RE: RARA-AVIS: male PI sexuality

From: Maura McMillan ( mmcm@azstarnet.com)
Date: 23 Feb 2000


martha -

you didn't miss anything - i think there was something obvious i didn't say. what i think i mean is that female PIs seem, to me, to generally lack a real sex drive - something that provides our animal with the necessary degree of fearlessness? recklessness? stupidity? that seems like a requisite for a PI. that person, male or female, has to have the biology of not being too afraid of the unknown. that adventureousness seems to be powered by testosterone. so in my theory, sexual aggressivenness is the thing that makes a PI the particualr creature that s/he is, yet i haven't read any female PI writers whose female protagnoists have that quality. i can seldom buy them as people who would plausibly put themselves into high risk situations just for money or curiousity. if a woman has an extra dose of testosterone, which some do, then if she's a PI, she's also going to have an active sexuality, i would think, just like the guys.in hardboiled/noir/crime fiction women protagonists are often neuters, and to me that's why they don't work so well.

At 07:18 AM 2/23/2000 -0600, you wrote:
>uh...i don't see how heterosexual=male. am i missing something obvious
>here?
>
>martha
> sakana@stlnet.com <mailto: sakana@stlnet.com>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>
>> here's something to discuss. i was just mulling over in my mind
>> the general
>> and consistent failure, in my eyes, of female writers to produce female
>> protagonists with any sort of real visceral fortitude of the sort you see
>> in the archetypal male PI. i think this missing element is commonly
>> identified as testosterone. does anyone agree/disagree that a good PI has
>> to have a strong heterosexual orientation?
>> http:/www.dennismcmillan.com
>>
>
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