Jo, your points about the dubcon sex are interesting - on reflection, I got that impression as well; that of deliberate mirroring of "normal" sexual relations between men and women. And it was that that shocked me all the more, as you say: how could Russ have included something like that in her book? It was a blindsided sort of moment for me as a reader. It seems unlikely that it was unintentional.
I don't know what I was supposed to get out of that scene, as a reader. I came away with an impression of - I think malice is too strong a word, but I can't think of better; perhaps contempt? - toward Laur from Janet. Perhaps for being afraid of sex with a woman, or afraid of sex full stop, perhaps reacting to internalised homophobia on Laur's part? I'm not sure. If so, that might also mirror an adult man's impatience with a girl's non interest in sex.
Jo, I don't have my book to hand just now, but I think I remember Janet telling us at one point that what we translate as "son" is actually more like daughter in her language, it's just that the Joanna timeline hears it as son. I did wonder about that choice myself; if it was just another way to illustrate the way Joanna's timeline is so heavily in favour of the male, it didn't make too much of a point of it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-09 05:38 am (UTC)I don't know what I was supposed to get out of that scene, as a reader. I came away with an impression of - I think malice is too strong a word, but I can't think of better; perhaps contempt? - toward Laur from Janet. Perhaps for being afraid of sex with a woman, or afraid of sex full stop, perhaps reacting to internalised homophobia on Laur's part? I'm not sure. If so, that might also mirror an adult man's impatience with a girl's non interest in sex.
Jo, I don't have my book to hand just now, but I think I remember Janet telling us at one point that what we translate as "son" is actually more like daughter in her language, it's just that the Joanna timeline hears it as son. I did wonder about that choice myself; if it was just another way to illustrate the way Joanna's timeline is so heavily in favour of the male, it didn't make too much of a point of it.