The Terrors of Tarragina (addendum)

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

A copy of The Terrors of Tarragina was duly procured (from Vind — I refuse to allow more teasing of Alzagonde until she does something else horrible). The crudely-imagined and crudely-drawn cover shows a nearly-naked, voluptuous, and quite aroused Herethroy woman, holding a crowbar in a midhand, staring at it as if it were a serpent about to bite her. Beside her are four very full washbasins, one overflowing, and a Cani man with a hammer in one hand and a tremendous erection visible under his skirt.

I, sacrifically, read the cursed thing, since I have plenty of time on my paws when I want it.

Tarragina is the sixth daughter of a countess of Barency. She has a single passion in life: “rejoicining in elegant circumstances”. Through a sequence of misfortunes too implausible to mention, her family loses fortune and title in chapter two. (OK, I’ll mention the guntry race. They’ve got a prize running-guntry that always wins every race. They bet their last village on the guntry in a race against a stranger — who turns out to be a wizard, whose guntry is a transformed air elemental, and wins in a whoosh. Somehow they neglect to mention that this may be considered cheating.)

Anyhow, by chapter 3, Tarragina is condemned to wander the city and country in a life of toil, a thing which she finds utterly abhorrent. She picks up odd jobs here and there — helping a Cani family demolishing a shed in chapter five (hence the crowbar), and washing clothes for some Herethroy farmers in chapter eight (hence the basins). In each case, she attempts the job briefly throws up her hands and hand-feet at how horrid and vulgar it is, and, um, renegotiates the arrangement to be one in which she performs bodily pleasures upon her employers rather than having to do the work. Then, for reasons unspecified, she is off at a different employer the next chapter, evidently the next day.

For a bit of socioprosody of my own: the description of the chapter’s circumstances take 1-3 paragraphs. The attempts at performing the job, and Tarragina’s abhorrence thereof, take another 3-5. The seduction of the employer takes a single paragraph more. The rest of each chapter — five to fifteen pages — is a description of the encounter.

For what it’s worth: About half the time she’s involved with Herethroy, and half with other species. Nobody seems to find this the least bit noteworthy — not that there is much actual conversation involved.

Also, a half-page of action from chapter 5 appears again, word for word, in chapter 21. Perhaps the author did not think anyone would read that far. In any case, it was dull the first time, and extra-dull the second.

I cannot recommend the book, either as literature, pornography, or a source of threats.

Comments

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

Missing the point. A heterosexual female can enjoy male-male porn because she is heterosexual, not because she has any latent homosexuality, above or below the threshold of actually acting on it in the real world. In fact, a homosexual female would be much less likely to have any interest in male-male porn. The heterosexual male vs homosexual-female porn counterpart, ditto. The same can't be said of traff pornography, because sameness is the norm in that case, not the exception.

[foomf.livejournal.com]

That does not necessarily follow. I know at least two lesbians who are connoisseurs of yaoi AND bara of the most blatant form, as well as enjoying heterosexual porn. Sometimes it's simply the IDEA of sex that piques the interest.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

MISSING. THE. POINT.

How many times do I have to say I am not talking about absolutes? Of course it doesn't necessarily follow. But it frequently does.

[foomf.livejournal.com]

Not missing the point and don't shout.

It's really meaningless unless you can say HOW frequently, and I don't believe that data has been gathered.

Your implication is that it's frequent enough to be predominant and that anything else is abnormal; my response is a counter that suggests it's far from abnormal and may in fact be frequent. I used the following technique: 1)I know several hundred people, set estimate at 250 women for estimation; 2) set of known lesbians is counted at at least 5 where probability suggests at least 25 of the women I have met are lesbian based on lowest interpretation of Kinsey, and given that selection of 5 women, 2 having said that they enjoy males in erotica, 2 having expressed no opinion or not discussed the topic, one having said she dislikes it, then we have a sufficient random sample to estimate that the hypothesis that porn preference strongly matches one's own sexual orientation (OR that it's OK only if the participants are one's own target sexual group) is not a true hypothesis.

This is of course subject to small sample bias, but it's just an estimate, just as your own claim was at best an estimate.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

"Your implication is ..."

You're putting words in my mouth. It's very aggravating. Stop it.

I was making a qualitative argument, because I know full well I don't have the data for more than that.

[foomf.livejournal.com]

And I scarcely know you. My apologies.

Welcome to communication. You were using the phrasing I have come to understand as being part of a conclusive argument without wrapping it with the conditionals that mark it as qualitative. Thus my misinterpretation. I will sit back then, and attend only.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

My irritation largely came from having repeatedly said already that my position wasn't meant to be read as an absolute.

On reflection, a point that seems to have been lost on the way and might make things a bit more clear: I wasn't saying anything about the enjoyment(or lack thereof) that homosexuals might gain from homosexual erotica of the opposite sex. All I meant to state was that heterosexuals can freely enjoy porn that involves only the opposite sex, despite the homosexuality of that pornography, for no more complex reason than that they appreciate that sex. There may be other reasons to do so, certainly, but the most obvious one is their very heterosexuality.

This is a parallel which is not present in transaffectionate pornography. If the reasons for enjoying that are prurient vis-a-vis the species involved, it suggests at least some latent transaffectionate inclination, even if subliminal to the point of being unfit to act upon. There are other possible reasons, of course - an appreciation for sex in all its forms, or a variety of more intellectual concerns - but the simplest reason for a woman to like gay male porn doesn't apply for, let us say, a cisaffectionate Rassimel looking at porn of a Herethroy and a Cani.

In the case of the Rassimel which sparked all this, granted, the cisaffection may well be in doubt. (The Rassy doth protest too much, methinks.)

[foomf.livejournal.com]

Ah. That point is clearly made and I agree most frumiously. However, I am wont to avoid applying Occam's Razor too freely around the field of sentient psychology, where the tendency to grab onto the simplest explanation is frequently not only wrong but confuses the issue for other kinds of inquiry. Since you provide a simple explanation, I was trying to dodge the razor-wielding maniacs, which confused the issue a completely other way.

However, my brain refuses to stop free associating.
Using the word "fetish" only in its most neutral sense of 'conceptual framework which engenders erotic feeling in a given individual' ...

In a society where there is no other actual sentient species, there are two parallels: the first to subspecies (racial, ethnic, or cultural groups dramatically different to those of the individual) and the second to non-sentient or less-sentient species (Discovery Channel.)

And now I am trying to get that song out of my head.