Women and Magic, Part 1

by Jean Roberta

Hellebore and Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic, edited by Catherine Lundoff and JoSelle Vanderhooft (Lethe 2011) is an anthology of a dozen stories. A review copy was sent to me years ago, but I didn’t find time to read it until lately. The two herbs named in the title are either healing or poisonous, depending on how they are used: in poultices, remedies, or spells.




Two of the stories in this collection were reprinted in the 2012 edition of Heiresses of Russ (co-edited by Sacchi Green and publisher Steve Berman), an annual best-of collection of published lesbian spec-fic. Several years later, I was invited to co-edit Heiresses of Russ 2015. Several weeks ago, I received a gift copy (for review?) of Heiresses of Russ 2016.

So I’ve learned that in the 21st century, there is no shortage of fantasy and sci-fi stories in which the protagonists are women-loving women. The genres of the stories range from “high fantasy” or sword-and-sorcery to steampunk, slipstream, projections into the future of current technology (science-fiction), parody, and horror.

The lesbian relationships in these stories range from casual hookups among adventurous young women to long-term nesting to working/romantic partnerships between women with complementary skills. However, none of the sex in these stories is explicitly described.

To add to my pile of stories by/about women, I recently received the first five chapters of an upcoming novel, The Lost Art of Letter-Writing by Menna van Praag, to be released on February 16, 2017. This writer is a young woman in Cambridge, England, who writes fantasy romances set in her city. So far, they are: Men, Money and Chocolate (novella), Happier Than She’s Ever Been (sequel), The House at the End of Hope Street, The Dress Shop of Dreams, and The Witches of Cambridge. Over a year ago, I picked up a reduced-to-clear copy of The House at the End of Hope Street in a bin in my local Safeway store, and I was charmed. I signed up for the Menna van Praag (MVP) newsletter on-line. This is how I know that she and her husband now have two children, and that she struggles to find writing time.

To start with Hellebore and Rue, since this is the oldest book in the pile, I was impressed for several reasons: the stories are really varied, they are by authors I’m fairly familiar with, as well as ones I’d like to know better, and they include some Canadian content.

One of the authors, Rrain Prior, comes from the prairies (Manitoba, just east of where I live), and the protagonist of her story is a bounty hunter named “Key” who was hired to trap a rogue Salamander (elemental spirit) that starts wildfires. This story seems to foreshadow several actual fires that occurred later, particularly the one that largely destroyed Fort McMurray, Alberta, to the west of me, in spring 2016, and forced the evacuation of thousands of people, including a writer I know. (To this date, it is the costliest natural disaster in Canadian history.) Where is Key when she’s needed?

Another story in this collection, “Counterbalance” by Ruth Sorrell, is set in Toronto, although it was written by a writer from Birmingham, England. This story, like several others, deals with kitchen magic (e.g. an ability to make a cake from raw ingredients on a hot summer day without turning on the oven) which requires an exchange of energy in the world. A supernatural villainess tries to seize too much power, only to find that the kitchen witch has allies.

Space doesn’t allow me to describe all the stories in this book, but the theme of undercover witches runs through several of them. “Witches Have Cats” by Juliet Kemp is probably the funniest; in this story, a woman with latent psychic power but no knowledge of how to use it effectively has a cute but clueless puppy rather than a cat as familiar. The process of learning how to wield one’s power is shown as parallel to the process of “coming out” as queer.

In “D is for Delicious” by Steve Berman, a school nurse facing retirement is introduced to the witchy tradition of feasting on children in order to prolong her life. Of course, she resists at first, but she has resisted so much of her appetite for pleasure that at last, she decides to give in to it, having been seduced by a tempting sister-witch.

The female police officer who returns to a small English town from the city in Rachel Green’s “A State of Panic” is probably the most complicated kitchen witch of the bunch. This story is a self-contained murder mystery, but it is better-understood as one of this author’s “Laverstone” tales (including a novel, An Ungodly Child), set in a town with an unusual number of supernatural beings due to a portal which was never properly closed. In this story, local landmarks include Moot Point and Hobbs’ Wood (as in “hobgoblin”).

The stories that are not set in the world as we know it feature women with professions that don’t exist here. In “The Windskimmer” by Connie Wilkins, the greenmistress who can control plant life has a history with the wind pilot who sails airships. Although their specialties seem to have nothing in common, it turns out that they were once sent on a joint mission that threatened the earth for the sake of victory in war. Their agreement to right an old wrong also reignites their love for each other. This story is one of the more satisfying of the other-worldly stories because the reader is not left wondering WTF?

If I have any complaint about anything in this collection, it is that some of the writers rely too much on the formula: Show, don’t tell. Characters suddenly appear with a clap of thunder, and exude attitudes of various kinds, without much explanation of where they came from or what they want. Fantasy writers of the past (who are still read, I might add) didn’t seem to dread world-building in the form of long introductions or info-dumps which could inform readers about the culture and history of the setting. In some cases, info was dumped into a Book of Lore which was left someplace where the protagonist (and reader) could find it. Some of the stories in Hellebore and Rue left me wishing I could find a book of spells, a long footnote, an appendix, or a concordance.

------------

Rolling In It

by Jean Roberta

I recently reviewed a scholarly book, The Sexuality of History: Modernity and the Sapphic, 1565-1830, by Susan Lanser. As the author shows, “woman + woman” (primary relationships between women) were described during the period under discussion as 1) impossible (especially if they included any activity that could be called “sex”), 2) new and “modern,” despite the general belief that the poet Sappho, from the Island of Lesbos (circa 600 BC) was the original foremother, and 3) a dangerous epidemic that could destroy civilization. This book includes evidence of “the sapphic imaginary,” including much speculation by anxious conservatives about the debauched practises of women who supposedly had too much freedom.

There needs to be a book about the “slut imaginary,” and maybe there is. At various times in my life, most of the people closest to me have accused me of “wanting it all the time,” and even of doing it all the time, presumably with no breaks for eating or sleeping, let alone earning money by holding down a non-sexual job. According to some men (e.g. my late ex-husband), too many women are Biblical demons who have no other function except to tempt men to spill their seed.

Accusations of sluttery are often motivated by political bias other than contempt for women in general. Queen Jezebel in the Old Testament wasn’t necessarily an adulteress or a nymphomaniac. According to the story, she was the foreign wife of a Hebrew king named Ahab, and she brought the worship of “false gods” to her husband’s people. In the centuries since her story was first written down, it has been assumed that such a “pagan” woman would be a slut. Most visual images of her focus on her lush, sinful curves.

Skip ahead to the late 1700s, when Queen Marie Antoinette of France was still known to her enemies as “the Austrian woman,” a foreign invader who married the dauphin of France when she was a teenager. On the eve of revolution, written stories about her “furious womb” (uncontrollable need for sex) circulated widely.

Note that King Charles II, who ruled England from 1660 to 1685, was a famous “libertine.” Historians estimate that he fathered between 12 and 19 children outside of marriage. (He had a wife, but she couldn’t carry a pregnancy to term.) Apparently no one suggested that he was unfit to rule because of his prolific sex life. At the time, more of his Protestant subjects seemed shocked by rumours that the king was a closeted Catholic!

When I was still fairly young and horny, I learned from experience that no one can really do it “all the time.” (I’ve also been accused of writing “all the time” as well as reading “all the time.” If there are only 24 hours in a day, how can time be multiplied?) Males, in particular, have a disadvantage if they want to do it “all the time.” Most guys, no matter how healthy and full of juice, need some reloading time after ejaculating before they can fire again. Girls/women are capable of multiple orgasms, but not for hours at a stretch. Human energy is limited.

The general Western (Christian?) fear of “excessive” sex really seems like fear of the impossible, much like a medieval fear of having one’s crops or general well-being destroyed by a witch’s curse. Nonetheless, I’m sure I wasn’t the only girl whose parents recommended “therapy” of some kind (medical or psychiatric) to eliminate those inappropriate feelings. The only alternative to being a “fallen woman” who presumably wanted it all the time was to be a “nice girl” who was supposed to do it only with her husband, but not to like it.

The flip side of traditional fear and dread of uncontrolled lust (especially in women) is desire for unlimited pleasure. My earliest “porn” stories (as I thought of them) were about some other country – it might have to be on some other planet – where my sexual ability would be admired, not sneered at or punished. I could have high rank (i.e. be an earthier kind of Disney princess), be initiated into sex in some public ceremony, and not lose any status because of it. Au contraire; my “people” would love my sexual generosity.

The surrealistic plots of Lewis Carroll’s fantasy novels, Alice in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1872) seem like reactions to the Victorian social order, and even though they don’t include any mention of sex, they do include a surprisingly assertive young heroine. In my fantasy story, “Becoming Alice,” she accelerates through puberty by drinking a magic potion (one of the bottles labelled “Drink Me”), and then makes her debut, her presentation to the King and Queen, in a sexual sense. In Wonderland, this is all as it should be. (This story appears in my single-author collection, The Princess and the Outlaw, and in The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 13.)

For a brief time in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I thought a Sexual Revolution might really be on its way, and it would liberate people in general from undeserved guilt and shame. That revolution never arrived, and I probably won’t see it in my lifetime, which is probably more than halfway over.

In the meanwhile, I can only imagine a world in which sex would never be considered a problem unless 1) it was forced on someone who didn’t or couldn’t give meaningful consent, or 2) it resulted in unwanted consequences (pregnancy, disease), or 3) it interfered with other aspects of life (eating, sleeping, working). Otherwise, an “oversexed” person could be considered an “overachiever,” someone who accomplishes more than the rest of us.

TBW

(To Be Written)

by Jean Roberta

I like writing in various genres. Like Annabeth, I'm squeamish about talking about a work-in-progress, or something I seriously plan to write in the near future, so I won't describe the book I discussed recently with a local publisher. The more distant future is a different case. I think it's useful to have a set of possibilities on paper.

For years, the Phantom Book (series of articles?) in the back of my mind was the true story of how I was treated by my family and the “mental health" profession after I tried to commit suicide after being raped at age nineteen in my dorm room in a Canadian university in 1971. (For the record, I had had consensual sex with the guy before. On the day of the event, I agreed to go to the cafeteria with him for coffee and a conversation about our relationship. I didn’t invite him to my room.)

The first male psychiatrist to whom I was assigned (as far as I knew, I had no choice) told me I had not experienced "real rape." A psychiatrist in my home town diagnosed me as a “borderline schizophrenic.” I was told that I was rebelling against my parents because of being the youngest child in my family (I was actually the oldest, and this hasn't changed). Apparently my parents were told I was on drugs. (That must have been some good stuff – I wasn’t even aware of having taken/smoked/injected any such thing.)

At this point in my life, I don’t think I will write that book. I still have relatives who would strenuously discount everything I have to say on grounds that I have always been mentally ill. They would point out that no one was ever legally charged with raping me, which presumably proves that it didn’t happen. I don’t know how my relatives could affirm that I was acting out because of youngest-child syndrome; they might just insist that I caused a lot of trouble for my good parents.

The people I would have liked to sue for professional misconduct at the time must be retired by now, and some are probably dead, as are both my parents. I have nothing to gain by writing the book except the satisfaction of seeing my truth on paper, and that might be outweighed by the drama that would result.

Luckily, I have other writing projects in mind. I know I won’t have time to tackle all of them until I retire from teaching, and maybe not even then. I also don’t know if any of the books on the following list would be publishable, but writing them would certainly give me something to do. Note that this isn’t a complete list.

Novel #1

Here is a rough synopsis of a dream that I would like to turn into the first chapter of an erotic novel.

I (female narrator) came to earth from another planet or alternative dimension in which human females function much like other mammals: we go into heat on a regular basis, and no one blames us for that. Applying ugly labels to females in heat would be like blaming them for eating food. (And who does that?) We form relationships (one-to-one or multiple), and relationship-sex usually feels different from heat-sex, but everyone on my planet knows that women occasionally need to have it with whoever is handy.

I know that human females in this world are assumed to be much different from me; in fact, some are brought up to believe that any sexual feelings they might have are a personal problem. Luckily for me, some humans understand how my tribe functions.

I’ve gone to a job interview, suitably dressed for an office job. Unfortunately, I’m in heat. The more I try to ignore or suppress it, the hornier I feel. After squirming in a chair in the waiting area for awhile, I am shown into the office of the head of Human Resources. He is a man in a suit who sounds Canadian but looks more-or-less African. He knows what it feels like to be outside the cultural mainstream, and he clearly prides himself on his knowledge of cultures outside his own. He can see at once that I am likely to be distracted during our interview if I don’t get some relief first.

Mr. Suit asks, “Is there anything I can do for you?” This is the traditional phrase used by my tribespeople to offer sex to a female in heat.

I say something like, “Oh goddess, yes.” I tear off my clothes while Mr. Suit does the same. He has a sofa in the corner, and he has a supply of condoms in a file cabinet. He lies on me, but he is not too heavy, and I’m grateful that he doesn’t tease me too long before sliding his very erect cock into me. Apparently my condition triggered an instant response in him.

Neither of us has all day to spend on this activity, so as soon as we have each come once, we put our clothes back on. He returns to his desk, and I return to the visitor’s chair in front of it. We proceed to discuss the job description and my qualifications. He promises to let me know the outcome, one way or another.

I have been volunteering at the local women’s centre which runs the sexual assault line. I find the idea of sexual assault (especially when males assault females) to be incredibly gross, partly because it makes no sense. I go into the centre on my usual day, about a week after my job interview. The co-ordinator of the volunteers asks how my day is going, and I say, “disappointing. I just learned that I didn’t get the job.”

Co-ordinator asks what I applied for, and where, so I describe the job interview. She is appalled that I was “sexually abused” by a man who seems to do this regularly to vulnerable job applicants. I point out that I was in heat. She interprets this to mean I was so desperate for the job that I would consent to anything. She advises me to contact the local Labour Standards Board to complain that Mr. Suit violated several rules of the game by coercing me into sex by promising me a job and then breaking his promise.

I am aghast. I tell Co-ordinator that making accommodations for people who are different from oneself is the height of professional behaviour, and I certainly wouldn’t want Mr. Suit to be removed from his job. In my experience, there are too few like him. I explain that one of the other job applicants must have had more impressive qualifications than mine -- and this is not a double-entendre.

Co-ordinator tells me that I need to raise my self-esteem and learn to assert myself. She points out that I have to stop worrying about being accused of racism every time I refuse inappropriate sexual advances from a “person of colour.”

If I hadn’t lived in this world as long as I have, I would have no clue what Co-ordinator is advising me to do, or why.

I really want to educate her. She really wants to educate me. We both want this to happen as soon as possible, for the good of the other person. I realize that she will never understand me until or unless she experiences heat herself. Can I help her with that? I need to try.

Novel #2

This would be a historical novel about an American heiress of the nineteenth century who was (and still is) widely considered “eccentric,” if not batshit crazy. I think she needs an advocate, or at least a reconsideration.

Sarah Pardee Winchester (1837-1922) was married to William Wirt Winchester, heir of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, founded by his father, Oliver Winchester. The “Winchester” was said to be the gun that “won” the West. As a rifle (a long-barrelled gun with spiralling grooves inside the barrel), it had a more accurate aim than those of the muskets of old. As a repeating rifle, it could fire more bullets in a short time than previous firearms.

In short, the “Winchester” was probably the deadliest hand-held weapon of its time.

Sarah had a baby girl who died within weeks. She was grief-stricken, and didn’t conceive any more children. Oliver, her father-in-law, died in 1880, followed by her husband, W.W., in 1881. This left Sarah with a fifty-percent share in a very lucrative company. She suddenly became one of the richest women of her time. And possibly the loneliest.

In 1884, Sarah moved from the industrial East to the area of what is now San Jose, California, bought a farmhouse on an acreage, and hired workmen to renovate it. According to legend, she believed that if work on her house ever stopped, she would die. Eventually, the house came to have 160 rooms, staircases that lead nowhere, and doors that open onto walls.

Sarah is said to have been too influenced by late nineteenth-century spiritualism, and a belief that the money she inherited was cursed by the spirits of all the people who were killed by Winchester rifles. Supposedly, her house was intended to be a maze to outwit the angry ghosts.

Would you feel like a member of the deserving rich if you suddenly inherited a fortune that was raised by the sale of a very efficient killing device? I wouldn’t.

The Winchester House has been a tourist attraction for years, but as far as I know, no one has written a novel about the mistress of the house. It seems overdue.

Reference Book #1

There are serious reference books on several sexual topics. (See Martha Cornog’s book on masturbation, listed here.)

www.amazon.com/The-Big-Book-Masturbation-Angst/dp/0940208296

I have a file of notes for a book on the history of anal sex, which was illegal in several European countries for centuries. (This is one of the “crimes” of the Marquis de Sade in revolutionary France – whether it was consensual or not is less clear.) “Sodomy” (from the biblical city of Sodom) has been used to refer to a spectrum of sex acts considered immoral and “unnatural” – so why is it more often understood to mean anal sex rather than, say, oral sex?

During the “burning times” or the “witch craze” (approximately 1480-1700), accused “witches” were said to be required to kiss the Devil, their Master, on his dirty bum, presumably under his tail. Was this “kiss of infamy” a euphemistic reference to something else?

Was anal sex outlawed because: 1) it can’t result in the conception of a baby, and can therefore be seen as a way to outwit “God’s plan” to overpopulate the earth? Or because: 2) it is the only form of penetration possible between two men? Or both? The term “bugger” is a corruption of “Bulgar” because Bulgarians were assumed (by non-Bulgarians) to be especially fond of this activity. Is there any historical basis for this assumption? If I would like to learn the answers, I'm sure other people would too.

Reference Book #2

When my daughter Liz was a baby, I thought of compiling a Book of Elizabeth, including brief biographies of all the famous women I could find who had that name. I still think this would be an interesting research project, with a ready-made audience: all currently-living Elizabeths, and their friends and relatives. The current Queen of England is an obvious example, along with her predecessor, Elizabeth I, as well as the late Elizabeth Taylor, but did you know that “Mother Goose” is claimed by some to have been an actual woman, Elizabeth Foster Goose (1665-1758) of Boston, Massachusetts? (Actually, this claim is doubtful. References to “Mother Goose” stories and rhymes for children occur as early as 1590, and several French writers wrote “contes de la Mere l’Oie” in the 1600s.) Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845), Quaker reformer of the horrendous English prison system of her time, and Lizzie Borden (1860-1927, American woman acquitted of killing her father and stepmother with an axe, but widely believed to have been guilty), are easier to trace. The list could get very long, especially if it includes imaginary and generic characters. ("Outside, Eliza!" was a term used in the Victorian age to get rowdy women out of pubs.)

Fixer-Uppers

I have several stories and a novel (Prairie Gothic, written in 1998, available as an e-book from Amatory Ink from 2002 to 2006, when the publisher folded) that need some revision and updating.

The fall semester at the university where I teach is approaching like a speeding truck. If I seriously want to tackle at least one thing in my TBW pile, I probably need a sabbatical and a set of deadlines.

Battle Hymn of the Femme Fatale

They call me Lilith, mother of demons. They call me Eve, thief of forbidden knowledge. They call me Salome, destroyer of Saint John, the baptiser of Christ. They call me Jezebel, worshipper of false gods. They call me Medea, child-killer.

I have been marked as the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, a symbol of evil personally applied to living women.

Many of us have been damned for our sexuality, but only the powerful have become legendary sluts: Messalina of Rome, Catherine of Russia, Marie-Antoinette of France.

Millions of us were named witches. Only a few are remembered by name: Alice Kyteler of Ireland, Rebecca Nurse of Massachusetts colony.

Some of us killed our husbands, the ultimate crime. Some of us killed our parents, our lovers, acquaintances, passing strangers.

In the nineteenth century of the Christian calendar, we were identified as Fatal Women, temptresses with cold eyes who were said to have lured many susceptible men to their death simply to exercise our power.

Most of us have been innocent of any crime. Untold numbers of women have become martyrs: tragic victims of the irrational fears of those with power in the real world. The youngest of us have been aborted while still in the womb or shortly after birth, incapable of causing harm. Incapable of self-defense.

Our innocent dead outnumber the victims of every other massacre recorded in the history books. Does this make us all collectively blameless? No.

Regardless of the theories promoted by male scholars that we have a collective soul (or none), we share a basic human condition: we are individuals. We are no more alike on the inside than we are on the outside. We choose our own actions based on our personal perception of the choices available.

If we are not all guilty, we cannot all be innocent.

As the imaginary alter ego of one erotic writer among many, I survive by eliminating those who pose a threat to me. Forget “promiscuity” as the sign of a corrupt woman. I follow the example of male warriors from the beginning of time: I silence those I have used.

Why do I do it? Look around you. How many conscientious women live happily on their own terms? As someone once said: “Women feel guilty if they assert themselves and resentful if they don’t.”

The moral codes of an unjust world are as tangled as a huge skein of barbed wire. I don’t waste time trying to untangle it. I do what I must to live as I choose.

I am not a team player. I co-operate with those who show their willingness to add pleasure to my life. I'm rational, not spineless.

Don’t tell me that I give women in general a bad name. We had a bad name in this world long before I came into it.

Call me whatever you want. You would probably slander me even if I had spent my life in the cell of a convict or a nun.

Just don’t cross me. You would be lucky if you lived to regret it.