On Thursday, January 24, 2002, at 02:30 PM, Kendall Clark wrote:
> What does his race or sexual orientation have to do with it?
well, mostly i was thinking of the sf audience and who delany is writing for. a lot of straight white men writing sf write for younger versions of themselves--pimply teen (hetero) boys. see my previous response to your earlier email.
> Really,
> that seems rather an odd response if it's meant to be explanatory of
> my claim, and not simply offering further information about Delany. I
> avoid putting the 'black gay' thing upfront when I talk about him
> because I think it tends to distract people from the quality of his
> gifts and accomplishments, which are considerable.
i disagree. i would argue that there is a certain explanatory power, but not what you say below, to wit:
> <snip>
> Are gay black men renowned for being incredibly smart about human
> sexuality?
um, not as far as i know, but they're certainly unusual as sf writers, and it shouldn't be surprising that their--let's say 'his', since we're really just talking about delany, here--it shouldn't be surprising that his handling of sex and sexuality would be significantly different from the bulk of sf. that wouldn't necessarily prevent it from being crass, but it happens not to be crass because delany *is* smart and sensitive about sexuality (among other things).
>
> cian> Heinlein, or Asimov, would be insulting). The Soft SF of the
> cian> 70s produced a far more interesting collection of writers.
>
> Including lots of very good feminist scifi: Joanna Russ, Ursula Le
> Guin, Pamela Sargent, Sherri Teppler, Suzette Elgin, ...
>
again, see my previous email, on this . . . you might add pat murphy and pat cadigan to this list and my earlier one, as well. fwiw, i seem to recall octavia butler winning a macarthur a few years back.
j