Comment

Comment by Angie Jackson on June 6, 2009 at 5:20pm

Pansy Hitler... wait, anyone seen the Producers with Gene Wilder? They sort of covered that...

Comment by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on June 6, 2009 at 4:59pm

The important thing, Richard, is that you have attempted this difficult task. No-one else has, as far as I know.

You paint an intriguing picture of Hitler as a pansy. I had to laugh.

Comment by Richard Goscicki on June 6, 2009 at 4:19pm

Rosemary, I want to thank you for your interest in my writing, I admit that I didn't want the sex theme to run away. It was very difficult for me to express the worldview and sexual appetite of a woman. But Dawkins' selfish gene theory required that I see it through.

I thought the hawk/dove dichotomy was interesting. Can you imagine what history would be like if genes flipped so capriciously as they do in MR? I can picture Hitler becoming an effeminate pansy right after the Nazis invaded Russia.

Fun stuff to contemplate.

Comment by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on June 6, 2009 at 3:51pm

@Richard.

Ah, but I wasn't brought up Catholic! I never had any reason to think of non-reproductive sex as "sinful". And never did! OTOH, I got tied up with the usual Fundie nonsense about "fornication" being bad, just because it was. I overcame that one before I lost my religious beliefs. It made sense be forbid fornication in a society with no way of preventing pregnancy because the outcome was often horrid for the woman, the child and any guy who had the misfortune to be found out. The advent of reliable contraception blew that argument out of the water. I could be responsible and enjoy myself. No problem. Very ethical.

My problem with your character is that she is rather irresponsible at times. Or at least niave. As I think I said in an earlier comment on your book (or at least thought it), the female character is more like a male fantasy of how it might be. It grates on me for that reason. I suspect, but have no proof, that other women may also feel this way.

In other words, don't be so quick to assume that criticism of the book is based on your atheist world view. It may well be based on your masculine one!

Peace!

Comment by Richard Goscicki on June 6, 2009 at 3:12pm

Rosemary, Non-reproductive is considered sinful. This makes no sense at all, except with a memetic interpretation that the memeplex needs to replicate. Tight knit, extended, patriarchal families are the best way for vertical transition (father to son) of the memetic information.

Just to explain some my preoccupation with sex, the story is an allegory of Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. Suppose what he dubs the “coy/fast gene” reversed due to chemical contamination and corruption of chromosomal nucleotide sequences.

Cynthia was a good girl from a well-to-do, tight family— shy, modest and family oriented. Pre-mirror reversal, she said, "I'm not that kind of girl," quite a few times in her life. But suppose a chemical managed to reverse the alleles. As shy as she was before the mirror reversal, that's how coquette, immodest, teasing and swinging she becomes.

How would this genetic flip change her life? She becomes a completely different person.

Comment by Woody Bass on June 6, 2009 at 2:34pm

Oops... Thanks Angie... didnt post the link to my site of ramblings: WoodyBass.com

Comment by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on June 6, 2009 at 2:00pm

@Richard

To be honest, but not intending to be rude, I have some problems with the way Mirror Reversal treats non-reproductive sex.

Yet I am an atheist who doesn't care a f-ck whether the book has "anti-religious themes"
And I a woman who is all for lots of non-reproductive sex. That is how I got pregnant. One very remote chance was all it took. :-)

Comment by Angie Jackson on June 6, 2009 at 1:39pm

Hmm.. Maybe I should put something in the above group description asking that erotica/sex be noted in the title of the post. We do have some minors (or at least, the group is open to them) and while I'm not still Christian I am still a prude. Sorry!

Comment by Richard Goscicki on June 6, 2009 at 12:54pm

Rosemary, I didn't know my website was rated X, but it's just as well. Definitely Mirror Reversal is not for kids. One retired marine wrote an Amazon review highly indignant of my descriptions of non-reproductive sex. "Not worth the paper it's written on," said the commandant in a sally of imagination.

This intellectual with stripes couldn’t admit he was offended by the book’s anti-religious themes, but felt compelled to attack me for amoral preoccupation with sex, which was essential to the storyline.

***

Am I familiar with the Peter Principal? I just lived through eight years of President Bush.

Comment by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on June 6, 2009 at 10:56am

No probs, Angie.

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