A nice cup of rabies

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January 10th, 2009
Saturday, 01:25 AM

Over the past few days I've ended up reading several bits of late-period Heinlein, something I haven't done since I was in my early teens. His politics get weird once you get into the sixties.

The one thing that really stands out as a constant wince inducer is his position on gender politics. It can be boiled down to two words, probably found coming out of the mouth of one of his charmingly grizzly and fabulously multi-skilled male characters like Jubal or Lazarus, directed to a Spunky, Beautiful, Intelligent, Interchangeable Young Thing:

"Papa spank."

He hangs a lampshade on it now and then, but if you're a named female character in a late Heinlein novel, this is the warning every time you start getting too uppity and look like you're about to take command. Papa spank. I was aware of this when I was younger but it never really jumped out at me like this as a constant back then.

There's one bit in Strange in a Strange Land where he tries to caricature this attitude... by putting his authorial perspective inside the head of a devout Muslim character. I think we're supposed to wince at his even more grandiose case of this women-as-servants view, but it's only a tiny degree past the attitude that permeates everything, to my eyes.

How times change. Papa spank.

13 comments ◉ Leave a comment

You are so right, and this is one of the reasons I never got any further than Stranger in a Strange Land. Of course, the rampant borrowing of the "specialization" quote by the asshole strain of libertarians didn't help either...

◉shatterstripes
Saturday, 08:32 AM
January 10th, 2009 Reply to this / Parent / Thread
Really, given some of the other Weird Home Lives he depicted in other books (like the big sprawling happy 'line marriage' poly arrangement in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress), it would not surprise me if the 'Papa spank!' thing is a polite distillation of 'I have a lifestyle BDSM relationship with a regular flavor of father/daughter roleplay'. I am not sufficiently curious to do the research; some things I just don't need to know.
and hell, you don't have to read very far between the lines of most accounts to know that Asimov would put his dick in pretty much any even vaguely willing female he met at a con... you just kind, you know, don't put two and two together when you're a kid reading this stuff and its history.
- ◉candiedmouth
  Saturday, 02:02 PM
  January 10th, 2009 Reply to this / Parent / Thread
  I'm pretty sure you're on the money there. In The Number of the Beast, and a few others I'm sure, it goes beyond 'father/daughter roleplay' and happily dances around the edge of ACTUAL father/daughter sexualized relationships, portrayed with the same frank attitude of 'this is totally normal' with which Heinlein likes to approach most, if not all, Weird Home Lives.
◉dv_girl
Saturday, 08:47 PM
January 10th, 2009 Reply to this / Parent / Thread
I finally forced myself to finish SIASL a couple weeks ago. I've never made it more than 3 chapters into a Heilein book without hurling it across the room because I get so disgusted with him. I think the only reason I managed to finish this one is due to reading a chapter a day at lunch (My norm is to read books straight through) so that gave annoyance time to diffuse; plus I took a several month break in the middle of it.

I rather like Heinlein stories, and his gender politics always make me laugh. Especially when he tries to write a 'strong' female character. Good times.

Remember, a woman is smarter, stronger, tougher, and all around better than a man, and must NEVER be allowed to do anything that could disprove that statement.

This sort of thing is why my image of Heinlein resides firmly in the "Have Space-Suit Will Travel"/"Time For The Stars" days. Anything after Starship Troopers and Stranger completely loses me.

◉perlandria: DiscoSquirrel-FineWeatherForDucks-LemonJ
Saturday, 08:21 AM
January 10th, 2009 Reply to this / Parent / Thread
And even then - Podkayne of Mars and Citizen of the Galaxy have Heinlein Magical Girls: cute, asskicking, and only there as fluff.

You've boiled down Heinlein perfectly, despite the haze of having last read the works you reference sometime in my late teens. What disturbs me most is the thought that a surprising number of my male friends have based their adult relationship model on their interpretation of precisely the position you describe. They will be the knowing Imperator who hands out wisdom with a chuckle to their supple young charges. It gets even creepier when I consider that the most literal offender now lives more or less on a college campus and still enacts this fantasy with undergrads, despite his no-longer impending baldness. *shudder*

◉siege: BLAM!
Sunday, 02:26 AM
January 11th, 2009 Reply to this / Parent / Thread
I take it he has not even a portion of Patrick Stewart's charisma.
◉shatterstripes
Sunday, 07:22 PM
January 11th, 2009 Reply to this / Parent / Thread
Yeah. I don't mind the BDSM undercurrent; it's the whole 'Women should be seen (oh, how they should be seen!) and not heard' attitude that bugs the fuck out of me. There are places he's trying his damndest to be a proponent of freedom, responsibility, and openness to the new - but he just couldn't shake this dismissive attitude towards women. I am not even sure he could really see it.

This isn't in any way to defend Heinlein's later books, but I believe that he had a brain clot which was causing some of the more sexual stuff to take center stage in his books. It's unfortunate that some of the more problematic stuff was in his head to begin with, but I think there was a physical problem causing it to come to the forefront of his writing. Apparently, after the surgery, his books and personality got a little less obsessive.

◉shatterstripes
Sunday, 06:08 PM
January 11th, 2009 Reply to this / Parent / Thread
*nod* Part of why I was reading some late Heinlein was that I recently read Saturn's Children, Charlie Stross's homage to Heinlein's bloodclot period.

Yea, his latter writings are..well..off.

To be honest I could never tell if he was jokeing or not. Still, read all of his books including grumbles from the grave.

Always kind of wondered what kind of cult would of started out if he and not Robert started up Scientology.

heinlein in two words

Grew up on the guy.