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Gnomic Utterances. These are traditional, and are set at the head of each section of the Guidebook. The reason for them is lost in the mists of History. They are culled by the Management from a mighty collection of wise sayings probably compiled by a SAGE—probably called Ka’a Orto’o—some centuries before the Tour begins. The Rule is that no Utterance has anything whatsoever to do with the section it precedes. Nor, of course, has it anything to do with Gnomes.
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Date: 2009-01-16 05:33 am (UTC)(Note: editing my original response, because only after publishing the first try did I start putting the words together semi-clearly.)
My throwing-urge arose from where McLaughlin seemed to be going in her construction of gender and sexuality. There is a trope that there is no such thing as same-sex attraction, that lesbians are "contaminated" with some essential inner maleness, and that their attraction to women is actually heterosexual attraction which is being expressed by their "inner man." It's a skanky construction. Not merely heteronormative, but going past that to assert that there's nothing but heterosexuality. Also, there's an implication that lesbians aren't "really" women.
There's a version of it for gay men, too -- refer to the way "sissy" is used as a synonym for "faggot." If you're attracted to men, the "logic" goes, it must because you're really a woman, somewhere on the inside.
So when Jill started experiencing sexual desire for her female friend, and then that sexual desire was explained by the text as arising directly from Jill being literally one-seventh male...? Very. Not. Cool. McLaughlin had to work very hard to get me back after that.