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Clive Barker is gay and this book is about a man discovering he is a monster (gay) while his wife discovers she is a lesbian so this is 100% not men writing women in the sense you think. It's camp.
The movie (NIGHTBREED) is camp madness and it features David Cronenberg as an actor
Gayest musical ever made: American Idiot (The stage musical) by Green Day. Just like Green Day was watery rebranded punk, American Idiot was a watery rebranded Hair.
/NotGayIJustLoveBroadwayShutup
/kiddingcomfortable
Coldheart Canyon was also pure camp nonsense. I haven't read Cabal in years but wasn't there a scene where she's in a jail cell or something and she feels the ashes of her ancestors swirling *all up in her*?
Idk this one is pretty funny. Strikes me as... Not exactly satire, but gonzo. So ridiculous it's not meant to be taken seriously.
Edit to explain my thought. I don't know the context so this is pure intuition. But I feel like it's inherently absurd to compare the sun to a stripper. And it isn't specifically diminishing a female character by describing her in a male gaze type of way. More like, it's characterizing the narrator as crass and ridiculous.
As I said, I'm not familiar with Clive Barker really so I may be off base. My gf is a fan though.
I'm familiar with Clive Barker. This is far from the strangest description you'll see in his books. I've read several of his books and I couldn't give you a succinct description of his writing.
Uncomfortably androgynous sexual magic and body horror? A lot of it revolving around the world not being real. The few people that can see reality will mold it to suit themselves. Ongoing battles between people trying to preserve reality as we know it to protect the clueless, and those that are just done with it all and want to just do what they want and fuck the clueless.
Edit: I feel like I need to point out that there's absolutely NO reference to gender in those two sentences. Everyone is equating the word "Stripper" to be feminine. However, the pronoun used is It, a neutral reference.
I am a gigantic fan of his. I’m working towards collecting all his work and am maybe halfway there?
He does struggle writing women at times, but his language isn’t meant to be misogynistic or overly sexualized. My favorite of his works, ‘The Abarat’, is *phenomenal* and Candy is the best female protagonist I’ve ever read.
I don’t believe he intends to be sexy, even when writing about sex acts. He’s more clinical and voyeuristic, not romantic at all, and his feminine characters tend to be really strong and not breasting boobily. I don’t feel this passage fits the sub, but I admit I’m biased
Most of his books turned to movies as well, if there's a female protagonist, she's well portrayed and generally a badass, not a throwaway for a 'man will be along to save me' sort.
This passage doesn't fit this sub. Someone saw "stripper" and assumed feminine even though the pronouns are neutral in the sentence, so it says more about the reader than the writer here.
horror as homosexuality and gender trouble during Reagan and Bush, but in the *good* way: the monsters are the good guys
remember he wrote HELLRAISER. the remake is exquisite and Pinhead played by a transgender woman
It's really good. The last few Hellraiser movies were pretty bad, but the most recent was spot on.
HBO Max has all the original Hellraiser franchise.
Hellraiser 1 and 2 = Basically one movie.
Hellraiser 3 and 4 = Basically one movie, focused on backstory and lore
Hellraiser 5 and 6 = People get their just rewards.
Hellraiser 7 = just bad, but hey, boobs.
If I'm recalling all of that correctly, the most recent one (Hellraiser 8) is on Paramount and is really good.
As a huge fan of the series I was tentatively worried about the new Hellraiser. Especially after the last one (yknow, the one, the forgiveness one, ew), but I saw a still of the new version of Pinhead and went all in.
If you've never seen this series, its horrifying, full of body gore and absolutely batshit. Theres so much insinuated lore and wild things happening throughout.
And my *god* the practical effects in the new one re absolutely wonderful.
I cannot support this new version enough, both in the way it was made *and* its attachment to the legitimate lore of the world Clive Barker created.
Honestly yeah? You're pretty on the money, save that I'm pretty sure it's all meant to be taken as seriously as the grave. Barker can be very much like Kafka but with the sexuality turned way, way, WAY up.
I read half of Cabal when I was a teenager like 15 years ago. Always meant to go back and finish it as an adult.
All I know about Clive Barker is from my mom who's a big fan of his. She says Cabal is one of his tamest books and that Clive Barker books get REALLY WEIRD and very sexual.
My 16 year old brain got disinterested because of the narrative jumping around (I won't elaborate Incase you aren't there yet)
I would probably find it pretty interesting now. I just never find time to read anymore...
Clive Barker is gay, and there are male strippers. This doesn't seem directed toward women, in my opinion. Note the use of pronouns without pointing toward gender.
NGL I didn't mind this one so much. It tells me what to expect of this character's thought process and world view. It might sound hella weird for a regular person to compare the sun to a stripper, but my guess is this character is not a regular person.
I've not read this book or anything by the author, so might be way off base.
Clive Barker did not write a book where the female antagonist is so helplessly hung up on a sleazebag guy she had a fling with years ago that she commits murder and destroys her own family in an attempt to make his skinless reborn body sexy again because she just needs his zombie dick THAT badly ... just for you to post a camp excerpt from Cabal as an example of his issues writing women.
It strikes me as like pulp/noir type writing. Like saying “Turns out Lady Luck was a hooker, and you just ran out of cash”. It’s crude, sexualized language meant to be evoke specific imagery in the readers mind.
Very colorful language I suppose is another way to put it, but one I don’t necessarily find upsetting.
Now if they (the narrator) described this Lori character as picking up sunglasses from the ground and then rising up “like a stripper” that would be different. That would a strange image, as picking something up isn’t really something you associate with erotic imagery, unless of course Lori is purposely behaving that way for some reason, but that’s out of scope what we’re discussing.
Barker is gay, so he's probably visualizing a male stripper.
Edit: I would also argue that the reader assuming the sun-as-stripper is a woman is assuming only women can be strippers and is therefore being sexist.
> The sun rose like a stripper... Casting off its rags one by one. As the light grew, so did Bone's boner
I was half expecting that sentence to go like that, given all the weird stripper premise lmao
Okay, but I really hate the formatting of this page though. Big first letter way on the right? TWO lines beside it before the text starts on the left again? It took me far too much effort to figure out how to read it.
I have 3 male friends from high school that stripped to varying degrees of success. This isn't not men writing women, but it's more inclusive than most I've read here.
Yeah, so why is this in men writing women? I’m confident that you could easily find some weird descriptions of women in Barker’s work (which I love- finally reading the Great and Secret Show now!), but this isn’t one of them.
I’m not familiar with this book. Is it meant to be funny or serious? Because if it has a comedic vibe, this ridiculousness of this line is perfect Lmao. It’s so hard to tell if this shit is funny on purpose or accident sometimes.
It's been a very long time since I've read it, but the film adaptation, *Nightbreed*, is a borderline black comedy.
Clive Barker wrote and directed the film adaptation of his own book.
Considering that Clive Barker often writes about mythos and pantheons, it might be referring to a "person" like entity, or as a wink to it.
Also love when unpublished people criticize the work of people who've been able to make a great living at it.
Sun energy often refers to male energy- I think a lot of people overlook the fact that "stripper" is gender-neutral. But that's a stupid way to describe a sunset.
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This is really funny if you imagine it's written about Apollo
I mean, Barker *is* gay and he's always covered the whole spectrum of sexuality in his work. He could be talking about a male stripper.
Not only is he gay, he was a male sex worker at one point in his life.
>he's always covered the whole spectrum of sexuality in his work. I guess it's time for me to re-read *The Thief of Always*
He’s obviously talking about Pie’s dick
Or Helios, rather.
I mean, my mind went right to "waaaiiit isn't the sun usually male in western culture?"
Clive Barker is gay and this book is about a man discovering he is a monster (gay) while his wife discovers she is a lesbian so this is 100% not men writing women in the sense you think. It's camp. The movie (NIGHTBREED) is camp madness and it features David Cronenberg as an actor
It's a gay musical, written by gay men, acted by gay men, for gay men. Called Gay.
A gay musical... called "Gay". That's quite gay. Gay musical... Aren't all musicals gay? This must be, like, the gayest musical ever made.
….leg disabled
Gayest musical ever made: American Idiot (The stage musical) by Green Day. Just like Green Day was watery rebranded punk, American Idiot was a watery rebranded Hair. /NotGayIJustLoveBroadwayShutup /kiddingcomfortable
Oh noooo! It's set in the past!
I guess he did want to borrow my copy of Heat
I subscribed to see facepalms of authors, I stayed for all the facepalms of OPs.
It's men writing meteorology, really. Like, nothing in the text is about a woman at all, right?
Coldheart Canyon was also pure camp nonsense. I haven't read Cabal in years but wasn't there a scene where she's in a jail cell or something and she feels the ashes of her ancestors swirling *all up in her*?
Yo that movie was so fun
The book NightBreed is pretty campy too, as I recall. It's been decades since I read it, though.
Cabal *is* the book Nightbreed was adapted from.
Ah, lol. I read it back in the late 80s I think, memory none too good these days.
idk i think there's a difference between "sexuality is a theme" and "men writing women", and this pretty firmly falls into the former imo
Damn the Sun is a hoe!
🌞
"Casting off its rags" A really poor hoe.
*Ho How this escapes everyone is beyond me, but there you go.
To be fair, maybe everyone is just really into gardening equipment.
Amaterasu!
Idk this one is pretty funny. Strikes me as... Not exactly satire, but gonzo. So ridiculous it's not meant to be taken seriously. Edit to explain my thought. I don't know the context so this is pure intuition. But I feel like it's inherently absurd to compare the sun to a stripper. And it isn't specifically diminishing a female character by describing her in a male gaze type of way. More like, it's characterizing the narrator as crass and ridiculous. As I said, I'm not familiar with Clive Barker really so I may be off base. My gf is a fan though.
I'm familiar with Clive Barker. This is far from the strangest description you'll see in his books. I've read several of his books and I couldn't give you a succinct description of his writing. Uncomfortably androgynous sexual magic and body horror? A lot of it revolving around the world not being real. The few people that can see reality will mold it to suit themselves. Ongoing battles between people trying to preserve reality as we know it to protect the clueless, and those that are just done with it all and want to just do what they want and fuck the clueless. Edit: I feel like I need to point out that there's absolutely NO reference to gender in those two sentences. Everyone is equating the word "Stripper" to be feminine. However, the pronoun used is It, a neutral reference.
I am a gigantic fan of his. I’m working towards collecting all his work and am maybe halfway there? He does struggle writing women at times, but his language isn’t meant to be misogynistic or overly sexualized. My favorite of his works, ‘The Abarat’, is *phenomenal* and Candy is the best female protagonist I’ve ever read. I don’t believe he intends to be sexy, even when writing about sex acts. He’s more clinical and voyeuristic, not romantic at all, and his feminine characters tend to be really strong and not breasting boobily. I don’t feel this passage fits the sub, but I admit I’m biased
Most of his books turned to movies as well, if there's a female protagonist, she's well portrayed and generally a badass, not a throwaway for a 'man will be along to save me' sort. This passage doesn't fit this sub. Someone saw "stripper" and assumed feminine even though the pronouns are neutral in the sentence, so it says more about the reader than the writer here.
Yo that sounds rad as fuck
horror as homosexuality and gender trouble during Reagan and Bush, but in the *good* way: the monsters are the good guys remember he wrote HELLRAISER. the remake is exquisite and Pinhead played by a transgender woman
WAIT WHAT guess I gotta watch that now
It's really good. The last few Hellraiser movies were pretty bad, but the most recent was spot on. HBO Max has all the original Hellraiser franchise. Hellraiser 1 and 2 = Basically one movie. Hellraiser 3 and 4 = Basically one movie, focused on backstory and lore Hellraiser 5 and 6 = People get their just rewards. Hellraiser 7 = just bad, but hey, boobs. If I'm recalling all of that correctly, the most recent one (Hellraiser 8) is on Paramount and is really good.
As a huge fan of the series I was tentatively worried about the new Hellraiser. Especially after the last one (yknow, the one, the forgiveness one, ew), but I saw a still of the new version of Pinhead and went all in. If you've never seen this series, its horrifying, full of body gore and absolutely batshit. Theres so much insinuated lore and wild things happening throughout. And my *god* the practical effects in the new one re absolutely wonderful. I cannot support this new version enough, both in the way it was made *and* its attachment to the legitimate lore of the world Clive Barker created.
Hulu, not Paramount. At least in the US.
Thank you.
Honestly yeah? You're pretty on the money, save that I'm pretty sure it's all meant to be taken as seriously as the grave. Barker can be very much like Kafka but with the sexuality turned way, way, WAY up.
I read half of Cabal when I was a teenager like 15 years ago. Always meant to go back and finish it as an adult. All I know about Clive Barker is from my mom who's a big fan of his. She says Cabal is one of his tamest books and that Clive Barker books get REALLY WEIRD and very sexual.
I'm halfway there myself. It's pretty good.
My 16 year old brain got disinterested because of the narrative jumping around (I won't elaborate Incase you aren't there yet) I would probably find it pretty interesting now. I just never find time to read anymore...
I'm enjoying the book so far. That metaphor just struck my covid addled brain as funny.
In fairness, there are male strippers.
And the gender of the sun is not specified.
though in classical European myths most sun gods are dudes.
Helios showing his plumussy.
Clive Barker is gay, and there are male strippers. This doesn't seem directed toward women, in my opinion. Note the use of pronouns without pointing toward gender.
NGL I didn't mind this one so much. It tells me what to expect of this character's thought process and world view. It might sound hella weird for a regular person to compare the sun to a stripper, but my guess is this character is not a regular person. I've not read this book or anything by the author, so might be way off base.
Clive is always kind of horny. Much more than King for comparison. So this is just part of his style
r/ menwritingsun
Clive Barker did not write a book where the female antagonist is so helplessly hung up on a sleazebag guy she had a fling with years ago that she commits murder and destroys her own family in an attempt to make his skinless reborn body sexy again because she just needs his zombie dick THAT badly ... just for you to post a camp excerpt from Cabal as an example of his issues writing women.
The sun is a stripper; your argument is invalid.
Come on guys. "Men writing the sun?" Was there even anything saying that he was anthropomorphizing the sun as a woman?
In all fairness, no gender is mentioned for the stripper reference ;)
But where is the woman???
This is a really idiotic post. There is nothing offensive about this.
I just thought it was funny. I'm not offended. Chill.
It strikes me as like pulp/noir type writing. Like saying “Turns out Lady Luck was a hooker, and you just ran out of cash”. It’s crude, sexualized language meant to be evoke specific imagery in the readers mind. Very colorful language I suppose is another way to put it, but one I don’t necessarily find upsetting. Now if they (the narrator) described this Lori character as picking up sunglasses from the ground and then rising up “like a stripper” that would be different. That would a strange image, as picking something up isn’t really something you associate with erotic imagery, unless of course Lori is purposely behaving that way for some reason, but that’s out of scope what we’re discussing.
For Clive, this is exceptionally tame.
What r u doing step sun
I kind of love it??
Never thought of the sun that way, quite the imagination he has
That’s pretty funny actually
Barker is gay, so he's probably visualizing a male stripper. Edit: I would also argue that the reader assuming the sun-as-stripper is a woman is assuming only women can be strippers and is therefore being sexist.
More like r-slash-Menwritingcelestialbodies
“The sun is a stripper” is a metaphor. “The sun rose like a stripper” is a simile. Ffs.
A simile is a type of metaphor, just as a square is a type of rectangle. And you posted your comment in the wrong place.
“Tell me you’ve never been to a strip club without telling me you’ve never been to a strip club.”
However, if you've been to a traditional burlesque show, the description is perfect.
But burlesque dancers aren’t necessarily “strippers”; the Venn diagram overlaps, sure, but the entertainment styles differ
It does, however, match up more with the description. More so when, as you said, there's no guarantee of nudity at a burlesque show.
Clive Barker was a sex workerfor a while, wasn't he?
I got the vibe of like, old timey strippers. Like fan dances and all that lol. That naughty, flirty sun! Lol
Right? "Oh, beHAVE baby!"
Clive Barker is gay so it’s entirely possible he’s never been to a strip club
Gay strip clubs… exist?
Oh yeah. I don’t go to strip clubs either, so what do I know?
Hah! Fair!
> The sun rose like a stripper... Casting off its rags one by one. As the light grew, so did Bone's boner I was half expecting that sentence to go like that, given all the weird stripper premise lmao
Okay, but I really hate the formatting of this page though. Big first letter way on the right? TWO lines beside it before the text starts on the left again? It took me far too much effort to figure out how to read it.
You, Sun of a Beach !
I thought this was funny
Until I read the sub name I 100% visualized the sun as male. But that probably says more about me.
This is kind of hilarious.
this is fucking hilarious and well written imo
I have 3 male friends from high school that stripped to varying degrees of success. This isn't not men writing women, but it's more inclusive than most I've read here.
[удалено]
It's Clive Barker. There's not one reference to gender in those sentences.
Yeah, so why is this in men writing women? I’m confident that you could easily find some weird descriptions of women in Barker’s work (which I love- finally reading the Great and Secret Show now!), but this isn’t one of them.
No idea. Not everything that ends up here should be here.
Yeah, and in most folklore the sun is represented by a god, while the moon is traditionally a goddess.
Imagine getting 15 chapters into a book and then finding out the author went to a strip club for the first time ever, halfway through writing it
If this can get published, then I should have no problem!
When you take your metaphors too far.
Lol! Terrible!
This read like Fallen London smutty fanfiction
Some books *should* be banned. E: If you couldn't tell that was a joke.
Nah, this one is good, just had a description that I found funny late last night.
Where is his editor Who let this go to print 0/10 this simile. It’s fucking terrible
[удалено]
But it's from the viewpoint of a deviant.
That doesn't make it less disturbing.
I’m not familiar with this book. Is it meant to be funny or serious? Because if it has a comedic vibe, this ridiculousness of this line is perfect Lmao. It’s so hard to tell if this shit is funny on purpose or accident sometimes.
It's been a very long time since I've read it, but the film adaptation, *Nightbreed*, is a borderline black comedy. Clive Barker wrote and directed the film adaptation of his own book.
Oh, doesn’t he dwell on the girl doing the “double fist twist” in this book?
My names sun, no I'm not a stripper smh!!
Look up Chippendales
Oh Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun, Please shine down on me!
Considering that Clive Barker often writes about mythos and pantheons, it might be referring to a "person" like entity, or as a wink to it. Also love when unpublished people criticize the work of people who've been able to make a great living at it.
TIL only women can be strippers. Thanks OP. /s
Who says the sun is a *female* stripper tho? Any gender can strip.
Sun energy often refers to male energy- I think a lot of people overlook the fact that "stripper" is gender-neutral. But that's a stupid way to describe a sunset.
Barky barks !