scifi is shit

[Anonymous No.6309546]

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream is the most misogynistic story I've read in a month of Sundays. The tragedy is that it didn't need to be that way. The misogynistic parts add nothing to the story whatsoever, although this is not to say that the added appeal of being able to hate women while reading sci-fi didn't necessarily contribute to the story's success when it was published. But from a purely literary standpoint, the author could have removed the one female character and the story would have been vastly improved right then and there. Though it still wouldn't have been good, by my personal subjective standards.

IHNMAIMS is the story of the last five human beings on earth living trapped in underground caverns ruled by a sentient supercomputer who was created to destroy humanity during an escalating Cold War. The computer carried out its job a little too efficiently, and salvaged the last five humans left in order to torture them for eternity and take out its/his hatred on the race that created it/him. These humans have been kept alive, sorta-immortal, and physically and mentally altered, for 109 years. And they're not enjoying themselves very much, because of all the torture. Fair enough.


The story opens on four of the five survivors being shocked and horrified at the apparent suicide of a fifth member, before he shows up and it turns out to have been a cruel joke by the computer. It's an effective opening that sealed my interest in the story. But then we have to immediately segue into the misogyny with the introduction of Ellen, who weighs in on a dispute about whether or not to go on an expedition to find canned goods:

Ellen decided us. “I’ve got to have something, Ted. Maybe there’ll be some Bartlett pears or peaches. Please, Ted, let’s try it.”
I gave in easily. What the hell. Mattered not at all. Ellen was grateful, though. She took me twice out of turn. Even that had ceased to matter. And she never came, so why bother? But the machine giggled every time we did it.

Meet Ellen. Ellen's entire purpose in this story is for the four men to have a woman to have sex with over their 109-year confinement. (This study guide I found online for the story? Almost every mention of Ellen has the words "sex", "sexual", or "hypersexual" in the same sentence. With good reason, because that's pretty much her entire presence in the story.)

[Anonymous No.6309547]

>>6309546
Now, for me, as a reader, this is not something I demand because it doesn't strike me as realistic. I kind of feel like 109 years of constant tortures and body alteration and also a computer giggling at me any time I get my dick out... would sort of make me not want to get my dick out. (I felt the same way about all those teeeeeeeedious passages about masturbation in I Am Legend.) But, then, I tend to view male characters in novels as actual people who are shaped by the context around them, and not as extensions of my own self and the context around me. I don't push my libido onto characters in an entirely different situation from me, is what I am saying; I expect them to have libidos of their own.

But, hey, I've never been tortured for 109 years. Maybe some sexual release helps with the torture. Or... helped, past tense, since the narrator (Ted) says it's not doing much for him anymore, and apparently has never done anything for Ellen. So, you know, who am I to judge how they're coping with their situation? (I'm a reader who is strongly side-eying what the author wrote, that's who. But I digress.) And maybe it will be explained later why Ellen does this (companionship? nurturing?) if she doesn't enjoy it, and why Ted does it if he doesn't enjoy it and additionally knows that Ellen doesn't either. I stuck with the story, certain that all this would be explained in time.

Ellen is next allowed to speak when one of their number, a scientist named Benny who has been surgically altered to resemble a chimpanzee by the supercomputer, tries to escape the underground tunnels and is punished by the computer for the attempt:

I heard Ellen saying frantically, “No, Benny! Don’t, come on, Benny, don’t please!” [...] “Oh, Ted, Nimdok, please, help him, get him down before—” She cut off. Tears began to stand in her eyes. She moved her hands aimlessly.
It was too late. None of us wanted to be near him when whatever was going to happen, happened. And besides, we all saw through her concern. When AM had altered Benny, during the machine’s utterly irrational, hysterical phase, it was not merely Benny’s face the computer had made like a giant ape’s. He was big in the privates, she loved that! She serviced us, as a matter of course, but she loved it from him.
[...] Gorrister slapped her. She slumped down, staring up at poor loonie Benny, and she cried. It was her big defense, crying. We had gotten used to it seventy–five years before. Gorrister kicked her in the side.

OH MY GOD NOPE.

[Anonymous No.6309549]

>>6309546
>>6309547

[Anonymous No.6309572]

You realize that Ellen's hypersexuality is something AM instilled her with, right? She's not just a whore that embodies traditional female stereotypes (reliance on the men around her, resorting to crying, etc)

[Anonymous No.6309582]

>>6309572
Well you must understand OP is one of those simpletons that thinks any portrayal of a female by a male author is indicative of what he thinks of all women. He also fails to realize that this Independence of the modern female is due to technology. If we went back to olden times even the most Independent female would resort to a base nature of higher dependence on the males around her.

[Anonymous No.6309587]

>>6309582
Not being devils advocate but Ellison was pretty shit with women.

[Anonymous No.6309596]

>>6309546

[Anonymous No.6309614]

misogyny is not inherently bad, loosen that scarf of yours.

[Anonymous No.6309618]

>>6309587
You should listen to his audio books. His musings in between stories tells you exactly what he thinks of women.

And like every asshole on the Internet he uses my soggy when he means chauvinistic.

Women have a dependence on men that some don't like to admit. They have no choice on their dependence, nor do we in bearing it.

[Anonymous No.6309625]

>another sjw thread
You know the drill, sage and report.

[Anonymous No.6309688]

>>6309547
He better really hate women, because I'm going to give him a read.
>mfw all these plebs telling me Kerouac was a misogynist
>mfw I read his books and Kerouac was downright soft on the no good lying whores

[Anonymous No.6309699]

>>6309587
Ellison is a shitty person in general

[Anonymous No.6309785]

The fact that it rubs your inner thigh rash the wrong way means that it's likely a story free of the usual pandering and concealments. Short and blunt.