What Sci-Fi and Fantasy Allow you to do. Practical Example

[Wifetheif]

It is nice to know that there are burlesque performers on Mongo! Seriously, this is Prince Barin's official royal welcome banquet? How much of that costume will she be left wearing after her routine ends? Imagine. THIS strip ran in millions of newspapers in the 1930s and nobody raised a stink. If this appeared in the Comics page today, the list of offended and outraged would be a mile long. This just shows what a talented artist or writer can accomplish when they couch their sensuality in a SF or fantasy context. Taking something off planet frees it from earth morals. So why not throw in an interplanetary strip show? To see a true master at work, check out Alexander Raymond's run of Flash Gordon. It is saturated with ideas straight out of a BDSM handbook with domination and submission clear and obvious subtexts. (To the astute reader.) What Game of Thrones does in chapters, Raymond accomplishes with a few brush strokes but the result is the same. SF and Fantasy are the artist's friend no matter their medium.

 

[MyBareTorso]

Yes, I haven't written much in the Fantasy category here, but I had some of the most fun ever penning my three-chapter barbarian, sword play, femdom epic...as you say, it certainly allowed me to do things I couldn't do elsewhere!

And here's some shameless self-promotion!!!!!!

https://www.literotica.com/s/oz-beach-boy-the-barbarian-ch-01

 

[EmilyMiller]

I first saw this delectable image here

 

[EmilyMiller]

In my own personal experience, Sci-Fi allows you to have a lot of fun with two women and a shape-shifting telepathic female giant squid

 

[djrip]

I first saw this delectable image here

View attachment 2337977

Must be some sci fi tech keeping that loincloth from falling off.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Must be some sci fi tech keeping that loincloth from falling off.

Anti-gravity

 

[Wifetheif]

Anti-gravity

The original is From Flash Gordon by Alex Raymond. A bit of lesbian tinged femdom for the depression era masses!

 

[EmilyMiller]

The original is From Flash Gordon by Alex Raymond. A bit of lesbian tinged femdom for the depression era masses!
View attachment 2338015

Makes me tingle

 

[VallesMarineris]

SF allows me to write:

-- Telekinetic sex

-- AR-enhanced sex

-- AI-guided sex

-- Precognitive sex

-- Telepathic sex

-- Group zero-g sex

-- Group telepathic sex

-- Lesbian robot-bondage sex (the robots provide the constraints)

. . . the list goes on. No need for tentacles (but maybe some day).

 

[Wifetheif]

Makes me tingle

The Alexander Raymond years are chock full of stuff like this. For girls and guys with that particular bent, muscular Flash is often displayed shirtless or shirtless and in some incredibly tiny shorts. The first things villains either male or female do to Dale is to strip her down off page and give her a sexy new and quite revealing outfit. She also engaged on a several weeks-long fling with Prince barin when things were frosty between her and Flash. She's a far more sexual woman than any average American woman of her age was in that era.

 

[Wifetheif]

View attachment 2338027Utilizing backgrounds that would later be stolen by Marvel artists, Flash Gordon presents Dale Arden's entire body, essentially naked in shadow and gauze. Dale's double COULD have been wearing anything. For SOME reason she is clad in a boob hugging blouse and a short skirt. There MUST be a narrative reason for that. Right?

 

[EmilyMiller]

The Alexander Raymond years are chock full of stuff like this. For girls and guys with that particular bent, muscular Flash is often displayed shirtless or shirtless and in some incredibly tiny shorts. The first things villains either male or female do to Dale is to strip her down off page and give her a sexy new and quite revealing outfit. She also engaged on a several weeks-long fling with Prince barin when things were frosty between her and Flash. She's a far more sexual woman than any average American woman of her age was in that era.

Want to be her in that image

 

[EmilyMiller]

On the subject of BDSM - I read the other day in The Atlantic that Ian Fleming (as in James Bond) and his wife liked to flagellate each other!

 

[Wifetheif]

On the subject of BDSM - I read the other day in The Atlantic that Ian Fleming (as in James Bond) and his wife liked to flagellate each other!

One gets the sense from vintage Flash that Dale secretly liked to be dominated. She never complained about all the abducting, binding, and stripping she was subjected to. She wore the veneer of typical young American woman however and fell back into that role when found out. She was the stereotypical good/bad girl. Flash was less interesting sexually but he was manipulated in many of the same ways. It is pretty much implied that, to save his life, Flash did things he may or may not have been proud of.

 

[Bramblethorn]

THIS strip ran in millions of newspapers in the 1930s and nobody raised a stink.

I'm not sure it's accurate to say nobody objected to it. For instance, this 1948 Australian newspaper article:

The WA P and C Federation Conference, that has called for the banning of unhealthy comic strips, gets plenty of ammo from a panel of 12 US psychologists, who have blasted American strips as sadistic and an "unhealthy stimulant." These psychologists have completed a two-year study of comic strips in the US, came to these conclusions. Comics give girls the idea that normal sex-relations are a sadistic masochistic mixture of pleasure and violence, something to which they become afraid to yield, attractive though they may seem. Boys, further, get the impression that violence is part of these relations.

THEIR report was published in a recent issue of Collier's Magazine under the name of Dr. Frederick [sic] Wertheim [sic], psychiatrist
for the New York Department of Hospitals, who was chairman of the committee of investigation. "Comics should be legalised off the news-stands," says Dr. Wertheim [sic].

The article specifically references "the high-chested, hippy ladies flitting through Mandrake and Speed Gordon, scantily garbed." ("Speed Gordon" was the Australian title because "Flash" had unwanted connotations here.)

The Collier's "report" (which doesn't name any specific comics) can be seen here; I find it amusing that while deploring the depiction of violence in comics they've illustrated the article with a photo of a re-enactment of the same violence. (Collier's editor-in-chief had denounced newspaper comics as harmful to children back in 1911, long before Flash Gordon existed. I guess they saw the papers as competitors?)

Fredrik Wertham went on to publish an infamous book, Seduction of the Innocent, which blamed comics for corrupting children and led to the gutting of mainstream comics in the USA via the Comics Code Authority.

Another article from Wertham, also in 1948, is quoted here. He clearly wasn't blasé about SF:

A boy of thirteen is a problem at home and at school. He is a real comic-book addict. He says: “They have some kind of guns that shoot out a ray and kill a lot of people.” Is that a natural fantasy? Is that a penis symbol? Or is it a kind of reality that a lot of adults dread now and which these kids will have to face sooner or later?

(That link included an extremely smart reply from a 14-year-old comic fan who demolished Wertham's arguments, but unfortunately Wertham got all the attention.)

Granted, these references are 14 years after Flash Gordon began syndication. But it takes time for movements like that to build, and people had other things on their mind around 1939-1945; I'd be astonished if there was nobody complaining about Flash Gordon in the 1930s.

 

[Wifetheif]

I'm not sure it's accurate to say nobody objected to it. For instance, this 1948 Australian newspaper article:



The article specifically references "the high-chested, hippy ladies flitting through Mandrake and Speed Gordon, scantily garbed." ("Speed Gordon" was the Australian title because "Flash" had unwanted connotations here.)

The Collier's "report" (which doesn't name any specific comics) can be seen here; I find it amusing that while deploring the depiction of violence in comics they've illustrated the article with a photo of a re-enactment of the same violence. (Collier's editor-in-chief had denounced newspaper comics as harmful to children back in 1911, long before Flash Gordon existed. I guess they saw the papers as competitors?)

Fredrik Wertham went on to publish an infamous book, Seduction of the Innocent, which blamed comics for corrupting children and led to the gutting of mainstream comics in the USA via the Comics Code Authority.

Another article from Wertham, also in 1948, is quoted here. He clearly wasn't blasé about SF:



(That link included an extremely smart reply from a 14-year-old comic fan who demolished Wertham's arguments, but unfortunately Wertham got all the attention.)

Granted, these references are 14 years after Flash Gordon began syndication. But it takes time for movements like that to build, and people had other things on their mind around 1939-1945; I'd be astonished if there was nobody complaining about Flash Gordon in the 1930s.

Wetham was well meaning but hideously misguided man. His beef in particular was with superhero comics and horror comics. ALL superhero comics were directly inspired by Raymond's Flash Gordon and the horror comics even in the day were geared towards adults. The 1950s was a funny time for comics. Bothe the US and France the 1 and 2 in the world Comic markets underwent misguided censorship fads that vastly changed how comics were produced in both countries. The French had their knickers in a knot over Tarzan and censored him out of existence. Comics underwent a reinassance in both France and the US in the 60s. I'm sure some folks got bent out of shape by Flash Gordon but the comic will always have a soft spot in my heart. My father, who was born in 1930, learned to read via the Sunday Flash Gordon comic strips by Alexander Raymond. It gave him a lifetime thirst for Science Fiction. He was also interested in bondage which may or may not have come from reading Flash.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Wetham was well meaning but hideously misguided man.

I'd mostly agree - although recent examination of his papers has shown that his "well meaning" extended to distorting and misrepresenting evidence to make his case against comics stronger. I expect he believed in the righteousness of his cause strongly enough to feel that a bit of dishonesty was excusable for the "greater good"; he wouldn't be the first or the last to go that way.

His beef in particular was with superhero comics and horror comics.

He did particularly focus on those and crime comics, which were easy to associate with juvenile deliquency etc. But as per his piece "The Comics...Very Funny", which I linked above, he was opposed to the entire medium, dismissive of the notion that maybe there were good comics and bad comics.

 

[Wifetheif]

I'd mostly agree - although recent examination of his papers has shown that his "well meaning" extended to distorting and misrepresenting evidence to make his case against comics stronger. I expect he believed in the righteousness of his cause strongly enough to feel that a bit of dishonesty was excusable for the "greater good"; he wouldn't be the first or the last to go that way.



He did particularly focus on those and crime comics, which were easy to associate with juvenile deliquency etc. But as per his piece "The Comics...Very Funny", which I linked above, he was opposed to the entire medium, dismissive of the notion that maybe there were good comics and bad comics.

There is an interview with Al Capp floating around on Youtube from when Wetham was just launching his crusade. Capp sai there was no such thing as bad comics but there were badly drawn comics and the comics industry had a quality control problem (which he was right about). He correctly read Wrtham as one of those self-important busybodies like Capp regularly lampooned in his strip. Wetham DETESTED how Capp drew women. Capp incorrectly predicted that Wertham's crusade would just blow over.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Another data point on female bondage in comics from the 1930s (not sure of the year, alas):



Though I have to admit Dale is more to my tastes ;-)

 

[Wifetheif]

Like Minnie, Dale was a miniskirt wearing flirt!

https://delguy.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F747587981095911425

 

[lustychimera]

View attachment 2338027Utilizing backgrounds that would later be stolen by Marvel artists, Flash Gordon presents Dale Arden's entire body, essentially naked in shadow and gauze. Dale's double COULD have been wearing anything. For SOME reason she is clad in a boob hugging blouse and a short skirt. There MUST be a narrative reason for that. Right?View attachment 2338038

That is absolutely gorgeous artwork. Like, drop dead gorgeous. The graininess really makes it feel perverse.

I've mostly pigeonholed sci fi as crisp space cruisers and fantasy as swords and satyrs due to my reading preference, but there's something about that unapologetic retro spandex with the thin billowy cloth. It's camp presented seriously, and it's awesome.

Thanks for bringing that up! That aesthetic would be a blast to explore in a story.