Lois’s answer to “Hello, I hope my question isn't offensive. But I was talking to another person who also read your b…” > Likes and Comments

I hope it's okay to ask a follow-up question? I think my acquaintance is more bothered by the inopportune time and place of Miles' sexual thoughts.

I'm sure Miles is, too.

But, y'know, if one has functioning hormones to generate such, it happens. (Arousal and its related ideation are, in an underestimated measure, biochemically driven. Learned culture supplies forms for it to flow into, but, as I have remarked before, culture is just the clothing in which biology dresses itself.)

Ta, L.

I am, for some reason, offended by this question.

@ Brzk -- I have observed that nothing draws out idiosyncratic reader-responses more than making either sex or romance central in one of my stories. I posit that the sex-averse find sex potentially oppressive, and thus threatening to their identities; and the romance-averse find the romance either dripping with girl cooties, or process it as some kind of covert crit of their own life-choices, and thus find it threatening to their identities.

You can see the raw data for yourself if you pop over to Amazon, which will collate the one- and two-star reviews for you. There are discernible trends. My tales that feature neither sex nor romance slide through with very few negative reviews.

So... as a dude, does Miles seem authentically dudely to you?

Ta, L.

@ Lois, as a reader who is both ace and aro, I just wanted to say that I enjoy even the more sex- and romance-focused of your work -- because I don't identify with the characters, I just want them to be cutely happy together. Cheers for making that so! I may skim parts now and then, but that's no trouble.

No edit here, so maybe "aversion towards", instead of "adversity to".

Now if "another person" had said that about Ivan Vorpatril (sp?) it would maybe make sense. But Miles? Come on. However, there is no arguing with the bell curve - just as there are some people who constantly think about sex, so there are people who are constantly offended by other people thinking about sex. (yes, that is sarcasm). While Miles seems to get together with a few girlfriends, he does not appear driven by his urges in this respect at all. I.m.o.

I can only speak for myself and a portion of the population that seem to have minds that work as I do (not nearly all but definitely in the ballpark of half or more), I'd say you're spot on. I actually think about sex More often than Miles but I'm nowhere near "normal" by anecdotal evidence or my own estimation. Not to say that there aren't scads of people who think about sex less than I do or not at all. I don't find your integration of sex into your character's lives to be at all inconsistent with my experience or expectation of an "adult" (meaning intended for mature adults to enjoy as mature adults, not "XXX") novel.

My son has 'blamed' me for getting him to read romance with the Vorkosigan books :-) and worse yet - like it!

Miles is dudely enough for this woman to be attracted to him.

If Miles thinks about sex a lot in Borders of Infinity it might be because he is naked and therefore more conscious of/embarrassed about his erections than at other times. Also, because of the women's deliberate self-segregation in the prison camp, he is at times surrounded by women (after being isolated from them), which might also have an arousing effect.

Hmm. He seems pretty normal 20 something to me. That is if I was a normal 20 something. Wait. Lets not go there.

Guy here, the frequency of Miles thoughts about sex mostly mirror my own at his age.