I guess Jim Webb has written a few novels. I knew nothing about this, but you gotta figure that Webb's "people" knew about it and did they think no one would dig this up or am I missing something? This can't be good, but I haven't heard any pushback yet from Webb
.....Allen's press release below the fold......
WEBB'S WEIRD WORLD
The Author's Disturbing Writings Show a Continued Pattern of Demeaning Women
· Some of Webb's writings are very disturbing for a candidate hoping to represent the families of Virginians in the U.S. Senate.
· Many excellent books about the United States military and wartime service accomplish their purposes, and even win awards, without systematically demeaning women, and without dehumanizing women, men and even children.
· Webb's novels disturbingly and consistently - indeed, almost uniformly - portray women as servile, subordinate, inept, incompetent, promiscuous, perverted, or some combination of these. In novel after novel, Webb assigns his female characters base, negative characteristics. In thousands of pages of fiction penned by Webb, there are few if any strong, admirable women or positive female role models.
Why does Jim Webb refuse to portray women in a respectful, positive light, whether in his non-fiction concerning their role in the military, or in his provocative novels? How can women trust him to represent their views in the Senate when chauvinistic attitudes and sexually exploitive references run throughout his fiction and non-fiction writings?
· Most Virginians and Americans would find passages such as those below shocking, especially coming from the pen of someone who seeks the privilege of serving in the United States Senate, one of the highest offices in the land:
- Lost Soldiers: "A shirtless man walked toward them along a mud pathway. His muscles were young and hard, but his face was devastated with wrinkles. His eyes were so red that they appeared to be burned by fire. A naked boy ran happily toward him from a little plot of dirt. The man grabbed his young son in his arms, turned him upside down, and put the boy's penis in his mouth."
Ø Bantam Books, NY, 1st Edition, 2001, (hard cover), page 333.
Ø Quote is from para. 10,.Chap. 34.
- Something to Die For: "Fogarty . . . watch[ed] a naked young stripper do the splits over a banana. She stood back up, her face smiling proudly and her round breasts glistening from a spotlight in the dim bar, and left the banana on the bar, cut in four equal sections by the muscles of her vagina."
Ø William Morrow and Company, Inc., NY 1991, 1st Ed. (hardcover), p. 36.
Ø Avon Books, New York, 1992 (Mass-Market paperback edition), p. 35
Ø Quote is from para. 29, Chap. 2 "The South China Sea,", Section 2
- A Country Such as This: "[He] could see Jawbone and Ashley Asthmatic [two guards at a Vietnamese prison camp] napping together in the grass. They faced inward, their arms entwined. It looked like they were masturbating each other. It didn't surprise him. ... It was common to see men holding hands, embracing, playing with each other. Some of them [the guards] had wanted him. He could tell in those evanescent moments between his bao cao bow, the obligatory deference when a guard entered his cell, and the first word or blow that followed it... Quick, grinding voices, turgid with repressed passion. An exploratory reaching of the hand near his groin..."
Ø Doubleday & Co., Garden City, NY, 1983 (hardcover); page 396.
Ø Bluejacket Books, 2001 (Trade paperback edition), page 396
Ø Page numbers are the same in the Naval Institute Press (paperback) edition, 1983.
Ø Quote is from fifth para, Part 5 "A Country Such As This," Chap. 24, Section 1
- A Sense of Honor: "Nurse Goodbody, dark and voluptuous (Lenahan had forgotten her actual name, it was something long and Italian), was a bedtime friend to many of the doctors in Bethesda. She had hinted to Lenahan that she simply could not contain herself. Doctors tending to patients, she explained, aroused her. Morphine Mary (again Lenahan could not remember her exact name) was a thin, nervous drill sergeant type, a disciplinarian who did not allow her patients even to complain. Lenahan was convinced that Morphine Mary did not even sleep with her husband. She wasn't bad looking, he mused again, staring at her thin frame. If she'd just get laid every now and then she'd mellow out and stop being such a damn witch." (p. 164) (Lenahan brings Goodbody home with him and has sex, pp. 188-190)
I'm not sure what the best move is for Webb here, and I realize he's just writing fiction,but he's going to have to formulate some effective response to this to save himself.