More about sex and Inara

POSTED BY: mal4prez
UPDATED: Saturday, August 1, 2009 19:12
VIEWED: 20411
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BYTEMITE

Sunday, June 21, 2009 5:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by GillianRose:

And yes, Inara would be a great partner to have at your side making a home and raising a family. Would Mal, the Mal Inara knows?

He's been pretty good at raising a family already, dontcha know. Buuuut... He probably would need a little work. Pulling a gun on Jayne at the dinner table might work on the ship, but it's really not going to fly with a five year old. Mal's got some issues, and yeah, I think he'd have to mellow out some and let go of some bitterness and anger before he could seriously attempt to settle down anywhere.

AGENTROUKA

Sunday, June 21, 2009 5:58 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:

Yeah it doesn't sound particularly fair when you put it like that. But then again companions must be prepared to retire early and move on - they're going to have to find new paths in their lives going into their 30s or 40s anyway right (or perhaps earlier if they want a family)?

You know, Companions might have families next to their job, so that one doesn't count.

As for age, I agree that at some point a new path is required, but Inara's maybe 27 and has lots of time before her 40's. Quitting now would be a big choice, and unfair to just expect.

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I have to admit Inara is a bit of a mystery to me, why she does the job she does - if I fully understood that then I would confidently suggest other ways she could fulfil her life...

But you're willing to allow that she loves her job and enjoys it, yes? Even if you don't understand why? That's a very refreshing attitude. Many people just project their own discomfort onto her and assume she must secretly hate her job and its lifestyle.

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For example if she enjoys nurturing and helping people she could become a teacher of some kind. But if she just enjoys sex with different people and doesn't want to give that up - well how is that a different requirement to what we would typically all expect from someone we're entering into a relationship with - a commitment to monogamy?

You discount that she is not having sex with them because "she enjoys sex with different people" recreationally. Sex is a part of what she does. Her job, in its entirety, the things she was so highly trained to do exceptionally well, is what she enjoys, including using sex.

You can't just replace that with a generic "helping people" ersatz profession like teaching. Teaching what? Give one-hour lessons in tea ceremony on planets where the crew has work? Very fulfilling.

Is sex had professionally, without the incentive of physical recreation or emotional intimacy, with both partners knowing about it, really the same break of monogamy that adultery is, or that a multiple partner relationship would be?

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You women are sensitive about 'a woman having to give up her job', but this is a special situation, it's not often that a job cuts right through the confines of a relationship like this.

I actually think it's not just "us women" who are sensitive about being expected to give up a fulfilling career. ANYone would be. It's a human thing, not a woman thing.

So they are in a special situation. So are military spouses. Either you love the person enough to accept their difficult profession and make it work, or you don't. I honestly think Mal has it in him. Just like many many military spouses out there. And you can't tell me that a military job doesn't cut into a relationship the same way, what with absences, the stress of uncertainty, perhaps mental and physical trauma or death on the menue.

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I like this question that platonist posed: "Would she still love him and have respect for him?"

I really think so. It's not at all the same thing as Mal going off and finding himself someone else to shag and be emotionally intimate with. THAT would break monogamy for certain. It's also not the same thing as expecting Mal to swallow THAT.

This is her profession. Mal being generous and brave enough to give her that freedom... how could she not love him and respect him for it?

Quote:

I guess we're asking 'is monogamy a noble instinct?' - or one we should sometimes have to transcend/rise above? Hmm.

Sure it's a noble instinct. Jealousy is natural and painful, you can't just control it easily, monogamy is a semi-natural solution to that. Mutual sacrifice of promiscuity for the sake of committment.

But neither does Inara's job break monogamy in all the important ways, nor does a a bit of bending of the rules ruin the whole concept or committment and love. Would it be easy for Mal? Not really. But Mal himself isn't an

BYTEMITE

Sunday, June 21, 2009 3:28 PM

I noticed your post in the other thread, AR, and felt the need to reply.

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Now that I know the true nature of the AU, I'm actually kind of starting to like the idea.

It takes on a whole new significance if in this dream, Mal imagines Inara as a singer rather than, say, a prostitute hanging out at the bar.

In a sweet way, it implies that what Mal really sees as standing between them is a social barrier of some sort, not misgivings about Inara's sexual profession. Inara elevated on stage level (Pedestal? Idealising Inara by completely separating the "real" her from her dirty, dirty job?), Mal on the floor below, lured in by her mysterious siren song, helpless to escape impending doom (Wiles! Scary wiles!).

I bet he sees himself this way some days, an unwitting victim of this love that somehow happened to him against his will. Not all days, but some.

Cool.

Yep! All the signs are there that it's really not her profession at all.

Pilot episode. Calls her a whore to her face (and to the Shepherd's), but when she's away, he's calling her job the only honest one of everyone on Serenity.

Or the way he understands that the people of Triumph aren't her "clientele," that's a comment on her social station as he perceives it.

He thinks ALL of her clients aren't worthy of her. And he's pretty sure he's not either. This is shown in Our Mrs. Reynold's in how he completely overlooks a more likely explanation for Inara being drugged in favour of her kissing Saffron. The other possibility probably doesn't even occur to him, and if it did, he must have dismissed it as completely ludicrous.

Shindig really brings this out, if you know where to look for it. As does, I think, Heart of Gold, in Mal's reasons for sleeping with Nandi when both of them recognize his feelings for Inara.

BYTEMITE

Sunday, June 21, 2009 3:35 PM

It's funny, Mal4Prez was very careful with this thread to try to limit it to a conversation on Inara's profession and the sex part of it.

But it's very hard to talk about Inara WITHOUT talking about Mal and her tricky relationship with him.

Thankfully, I think that's more of a shipper thing than that one feminism violating rule, you know, where supposedly women can't have a conversation without talking about men?

AGENTROUKA

Sunday, June 21, 2009 4:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I noticed your post in the other thread, AR, and felt the need to reply.

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Now that I know the true nature of the AU, I'm actually kind of starting to like the idea.

It takes on a whole new significance if in this dream, Mal imagines Inara as a singer rather than, say, a prostitute hanging out at the bar.

In a sweet way, it implies that what Mal really sees as standing between them is a social barrier of some sort, not misgivings about Inara's sexual profession. Inara elevated on stage level (Pedestal? Idealising Inara by completely separating the "real" her from her dirty, dirty job?), Mal on the floor below, lured in by her mysterious siren song, helpless to escape impending doom (Wiles! Scary wiles!).

I bet he sees himself this way some days, an unwitting victim of this love that somehow happened to him against his will. Not all days, but some.

Cool.

Yep! All the signs are there that it's really not her profession at all.

Pilot episode. Calls her a whore to her face (and to the Shepherd's), but when she's away, he's calling her job the only honest one of everyone on Serenity.

Or the way he understands that the people of Triumph aren't her "clientele," that's a comment on her social station as he perceives it.

He thinks ALL of her clients aren't worthy of her. And he's pretty sure he's not either. This is shown in Our Mrs. Reynold's in how he completely overlooks a more likely explanation for Inara being drugged in favour of her kissing Saffron. The other possibility probably doesn't even occur to him, and if it did, he must have dismissed it as completely ludicrous.

Shindig really brings this out, if you know where to look for it. As does, I think, Heart of Gold, in Mal's reasons for sleeping with Nandi when both of them recognize his feelings for Inara.

I agree with this. :) (Not sure about the HoG thing, as I'm particularly particular about that eppy, but the rest, yes.)

Which is really why I think Mal IS capable of accepting her job, much more easily than the fandom is ready to accept. I don't think it wouldn't be a problem at all, it is something he has to admit to himself, but I think it's very possible and it would be healthy, in a way, for him to do so.

I like M4P's take on his own self-depreciation there, as she wrote it in "Easy Tickets". Zoe advising Mal to get over his fear of not being good enough. I think part of him is afraid of discovering that he is, indeed, incapable of being happy if he gives it a try. There's as much emotional cowardice in his pushing Inara away as is in Inara's "running away", if not more.

AGENTROUKA

Sunday, June 21, 2009 5:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
It's funny, Mal4Prez was very careful with this thread to try to limit it to a conversation on Inara's profession and the sex part of it.

But it's very hard to talk about Inara WITHOUT talking about Mal and her tricky relationship with him.

Thankfully, I think that's more of a shipper thing than that one feminism violating rule, you know, where supposedly women can't have a conversation without talking about men?

Totally guilty here.

In my defense, it is kinda hard to follow up on GillianRose's long post up there. Kinda says it all. And eloquently, too.

Inara's profession is a brilliant choice on Joss's part, in that it poses so many questions about things we are so used to questioning that we forget our own prejudices. Wealth, sexuality, solitude.

At the same time, all these questions are also sincerely undermined by immediately connecting Inara to Mal and Mal's Opinions(tm) without having the opportunity to see more of her perspective. It's all immediately muddled by a very visceral conflict without allowing her to shine independently, establish herself as solid and whole.

This vastly amplifies people's gut reaction to see Inara's job as a negative obstacle. In a way, I think they judge her rejection of romantic love much more harshly than they judge the sexual aspect of her job.

MAL4PREZ

Sunday, June 21, 2009 7:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
It's funny, Mal4Prez was very careful with this thread to try to limit it to a conversation on Inara's profession and the sex part of it.

Was I? I think you mistook me. Why back at the top of the thread I said a lot about Inara, which you applied to the M/I relationship. You misunderstood my meaning, so I clarified. It wasn't meant to be any kind of thread-wide rule.

I don't think that having a feminist discussion means that men and relationships can't enter the conversation. Of course they can, and should! But I would like to be able to discuss Inara's personality without having my own statements boiled down to: "Of course - it's all about making HIM jealous". That completely missed the point I was trying to make!

I do understand what you mean about it being hard to talk about Inara without bringing up Mal. I used to feel like that - in fact, I never really talked about Inara. I'd only get to her after starting with a Mal discussion. But in the past year or so I've become more interested in Inara as an individual, and more than half of a relationship. She's really quite complex and hard to figure. So I guess I am not so into talking Mal at this point, but it's not out of any kind of feminist rule (as if there is such a thing!) It's more about focusing on a single character without being distracted.

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hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

BYTEMITE

Sunday, June 21, 2009 10:16 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
It's funny, Mal4Prez was very careful with this thread to try to limit it to a conversation on Inara's profession and the sex part of it.
Was I? I think you mistook me. Why back at the top of the thread I said a lot about Inara, which you applied to the M/I relationship. You misunderstood my meaning, so I clarified. It wasn't meant to be any kind of thread-wide rule.

I don't think that having a feminist discussion means that men and relationships can't enter the conversation. Of course they can, and should! But I would like to be able to discuss Inara's personality without having my own statements boiled down to: "Of course - it's all about making HIM jealous". That completely missed the point I was trying to make!

I do understand what you mean about it being hard to talk about Inara without bringing up Mal. I used to feel like that - in fact, I never really talked about Inara. I'd only get to her after starting with a Mal discussion. But in the past year or so I've become more interested in Inara as an individual, and more than half of a relationship. She's really quite complex and hard to figure. So I guess I am not so into talking Mal at this point, but it's not out of any kind of feminist rule (as if there is such a thing!) It's more about focusing on a single character without being distracted.

That, um, wasn't really what I was saying either. I don't think Inara is trying to make Mal jealous, in fact her life would be a lot easier if he WASN'T jealous.

I was saying that the jealousy is a fun consequence of their relationship, and I think it's partially what keeps us fans hooked.

KPO

Monday, June 22, 2009 10:10 PM

Quote:
And you can't tell me that a military job doesn't cut into a relationship the same way

No, that's exactly what I'm arguing. Absence, even death doesn't taint or diminish the love in a relationship, whereas in some people's eyes removing monogamy from it does.

Quote:
But neither does Inara's job break monogamy in all the important ways, nor does a a bit of bending of the rules ruin the whole concept or committment and love.

It doesn't ruin it, but it does diminish and taint it, in some people's eyes - even if less so than straightforward adultery, and perhaps more so than ordinary prostitution (where the intimacy may be just on a physical level).

Quote:
he can work on wrapping his head around what Inara's work really is and tolerating her doing it.

He could learn to respect the companion profession but still not be happy for his partner to be one, that's not the same.

Quote:
You know, Companions might have families next to their job, so that one doesn't count.

It depends on the typical Alliance planet man I guess. Maybe the majority wouldn't mind at all a partner being a practicing companion - is that a 'higher' mindset in your view?

Heads should roll

BYTEMITE

Monday, June 22, 2009 10:23 PM

Not necessarily a higher mindset, but more simply a practicality of the profession.

French courtesans often had a husband and children on the side while servicing their patrons. Their prostitution was a necessary source of income, and the family of the courtesan had to be understanding, tolerant, and flexible in order to make the situation work.

Perhaps this is an entirely different range of problem in your view, but I think the above applies to a number of problems that might be encountered in any relationship.

Lastly, prostitution might diminish the "quality" of the relationship in the eyes of others, but so long as the partners in question don't see their relationship as diminished, does it really matter?

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