Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2010 7:41 pm
If I was a native speaker and not so clumsy with words in a foreign language, I would have said the same. After all I am the one who questioned the pieces of art on said website.wayfriend wrote:Hmm... let's consider the context a bit more.
Fantasy artwork boasting naked, helpless women and muscular men with big ... swords ... was ordered to be that way by some pointy-haired publishing executive who was considering only what would entice teenage boys - his perceived target audience - in the most direct and effective way possible.
If there's a comment here, it is on how publishers market books, if anything. (Or at least how they used to back in the day.) Sex sells, as it were.
Of secondary importance, maybe, is the comment on who is the perceived consumer of fantasy.
What no one may notice, but which I find to be the most "offensive" aspect of the whole situation, is the predominence of available, impossibly desirable but essentially helpless or at least highly dependent females who predominate a certain class of fantasy literature, at least at one time. Who lend themselves to those sorts of cover art. (Not that the cover artist is compelled to depict what actually is in the story.) Dejah Thoris and all her ilk.
All of these things, I would say, have corrected themselves over time. You don't see a lot of this kind of thing anymore on the fantasy shelves. I think publishers have widened who they perceive the audience to be. And I think it has in fact widened. And I think fantasy authors write about strong and varied women a lot more than they used to.
But sex still sells.
And yes, I was only teasing. I prefer my women helpless and naked when I make love to them on the fur in front of burning embers after I come home to my castle from a war I fought for my king.
If that fails coming home from a live action role play where I fought other nerds is sufficient. Even if it's the room I - being 40 - still occupy in my parent's house and all that waits for me is my nude and helpless right hand.
