SFCS -- Strong Female Character Syndrome.

I believe it was Stuart West who told me in private correspondence that he appreciated how many strong female characters I have. I was a little thrown there because it took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about.

In my novels, I have Manana Shushurin, who's a spy that's more James Bond than George Smiley.  She reads, likes music, has a degree from Wittenberg university .... has no social life, and technically, lives with her mother (technically, I say, because she really lives in her office). She also has a secret that's eating a hole in her life.



I also have Maureen McGrail.  She's an Interpol detective, local Dublin cop, relentless, tenacious, and she knows about three martial arts.  She's also pining for a guy who came into her life, swept her off of her feet (just by being himself, really) and disappeared, without showing even a hint of romantic interest in her.



Then there's Wilhelmina Goldberg, who is 4'11", computer nerd, daughter of two esoteric languages nerds. She likes science fiction and fantasy, programs her computer to talk like characters out of Lord of the Rings, and has a subscription to Security magazine.



In context, I should point out that Stuart was using the strong female character comment as a segue into a completely different point, an issue he found in my writing. (Apparently, I shouldn't be putting in bust size as far as describing a female character.  I neglected to tell Stuart that if I knew anything about clothing, I would probably include men's jacket sizes to paint a clearer, more accurate picture of them, too. But I don't know any men who are the sizes I need. Me? OCD?  Nah....)



In any case, the SFC term struck me, and stuck with me.



And then there was this article, entitled I hate Strong Female Characters.  If you read through it, you might find a few points to agree with, and a few problems.



Now, I agree with the author on the initial point.  I also have problems with the SFC label. I really do, because it tends to detract from, oh, the point. In the example they used of Buffy-- she was smart, witty, with outside the box solutions to non-vampire problems (shall we start with the fertilizer bomb in the high school, or the rocket launcher?).  But "Strong" is the only descriptor one can come up with?



In my own work, I spent so much time on developing characters like Manana and Wilhelmina, their quirks and habits and hobbies, that I feel a little awkward if the best description anyone can come up with about them is just "strong."



Though you want my problem with this author?

1)  "I want good complex characters!"



.... And then, let's focus completely on Buffy, because she's the STRONG character.... and ignore Willow, who saves the day repeatedly, but is physically as strong as your average anemic? Faith, who's as physically strong as Buffy, but a broken character? How about Cordelia, who starts out a vacuous California mean girl, and becomes more interesting within the first half of season 1? Anya, who goes through a fairly strange character arc of her own?



And, while they're talking about complex characters, they boiled Buffy down to only "SFC." How about witty? Smart? Creative? The example used in the article was the end point of a two-episode arc exposing just how vulnerable Buffy really is. Yes, she's got superpowers, but she's still a teenager, with all the problems that comes with it, in addition to waging a constant war against everything that came to kill her, swallow the Earth, etc. The author managed to ignore the entire point of a two-part story!



Who demands good complex characters! and then ignores them when s/he gets them?  If this article had said that the "SFC" label shoved a character into a box and left them there, then I could agree to some degree.  But this author seems to be guilty of doing just that.



2) I want a 1:1 ratio of complex characters, male and female! 

The author prattles on about Peggy Carter of Captain America: The First Avenger, complaining that she was unbalanced and cartoonish, making a lot of assumptions.





The author mentions that Peggy Carter shooting Captain America's shield is a temper tantrum that no guy would have gotten away with. Obviously, this person never saw the 100 generic Stupid People Tricks that are on cable, and mostly male.  The author assumed that in firing, Peggy had been too stupid to not be listening to the toymaker Stark prattle on about his cool toys for however long she'd been in his general orbit. The author also assumed that no one in the entire room knew that the shield was bulletproof-- which is kind of like people in Q's lab not knowing to duck on a regular basis.



The author then insists that this "over-the-top" reaction is because she's one of two women with a speaking part, and there be more women on screen to counter stuff like this. (Which is odd, since I counted four -- which included a grandma with a tommy gun, and a SHIELD agent at the end of the film).



My real problem?  First, the author makes these above assumptions and then kvetches that they could have shoe-horned in more women. Why? Just to shoe-horn in more women. So we could have a 1:1 ratio of women in the film. Really?



Hey, maybe we could have put in more cardboard cutouts. Besides, if you really want equality, then Captain America: The First Avenger, was perfectly equal. There were only two complex characters in the whole film.  Tommy Lee Jones was playing....Tommy Lee Jones.... Zola was Mad Scientist #2 ... The Red Skull was Psycho Villain #6 ... Eskine was "Dr. Littleoldmun" from Mel Brooks' High Anxiety. And Stark was very much "Howard Hughes Carbon Copy #1."  Outside of the sidekick Bucky (Plucky Sidekick #9), are any of Captain America's team referred to by name?



In short, Carter and Rodgers were the only two characters of any substance in the film. This isn't a complaint. I'm sure they were plenty deep in character design, but there was little enough of it on the screen. Not to mention-- it's a movie. If you're Peter Jackson, you get nine hours of films for develop all of your character. If you're a Marvel film, you have, at most two hours and thirty minutes.  If you have two well-written and developed characters, you're ahead of the game.  I feel fortunate to have one, some days.



But for the 1:1 ratio this author wants?



Maybe this author would have liked more 2D characters. As she suggest, let's gender swap.... Dr. Zola?  So we can have a weak, simpering little woman be bullied by Tommy Lee Jones? Dr. Erskine? So we can have a little grandmother figure play the martyr?  Hey, we could gender swap Tommy Lee Jones, and have him played by Kathy Bates!  Why not have the Red Skull played by Angelina Jolie?



Now, a reasonable argument I got from Karina Fabian is from the point of view that, there were certainly a heck of a lot more women in the WW2 military than were seen in the film. There were secretaries, WACs, women who transported planes, codebreakers, nurses, etc.  That way, we could have had a lot of women.... but they would have been in the background, and probably would have completely boiled away this author's argument.



3) Women are at the back of the bus...um, movie poster, like Black Widow.



"Strong women are supposed to kick ass and keep their mouth shut." Really?



How about, oh, that Black Widow WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO OUTSMARTED LOKI?  IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE! GAAAHHHH!!!



How about that BLACK WIDOW WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO COULD CLOSE THE PLOT DEVICE DESTROYING NEW YORK?



How about the fact that there were maybe five deep moments in the entire film, and Black Widow was in two of them (The five moments were Stark and Banner in Lab, Stark and Rodgers reconcile, Coulson, interrogating Loki, and Black Widow and Barton, post-brainwashing....six scenes, if you count Black Widow and Bruce Banner in India, giving her half the deep moments in the film).



Oh, hey, how about Sam Jackson? Maybe we should say The Avengers was racist, because he was in the back of the poster?



I'm sorry, but unless you're Iron Man or Thor, you're in the back of this poster.



4) Where's Thor?


Seriously, where's the movie Thor in this discussion?  You know, the movie that was mostly Kat Denning and Natalie Portman handling Chris Hemsworth as he was enduring culture shock? With some occasional exposition from Mr. Skaarsgard? Portman's character, astrophysicist Jane Foster, isn't "strong," in this sense, is she? Because last time I checked, most of my female friends could break her like a toothpick. Foster is instrumental in Thor's change from prick to hero, but is she thrown on the bonfires of the blogger's vanity because she doesn't come with a complete bio and genealogy?



Or does this author consider her merely as a damsel in distress?  Which would be odd, because if you were in the New Mexico town in Thor, you were in distress, up to and including the three beefy supporting characters and the Valkyrie that (quite literally) drop down out of the sky.



Or does this not count, because the end of the movie involves the Warriors Three, Odin, and Loki? Making it three more male characters on screen than women?  Do we count Freya, who tried to stopped three assassins coming to get Odin? Or because she wasn't on screen that often, should we throw her aside?



While not physically strong, I thought Jane Foster was very well written. She was the love interest, sure, but that love motivated both of them to be better.  He was motivated to be a better person, and she was motivated to continue pursuing interstellar/inter-dimensional travel.



Am I wrong? Or, as I asked, does she just not count?



Conclusion: Equality!



As I said at the beginning, I don't like the SFC label.  If you can shove my characters into a nice neat little box, I'm going to be pissy -- either at you for demeaning my characters, or at myself for making them cardboard cutouts.



I would have liked this article more if it were less obvious. It's clearly pushing an agenda -- not about creating good characters, but numerical "equality!" for "equality's" sake. By the end, I felt like I was reading a review of 300 that insisted that there should have been 150 female Spartans at Thermopylae (this is not a joke, I did read one of those).



I honestly couldn't tell you the ratio of my characters if you dared me to.



In A Pius Man, I've got Maureen, Manana and Wilhelmina named above as main characters. Is the ratio 1:1 if I include Giovanni Figlia's wife, the forensic specialist?



Is the ratio no longer 1:1 if I count the three priests in the background?



Is it all right if I have Scott "Mossad" Murphy, who can't shoot, is pale, anemic-looking, and pair him up with the sexy gunslinger Manana?  Does that make him weak, even though he will take gunfire and is a pivotal part of the book?



Does Wilhelmina Goldberg not count if she doesn't shoot anybody, but is a key part to hunting down the bad guys by the end?



At the end of the day, the SFC label is too simple. But so is reducing "equality" to numbers of people on screen and counting lines.  If you're keeping score with 1:1 ratios, exactly what will satisfy you? I have no idea.



Now, if you'll pardon me, I have to go write a scene where Manana has to save Scott. Again.

Top ten Pius Blog posts, March 2014: Politics, sex, comic books, music.

At one point, it felt like that my blog's top ten posts changes.  Which is most popular and which aren't.



These are the top ten all time best blogs, as of now.

Sex and Comics?

1.  Who would Captain America Vote For? An election special. (October 29, 2012) Politics has been a major selling point for the blog, it seems.  When I did this blog post in time for the 2012 U.S. Presidential election, I had no idea that it would become so insanely popular. But then again, given the next one on the list, I guess it shouldn't have been too much of a surprise.



2. Sex, DC Comics, and ... wtf? (October 3, 2011) You remember this, right? It seems everyone has read it, probably twice. It was a study of DC Comics and their mistreatment of two of their better female characters. It includes, sex, sex, and more sex. And writing.  This is post is over two and a half years old now, and still going strong. I wonder why ....



For that answer, meet me over at #3...

3  Disasters to Marvel At: A Comic Discussion.  One of the longest-running posts on this list (Nov 8, 2010), and constantly in the top ten, this was a brief look at the past five to six years of Marvel Comics' history of absolute garbage. Looking at the top three, I need to find a way to make my blog about comic books, sex, and politics.



4. Snarky Theology 4: "Things that go boink in the night." See? Sex sells. I just need to find out how I can sell a book over how it's not sexualized. That should be fun.  Anyway, I can credit my friend Jason for this title. I mentioned I wanted the Catholic position on sex. The title was the first thing that leapt to his mind. I guess it worked.  This has been constantly popular since March of 2011. Maybe people are stopping by  JUST for the well thought-out theological discussion on the sexual nature of the human person.



Or sex.

Meet Mandy.
MY "SCF."

5. SFCS -- Strong Female Character Syndrome (August 19, 2013). This is the most recent post on the list, and it surprised me. It amounted to a simple rant of mine in which I ripped someone a new one over her idiotic interpretation of women in films. It had some valid points, but used the worst examples EVER.



I got your strong female characters right here for ya.



6. Self defense review: Zombies, Women's self defense, Barbara Sheehan (10/26/11).  I'm not sure why this one is so popular. All of the links are broken, and can't be fixed.



7. Someone has jumped the shark: women and military scifi (January 23, 2012). Tor, who seems to have become my favorite punching bag, decided to take an open-handed slap to their competition, mostly through libel.



Libel? How so? As in: "Oh, all of THOSE people are sexist, but WE are as pure as the driven snow".... give me a break.



Again, a blog about politics and sex ... sort of.



Maybe I really should find a way to make this blog about sex, politics and comic books.

8. Black Friday blog: Book shopping. On November 15, 2013, I tried to cash in for friends of mine, mostly because I really liked their books, and because people really needed to buy gifts. Books are always useful ... okay, and because I wanted to easily hock my books on twitter. Is that so wrong?  Apparently not, because a LOT of folks have shown up to take a look at this one.



9. Music: the Eye of the Storm: Fenton  This is a bit of a surprise. One part Cruxshadows, and one part killer sheep, this has been up since June 23, 2011 -- when I was going a little nutty on posting everything at once.

10. Writing A Pius Man, Part 5: A Love Story?  Okay, this one I can't explain. At all. I have no idea why people flock to this one. Is it because it's romance? Is it because it's about writing?  Is it because I used to have an amazingly stunning woman on the post? Maybe. 

DC comics death from Above: writing for management

Starfire, bad ass.

In the not too distant past, I did an article about how DC comics seems to have a pathological problem with sex.



This month, the problems have really started to hit me.



Keep in mind, the last DC comic story I read was "Final Crisis," and that one didn't even make sense.  Once they went to the New 52, "One More Day"ed every relationship, and started warping the very nature of their characters, I have only glanced at the comics from time to time, usually to my horror.

Starfire, fashion victim

It was bad enough when DC comics took Starfire -- an alien who was fairly open about her sex life, and was completely monogamous -- and turned her into a .... I'm not entirely certain that the word "slut" is a strong enough word. Not only did they have to go out of their way to make the character amoral when it came to sex, but also gave her a costume redesign to match.

I mean, really? Who comes up with this stuff?



Then Catwoman's character redesign was .... also horrible.



I figured, okay, not a problem, that's two comics out of 52, and one of those writers is Judd Winick, who is a crappy writer to start with (Really? Let's bring back Jason Todd? That's a good idea by you?).



And then some of the most recent stupidity hit the fan.





Take, for example, Batwoman, a "Lesbian hero in the DC universe."  That, in and of itself, doesn't effect me. After all, I figured out a while ago that the DC policy on women created since the late 80s is simple: if you're not a woman dating a Superhero, or if you don't have superpowers in the DC universe, you're a Lesbian (Footnote: see Maggie Sawyer, Metropolis cop; Renee Montoya, Gotham Cop, Batwoman... you get the idea).



Here's the problem.  After building up for months the concept that "Oh, Batwoman's going to get married to her girlfriend," DC pulls the plug on the whole concept.



Now, I don't know if you're aware of this, but comic books are usually planned out at least one year in advance. This allows for planning, crossovers, editing, illustrating, etc. You can't start a 6-12 month story arc without approval.  You can't start something and blink at the last minute.



And yet, this is what DC comics has done.



If you told me that, at the last minute, someone had old religious feeling kick in and they felt they had to swerve away from a lesbian marriage .... I wouldn't believe you.



Why?  Well, aside from the fact that a lot of people don't give a crap about gay marriage (my opinion on it is here), you have.....



1) As I said above, the "new 52" imposed a "One More Day"- like idiocy on the DCU.  No one in the entire DC universe is married anymore.  Barry Allen, married forever? Not anymore. Superman and Lois married for all of the 90s? He's now dating Wonder Woman.  Marriage is, after all, for old people. Who cares if your loyal readership of decades have grown up with these characters in solid, committed relationships? Teenagers are where [DC thinks] the money is.  (Personally, I'd wager my money on the middle aged professionals doing a 9-5 and have a few bucks to catch up to Superman this week)



2) I can't see religion being a factor, given what was done to Catwoman and Starfire.  And, after cancelling any wedding for Batwoman, DC decided that they wanted artwork of a naked Harley Quinn committing suicide. Which leads me to...



3) Is it just me, or is every active writing decision that DC Makes centered around pandering?

• "Hey, we'll have some gay superheroes!" And make it a green lantern from an alternate universe who gets almost zero screen time, as well as one of a hundred interchangeable green lanterns.


• "We'll make a title heroine who's a Lesbian, yay!" as long as she doesn't get locked into a stable relationship, but we can see her make out with her girlfriend.


• "Let's have two of our strongest female leads turn into sex crazed women!"


• "Naked Harley Quinn!"

Seriously? Who's in charge of DC comic nowadays? The same five year olds who swear on MMORPGs because they just discovered these great new words?



My point? I'm not sure if I have one, short of "top-down control is bad."  I used to think it was deranged when there was an infinite amount of crises at DC.  "Oh, hey, we're going to continually shake up the DC universe every month."  But those at least created some interesting stories and some good writing along the way, such as the three year War of the Rings in Green Lantern, or the series 52.



This .... all this has just resulted in bad writing. Does anyone know what's going on anymore?  Once it was editorial lockdown from above, where everyone was in lockstep with the crisis du jour. Now, it looks like no one is in charge except for refugees from my old high school.

Women in novels, and A Pius Man

On Monday, when I ripped a Tor Books blogger a new one, I wanted to go into an compare and contrast version of how to treat women in novels, mostly with novels I know, or novels I've written.



Then I looked at long long the bloody piece was, and decided to not bother.



After talking with Rebekah Hendershot yesterday, I've decided to go ahead and do just that.



Unfortunately, it's a hard to find a good beginning.  Seriously, where does one start?  With the fact that one of my favorite story of the Judges (biblical warlords) is a woman, Judith, walking into the tent of an enemy of Israel, and taking his head off, literally? Or, that when growing up, I found that the best part of Xena, Warrior Princess was not her leather outfit, but the glint in her eye right before she beat the hell out of everyone?



Do I start with Fr. Andrew Greeley, and his novels where the female and male leads had this tendency to save each other?



Maybe I could cover J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5, where the female leads practically dominate the series, and they have some of the best, strongest, most kick ass sequences -- usually without throwing a single punch, wearing clothing that's as revealing as your average monk's robes.



Perhaps I should start with the Irish mythology I grew up with, that had the belief that a woman was required for spirituality -- as in "a man could only go onto the afterlife after his woman drags him there, because otherwise the poor daft fool would probably just get himself lost along the way."



Or, perhaps I should just give my opinion in general, cite some specific examples, and move on.



Let's start with examples from the Tor article -- John Ringo's Ghost.  The premise is that a former SEAL, code-named "Ghost," finds himself in the middle of a terrorist plot, and literally gets dragged along for the ride. The blogger at tour uses Ghost's internal struggle between his instincts and his ethics (Ghost believes himself a rapist by nature, while on the other hand, he hasn't actually raped anybody, and he knows it's wrong), and the blogger uses that to paint all of John Ringo's work with one brushstroke.



However, looking in Ghost, the novel, we see multiple instances of women coming to the rescue.  During a firefight with the terrorists in question, Ghost only has a room filled with female college coeds for support. Of the course of one mission, he's saved by a gunship piloted by a female pilot (said pilot makes a comeback and also saves his but a time or two in later novels).  Sure, Ghost has problems, and the character knows that he has problems, and most of the character moment involves how his sublimates his own violent desires into something more socially acceptable ... which, alas, leads into sequences of more bondage porn than I ever wanted to read ... but the problem the character has is not a problem that John Ringo shares, and it's quite evident in practically every book Ringo has ever written -- even in later volumes starring Ghost.



And, of course, there is always Princess of Wands -- Ringo's novel where the hero is a tough, physically and spiritually fit, very beautiful and sexy .... suburban housewife who goes to church every Sunday, and married to the same man for years, with several children.



Like I said, Ghost's problem is not John Ringo's problem.



My point? In John Ringo's novels, no one is a passive participant. Even his civilian female protagonists make for strong characters, and are just as likely to pick up a gun and return fire, or throw grenades as needed.



With David Weber, another victim of the Tor hatchet job, his Honor Harrington character was criticized for  not having a sex life for multiple books.  Leaving out Honor's personal reasons for that (covered in the last blog), what the hell is a sex life supposed to add to a character, man or woman?



For the record: I don't write sex scenes. Period. My characters don't necessarily need to have a sex life. They're usually too busy being shot at.



In my novels, women are people, that they are women isn't all that special to me.  Of the main cast of A Pius Man, I have four women -- a secret service agent, a spy, an Interpol cop, and a forensic scientist.  Three out of four of them handle themselves well in combat -- two out of the three of them can give most of the main characters a run for their money.



In fact, I think the women are better action stars than my male characters -- Sean Ryan is the only main character who is overly equipped for combat (mostly through skill than through muscle). Giovanni Figlia has some combat experience, but he's mostly in a position of management, performing the job as detective and commander of the Swiss Guards. Egyptian cop Hashim Abasi is, literally, a member of a think tank. Scott Murphy, while he is a spy, can't even fire a gun well (which is why his trailer has him being knocked back by the recoil of his own gun).



Over the course of my life, I have found most women to be my equals, if not my betters. Of course, as I grow older, I have discovered that there are plenty of women who are screwed up, just in different ways than I'd expect.  But, in my books, I don't really have a weak female character. Ever. Man or woman, my characters can always find some sort of inner strength, even if it's pure, unadulterated stubbornness.  Though, as I think back on it, I think my female characters all have more combat training.



Are all of my female characters beautiful? They are in my head, though I don't know if they are on the page  For me, I find that there are few truly ugly women, and it usually takes effort.  I very often find that personality does make an appearance, and mar or improve the features. I'm told that none of the women I've dated have been beautiful, but, apparently, I've always managed to find something special in them. Give me time, I can usually find something in them that is lovely.



And, while on the other hand, there have been more occasions than I can think of where I have looked at a woman who is, superficially, quite attractive, but I can never really pass judgement if they're "beautiful" until they smile, or get excited about something -- even then, I concentrate more on the eyes. That's where I find the real beauty more often than not.....



And I'm starting to sound like a romantic sap, I apologize.  But that's pretty much how my brain works ... or doesn't. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? You decide.

Someone has jumped the shark: women and military scifi.

Just when I thought I ran out of material, someone on the internet goes and says something unbelievably stupid.



I don't know who set off one of the people at Tor books, but a recent blog focused on how women don't get a fair shake in military science fiction. Toward this end, they make a rather passing mention to David Weber's Honor Harrington, damning her with the faintest of praise.  They they follow it up with an attack on John Ringo, Tom Kratman, and David Drake, crying horror! Horror! at how women are treated in those novels.



Ahem ....



I'll start small, mostly by throwing David Drake under a bus. I've read some his stories, I found them as dry as dust. It could just be me, and my family, and my friends.



Now, onto some books I do know very well: those of Tom Kratman, John Ringo and David Weber.



While the Tor blogger does acknowledge that Weber's Honor Harrington is a good female character, an equal to the male characters around her, it immediate turns into a backhanded compliment, complaining that Honor didn't get laid for the first half-dozen novels -- even though it was pointed out in book one that Honor was sexually assaulted at the naval academy (well, "nearly" assaulted ... she completely trashed her attacker into next Tuesday. It was awesome). I'm sorry, but the rape victims I've read of and those I know personally (nine and counting) go one of two ways, nymphomania, or celibacy ... would the Tor blog have preferred nymphomania?



Not to mention that the article focuses on Honor Harrington as if she were the only woman in the entire "Honorverse" series -- ignoring, for instance, that the heads of state of the major governments are both women. And (for the brief racial whining they did), the article seems to gloss over the fact that the ruling family of Honor Harrington's government is all black. One wonders if the blogger even read the Honor Harrington novels.



Anyway, after bitching about Honor Harrington's lack of a sex life, they then go into how John Ringo's character Ghost treats women like sex objects.



I'm sorry, but who goes into a rant about over-sexualizing women after complaining that a woman lead isn't sexualized enough?  You know, aside from hypocrites.



Not to mention one tiny little detail ... Ghost, the novel, isn't even science fiction!



The article jumps the shark altogether at this point, in reference to Ringo and Kratman.

Their female characters tend to suffer unpleasant fates, or to be relegated to
backwaters of the narrative, and the old canard of “no women in the special
infantry” is once again in play 

At this point, I know from personal experience that this writer hasn't read Kratman and Ringo.  John Ringo has written over 33 novels in the last dozen years. The blogger focused on one.



In the category of "unpleasant fates," when people die in military science fiction, they don't die well.  Going through Ringo's Gone with the Wind-sized epic of The Posleen Wars, most of the main characters who die, die horrible, painful deaths -- they are either vaporized, eaten alive, or blown to pieces.  There is no good way to die in a John Ringo novel. This guy kills off so many people per book, he has contests dedicated to being a red shirt in his novels.



In Tom Kratman's series of A Desert Called Peace, et al, the women are essential to the novels: at first, by keeping our main characters sane (which is a job in itself at the best of times,) and, later, serving as front line troops. As the series progresses, there are no civilians in war zones -- culminating in The Amazon Legion, which is all about women soldiers.



And, looking at John Ringo's post-Posleen War novels, the Cally series, revolves solely around a female special forces assassin -- so much for "no women in the special infantry" whine-ery.  Even before that, if one were to read the joint Kratman-Ringo venture Yellow Eyes, one of the main fronts of the Posleen war in Latin America is held by -- wait for it -- a female commander of an artillery unit. The other major lead: the female artificial intelligence of a battleship (artillery barrage to the tune of O Fortuna, for the win!).



Continuing through the article, the author continues to screw up by focusing exclusively on John Ringo's non-scifi work, his Ghost novel.  And, even then, she shows her ignorance of the subject by focusing on the first book -- which even I criticized for having way too much sex -- and the point of the first book is in the opening quote: "We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us." Ringo went out and invented the roughest person he could create. And, had this blog author read the rest of the Ghost novels, she would see that, not only did the main character's initial crude proclivities disappear over time, she would have also seen that women become major front-line military troopers.



And, of course, the blogger skips over Ringo's Princess of Wands, which has a kick-ass female lead who fights demons that would make Buffy go "Aw crud."  And there's Ringo's Into the Looking Glass series, in which the spaceship, and most of their missions, is mostly held together by the primary female lead, Miriam ... who appears to be based off of Ringo's own girlfriend. (Whom I met. She was cute. And wry. And witty. And I can see what Ringo sees in her ... though the dye-blue hair is distracting.)



And Ringo, as in Kratman, even the women leads who are not front-line troopers, or major political and military tacticians, they become instrumental in keeping our heroes from falling to the dark side (or, in some cases, deeper into the dark side).



This article was petty, starting with "Well, there's Honor Harrington, but she didn't get laid for a long time" -- if I were to judge my novels by how fast my female leads got laid, I'd go into writing erotica, thank you.



At the end of the day, the most interesting part of the entire article is this: most of the books attacked have something interesting in common.  Ringo and Kratman work for Baen books. The Honor Harrington novels? Published by Baen books. The David Drake series mentioned in the article? Baen books.  The books praised in the article? All Tor books ... I'm shocked, shocked I say.



Not to mention one other tiny detail .... if this were a fair, open and honest look at military science fiction as a genre, there is one, gigantic, glaring omission.  A tv show called Babylon 5.




But J. Michael Straczynski has never worked for Baen, so I guess it's too unimportant to examine.  So are the dozens of other genre writers out there.  But if they don't work for Baen, I suppose it doesn't matter.



Don't get me wrong. I like Tor. I read their authors all the time. There's a reason I found this article -- because I'm on the Tor newsletter.   But this was a hatchet job from start to finish; the sad thing is, the blogger isn't even listed as a Tor employee, but a graduate student in Ireland, and a sometimes reviewer. Which is depressing -- if the blogger is going to pretend to know about what is being written, you'd assume that reading the books would be a requirement.

Month in Review: October, 2011

This is the month where everything went very, very strange.  And, that was apparently a good thing.  This is officially the month with the most page views ever. Who knew?

I started out with something that pissed me off: DC Comics turning Starfire and Catwoman, two of their stronger female protagonists, into sluts, to put it charitably.  They were so totally reduced to sex objects, I wanted to throw rocks.

So I threw angry language at them instead.

Ironically, in one month, it has become the most read post on this entire blog, beating out Disasters to Marvel at, which is a year old.

Also, I decided to get back to creative writing, creating more surveys that my characters have filled out.  You know, the older online essays that used to be sort of fun.  I had one for the German spy Manana Shushurin, and another for the Secret Service agent and nerd, Wilhelmina Goldberg, as well as the lethal weapon, Irish Interpol Agent Maureen McGrail.

I didn't have all that many music blogs this month.  I threw up some John Williams marches, and Tom Smith taking his revenge on technology and Rob Granito

A false report on gay marriage in the military made me start an irate blog .... then I wanted a better footnote, discovered that the story I based my indignation on was bogus, and I was stuck with a blog I had to rewrite, very, very fast.

I put in another blog on writing. This time it was a matter of "how to exposition like crazy" -- when you have to dump a graduate paper's worth of information into one novel.

Also, I had a little conversation on how to write for disaster.  It's mostly how to write characters who are supposed to be terrified, when you yourself have never been quite that scared -- and, making certain that your character's fear is appropriate both to the situation, and the person.

And, there was my self-defense review for the month -- with my  my self defense columns for October. It had to do a lot with Occupy Wall Street, self defense for women, and self defense against the zombie apocalypse .... I'm serious about the zombie apocalypse part.

Catholic conspiracies 3.  This was almost a replacement for It was inspired after I saw a lot of idiots try to pin Occupy Wall Street on "crypto-Jewish Jesuit fascists founded by the Illuminati."

I want my Vatican ninjas.

Sex, DC Comics, and ... wtf?

Long term readers know my opinion on sex in writing.  I'd say my opinion on sex in general is very Catholic, but since no one understand that, I'm not even going to bother.



However, I can sum up my thoughts on sex in fiction very easily: who needs it?



As Rebekah says, we all know the mechanics. What possible reason is there for a blow by blow description? Pardon the pun, but you know what I mean.



Since my first article on sex, I've written a few sex scenes .... by few I mean two, and they were in the same book.  However, the "sex scene" was in someone's dream, and the protagonist was having a conversation with his dead wife through most of it. The sex was incidental, and mostly has to do with the fact that she was killed on their honeymoon.  The second sex scene was so vague, any less detail would be as clear as a Salvatore Dali painting, only with words.

Yes, I brought in Dali to an article on sex. I'm weird. However, there is a point.

Even during these scenes, there's no blow by blow description. (I'm going to stop apologizing for that phrase, just roll with it.).  It's not necessary, unless someone's writing porn.  Even something as intimate as noticing a tattoo on someone during sex doesn't necessitate that much detail -- the audience does not need to know what specific act the individual was doing when s/he noticed the tattoo.  It's sex. Nudity happens.  Next chapter.

So, what prompted today's rant?

DC Comics seems to be going back to the 1990s, where the artistic style was summarized by my friend Jason as "Big boobs, big guns."

The current version seems to focus on women and sexuality, with an overemphasis on the sex.

I've no problem with sexuality, or with women -- look at my model for Manana Shushurin if you don't believe me --  it's that it's bad writing.

Starfire, in costume

Take, for example, the character of Starfire.  She's an alien with red hair, green eyes (and I don't mean with two green irises, I mean the entire eye is green), orange skin, with measurements somewhere in the 36 DD battery range.

Normally, I would stop reading at green-eyed redhead (I grew up with a crush on the female lead in Riverdance, leave me alone).  The character has always been sexually relaxed, it was mostly a cultural thing.  And, for the most part, it was used properly -- as comedy.  For example, in the classic Crisis on Infinite Earths, Starfire walks in with Nightwing, meets an old friend, and introduces him as "This is Nightwing, my lover."

Nightwing's reaction is such that you suspect he's glad that he has to go and face the end of the world.

And that was it.  One panel. Move on.

[More below the break]

Writing a love story.

I've mentioned how many different things that A Pius Man happens to be. I've mentioned how I blow up public places. That there is philosophy, shootouts, history, explosions, theology, a car chase, RPGs (not role playing games), property damage, and … hmm, there's something else there.



Oh, yeah, a love story.



It's not that strange. After all, a love story seems almost obligatory nowadays. Usually, as a motivation for senseless violence after killing off half of the couple involved. Even if it's as simple as a boy and his dog … or a boy and his robotic killing machine in Terminator 2.



I mean, hell, what makes me qualified to do a romance subplot? I mean, hell, I'm weird, maybe you've noticed. Just from the various and sundry topics on the site, I'm all over the place. I've done comic books, politics, terrorism, writing, music, book reviews, and the list keeps going. The less said about theology, the better.



But a love story?



Here's the thing. I'm in love …



Yes, with a woman … Yes, she's human …



And non-fiction …



No, she's not “from Canada”...



Though she might as well be.



It's complicated.



I met this woman online, and she didn't come onto me in any way. She saw I was a fan of J. Michael Straczynski, when she asked to be friends on Myspace. This was back when Myspace was actually good for something ...



Yes, that long ago.



We exchanged emails. We found out that we have a lot in common. We make fun of the same people. We like the same authors. We have the same sense of humor....



On the same sense of humor: we each started talking about one book that had come out – a Jim Butcher novel called Turncoat. My family had gotten the book before her local library had, and she said, “No spoilers.”



At which point, my default setting was to tease her. “So I shouldn't tell you about the love interest being the traitor, and Y-female 'comforting' our hero afterwards …? …. Which of course is impossible for me to know, because I haven't I haven't been able to read the book at all, so I know nothing.”



Her response was “Ye gods, your second paragraph had me wanting to claw my eyes out before I got to your third! Mission accomplished; you got me good.”



I think I fell a little bit in love with her that day.



Though what prompted me to first say it was when she sent me a little bit of “flair” that said “Good morning, I see the assassins have failed.”



And I had sent her the exact same flair about the exact same time.



My reply was mostly in jest: “I am certain that we are compatibly dorky and violent. I must hit on you.... “

Her response: “Hit on me? This could get scary if we're ever on the same side of the continent at the same time. But don't let that stop you. :)”

But that was as far at it went. The rest of that exchange had to deal with

the spoilers discussion from above. Every once in a while, we would mention “flirtation subtitles,” or hand signals (via email), without Skype. We would compare dating histories, then discuss Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Victor Hugo, and try to write Jim Butcher's next few books for him. We had similar jokes on sex scenes in novels – and even considered doing a similar twist on the cliché for a later novel: an idea we had developed independent of each other.

We challenge each other – I know she challenges me, and she claims the same, but she covers it so very well and so effortlessly, I wouldn't know unless she told me.



We then started shipping books back and forth for conferences she didn't get to, but I did, and vice versa. She got me into a webcomic she was following in hardcopy … then I read ahead of her by reading it online.



After two years of back and forth, we met in person at an aquarium. Nothing overdramatic, but it was pleasant. We talked of comic book characters, and sharks and Peter Benchley. When we tried footnoting the real life story Benchley stole Jaws from, we both knew it was 1916, in the New York area, but we disagreed on the shark type and the exact location. Then we found a plaque dedicated to Jaws, and discovered that I was right about the shark, she was right about the location.



Together, we can remember a whole story.



I suspect that with her, I can even pass for a whole and complete person.



Since we are on opposite ends of the universe, she has encouraged me to try dating -- if only as a trial run. She is the only woman for whom I would drag myself into the quagmire of the dating pool.



No, she is not the most beautiful woman in the universe – well, she is, but I can't say that, because she somewhat disagrees with me on the topic, and it's easier just to smile, nod, and talk about something else.



I think she's beautiful and wondrous. And she is truly the brightest star in my star ...



 Thankfully, I have a 50/50 chance of her reading this blog … so, shhh, don't tell her.



But not only is she beautiful, she's smart, and kind, and generous. She offers time she doesn't have, but by God, she will make it. I suspect if/when A Pius Man sells it will be because of her time and effort in edits. And maybe Matt's artwork.



No, it's not easy. I've hit her self-destruct buttons a few times without knowing it. In fact, once, I jabbed it repeatedly in the same few hours without realizing it. And I nearly triggered a nervous breakdown. By email alone.



We're working on our communication.



As I said, not easy. But if love were easy, I wouldn't trust it. I've had love come to me easily. Twice. Both times, it ended in the most spectacularly awful implosion.



So, it's not easy. But it's right.



That is pretty much what I hope to do in my novels...



What? You didn't think I was going to go on and on about a nameless woman just because I could, did you?



Notice how my relationship developed. Little details. Small things that add up into a very nice big picture. Our tiny jabs at Stephen King, the light teasing about Terry Prachett. Change the details if you like, but that's mostly how I like to think most romance stories should go.



Then again, if I wrote a romance novel, I suspect that my two leads would only get to an “I love you” by the end of the book. Possibly on the last page. Or when they're about to be killed.



In A Pius Man, I try to do the little things with Scott Murphy and Manana Shushurin. I have, essentially, three days of two highly-paranoid, suspicious-by-nature, spies, staying together. And, by the end of it, along the line they fall in love. It's a love that literally saves the world, possibly in the strangest ways imaginable.



But, heck, it worked for Terry Goodkind.



And, while Manana is stunning, and Scott is bland, and it works well because neither one of them care about appearances. They're spies, they know that appearances are the most deceiving thing in the universe. And their styles are so opposite to one another, they fit perfectly well.



And it's not easy. But it's right.

Assuming they survive the novel.

Writing a love story.

I've mentioned how many different things that A Pius Man happens to be. I've mentioned how I blow up public places. That there is philosophy, shootouts, history, explosions, theology, a car chase, RPGs (not role playing games), property damage, and … hmm, there's something else there.

Oh, yeah, a love story.

It's not that strange. After all, a love story seems almost obligatory nowadays. Usually, as a motivation for senseless violence after killing off half of the couple involved. Even if it's as simple as a boy and his dog … or a boy and his robotic killing machine in Terminator 2.

I mean, hell, what makes me qualified to do a romance subplot? I mean, hell, I'm weird, maybe you've noticed. Just from the various and sundry topics on the site, I'm all over the place. I've done comic books, politics, terrorism, writing, music, book reviews, and the list keeps going. The less said about theology, the better.

But a love story?

Here's the thing. I'm in love …

Yes, with a woman … Yes, she's human …

And non-fiction …

No, she's not “from Canada”...

Though she might as well be.

It's complicated.

I met this woman online, and she didn't come onto me in any way. She saw I was a fan of J. Michael Straczynski, when she asked to be friends on Myspace. This was back when Myspace was actually good for something ...

Yes, that long ago. [More below the break]

Snarky Theology 4: "Things that go boink in the night." Catholicism on Sex and Gays

This one may have slightly less snark.  We'll see how it turns out.



I hear from a lot of people that the Catholic Church is obsessed with sex.  I usually hear this from people who aren't Catholic, or Catholics who haven't been to church since they left their parents' basement.  I've been going to church every Sunday for about 20 years.  That's approximately a 1300 masses, with holy days ... and I'm adding this note at 2:30 in the morning, so don't nitpick my math ....



In all 1300 masses, I don't think I've never heard the priest talk about sex unless there was a reading that involved adultery, or someone begetting someone else.



This month, I turn 29. I believe I am one of the few male beings on the planet, and maybe the only person in New York City, who is deliberately a virgin.



I put special emphasis on deliberately, since being one involuntarily is not really that impressive for a nerd of my caliber. I've been given the option, and I have expressly said no.  I don't think this is a gloating matter, and I don't mean it to be "Haha, I'm more virtuous than you," I mean it more in the context of "Whew, I dodged a bullet."



My reasons for avoiding sex are numerous. For starters, I'm not married.  I have personal reasons (I've met too many people where sex has taken normal people with slight personality quirks, and turned them into full-on neurotic messes). I have practical reasons (my parents are both in the medical field, and I ask far too many questions when I'm at a microbiology conference--did you know that there are 25 difference STDs, 50 with varying mutations, and that condoms have an 85% failure rate against pregnancies, and viruses are many, many times smaller than a sperm cell? Oy!)



Also: I've got this strange notion from my philosophy and my faith that has said that, “Sex should be the perfect union of two people, so that they are linked biologically, psychosomatically, psychologically, and spiritually, making them one.  You don't do that with just anybody.”



Hey, I warned you I was a romantic sap. You should expect some of this tripe every so often.



But this is just me. What about the Church of Rome?



Oh, yeah, apologetics.



My last, "philosophical / religion" position, is the same position of the Catholic Church, which isn't half as obsessed with sex as the average American. To expand on that original premise, sex should be such a perfect union, only undertaken by two people in a committed relationship. And, sex should also fulfill all of its natural functions.  I briefly covered this topic before.



Thus, the Roman Catholic Church is the only one where sex is a sacrament.... Something blessed by Christ that gives god’s grace



Yes, you read that right. You get married, you are supposed to have sex. Children should be an end result, but timing is everything, isn't it? There are usually enough signs and portents in the average hormone cycle that self control is the best method of birth control available.



For the record: sterility doesn't really enter into the equation. The married couple having sex is doing everything right, it's just a matter of equipment failure.



And now you know everything about the Church's, um, position on sex … Tab A goes into Slot B.  The Church doesn't care where else it stops on the way, it doesn't care if whips, chains, exhibitionism, or anything else is involved, as long as the end result adds up to Tab A in Slot B.  It doesn't matter how it starts, it matters where you finish. 



And, personally, not only do I not care, I don't want to know.



In sum: sex that has no possibility of procreation is considered a deliberate violation of the natural order of things, and hence considered a sin.  Save sex for marriage, and after that, knock yourself out.  Have fun. Thank you, the end, goodbye ....



What? You mean I missed something?



Q: “What about the pill?”



A: Sigh ...



To start with, even environmentalists are wary about the pill.  Something about chemicals and the environment.  I'm not big into the Green movement, so find one of the Green people to explain this. 



Aside from medical purposes, the Church doesn't like the pill; to start with, it's tinkering with natural body chemistry, and I have to tell you, the warning labels scare the crap out of me. And, I already told you, marriage is a contract to have children—unless the pill is for a medical purpose, like to correct an aspect of body chemistry that's out of whack, Catholic married people don't need it, do they?



Q: “What about condoms?” Again, marriage, contract, children.  Tab A into Slot B. 



A: Let's look at something ELSE the Pope said about contraceptives, aside from the Condom article.  "If we separate sexuality and fecundity from each other in principle ... then sexuality becomes arbitrary.  Logically, every form of sexuality is of equal value."



In English: when you separate sex from producing children, sleeping with a hooker has just as much value as sleeping with your wife.  They both have the same outcomes, and are treated with just as much responsibility.  Separate sex from reproduction, and now you can introduce animals and batteries into the conversation.



Q: "But maybe I don't want to have children right now, and I am married, and no one has an STD?"



A: Okay, fine, if you want to drag this out.....



What do you call a girl who uses the rhythm method of birth control?  Pregnant. We've all heard this joke, and there are probably priests who've told this joke.  The rhythm method is so broken, it's not funny.  There is something called natural family planning, which requires observation of natural body functions, and self control.  Please look it up yourself, I am not going into those details here on this blog, thank you very much.  Though I should note that it has a success rate against pregnancies that is somewhere in the mid-90% range. 



To quote the pope (Yes, I'm whipping out the Pope here), the Church goes for

"natural regulation of conception, which is not just a method, but also a way of life.  Because it presupposes that couples take time for each other.  And that is something fundamentally different from when I take the pill without binding myself interiorly to another person, so that I can jump into bed with a random acquaintance."

IE: If you don't want to have children, use your brain, and keep it zipped for a few days, okay?  Thanks.



Bye.  We're done. Good day.



Q; “But I'm not married, but I want to have sex. That means I should ditch both the pill and condoms, right?”



A: All right, fine.  I'm going to bash my head against a wall a little.



Keep it zipped if you're not married is the Church's position. As I already mentioned in my Church, Sex and Latex article, if you're already committing a sin (like, you know, non-marital sexual affairs, or even, God save us, extra-marital affairs), taking precautions to mitigate side-effects of your screwing around would be a good idea.



Q: “Are you judging me?” 



A: I don't know how many times I can say that, 1) I don't care  2) I'm only explaining aspects of my religion, and 3) as far as judgement goes, I already did that article.  I've been asked these questions a lot.  And very often, I have to say it a few times.



Q:  "But what about this fling I had"---



A: Let me stop you right there, and see if I can issue a generic statement that should cover a lot of things.



Can we agree that somethings are better than others?  Dark Chocolate better than milk chocolate, or New York Pizza versus California pizza, or ... you get the idea.



As far as sex goes, it was once broken down for me like this ... think of this as the only secular portion of this blog.



Solo <   $ <   One Night <  Friends w/Benefits <    Girlfriend <    Committed Relationship <  Marriage.



And if I have to translate that into English for you, forget it. This blog has been PG in language since the start, I'm not having it go into an R rating now.



Even Matt, who is an atheist, and as far as I can get from Catholic theology, has also noted that a committed relationship is better than occasional flings ... And he's made this argument from experience.  I guess I'm not the only romantic sap around here.



Oh, yeah, and Matt's position is basically a secular version of the Catholic Church's.  Again, Rome prefers a committed relationship that lasts for, oh, life.  But welcome to America, where the divorce rate is a little over 40%



Q: "The Divorce rate is over 60%, isn't it?"  



A:  Not if you take out all of the repeat customers to the lawyer's office (thank you to my friend Jason for that number).  Next topic?



Q “What about gays? Why does the church hate them?”



A: ..... 



The Catholic Church hates nobody.  If it makes you feel any better, if I get any more stupid questions, I will hate you.



Let's go straight to the videotape.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church says

"The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible ... They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.  Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.  These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives."

Yes, we really hate gays, don't we?



Q:  "Then what's the Catholic issue with Gays?"



Here's the part where the Church and gays might, conceivably, have an issue:



Back to the Catechism.  "Basing itself on Sacred Scripture .... tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."



Yes, that's the harshest word that Catholics have towards gays: disordered.  Ooooo, let's call out the SWAT team... And when you consider that the American Psychological Association had homosexuality down as a psychological disorder until a couple of decades ago, I wonder where we got the term from .....



Here's a question for you, dear reader: What do the gay commentator and playwright Harvey Fierstein, Lesbian Lawyer and ex-NOW (CA) President Tammy Bruce, and the Pope all have in common?



They really don't like gay lifestyles …



Nope, I'm not joking.



With Fierstein, a little background.  Fierstein was picketed for a brief period of time in the early 1980s, because he had come out with a play that had three, monogamous, gay couples ... he was picketed by gays, who protested on the grounds that "We can have sex with anyone at anytime, we don't need to be tied down to one person!"



Then newspaper stories on AIDS came out soon after, and monogamy became very popular.



More recently, Fierstein has noted that the trends have come back.  He's written in the New York Times about a trend of gay youth that says “Hey, if you get AIDS, that means you have become a man!” Apparently, according to Fierstein, the triple cocktail and other AIDS medications have made AIDS "trendy"—the infected can live for decades, so now it's “just a status symbol.”  Fierstein's a little nervous of such "trends." 



Lesbian, Lawyer, and ex-NOW California President Tammy Bruce has noted that this thought process of "Hey!  AIDS won't kill you immediately" has led to another trend—multiple partners a year, with numbers in the triple-digits.



While, on the other hand, you have the Catholic church running clinics that take care of 25% of all AIDS victims on the planet, and 40% of those infected in Africa.



Now, if you go from the Catholic position on sex, you can understand why the church doesn't like gay sex.  The distinction usually made that that the Church dislikes the actions, not the people committing the acts.  Hence why on one hand, we should care for the people, but the actions are "disordered."  The older summation of this idea (going back 1500 years) is: "Error has no rights, but people do."



Also, let me note something.  Last time I checked, the Catholic Church has never utilized stoning as an official punishment for, well, anything.  We don't kill people for being something -- being gay is not a sin.  Thank you.



Q: "So, what? That means you're going to legislate who people love?" 



A: Me? Personally? I don't care.  I'll say it until I'm blue in the face.  Sleep with whoever you like, just don't tell me about it the morning after.  This goes for you straight people, too. 



In fact, since there are more straight people than gays, this goes double for you.



Again, it's not about who loves who.  It's more lifestyle issues.



Q: "So, basically, that means that all gays should become virgin priests?" 



It's not required.  Though it's not out of the question, because a lot of gays are following that route. 



According to statistics from Fr. Andrew M. Greeley, PhD (Sociology, U of Chicago), about 10% of the priesthood is gay, and keeping it zipped. (I'll see if I can find a link for this, I remember this from an article of his a few years ago -- and you type in "gay" and "Catholic" into a search engine, see what screwed up stuff you get).



Q: So, pedophilia ...?

A: Separate question, separate article. I'm blogging as fast as I can.  Short version from the Church: pedophilia bad.  Personally: If I had my way, sharp objects and kerosene will be involved ... but no one asks my opinion.



I think that just about covers it.  Any other questions can be asked in my comments.  If you have issues with how I have translated Italian, religious Bureaucratic-Speak into Plain English, comment.  If you have complaints about the content of what I have said, take it up with the Vatican. 



HOWEVER, keep it civil.  I've never said it before, but before the little exchange of words over Lent, I never felt the need to.  I did not delete any of the comments from the Lent article, because I didn't tell people "no profanity," and I wasn't going to pull a bait and switch.   Now, you have been warned.



Keep in mind, next week we will have a guest blog from Ann Margaret Lewis, an interview with her, and a review of her novel Murder in the Vatican: The Church Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes.

Philosophy, Religion, and Sex.

Dear Pope Benedict, I've been a fan of your career since you worked under John Paul II.  The press hated you because you were hostile to them, and for that I applaud you.  But you have to stop having statements come out so close together, it messes up my schedule.



Last week, I explained why the Catholic Church wanted to hire exorcists.



This week, because no one in the Vatican can shut up, I'm going to try explaining something else that was recently in the news.



The New York Times recently reported that, "Yippie, the Pope is giving in and endorsing condom use."



The old gray hag of The New York Times has, once again, gotten it wrong.  One day, they may actually try to get a theologian to explain theology to them.  Unfortunately, given most theologians, that may not help much.



Let's start at the beginning: Why does the Catholic Church have an issue with condom use?  Or any contraceptives?



It basically involves philosophy ... bare with me a minute, I'll keep it short and comprehensible ... and what is the function of "a thing."  In the case of sex, the mechanism of sex is "insert tab A into slot B."  The "function" of sex is procreation, and a darn good time, if you're doing it correctly.



Contraceptions mess with the natural function of sex by removing elements that are inherent to the act -- procreation comes with sex.  The Vatican position is, that if you mess around with it and start taking out elements, then you are messing around with things that are not yours to mess with.



If you are pondering what the Catholic church's advice is on STD prevention when you have sex with your boy/girlfriend, the Church's position is that you should be having sex with your spouse, only with your spouse, have a nice day, thank you.  Under this rubrick, STDs are not a problem, since if you only ever insert one tab A into one tab B, STDs are not an issue; pregnancy remains in effect, but in the Catholic church, marriage is a contract to have sex, have kids, and spread the spawn around the globe, carrying the faith with it.



You are currently up on previously held positions.



The NY Times said, on November 21st .....

“Pope Benedict XVI has said that condom use can be justified in some cases to help stop the spread of AIDS . . . .”

However, George Wiegel, papal biographer and general Vatican busybody, corrected the Times report.  You can find the full text online, but since that will take forever for you to read, I'm going to translate it for you, gentle reader, into something easily comprehensible.



The pope's actual statement, in context, was during an interview.  The pope mentioned how the Catholic Church runs more AIDS hospitals, and stresses "prevention, education, help, counsel, and accompaniment."  IE: The pope pointed out that, unlike pontificating reporters, the Church actually does something,



The pope even stressed that "we cannot solve the problem [of AIDS] by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease."





The pope continued:

.... people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence–Be Faithful–Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work. This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality .... the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.

Short version: sex is important, has an effect on a person, and is also for the purpose of expressing love.  Throw in a condom, and you just make it another way to drug yourself into a stupor.




The part where the NYTimes gets confused is probably in the following section:

There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.

When asked if "the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?"  Pope Benedict XVI answered that "She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality."



Short version: If it's someone infected with AIDS, yes, the Church would rather that they NOT KILL PEOPLE by infecting them further. 



Basically, it's like robbing a bank -- if you rob a bank, the Church would rather have someone use an empty gun; it'll lessen the risk of someone getting their head blown off.



So, despite news reports, the Catholic Church's position hasn't changed.



With luck, we can all move on to something important now.