On Thu, Feb 13, 2003 at 11:50:56AM -0600, Joshua Kronengold <mneme at io.com> wrote: > S Lumley / s piotto writes: > >She never specified top or bottom dude. Look before you leap. > Eh -- "bondage babe" pretty much tends to imply bottom. > Textually...this would be because of the word choice -- "bondage babe" > implies that the babe comes -with- bondage, while one would use a > different term to imply that said babe likes to -apply- bondage. > It's so important to use language properly, after all. Well, yes, of course the bondage babe comes with the wrapping and packaging. It's resealable, too. The cheaper models make you keep buying more, but at least it's edible. > And to throw something on-topic into here: why isn't the Dragaeran > empire more decadent? Near as I can tell, they've got very few moral > boundaries...but open sex seems to be largely the halmark of the > Jhereg (and even that seems to be pretty tame), likewise for drugs. > Is there are Tsyolanu-like class of decadent people (left over from > the last Phoenix reign, maybe)? Or is this just Not Done? Remember, we have basically three classes in Dragaera: 1) Criminals (Jhereg) 2) Peasants (Teckla, Easterners) 3) Nobility We've seen that the peasants are easy prey for the Jhereg, so those are two large classes of people with less-than-savory tastes at least some of the time. Historically, bondage and other sexual arts/perversions were mainly the province of the nobility, who had time and income to spend on such things. And historically, they tended to keep it secret. Plus, we see the nobility primarily through Vlad's eyes, and somehow I don't see Aliera confessing in a moment of passion that she whipped Mario last night and he liked it... or the other way around. Vlad's never been running any of his brothel's directly either. (Of course, Teldra might know, at least with respect to Morrolan. Which could make for some interesting sideline comments to Vlad when she wakes up, except that it wouldn't be proper.) -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp