Talk:The SekWester*Con Porn Debate

Any suggestions on places this page can be linked? --Mrs. Potato Head (talk) 23:11, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Slash controversies comes to mind. By the way, is Leslie Fish a professional porn author? I have known of her since before the events described here, and I've never heard a breath of that. ETA yes she says she was a "one-time" pro, I didn't see that when I first read through this article. --KTJ (talk) 04:03, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Duplicate info

It seems that much of the material on this page duplicates what is on Mary Ellen's Open Letter, including the responses. My idea is to start out describing the actual porn panels themselves, since that where the actual "porn debate" got started, (well, hardly, but you see what I'm saying), then to summarize Mary Ellen's letter with just the main points, as you see on SeKWester*Con#The Pornography Controversy!, aka "Rise of the Age Statements", and also summarize the responses to that letter, then go on to other fan reactions specifically to what happened at that convention. --KTJ (talk) 22:45, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I've felt an unease with the duplication of info as well. I think your solution is a fabulous one. But, I don't know anything about the actual individual panels; that info will have to come from others. Mary Louise D's comments were only a part of these debates, and that should be emphasized. --Mrs. Potato Head (talk) 00:32, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Was the panel on the place of pornography in fan fiction transcribed? I will ask around. I think it's very important to include material from that panel if possible. It may be even more important than the K/S one in understanding where Mary Lou (not Mary Ellen, sorry) and other anti-porn ST fans were coming from. A lot of the anger and hostility I see on both sides is coming from the fact that at the time, any writing about an overtly gay relationship was viewed as porn, so there's a tendency to confuse the two when having discussions about their place in ST fandom. --KTJ (talk) 15:00, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Early Gay Novels/Influence on K/S

There were only a handful of novels discreetly or implicitly describing gay love, like The Well of Loneliness. E.M. Forster's sensitive novel Maurice, written in 1913, wasn't published until 1971!, It wasn't that there weren't any gay writers or people writing about gay relationships, but if they wanted to get published the references had to be so discreet that the general public could overlook/be in denial about it. In modern parlance, these novels had slashy subtext. There was this whole demimonde of the gay world and the Christopher Isherwood thing going on. (This is in Before Stonewall, which is a terrific film.) Situations where a fan author had really meant to portray just devoted friends, but is read as "obviously slash" by fans with their slash goggles on, may have its origins in this kind of literature, or maybe I'm full of B.S. Even Mary Renault had had to be pretty subtle about it and part of the reason her work was accepted was its Ancient Greek setting. Fire from Heaven came out just as Star Trek was completing its third season, and The Persian Boy made the bestseller list in '72, two years before slash became visible. Those novels were huge on college campuses and even among high-school readers. Comparisons of Kirk and Spock to Alexander and Hephaistion are not only not off base for their own sake, but in terms of how K/S fans saw their relationship. Or like I said maybe I'm full of B.S. --KTJ (talk) 15:00, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

You know a lot more about the background than I... :-) About there being a transcript: was that the one where the mic was set so that it accidently broadcast all/part of Connie F's comments to the whole lobby? If so, I've seen a transcript of that in a zine. --Mrs. Potato Head (talk) 15:09, 19 June 2013 (UTC) Added: Yes, the transcript is in the zine Legacy, transcribed by Langley: The Sound and the Fury: The First Panel Discussion About K/S --Mrs. Potato Head (talk) 15:12, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

OK, but is a transcript of the "Porn in ST" panel in there along with the transcript of the K/S panel? --KTJ (talk) 23:30, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

A few years back Gayle F, Kathy Resch and Caren Parnes held a panel at Bascon about the gay novels of the 60s and 70s that helped shape their K/S experience. I will see if I can find more info.--MeeDee (talk) 15:49, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

That would be just great, thank you! --KTJ (talk) 23:30, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Gayle sent me the following list (with her notes). The dates and locations and other panels members still TBD (I do remember the panel being held at least one Bascon).--MeeDee (talk) 00:57, 20 June 2013 (UTC) edited to add: the panel was held at Bascon 2006 and again at Kiscon 2011. --MeeDee (talk) 03:30, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

SLASHY INFLUENCES PANEL

(covers a wide range of time)

Mary Renault

• All but the last book deal with Hellenic civilization. Romantic rather than explicit.
• The Last Of the Wine (1956) – Great / romance.
• Fire From Heaven (1969) – Alexander in Macedonia (Alexander/Hephaestion)
• The Persian Boy (1972) – Alexander in Persia (Alexander/Bagoas). There is also Funeral Games (1981) – the fallout after Alexander’s death. Interesting, but one of the grimmest books ever written.
• The King Must Die (1958) & The Bull From the Sea (1962) – Two books about Theseus, not /, but great historical fiction. [There are sympathetic gay characters, though.]
• The Mask of Apollo (1966) & The Praise Singer (1978) - Not / but still lovely.
• The Charioteer (1953) – WWII England /

Patricia Nell Warren:

• The Front Runner (1974), plus sequels Harlan’s Race (1994) & Billy’s Boy (1997)
• The Fancy Dancer (1976), The Beauty Queen (1978), The Wild Man (2001)

Dorothy Dunnett:

• The Lymond Chronicles (beginning in 1961) – Six books set all over Renaissance Europe. Wonderfully Scorpionic, Byronic bisexual hero (but / element is very, very minimal, mostly for plot tweaking and author’s daring in making him bi). Great strong female characters.
• The Game of Kings, Queen’s Play, Disorderly Knights, Pawn in Frankincense, The Ringed Castle, Checkmate

Marion Zimmer Bradley:

• Catch Trap (1979) – circus themed

Anne Rice:

• Interview With the Vampire (1976) & The Vampire Lestat (1985) – vampy slash
• Cry To Heaven (1982) – operatic slash

Lolah Burford:

• Edward, Edward (1973) – for those who like dark and twisted

C. F. Griffin

• Haakon (1978) – complex tear jerker with 2 / and one het relationship.

Ursula LeGuin:

• The Left Hand of Darkness (1978) [discusses the Gethenian people who are genderless and can become either male or female during mating periods]

C. J. Cherryh

• The Faded Sun Series (1978-79) – not / but close to it, great male relationship

Tanith Lee:

• Night’s Master (1978) and the other Flat Earth Books, deliciously perverse and dabbles in /

Rohase Piercy

• My Dearest Holmes (1988, Gay Men's Press) "I believe the original author wanted us to deduce that Sherlock Holmes was gay." (Berger, 1988, pg. 17)."

This is great. Thank you. I'm going to take the liberty of filling in the dates. I have read Tanith Lee's Flat Earth series and "deliciously perverse" is a perfect description. The first story has a sexual relationship between the demon prince Azhrarn and a young male protege Azhrarn later creates a woman for him to marry though. I can't remember any more bisexual or gay characters from the series, but there certainly is a lot of playing around with gender and gender roles, as there is with Auntie Ursula's Gethenian people. --KTJ (talk) 09:00, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Again, I'm very interested in what happened on that "porn in Star Trek" panel. --KTJ (talk) 07:21, 25 June 2013 (UTC)