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Forum URL: http://www.eyrie-productions.com/Forum/dcboard.cgi
Forum Name: Symphony of the Sword/The Order of the Rose
Topic ID: 445
Message ID: 7
#7, RE: And then another day (one day, continued)
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-07-14 at 01:56 AM
In response to message #6
LAST EDITED ON Aug-07-14 AT 01:59 AM (EDT)
 
>I deliberately discounted Liza
>Shustal and Azalynn; they were both clearly bi before they entered
>their relationship.

Azalynn would be a bit miffed that you're pigeonholing her as bisexual. That's so... geminormative.

>But the rest of the pattern doesn't exist where I can see
>it. No such dynamic exists between Liza and Azalynn, Kate and Juri,
>Amanda Dessler and Rina Dragonaar, or Juniper and Gunnr.

If such a dynamic did exist between Amanda and Rina, one expects it would run counter to the expectations their job titles would imply. I'm just saying.

I don't have a lot of time for that dominance-and-submission business, though, frankly. I suppose that's probably vanillanormative of me.

>>Utena, as portrayed in Symphony, seems to be closer to a 0 on
>>the Kinsey scale
>
>So she says, and I concede that she's not your typical 3.

Somewhere between 1 and 2, I should say, if only because Anthy would probably take exception to her husband making love to her being filed as "incidental homosexuality". :)

>I have very
>little knowledge of the source, but I can't recall anything from SotS
>to disprove the idea that she's mostly asexual.

... Wait, what?

>In Utena's
>case, philia is prerequisite to eros, and she doesn't
>seem to have much of anything in the "base lust" department.

In fairness to Utena, that doesn't indicate that she's somehow not a sexual being. (In Dìqiú alone, there's a certain clearing up on the mountain road outside Republic City that would beg to differ with your assessment there. And a suite at the Phoenix House Hotel. And a dark corner on the observation deck of the Harmony Tower. And one of the staterooms aboard the Mirai. And the ensuite shower in the big house on Air Temple Island. Among other places. :) It indicates that she's wary of "base lust", and for very good reason. As a teenager, she got burned twice by responding to the "oh 'ello" system call, once incredibly badly, once just to the tune of a really unpleasant evening reliving the first time. Even the dumbest animal eventually learns not to stick its nose in a fire, but her not sticking her nose in fires doesn't mean she somehow can't perceive them, to thoroughly belabor the metaphor.

Besides, how would you "disprove the idea that she's mostly asexual" by looking at stories where she's in stable relationships? Count up the number of scenes in which she's not looking at someone other than her partners and thinking, Yes please, I'll have some of that? That's not really her style. Doesn't mean she's asexual. I mean what?

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
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