Vile homophobe alert: John C. Wright

[feuervogel]

Science fiction writer John C. Wright lets his vile, rampant homophobia loose in his LJ. He compares... well, I'll let John speak for himself here:

I will explain. The parts where I am hoping various sexual perversions will be portrayed in a positive light in future shows is sarcasm. The part where I condemn Sci-Fi for their political correctness is on the level.

The part where I question how we, as a nation, got into a situation where the failure to promote sexual perversion is regarded as shameful is a serious question.

I am equating homosexuality with sadomasochism, pederasty, necrophilia, bestiality, and other sexual neuroses. While a technical distinction can be drawn between them, they share the fundamental property of being objectively disordered appetites.

Well then. I'm voting with my wallet, and I'm sure others of you might consider doing so as well.

ETA, 8/14/09, 8:20 am: He closed comments and they all went poof. He's also claiming that only "one or two people" said they'd boycott his book. ROFL. When I last looked around 8 pm last night, it was a lot closer to one or two HUNDRED.

ETA: 8/14/09, 4 pm: He nuked the whole post!

Comments

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

I didn't know you didn't know -- I'd have warned you about him three years back. He showed up on Fandom Wank as well. (Also calls his wife an "authoress" on his wiki page, and Obama an affirmative action president. Oh, and considers Zoe from Firefly offensive and demeaning to women because women can't fight in wars because men should protect them, and having them there is demeaning for men... I dunno, it's in the unofficial Firefly critical essays book. Also, I kind of despised his writing style before I knew anything about him anyway.)

[luckykitty.livejournal.com]

Wow, this guy sounds like a real winner. ~~~~~~~~D:

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

DO NOT go to his blog -- I went there once and I was upset for several days.

[feuervogel]

I hadn't heard of him until I read his wife's failure post of race fail yesterday. (http://coffeeandink.dreamwidth.org/1027502.html the bottom set of links)

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

I bought one of his books several years back because it was being touted as genius (and it was very innovative, to be honest), but it was emphatically not my thing. Then I read his "Firefly" essay and thought it might be satire (it wasn't).

(Yikes, I almost bought a book by that Lamplighter woman yesterday. But I resisted because it was, if I'm not mistaken, all about Miranda going to rescue a sympathetic Prospero, and I can't but think of Prospero as a pompous asshole, even before I realized he was a colonizer. Even before I did a paper on "Caliban's Hour.")

I kept trying to hint to the leader of my SF reading group that he wasn't, uh, all that nice (he was invited to join our online discussions) -- but I'm not a straightforward enough person -- my poor friend had to discover the Obama posts on his own before he stopped raving about/pimping Wright's writing. (I have since geared him towards Cat Valente. ^___^)

So many things are doing the confluence thing and agitating the hell out of me like you don't even understand. :-( I feel like something big and bad is going to happen and I want no part of it.

[feuervogel]

In a link in one of the linky bits (I read a lot of comment threads yesterday), JCW said that the term African-American is "Newspeak" and he'd never heard it in conversation. Lamplighter said racism doesn't exist in the north. Friends, I rolled.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

Wow. That was really fucking harrowing, and if I keep letting myself get sucked into that sort of thing I shall be fired for work neglect. ^_________^

Glad I didn’t buy her hardcover.

[feuervogel]

Do your work!

And it's truly mindboggling, isn't it? Hopefully her apology is sincere, but her husband... ugh.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

I didn't see anyone apologizing at all, so I hope so too.

Mostly I'm just exhausted by all this and way too inclined to just issue a general "Kiss my butt."

[feuervogel]

She made a whole post about it, how she understands now that "colorblind" is bad. I hope she's sincere, rather than just faking it so people leave her alone.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

Well that was a fairly nice apology. Followed by some very quick deterioration in comments, but small blessings. Still not that interested in the book, but less bitter now.

[corpsefairy.livejournal.com]

I've never even heard of him, but I sure as hell ain't buying any of his books.

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

Wow. Well, that's... disturbing. I love how people can't seem to get around the idea of "Hey, look, sex between two consenting adults who want to have sex isn't actually the same as sex between an adult and a child, or an adult and a corpse."

Likewise, if you're in relationship that involved BDSM... society doesn't give a shit. You aren't denied marriage rights. You aren't going to get beat up for PDA. At most, you get funny looks. So... yeah, society already tolerates a lot of "perversion" by default.

This guy... just... We need e-bitchslaps.

[feuervogel]

Loss of future royalties might help, though I doubt it. He'd be like "OMG those evul PC leftists are oppressing me!!" Uh huh. Wev, dickweed.

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

It's a classic right-wing refrain. "Let the free market decide! ... that is, unless the market disagrees with me."

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

Oh, I get it. He's a Catholic convert.

"If Vulcans had a church, they'd be Catholics."

It makes sense, too. Massive unhealthy repression of perfectly natural and informative emotions and the ability to ignore suffering in favor of an impersonal logic that inevitably needs to be overturned by the human captain's more emotional response to an issue in order to bring about the true best result.

Sums up my sense of things as a recovering Catholic myself.

[feuervogel]

Yeah. I'm an ex-Methodist, so I didn't get all fucked up like that (as much, anyway... our church was more concerned with things like sheltering the homeless and giving to food banks.)

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

THIS. (Well, my church was afraid, nay, terrified, the government was going to make them do things that were against their beliefs, so their obsession was separation of church and state. They did, like lawsuits and put out a magazine called "Religious Liberty." ^__^ And one branch used that as the argument against Prop 8. So I don't have to disavow them totally quite yet...)

[nemogbr.livejournal.com]

Perhaps someone should inform him that there are Vulcan homosexuals.

Vulcans use logic, not the darker side of the psyche, to make judgements.

[feuervogel]

That might make his head explode ;) Though more likely, he'd go "lalalala I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

[siberianchan.livejournal.com]

what the hell would he say about asexuals? I mean, people without sex drive might be the perfect monk or nun - but they violate God's word: "Be fertile! Get Babies! Spread your fucked up genes!" (Or well... an asexual woman with a pretty face would be a bitch cause she turns men on - on PURPOSE, that's it cause women turn on only on purpose - and then wont give into his male domination. LE GASP! And in the end she spends her time making money, getting influence, changing the world - INVADING male spheres! That SHE - a women - is doing this is horrible enough. That she does it while being not in a partnership to a man she's devoted to makes it all just the more unnatural.)

[siberianchan.livejournal.com]

Plus that a BD/SM relationship is also based of consent. So... if no one gets hurt against his own will - well, I always thought a society peeking THAT deep in people's bedrooms and judging them by what happens there pretty disturbing.

[kirin]

See, I'd be totally useless talking to any "social conservatives" of this stripe because the only problem I have with *any* of the things on his list of supposed deviancies is the insuperable power-imbalance problems with the last three. Actually, you might be able to get around it in necrophilia with a properly laid-out will.

Pointing out that I think around half of the stupid "slippery slope" arguments people come up with would actually be perfectly fine results doesn't tend to help the cause in mainstream discourse, unfortunately.

[nitasee.livejournal.com]

I couldn't finish reading his diatribe. I really don't see any need to expose myself to this crap - at least no more than to know it exists and to dispise it.

There was a time when I night have read his books but that throughly turns me off him.

[feuervogel]

I was heartened at the number of commenters who said they won't be buying his books in the future. Free country, sure: he can say that horribly offensive tripe, and we can say we won't give him any of our money. That's how it works.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard of him, but yeah, that's pretty bad. Plus he also apparently has an issue with people who practice BDSM.

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

Yikes! Never heard of him, will never buy his books now. Ugh. Just reading that makes me feel dirty.

[feuervogel]

Yes. I advise against wading through the comments, unless you want to add to the chorus of "I'm not buying your books, vile bigot."

[fluffymaru.livejournal.com]

...and another one bites the dust.

Sci-Fi and Fantasy authors are badddddddddd about opening their big, fat mouths, releasing their inner insanity.

This one is, by far, the worse. I'm going to have issues shelving this guy. Fortunately, I'm happy to report that I only re-shelve his books MAYBE once every two months, if even. So he's not doing that well :) Well, at least not at our store.

[feuervogel]

This guy makes Card look *sane* by comparison. I endorse more LeGuin, however.

[feuervogel]

Card's just a run of the mill Mormon conservative. He's got a brand of stupid we've all seen before, and while it's annoying, it's nothing new. I won't buy any more of his books, either. This Wright guy, though, he's got a brand new kind of stupid and hateful. The ultra-deluxe variety.

LeGuin's still alive and writing! She's got a website!

[m-banu.livejournal.com]

Not everyone can be Robert Heinlein. :)

It seems as though one of the concerns that gets masked by his disapproval of homosexuality in general is the point that the Sci-Fi Channel's visible homosexuality will probably just be part of an increase in the pulpy alien sex-bot style of science fiction programming, rather than the sort of thoughtful sci-fi that a lot of people keep hoping for.

In an elaboration he makes in the comments section, it seems as though he is actually directing his anger at same-sex advocates whom he feels are insincere about the cause and are using it as a front to hide the fact that they are really attempting to promote an irresponsible hedonism. (Although admittedly his dislike of homosexuality is also pretty clear.)


Is an irrational lust and longing to mimic the mating act with a sex with which one cannot mate, at its root, any more or less disconnected to reality than an irrational fear and hatred of a Negro?

If you remove the bias dripping from his rant, this is actually kind of an interesting question, considering that both racist fear and homosexual love are primarily emotional in nature.

Runner up quote-of-the-rant!

Why is it that the lack of self control in sexual matters, where self control is paramount, is held to be immaculate and beyond reproach, whereas the lack of self-control when it comes to something trivial smoking tobacco is scorned?

For those coming in late, http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:http://johncwright.livejournal.com/269139.html?thread=8182099

(Although this also raises the concern of Google apparently caching things and simply not including a cache link rather than actually respecting robots.txt exclusions)

[kirin]

I know you're just playing devil's advocate here, but hey, I can play... uh... angel's advocate? Sure.

On the first quote: Man, I don't care what he thinks is "disconnected from reality", I'd still rather much rather discourage irrational hate than irrational love. (Also, the whole "sex is for procreation" argument is totally bogus but I don't think I'd get far with him on that front.)

On the second quote: It takes a fairly marginal amount of self control to make sex pretty darn safe, whereas no amount of self control is gonna keep smoking from giving you a really high chance of lung cancer. And people who happen to be *nearby* someone having irresponsible sex don't have any chance of catching second-hand AIDS.

Also, backing up to your first few paragraphs, I really like the time in Babylon 5 (not that it was on Sci Fi, but whatever) where two male characters were going undercover, and there cover story was that they were a couple on honeymoon, and it basically just went without comment beyond the minor eye-rolling you might get from having to pretend to be in *any* sort of relationship you're not actually in. It was just a perfectly plausible story.

[m-banu.livejournal.com]

And people who happen to be *nearby* someone having irresponsible sex don't have any chance of catching second-hand AIDS.

A very good point. :)

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

Hai! I saw your comment on jimhines' LJ and wandered over, and I am adding you to my friends list.

I'm a pro-GLBT writer-in-progress.

[feuervogel]

Thanks! (I see you're friends with marphod. One day I'll have to get fancy graphing software and see how many ways my social circles cross...)

[siberianchan.livejournal.com]

One word for that.

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