Weird Sex Books Can be Art, Too

 I was listening to my Play Later queue on my favourite podcast app - like my Youtube Watch Later playlist, it's rather unwieldy and extensive - and as usual, I ended up adding a recent episode that caught my fancy. 

This one happened to be about what might be the most notorious Canlit book, or even the most notorious Canadian book, of all time - Bear. 

Yes, I'm talking about the book where a woman falls in love with and has sex with a bear. That book. 

Content warning for sexual subject matter and allusions follows - if you couldn't tell by the title. Read at your own risk. There will also be spoilers for this and a few other books. As an additional note, I refer to "men" and "women" in this post, but it does not encompass the issues faced by fellow members of the LGBTQ+ community - although those issues are most comparable to the ones faced by those society perceives as women.

In case you want to follow along, here's the podcast.

Source.

Wait, come back

First off, I'm not going into any of the really explicit details. Here's the thing about sex - although many people, particularly Americans, have been trained into puritanical instincts of shock and fear at the mere mention of it, it's part of life. And sex on the page and in media isn't just about the physical act. It can show you things about the characters' relationship to each other. Masturbation or fantasies, solitary sex acts, can be used to show a character's mental state, self-esteem, or even frame them in the societal perceptions of others. 

One thing that's interesting is that - the entire thing is consensual. Yeah, yeah, I know, bestiality - but there isn't a sexual assault or aggressive force. Modern Amazon erotica, fanfic, and Litererotica certainly include more forceful encounters, as well as accidental ones, but this particular book takes a rather gentle approach.

(I am not endorsing bestiality in real life; animals cannot adequately consent. But it's okay for books to do weird, transgressive things; the issue of consent in fantasy and fiction is a thorny one that I won't get into here because it's so lengthy. The too long, didn't read version is - it's fine, because it isn't real life.) 

That said, the leisurely pace and naturalistic descriptions, as well as the exact use of the bear's tongue that you're expecting, lend a focus to female pleasure. That's somehow still a taboo topic even in this post Fifty Shades of Grey world; the MPAA has different standards for female and male bodies - to say nothing of nonbinary and trans bodies. 

But the world of literature has always smuggled in strange, weird, kinky things in the name of art. That might partly be because of the titillating thrill, but these peculiar pecadilloes are usually meant to show something about the world and characters, as I said previously.

So what's the book really about? 

The issues of settlers versus the Indigenous people, accommodating nature, the constructed world versus the natural one; gender differences, fantasy, fairy tales (Indigenous versus Western) - there's so much in this book. 

It's not even the first time I've noticed weird sex things in a literary fiction work - or Canlit in general. Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle had weird, kinky waltzing in an attic, with a taxidermist; Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood include some creative descriptions of dancing sex workers dressed like bird and lizard girls, as well as more disturbing child-related content (which is, of course, never condoned). Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion, from the English Patient series, includes a vivid description of snowballing. Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers includes both explicit and implied allusions to - well, the kind of sexual acts that one imagines when writing a novel during a summer of heat stroke. Anal sex, threesomes, forced masturbation - there's a lot. The poetry of Leonard Cohen and Shane Koyczan also spare few details. Timothy Findley's The Wars has a very, very specific description of gay pony play involving a scarf, as well as a sexual assault.

And that's just Canada. We're not even talking about Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath breastfeeding scene or the fact that Lawrence of Arabia (the first book, apart from Bear, that I haven't read) included lengthy descriptions of sexual assault that - allegedly - were the author's fantasy, and did not happen. But why are all of these books not considered smutty or derided as "trashy" romances? 

Not like other girls 

One thing about the interview, and about literary fiction in general, is that there is a sense of disdain directed at works intended to titillate women, or rather, political women (i.e. those who are perceived as women by society, whether or not they identify or are such). Somehow, it's fine to talk about sex as long as you don't get too turned on. In practice, of course, this means that men can write about pretty much whatever they want and still be considered Literary or Respectable. But if a woman(+) strikes a certain tone or is anything less than documentarian or even sneering in her interests - Lady Oracle's dismissive attitude towards romance comes to mind - then surely, it is but the frippery of feminine creatures. (More about this can be found in Dangerous Books for Girls, an excellent work.)

Despite critiquing the sexual prudence and hypocrisy of the Victorians, it would seem that Bear is not above the same snobbery. Victorians and their earlier counterparts panicked at the thought of women fantasizing, perhaps - gasp! - demanding more from their husbands, or worse, not marrying at all! Alexandre Dumas (pere) alluded to this in The Count of Monte Cristo, when Eugenie Danglars runs off with her lover, another woman, though he was fairly sympathetic to the character, who he described as "Sapphic." Victor Hugo even ridicules "The Thenardiess," Cosette's abusive mother, for "reading too many trashy novels" in Les Miserables, because her daughters get "ridiculous" names. 

Misogyny. It's just misogyny.

It's so tiresome. As I explained to my partner when sharing the podcasts, "when men write weird sex books, we accept them as transgressive legends; when women do it, we point and laugh." That's not to say we shouldn't accept and enjoy humour - Bear is intended to be humourous in tone at times, for example. But if we don't recognize the inherent absurdity of artistic situations, we can't fully appreciate their gravity. In folklore, "animal wives" and even "animal husbands" are a specific subcategory of the Arne-Thompson index.  Fantasy and science fiction offer the suspension of disbelief that allows authors to get away with sometimes terrible things - Piers Anthony's depictions of grown men having sex with youngish teenagers and his many, many sexual assault scenes come to mind. 

But what's perhaps worse is that concepts which would be labeled as romance if they were written by a woman completely fly under the radar when a male author is involved. Boy, are there a lot of litfic books about A Younger Attractive Woman (who is either Terrible or Perfect) who Revitalizes the Life of an Older Man. It's Manic Pixie Dream Girls all the way down. 

Is this an actual problem? 

Well - frankly, people can write whatever they want, and one can choose whether or not to read those books; that's not censorship, that's just personal choice. But I would encourage readers to try and think about how they talk and think about books, and try to take down the internal double standards we hold. This is a big problem for men - they can often recognize creepy behaviours from others, but not themselves, as a formerly male friend of mine verified. 

And of course, this lack of respect also affects women's literary careers. Men, and white people more broadly, not only get away with more, they get more money. And after a year of, to put it mildly, massive disruption in the publishing industry, we need to demand better for our PoC peers and ourselves going forward. 

And as another friend put it, "Explain why you dislike Twilight, and if the reasons are The Wrong Ones...Byeeeeeee." 

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and their two cats. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people’s manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible. Find her all over the internet: * OG Blog * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram * Facebook * Tumblr * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

Just a Sip: A Preview of New Work

Hello hello!

Well, my darling fans and followers, you have shown your love and gotten me over the 100 mark on my fan page. That's here, of course: https://www.facebook.com/SciFiMagpie

Right! So, without further ado, here is a preview of "A Shot of Vodka", a non-science fiction work I'll be putting out this winter. Christmas is the projected date. It's novella length, but I may be including another short story or two along with it.

Source. Of course, thanks to wiki, you can have ALL the vodka. However, this story is about something much more disturbing than whatever happened on your last liquor story adventure. I can pretty much guarantee that.

Of course, no work is complete without a sinister origin...
It was inspired by my first-ever, feverish reading of Doestoyevski's Crime and Punishment some years ago. The story got under my skin in a way that's difficult to describe. I think anyone else who's been really gripped by a story will understand. At the same time, I had a rather maniacal and slightly insane English teacher, who encouraged us to 'tear the book apart' and applied a culturally incorrect reading of the siblings' relationship to our analyses. One thing led to another, and I pursued study of the text on my own. It was the beginning of my love affair with Russian literature, which has continued to this day, but it also sowed the seeds of this novella. 
While there is an overlap in the character's names, they aren't intended to be fan fiction versions of the title characters of the masterpiece. Rather, they're children growing up in the shadows of famous namesakes, connected by coincidence to literary tragedies, but otherwise remote. And, as you'll learn in December, their tragedy follows a far different course. 

I will forewarn readers that while there is little disturbing content in my excerpt, the story contains sensitive material. This may not be an easy read, and may not be for everyone. There may or may not be heads split open by axes, but I've heard from critics that this is one of my darkest stories yet.

Enough teasing--let's get to that excerpt. Here, Avya introduces herself and her brother, and we get a small taste of some of the undercurrents disturbing her family's ordinary exterior.

*****

Rod and I were close. I did love my brother, and rather a lot; it’s a difficult thing to explain, and I suppose that’s why I’m writing this. Though I looked on him only as a sister does, I did sometimes wish we weren’t related—to look at us, one-to-one, you wouldn’t have thought we were siblings. We looked nothing alike. Still, if he was not, you know, my brother, well…you know how it is.

People had remarked from the time he was very little, that he was handsome, and startlingly so. His name suited him. I suppose it’s all genetic coincidence, his resemblance to the other Raskolnikov; nonetheless, there was that fine build and dark hair and inky, oil-black eyes, but he was only of medium height, not exceptionally tall, like his namesake.

             I wished I looked more like him. I am the light-haired one in the family. Big brown eyes, slightly darker eyelashes and eyebrows, full-boned and sturdy, but not plump. Reasonably good-looking, I suppose, but in the ordinary way. To look at our parents it would be hard to see any trace of my looks in their faces. In the snow, though, we all hunch the same way.

It was, as it happened, very cold at the time of which I speak. Our parents were out, that weekend, visiting relatives in another town. We had decided not to go, and they left Rod and me to our own devices. The previous night had been a quiet one, as our evenings usually are; despite my brother’s looks, he had no close female acquaintances that I currently knew of, even though there were plenty of girls who would have been more than happy to get in the sack with him.

So, Saturday morning did not begin with my return at one in the morning, already hung-over and crawling on my knees. Let it go on the record that, as I walked into the day, my soul was mostly unblemished and I was sober.

I was in a good mood, too. However, when breakfast was sitting on the table before us, glancing out the window was enough to displace my equilibrium. That certain kind of snow was falling, steadily, heavily. I groaned about it to Rod, and he shrugged his shoulders.

“Avya, Winnipeg. Winnipeg, Avya. Have you met before?”

“Da, darlink, but ees cold.”

He groaned. “It is much too early in the morning for that accent.” It was eight o’clock. No-one in the family slept in.

We crunched away at our cereal for a few moments. “Still have to do chores,” I said.

“Ugh. It’s time to handle some of the recycling, and it’s snowing like a bitch.”

“Wanna make a deal?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll handle the recycling if you do the dishes and the laundry.”

            Crunch, crunch, went his cornflakes. “Fine, what’s the catch?”

            “None. I’m going out with the girls to a movie. You’ll probably get the house to yourself today.”

            “Not another horror movie?”

            I shrugged. “Wasn’t my first choice, but Parmi liked it and Nicole wanted to see it too. I’ll probably be out all day.”

            “Suit yourself.”

            I put the bowl on the counter, next to the sink, and walked upstairs to change. Outside, the snow continued, stolidly, with a certain Communist courage. Snow brings equality, I thought. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a Ford POS or a Benz, if it’s stuck in your driveway, you still need to borrow a shovel and possibly somebody’s arms to heft it.

            It was one of those mornings where a trite insight like this is followed by a string of meandering, stupid thoughts about shovels and which sweater to wear. Pulling off the plain blue pyjamas, I stared at the closet for a few minutes, glanced down at myself.

            The door opened.

            “Rod, go away. I’m in my underwear.”

            “Sorry. Whoops.” His footsteps paused for a moment and then, resolutely, padded back towards the kitchen.

            I had goose-bumps, at this point, and I was annoyed with him for barging in on me. I pulled out a grey sweater and thick cords, pulled on a pair of wool socks.

            My parka was in the nook by the door. I pulled it on and stuffed my feet into boots, hands into gloves. “See you!”

            “Bye.”

            I opened the door to the garage, loaded up the car, and drove out into the cold. 

            Notes about the year 1985: the Berlin Wall was still up. Gorbachev and Reagan were in power. New Coke emerged and died within a three-month time span. Nelson Mandela was still in prison. My heart broke. The IRA was still bombing the shit out of the police department. Route 66 died. They found Titantic. Windows 1.0 was released. Things were bombed and a number of natural disasters occurred. It was a remarkable year, in the ordinary way.

           

Teenagers don’t think about history, or not often. I handled the errands, and when that was done, went to a coffee shop to wait for the mall to open. That got me to ten o’clock—then I wandered around the mall for a while, and drank several cups of tea. Parmi and Nicole came at twelve, and the wandering changed to a plural tense. Nightmare on Elm Street 2 was on at one, so we went to see that.

After the movie, we loitered in the food court. I do remember Nicole, cracking jokes about the film—and it was awful, after all. Normally, I would have laughed, but I didn’t.  I do remember, though, that I felt a peculiar sense of unease, something nagging at me—an emotional blister. I stared past their faces and thought about the snow. Parmi asked me whether the movie had given me a case of the jitters, and I started.

“No, no, vos byad movie, darlink,” I said. “zat ees all.” Parmi laughed.

“Yes, it was. So why are you scared?”

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m just cold!”

“That’s stupid. I’ll get you a hot chocolate.” Parmi bounced off with my two-dollar bill in hand.

Nicole patted my hand. “It’s okay to be scared.” I blinked at her.

“I’m fine, really. Just spacing out. I think I didn’t get enough sleep or something.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

“Hot chocolate!” Parmi grinned at me, set the cup down on the table. I smiled and wrapped my hands around it, and tried to ignore the anxious look in her eyes.

“Thanks.” I sipped it, but I couldn’t process the taste.

I wondered what Rod would say about this. He would laugh, probably—put an arm around my shoulders, tell me not to get so panicky—and yes, he would have bought me a cup of something hot and sweet. And—

“Are you okay? You’re really pale,” Nicole said.

“Actually, I think the movie kinda shook me up. Uh…I hate to be a wet blanket, but would you guys mind if I went home and took a nap? I don’t feel so hot.“

“Yeah, okay.” They looked disappointed, and I apologized, but, after all, being good friends, they didn’t make an issue of it.

I wished, later, that I’d said more, because it was the last time I saw them for years.

            By the time I got home, it was only four o’clock. It had stopped snowing, but it was still cold, and windy, too. Rod didn’t expect me until eight, I suppose; normally, I’d have made a day of it.

            As I let down the garage door and walked into the house, I realised that most of the lights were off.

It was so still. I called out again, and there was no answer. My pulse was speeding up, and my mouth was drying. I shouldn’t have been scared, really, but I was. It was cold, over-cast, and I’d just seen a horror movie.

There was no logical reason for Rodya’s silence. Then, it occurred to me that he might have decided to go to his room, instead of sitting on the couch in the den. That would have been a little more usual; he was a creature of habit. Still, to look for him meant I had to go downstairs, to the basement. I hate basements to this day.

As I opened the door and descended, the creaking of the stairs made me even jumpier than I already was. My feet seemed unnaturally loud, clattering loudly on the wood. I thought I could hear music—well, there was a percussion solo going on at the moment.

Sure enough, the music revealed itself as Soviet rock-and-roll—my pulse slowed. (To give you an idea of the sound, Gogol Bordello hadn’t formed yet, but if they’d been around, that would have been the sort of music Rod would have listened to.)

            Most of the lights down there were off, but a little light was seeping through the space between the door and the wall. I knocked on the door, and there was still no answer, so I opened it. 

*****

Thanks for returning, ladies, gents, and people in-between. For more delightfully witty commentary. new works, some politics, and other phuquerie, you can find me at Twitter and on Tumblr. Don't forget to check back on Sundays to get your weekly fix. This is your SciFiMagpie, over and out!