? Many online magazines are free, which is a yay. Should their eBooks be free as well? I am personally in favor of charging a small amount for the files for the convenience of having the eBook format. The fiction will still be free on the website, of course. What are other people’s thoughts on this?
  4. Delivery System. Outfits like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Sony will deliver magazines to subscribers automatically, but only if you have a device that stays within their ecosystem. Like, if I subscribe to a magazine through B&N but use my Sony Reader to read it, it won’t show up each month on its own, I’d have to download then transfer it. Plus, I imagine that many online magazines would want to sell or make their eBook versions available through independent eBookstores or just from their site. I had an idea that I’d like to be able to embed and deliver eBooks with an RSS feed like you do with podcasts. That way, if you subscribe to the feed, you automatically get the file. It would be nice if this worked with paid eBook files as well. This is where the major coding work comes in. How do you set this kind of thing up? And would you need an accompanying program to then transfer the eBook to your eReader?
  5. Subscriptions or Individual Payments? Going along with the system I described above, will readers want to subscribe up front to many months worth of a magazine or would they be happier just paying per month?

This is what I’ve come up with so far, but please feel free to add anything else you think should be under consideration and please give your thoughts, solutions, etc. to the above. I feel that if this is done right, we may end up with a really cool program or online service that can handle all of these things. But, as I said, I’d want this to be open source and made available to magazines for little or no cost, if possible.

I’d love any suggestions on how to proceed from here.

How to Find/Read Me

By:  TempestGeekitude

When I welcomed new friends and readers last week I forgot to do that thing where I say “here’s where to find me” in case people don’t do the RSS thing. So here it is:

LiveJournal: I’m here as ktempest and the journal there is essentially a mirror of this journal here at fluidartist.com. The only difference between the mirror and an RSS feed is that the entries show up under my own username with my LJ icon. You can’t comment there, which I know is a sadness. But keeping up with two comment threads gave me the vapors. I do friend people back on LJ because I do read the FList there (not as frequently as I used to). If you’d like me to friend you, please introduce yourself.

Dreamwidth: I’m here as ktempest also but that journal is on lockdown. Only people I’ve granted access to can see the majority of my posts there. There’s nothing super secret going on. I just want to use that journal as a place to have the kind of conversations that can only happen when you choose the company selectively. If you subscribe to me there and I don’t subscribe back or grant you access to my locked posts, please do not take it as a sign I don’t like you. However, if you do add me, I would appreciate you introducing yourself as I sometimes don’t match up the person with their LJ/Dreamwidth handle and my brain needs a bit of help. If you want to read the posts from the fluidartist.com journal on Dreamwidth, there’s an RSS feed.

Twitter: I’m tinytempest here. Twitter is full of randomness and I just add to the noise. I do not always follow people who follow me. I’m starting to realize how mean I am!

Facebook: If you search for K Tempest Bradford you should be able to find me. Or just hit the link there. Though Facebook is evil with the privacy stuff I still like it overall because it can act as a hub for almost every social network. Whenever I post here, there’s a notification there. When I review something on Yelp, add a picture to Flickr, etc. My Twitter and Facebook are not mirrored, though. Sometimes I post something to both, but usually it’s one or the other. I friend back most people on Facebook, but I also filter pretty heavily there, too. It’s really, really helpful to me when people include a message with the friend request saying “Hey, this is where/how I met you” or “this is how I know you” or “I’m a friend of your friend” or whatever. Sometimes people just say “hey, I read your story and liked it, want to stay up to date” and that’s just fine, too.

Realms of Fantasy: Full Of Some Ethnicity You Don’t Care To Read About

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
Realms of Fantasy: Full Of Some Ethnicity You Don't Care To Read About

An io9 commenter on why she won’t renew her subscription to Realms of Fantasy:

I really don’t like the ethnocentric view a lot of the short stories have. I don’t really care about reading their multitudes of hispanic fantasy, or their african american fantasy. It’s just not culture I’m interested in, so I end up flipping past half the magazine because they, without fail, -always- focus on some ethnicity I don’t care to read about.

I can’t even begin to unpack the racefail here because I’m too busy going: wait, is that true? I don’t even read the magazine (despite having multiple free issues pushed on me) but I don’t remember anyone saying to me recently “Have you seen all the wonderful ethnocentricity going on in Realms, lately?”

Regular readers, care to enlighten?

Via Nick Mamatas. In the comments someone points out that it may just be a case of them seeing one non-white protag and going OMG the mud people took ovah!

Atheists: A Repost

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
Atheists: A Repost

It’s an unfortunate feature of a certain strand of contemporary atheism that it doesn’t treat religious believers as fellow humans with whom we disagree, but as tards who function primarily as objects of ridicule. And ridicule has its place. But sometimes it’s gratuitous. Sure, there are stupid/crazy religious people; there are also stupid/crazy atheists, and black people, and white people, and gays, and straights, and Republicans, and Democrats, and Sixers fans, and Celtics fans, and so on. Focusing on the stupidest among those with whom you disagree is a sign of weakness, not of strength.

It seems to me that the default stance of a proud secular humanist should be to respect other people as human beings, even if we definitively and unambiguously think they are wrong.

–Sean Carroll

I would point out the above to some of the folks in this mess but… I need my sanity this weekend.

WisCon by the Twitters: Dollhouse – Made of Win or Full of Fail?

By:  TempestConventions

I was recruited to this panel the night before as Charlie Jane wanted to balance the panel out. She was apparently afraid there’d be too many “made of win” people. The discussion got heated several times and no one recorded my meltdown of fury at Anastasia. But overall it was productive and awesome:

@tinytempest #Dollhouse panel starting. This ought to be good.

@cabell Feeling a little trepidatious at the Dollhouse panel.

@MsAnastasia Starting my last panel of #Wiscon – a Dollhouse debate that already is sounding potentially heated. First up: separation of body from self.

@cabell Is Dollhouse biz model realistic? Only if u assume rich ppl are all in a big self-protective club… so yeh, probly.

@swanberg Dollhouse is a big hot mess. Sometimes the mess outweighs the hot, sometimes the hot outweighs the mess. -Kater Cheek

@swanberg Hiring a doll is like saying to Jessica Fletcher “Yes, I’d love to come to your cottage.” -Kater

@swanberg Enver was the best part of the show. He is amazing. – panel & audience

@madmarvelgirl ‘a piece of art does not have to be a female empowerment story to be profoundly feminist

@swanberg I don’t think a story has to be a female empowerment story to be proundly feminist. – member of audience

@cabell How does English prof afford Echo? Tempest: He edited a book all freshmen have to buy that w/new edition every year!

@cabell Tempest & Ana agree: any feminism in Dollhouse happened by accident & had nothing to do with Joss Whedon.

@tinytempest “The less I liked Echo, the more I liked the people who were keeping her down.” Kater Cheek

@madmarvelgirl ‘i will take evil & competent over cute & feckless any day of the week’

@swanberg Black handler with no sexual interst in Echo. If her handler had been white “what, is he gay?” Erases Boyd’s sexuality

@jdawley Audience member: Alpha gave Echo the ability to integrate her personalities. Charlie Jane: Well, she had midichlorians.

@cabell Come on, if ur working w/Eliza Dushku, u need her 2 act confused as much as possible. Play 2 her strengths

@Hamaker88 Oooh. Panel fight!!

@cabell I have no patience with authorial intent. Intentions don’t matter. WHAT YOU DID/PUT ON MY TV matters.

@rhiannonrevolts @cabell That’s my POV. Also, cultural studies all about reading any authorial intent through lens of sociocultural influences, so…

@sigridellis Dollhouse panel was raucous and wild, but ultimately productive, I thought.

WisCon by the Twitters: The Revenge of the Not Another Fucking Race Panel

By:  TempestConventions

Here are the tweets I could find posted during the Revenge of the Not Another Fucking Race Panel at WisCon 34. A good time was definitely had by all:

@tinytempest Narrowly escaped being the Vanna White of this panel.

@wrdnrd This year’s not-another-race-panel features super awesome category “what would johanna do??” (Don’t cry, sis!)

@tinytempest @ceciliatan is DIRTY! hahahaha

@swanberg What small furryanimal would make the best zombie?

@alothian Which animal would make the best zombie? Andrea Hairston: kangaroos have handy pouches for body parts.

@yamainu Marsupial zombies rock the to-go bag

@tinytempest Amal: clearly it is time to breed the veliciraptor and the zombie. The Velocizombie’s time has come.

@tinytempest Sheveta: “Brains are smelly.” Amal: “But also delicious!”

@nivairface Peacock zombies! Oh my! I looove Not Another F%&$*ing Race Panel.

@alothian Discussion of tastiness of human brains. Amal El-Mohtar: the garlic slogan should be: even brains taste good with garlic.

@nivairface “Wow, we’re all women on this panel! … Oh, that’s right, WisCon.” <3333

@nivairface “Read the fanfic; there’s more sex.” GOOD TIP FOR LIFE. Thanks, Cecilia Tan!

@tinytempest “I would try to not have any emotions when people who said stupid things to me.” Andrea Hairston on her Spock impression as a kid.

@nivairface If you haven’t seen Andrea D. Hairston be Mr. Spock, you haven’t lived. ;)

@alothian Andrea Hairston talks about impersonating Spock as an academic persona: “Fascinating, but incorrect.”

@tinytempest “I feel like I have a long history of embarassment involving Mercedes Lackey.” @sparkymonster

@wrdnrd I love everyone on this panel SO HARD.

@tinytempest @ceciliatan: “Ricky Martin was pretending to be asleep in the next bed when I lost my virginity.”

@tinytempest @ceciliatan (continued) “Later, he told a friend of mine that that’s what turned him gay.” @ricky_martin

Several people tweeted the above :)

@yamainu Cecilia Tan admits to turning Ricky Martin gay, thus ensuring a best-selling autobiography.

@wrdnrd Cecilia Tan: “Now THAT’s a fic i could write.”

@tinytempest “If Tolkien can do it, you can do it.”

@wrdnrd WWjD question: Have you ever veganized a recipe or altered one for celiacs & had it go horribly wrong — or right?

@tinytempest Amal: “It’s not like she’s trying to eat vegetables to get back at them.”

@kiyasjoy Bourbon fixes everything!! @sparkymonster

@swanberg “I have learned not to disrespect cornmeal” @yoon li

@alothian What cybernetic enhancement would you choose? @sparkymonster: TWITTER IMPLANT. I concur.

@tinytempest Andrea Hairston “I want to BE a robot overlord. Fucking having an implant.”

@alothian @ceciliatan, not @sparkymonster, wanted the Twitter implant. Clearly I need it to help divide attention… Sorry!

@raanve This panel is the friggin best.

@swanberg “Kahnnnnnnn!” – the entire audience

@raanve Is there anything better than an ENTIRE ROOM yelling “Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!” ?? I THINK NOT.

@raanve Can we talk about Tasha Yar? Let’s!

@raanve Tasha Yar People: srsly, that tar monster? So much b-s! She & Data need to get their time in the sun.

@nivairface “In every show there are now red shirts, and I feel for them.” – Andrea Hairston

@kiyasjoy Uhura totally has a katana!!

@swanberg That’s your daddy issues – @sparkymonster to @CeliaTan

@wrdnrd WWjD question: What’s interesting in Finland?

@tinytempest Amal “Reindeers, like brains, are delicious.”

@swanberg “Khaaannnnn! yells that aren’t Khan. GO!” Wisconnnnnn! @Sparkymonster

@raanve Khan yells with names other than KHAN: I submit “Simon LeBooooonnnnnnnnn!”

@jdawley Not Another F’-ng Race Panel. “Kirk yells something that isn’t Khaaaaaan!!! Go!” Unanimous answer: “WisCooooooooooonnn!!!”

WisCon by the Twitters: Chicks Dig Time Lords

By:  TempestConventions

These are the tweets I could find associated with Friday’s Chicks Dig Time Lords panel at WisCon 34. It was a lot of fun talking about Doctor Who with such fine people, and Twitter can only capture part of it:

@tinytempest “I was seduced into Doctor Who fandom by a really cute boy” says @lynnemthomas

@rhiannonrevolts Asking me who my Doctor is…hard. Ten IS me, but I love others.

@rhiannonrevolts Really agreeing with @tinytempest about companions. Martha Jones saves the world!

@yamainu “Our fandom is bigger on the inside.” heard at Doctor Who panel.

@rhiannonrevolts RTD is going to get smacked by @tinytempest and I will laugh.

@charliejane i wanna watch! RT @rhiannonrevolts: RTD is going to get smacked by @tinytempest and I will laugh.

@rhiannonrevolts Martha Jones’ feelings for the Doctor were handled wrong, says @lynnemthomas and I agree.

@tinytempest “What’s the Tom Baker episode where he fellates an alien?”

@rhiannonrevolts RTD and teh Moff really have issues with women.