Have you read "Coming of Age in Karhide", Le Guin's more recent short story (it's in the collection The Birthday of the World)set on Gethen? It gets a lot more intimate about Gethenian sexual activity and I've always read its kemmerhouse scenes as a queer sexual utopia. Everyone running around having sex with everyone else regardless of momentary gender.
I like your reading of Left Hand. It's never occurred to me before to see Therem's love for his brother as closetedor queer, but now it seems obvious. The strength of the line drawn between the Aliens and the Gethenian perverts has always held me back from seeing Genly and his mission as queer-positive, though. It's as though he is preaching not acceptance of perverts, but merely the recognition of an alternative mode of normativity: alien maleness and femaleness are acceptable because they are attached to complementary cultural constructs of masculinity and femininity, but Gethenian perversion remains a state of constant sexual arousal that is unacceptable and dangerous to the somer population. The Gethenian perverts she mentions are always mad - mentally imbalanced to match their physical imbalance, perhaps.
Though Genly does come to accept his designation as one of them when he's imprisoned in Orgoreyn, and maybe even when he's alone with Therem... hmm, must think more about this.
seems to be a strong line drawn between the "aliens" and Gethen's home-grown "perverts" that works as a bit of a barrier to your reading for me, though
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Re: the left hand of darkness
Date: 2004-12-04 11:06 am (UTC)From:I like your reading of Left Hand. It's never occurred to me before to see Therem's love for his brother as closetedor queer, but now it seems obvious. The strength of the line drawn between the Aliens and the Gethenian perverts has always held me back from seeing Genly and his mission as queer-positive, though. It's as though he is preaching not acceptance of perverts, but merely the recognition of an alternative mode of normativity: alien maleness and femaleness are acceptable because they are attached to complementary cultural constructs of masculinity and femininity, but Gethenian perversion remains a state of constant sexual arousal that is unacceptable and dangerous to the somer population. The Gethenian perverts she mentions are always mad - mentally imbalanced to match their physical imbalance, perhaps.
Though Genly does come to accept his designation as one of them when he's imprisoned in Orgoreyn, and maybe even when he's alone with Therem... hmm, must think more about this.
seems to be a strong line drawn between the "aliens" and Gethen's home-grown "perverts" that works as a bit of a barrier to your reading for me, though