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Martin Amis: My Book On Victims Of The Sexual Revolution Is Totally Feminist
Is "Bitch Lit" The Cure For The Common Chick Lit Novel?
Worst 80's Romance Hero, Contestant #1: Jay Courtland, Rules Of The Game
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"Fictional Men Worth Loving"
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Pizza!Pizza!Pizza!
11/20/09

In reply to Martin Amis: My Book On Victims Of The Sexual Revolution Is Totally Feminist
I assume she was a promiscuous lesbian.
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bluebears
11/20/09

In reply to Martin Amis: My Book On Victims Of The Sexual Revolution Is Totally Feminist
Also his hair could not look more ridiculous. What is he going for with that mess?
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Edited by bluebears at 11/20/09 7:03 PM bluebears was starred bluebears was unstarred

Diziet_Sma
11/20/09

In reply to Martin Amis: My Book On Victims Of The Sexual Revolution Is Totally Feminist
How can someone so intelligent be so dumb?
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bluebears
11/20/09

In reply to Martin Amis: My Book On Victims Of The Sexual Revolution Is Totally Feminist
I hate the concept of the sexual revolution. Media myth.
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andBegorrah
11/20/09

@bluebears: I prefer the idea of a sexual convolution. Or convulsion. Whichevs.
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bluebears
11/20/09

@andBegorrah: oh I LOVE sexual convulsions. Is Showgirls your favorite movie too?
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Edited by bluebears at 11/20/09 6:58 PM bluebears was starred bluebears was unstarred

andBegorrah
11/20/09

In reply to Martin Amis: My Book On Victims Of The Sexual Revolution Is Totally Feminist
"You, alright?! I learned it by watching you!"

Parents who use contrarian sexist banalities have children who use contrarian sexist banalities.
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curiousgeorgiana
11/20/09

In reply to Martin Amis: My Book On Victims Of The Sexual Revolution Is Totally Feminist
I think what she was doing was seeking protection from men, but it went the other way, she was often beaten up, abused and she simply used herself up,"

Yeah, the men had nothing to do with that. Damn sexual freedom for making my sister beat herself up.
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LutherNipperkin
11/20/09

@curiousgeorgiana: He ran into my knife. He ran into my knife five times.
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J.D.Regent
11/20/09

In reply to Martin Amis: My Book On Victims Of The Sexual Revolution Is Totally Feminist
Right. Because pressure on women to have sex is totally feminist.
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HarpMadness
11/20/09

@J.D.Regent: On the one hand, we're uptight boner-killers who need to be more "sex positive", on the other, we're forcing women to have so much sex we end up all messed up.

One personality disorder ... er "trait" that many ultra-conservatives have is that they tend to be able to hold two opposing and contradictory thoughts in their head at the same time without cognitive dissidence. Go figure.
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bluebears
11/20/09

@J.D.Regent: It's all there in the seminal treatise Drop Them Panties: Give Up That Ass Ladies, by Gloria Steinem.
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Edited by bluebears at 11/20/09 7:01 PM bluebears was starred bluebears was unstarred

pesematology
11/20/09

In reply to Martin Amis: My Book On Victims Of The Sexual Revolution Is Totally Feminist
Is she alive? If so, what does she think of this?
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shevralay
11/20/09

@pesematology: She died in the 2000s, apparently.
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pesematology
11/20/09

@shevralay: I guess it's good for her sake, then, that he waited until after her death to be so offensively dismissive of both her personal experiences and those of women in general
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Edited by pesematology at 11/20/09 8:10 PM pesematology was starred pesematology was unstarred

shevralay
11/20/09

@pesematology: Yeah, it's rather obscenely cowardly to publish something like that after she's no longer able to respond to it.
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Dodgergirl
11/20/09

In reply to Martin Amis: My Book On Victims Of The Sexual Revolution Is Totally Feminist
I.... what?
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whats_in_a_name
11/20/09

In reply to Martin Amis: My Book On Victims Of The Sexual Revolution Is Totally Feminist
"It would've needed the Taliban to protect her"

Am I just misunderstanding that sentence, or did he just refer to his sister as "It"?
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Pizza!Pizza!Pizza!
11/20/09

@whats_in_a_name: Her vagina, maybe? They could have sewed it up!
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CrapCommentFromADude
11/20/09

@whats_in_a_name: In context, this can pretty clearly be read as "It would've taken the Taliban to protect her." Which is one of the most common wordings around.

I agree that there's a definite possibility the end result might be problematic, but I wouldn't be able to tell it from this article. It's just a snip job that doesn't really say anything conclusive about the book.

Hell, the quote you're taking so uncharitably is trying to make precisely the point that it wasn't the 'fault' of the sexual revolution or the feminists that she ended up as she did, and that a simple 'return' to some unrealistic-yet-imagined "earlier, better time" wouldn't have saved her.

To the extent that we know anything from this article, it sounds pretty clear that he's making a book about how people fared in the sexual revolution, for good and for ill, *without* blaming the sexual revolution itself or claiming that society should have collectively 'done something else'.

What, exactly, is novel or controversial about the idea that with more freedom often comes new and different pressures, for better or for worse? Isn't this the basic idea behind schools that institute school uniforms?

I think a lot hinges on the book's portrayal of men -- whether or not their bad behavior is put under the microscope, subjected to real analysis.

If anyone deserves not to have pointlessly snarky conclusions jumped to, it's Martin Amis.
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winner
11/21/09

@CrapCommentFromADude: I always enjoy reading your point of view.

I'm an Amis fan. I put off reading the Guardian article until just now - mostly because I had little faith in the Guardian's ability to deal with Amis objectively given their general distaste for him but also because I didn't want to have to defend Amis for another poorly thought-out declaration. I was pleasantly surprised on both counts. For the most part.

I've read most of his stuff and I'd be quite surprised if he didn't put his men under the microscope. I don't think he protects any of his characters and certainly not his male characters - they are unreliable, violent and desperate in London Fields ; unreliable, violent and untrustworthy in Other People; inhumane, violent and delusional in Time's Arrow. He is just in the treatment of his characters and I look forward to his commentary on the sexual revolution. Though, really, he's commented on it all along and what I really look forward to is a synthesis of this commentary.

And anyway, this isn't the first time he's written about his sister. There's a little Sally Amis in all of his female characters.

.
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momentsofabsurdity
09/12/09

In reply to Is "Bitch Lit" The Cure For The Common Chick Lit Novel?
My parents are Silicon Valley millionaires (not that much in cash, but certainly almost double that in home equity) who don't feel rich enough because they're surrounded by people with tens of millions.
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Feminista09
09/12/09

In reply to Is "Bitch Lit" The Cure For The Common Chick Lit Novel?
Feminista is my book. (And you don't know how happy I was to see this because I STAY on Jezebel.) But "bitch lit" was a term Publisher's Weekly used in an early review and I encouraged my pub to jump on that because we needed a selling point for this book. A lot of pubs rejected it because they didn't know what to do with this kind of atypical chick lit character and I think my current publisher is still finding their footing with this.

I think "bitch" only means what you're projecting onto it. And I think the same goes for Sydney, the heroine of FEMINISTA. Some women have said they hate her, some say they heart her...and I love that. Any visceral reaction aroused by a fictional character that was once just a figment of my imagination feels like a win for me.

[thefeministafiles.blogspot.com]
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whynotshesaid
09/13/09

@Feminista09: Hey, congratulations! I'm an aspiring author myself, and I am very impressed that you've gotten published and are getting attention for your writing. You give us unpublished, unwashed masses hope! :)
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Feminista09
09/13/09

@whynotshesaid: thank you! After reading the comments here, I was thinking about contacting Media Bistro to do a talk about this with other female writers. Would you be interested in that?
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Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith
09/12/09

In reply to Is "Bitch Lit" The Cure For The Common Chick Lit Novel?
I prefer to truncate 'chick lit' to 'clit'. This is because it makes me laugh. 'Blit' just doesn't have the same ring to it...
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whynotshesaid
09/12/09

In reply to Is "Bitch Lit" The Cure For The Common Chick Lit Novel?
I'll buy it, if only to tell publishing houses to put out more books featuring prickly heroines who think about more than shoes and marriage.
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BaileyMessalla
09/12/09

In reply to Is "Bitch Lit" The Cure For The Common Chick Lit Novel?
Bitch lit? Who would want to date a girl who read those kind of books? I think this will only be popular with the hyper-brainy, fussy pants from the high-end colleges. No one who wants to get a date will spend much time with these things.
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whynotshesaid
09/13/09

@BaileyMessalla: Good thing I don't pick my reading material with potential suitors in mind.
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