Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!bbncca!rrizzo
From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo)
Newsgroups: net.motss,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Sexual Slant in Novels - "Stars in My Pocket..."
Message-ID: <1656@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 31-Dec-85 09:50:30 EST
Article-I.D.: bbncca.1656
Posted: Tue Dec 31 09:50:30 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 1-Jan-86 01:01:17 EST
References: <827@bu-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 41
Xref: watmath net.motss:2387 net.sf-lovers:11724

Disclosing sexual bias in a book?  Advertising its sexuality?  Hey, what
is this?  It sounds like some looney project from Andrea Dworkin or some
other political crazy.  Apply any of these recommendations to books
"slanted" to heterosexuality (god forbid!); the result would be clearly
perceived as off the wall, AND obnoxious by more than a few readers.

Why do publishers have any economic interest in "advertising" the book's
sexuality?  They'd probably lose money if they adopted such a policy.
After all, you DID buy the book, even if you didn't read all of it.  With
your objections, knowing its "sexual slant" in advance would have meant
you wouldn't have made the purchase in the first place.

I find the allusion to a kind of "truth in advertising" idea applied 1)
to sexual matters; and 2) to what is though of as a minority orientation,
really offensive.  And it smacks of puritanism.

Finally, it betrays a lack of knowledge of publishing: publishers are
legally free to put anything they like on book covers; not even the
author has ANY control over what goes on them.  The disclaimers being
suggested are not only utterly irrelevant to publishing practices, they
imply a warped kind of public service at odds with what publishing houses
see as effective and appropriate cover advertising.

Given the superficiality of many readers' aims, positive deception is
valuable in LURING readers into buying and reading books.  Think of
how many of the classics of world literature have to be "marketed"
to get people to consider looking at them at all.  Nowadays, the way
to do it is to turn the book into a teleplay for Masterpiece Theater
with lots of production value and famous actors.  

So, since when has honesty been a policy in publishing?  Why should
it be?  Who wants it to be (certainly not propsective readers!)?
Book covers (& their art, from Frank Frazetta to David Hockney) are
SUPPOSED to be hype, deceptive, literarily irrelevant, complete facades.


				LOLITA would've languished
				with truth in advertising,

				Give me lies, hype, & illusions,
				Ron Rizzo