#fictional fertility and infertility

[ladykailitha]

Hey! Feel free to ignore this, but I did notice a typo in the first couple of parts saying Lonnie instead of Lenny. Just an FYI for when you put on ao3

(like what you're doing for Hopper, personally I vote the star court person is replaced by Bob)

Also I have a question, I was wondering if you could explain how exactly Steve being fertile vs him not getting pregnant at work? I assume you'll explain at some point when Eddie realizes, but I'm curious and impatient lol

Yeah, I had the two characters with very similar names and I will need to go back and hardline fix them so they don't anymore. Bob is a good idea for a Starcourt omega, actually. Thanks!

Also I need to change the name of the comedian full stop because Lenny Goodman is too close to real person's name and I try to avoid that if I can.

Regarding fertility in this verse *cracks knuckles* (some of this has been revealed and some will be revealed later)

Let's go.

When omegas present they are tested for fertility because that's all an omega is good for. How fertile they are. It's a simple blood test.

However there are a couple of others things that can cause the test to be negative for fertility. One is that they are just intersex betas that "presented" as omegas, but that aren't omegas. Their uterus is functioning as their prostate. But since it tests for "omega" fertility it comes out negative.

These people don't go into heats or are extra fertile the way omegas are.

The other is what is called a golden omega. Golden omegas are considered super fertile even among omegas. The trick is is that only during their heats. So say a regular omega has a 1 in 5 chance of getting pregnant in heat, a golden omega has a 4 in 5 chance of getting pregnant during their heats.

They are so rare 1% of the population of omegas is a golden omega. They are so sought after that the power and privilege is even greater than escorts. They have powerful alphas tripping over themselves to offer them anything in the world because just one is enough to secure a bloodline for seven generations.

Escorts can only be infertile because as Steve states early on it's for the protection of the omegas and their clients. They can't have blackmail going either direction.

But because golden omega testing is optional and can only be performed soon after a teen's first heat (and highly expensive), the agency makes sure that their omegas are whisked away if the rut sends them into mini heats (not the full on five to seven day, sweats, need to fuck, and pain) where hot alpha rut makes the omega all hot and bothered, resembling an actual heat. And aren't allowed to share their heats with alphas on the off chance they might be one.

Infertile omegas' scent is overly sweet. Like Carol complains about to Billy at the event Steve and Nancy go to. It's often described as rotting fruit.

Does that answer your question, because I'm not sure I understood quite what you were asking.

[reportwire]

Tosca Musk, Elon's sister, has a business venture of her own -- and it's all about romance and female sexuality | CNN

Tosca Musk, Elon’s sister, has a business venture of her own — and it’s all about romance and female sexuality | CNN

Atlanta, Georgia CNN  —  Tosca Musk strides onto the red carpet at a Regal Cinemas, statuesque in a white pant suit and glistening burgundy silk top. A hush comes over a group gathered outside the theater’s doors. Some whip out cell phones and start recording her every move. It’s a chilly October night in Atlanta, and the fans are here for the premiere of “Torn,” the second in a trilogy of…

[thistlepilled]

this may come off as kinda random but marcille's infertility is so important to me

usually in fiction when a woman is infertile, either she sees herself as broken, a monster, a horrible person etc, or she is actually portrayed as all these things, and her existence as a character revolves around it. that's why the way dungeon meshi portrayed marcille is so refreshing

she's not broken or a monster because she can't bear children, and she doesn't see herself that way either. in fact she has zero interest in becoming a full elf so she can be fertile. sometimes other characters around her assume she does, but she just dgaf. it's a barely relevant detail that doesn't really afect anything and i love it

[im-me-he-says]

(Okay I wasnt going to post this but im actually pissed off.)

((TW INFERTILITY))

Dear Bridgerton fans who are unreasonably angry at Michael being Micheala in the new season,

You still have the book.

Let me bring up points that I've seen in arguments online:

1- "But her story is about infertility! Putting her with a woman changes everything!"

Queer women struggle with infertility too, in fact it can be very difficult for lesbians who wish to start families of their own as not everyone is able to adopt or find a sperm donor, and even if a sperm donor is found THEY CAN STILL HAVE INFERTILITY ISSUES.

Let me list off romance books that deal with cishet women and their infertility issues below-

Untamed Rose, Scandalous Mistress by Bronwyn Scott

The Devil in Disguise by Lisa Kleypas

The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez

Thief of Shadows by Elizabeth Hoyt

What's Left of Me by Kristen Granata

Lord and Lady Spy by Shana Galen (this one is regency too)

A Secret Sorrow by Karen Van Der Zees

And many more if you google I just dont have all day.

(Extra point, in many of these books the women do not stay infertile and have a miracle baby...not only do many cishet women never get their miracle baby but lesbian couples literally cannot concieve)

And now let me list of books that deal with Lesbian women and their fertility issues-

.....

OH WAIT I COULDNT FIND A SINGLE ONE!!

This leads me to my next point.

2- Bridgerton is a love letter to minorities in romance.

As someone who is south asian myself, I have seen how western beauty standards and racism has treated women in our culture, literally go online and search up "which race would you not date" its disgusting.

I grew up only seeing white women be the desirable one in romances as did many others, you know what changed this for me?

Kate Sharma.

The international audience for Bridgerton especially with brown women of South Asian descent grew TREMENDOUSLY. We had a woman like us portrayed positively and seen as desirable, you guys genuinely do not understand how many brown women watch this show because of season 2.

If we had Kate, WHY should Lesbians struggling with infertility and Black Lesbians not have Francesca and Micheala.

3- "It should have been Eloise and Cressida!"

Why? Because Eloise is a loud mouthed feminist and Cressida is a mean blonde and they shared an understanding? Because theyre both white?

While I do want Eloise to be queer as well just think about that for a moment, while lesbian representation is scarce these days it is even scarcer for Lesbians who do not fit the norm...the mostly white, neurotypical, skinny, cis norm.

Genuinely think about how many times ypu have seen these tropes in wlw fiction, like sit and think about it.

Such as Black lesbians for example, you all are aware they exist right?

I want to reccomend this video by a sunny book nook which talks about how lesbians in a VAST MAJORITY of lesbian romance novels arent really...allowed to be complex characters and it would be some FANTASTIC insight for some of yall

In conclusion, you are allowed to miss Michael, but don't you dare say this takes away from her story, as it ties into the very aim of the show.

Thank you for reading.

[totally-not-here-for-the-smut]

Hello- just finished reading your main 6 with baby fever post- wanna know ho you think they’d react if MC has fertility issues or are just infertile

AT LAST I'm back. And I'm down

For

Some

Angst

I'd consider natural concieving, since implying some magical methods would make the whole fertility issue... well, not an issue at all. Still, will try to write it as gn as I can :)

Disclaimer: this is a serious matter for lots of people. It's not something I faced myself, so it may be widely inaccurate. Some of them will be dark and sad, so beware. Please remember that this is purely fictional and written for fun. A distorted disgraced twisted form of fun.

••○ That Empty Crib ○••

Nadia

Even though everybody agrees she'd make a great mother, having kids is not her nr.1 desire. She would consider the idea, but motherhood wasn't a part of her life plan she would actively put an effort in. Yet, as the time passes month by month and nothing happens even though you're -well, not exactly careful by now-, you start to see a shadow in her eyes. She seems bothered by something she wouldn't tell -until one night, after a party. She's taking off her headpieces and earrings and out of the blue she says: "I think I might be infertile". You freeze. What...? Oh. Oh. "And... well, you never told me you wanted wanted kids. So... is this a problem?". She collects herself an instant. "No. Of course not", she says, but her voice is strangely hard. That night, she slips away from your arms. By the morning, she's on the other side of the bed. You didn't talk again about it, but you find out she's seeing Juian. Well, she always used to see Julian, but from that night you noticed the lack of the doctor's laugh when they meet. One day, he awkwardly mentions a fertility screening program, "To check any long term plague effects, you know. For science". He's a bad liar, but you comply. And it turns out, you're the sterile one... and considering where your body comes from, maybe is not that strange. When you talk about it with Nadia, she seems... relieved? And you can't help but notice how comforting she is toward you... even though you weren't planning any kids. So much more comforting than you had been with her, actually. And so, you apologize. Istantly, Nadia smiles. "You know, what bothered me was the fact that the choice wasn't up to me. Being robbed of the right to choose... that hurt. It doesn't matter whether I wanted it or not". Now you understand. And apologize, again. She has never slipped away from your embrace since.

[haggishlyhagging]

If the "infertility epidemic" was the first round of fire in the pronatal campaign of the '80s, then the "birth dearth" was the second. At least the leaders of this campaign were more honest: they denounced liberated women for choosing to have fewer of no children. They didn't pretend that they were just neutrally reporting statistics; they proudly admitted that they were seeking to manipulate female behavior. "Most of this small book is a speculation and provocation," Ben Wattenberg freely concedes in his 1987 work, The Birth Dearth. "Will public attitudes change soon, thereby changing fertility behavior?" he asks. "I hope so. It is the root reason for writing this book."

Instead of hounding women into the maternity ward with now-or-never threats, the birth dearth theorists tried appealing to society's baser instincts—xenophobia, militarism, and bigotry, to name a few. If white educated middle-class women don't start reproducing, the birth-dearth men warned, paupers, fools, and foreigners would—and America would soon be out of business. Harvard psychologist Richard Herrnstein predicted that the genius pool would shrink by nearly 60 percent and the population with IQs under seventy would swell by a comparable amount, because the "brighter" women were neglecting their reproductive duties to chase after college degrees and careers—and insisting on using birth control. "Sex comes first, the pains and costs of pregnancy and motherhood later," he harumphed. If present trends continue, he grimly advised, "it could swamp the effects of anything else we may do about our economic standing in the world." The documentation he offered for this trend? Casual comments from some young students at Harvard who seemed "anxious" about having children, grumblings from some friends who wanted more grandchildren, and dialogue from movies like Baby Boom and Three Men and a Baby.

The birth dearth's creator and chief cheerleader was Ben Wattenberg, a syndicated columnist and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who first introduced the birth dearth threat in 1986 in the conservative journal Public Opinion—and tirelessly promoted it in an endless round of speeches, radio talks, television appearances, and his own newspaper column.

His inflammatory tactics constituted a notable departure from the levelheaded approach he had advocated a decade earlier in his book The Real America, in which he chided population-boom theorists for spreading "souped-up scare rhetoric" and "alarmist fiction." The fertility rate, he said, was actually in slow decline, which he saw then as a "quite salutary" trend, promising more jobs and a higher living standard. The birth dearth, he enthused then, "may well prove to be the single most important agent of a massive expansion and a massive economic upgrading" for the middle class.

Just ten years later, the fifty-three-year-old father of four was sounding all the alarms about this "scary" trend. "Will the world backslide?" he gasped in The Birth Dearth. "Could the Third World culture become dominant?" According to Wattenberg's treatise—subtitled "What Happens When People in Free Countries Don't Have Enough Babies"—the United States would lose its world power status, millions would be put out of work, multiplying minorities would create "ugly turbulence," smaller tax bases would diminish the military's nuclear weapons stockpiles, and a shrinking army would not be able “to deter potential Soviet expansionism.”

When Wattenberg got around to assigning blame, the women's movement served as the prime scapegoat. For generating what he now characterized as a steep drop in the birthrate to "below replacement level," he faulted women's interest in postponing marriage and motherhood, women's desire for advancing their education and careers, women's insistence on the legalization of abortion, and "women's liberation" in general. To solve the problem, he lectures, women should be urged to put their careers off until after they have babies. Nevertheles, he actually maintains, "I believe that The Birth Dearth sets out a substantially pro-feminist view."

Wattenberg's birth dearth slogan was quickly adopted by New Right leaders, conservative social theorists, and presidential candidates, who began alluding in ominous—and racist—tones to "cultural suicide" and "genetic suicide." This threat became the subject of a plank in the political platforms of both Jack Kemp and Pat Robertson, who were also quick to link the fall of the birthrate with the rise in women's rights. Allan Carlson, president of the conservative Rockford Institute, proposed that the best way to cure birth dearth was to get rid of the Equal Pay Act and federal laws banning sex discrimination in employment. At a 1985 American Enterprise Institute conference, Edward Luttwack went even further: he proposed that American policy makers might consider reactivating the pronatal initiatives of Vichy France; that Nazi-collaborationist government's attack on abortion and promotion of total motherhood might have valuable application on today's recalcitrant women. And at a seminar sponsored by Stanford University's Hoover Institution, panelists deplored "the independence of women" for lowering the birthrate and charged that women who refused to have many children lacked "values."

These men were as anxious to stop single black women from procreating as they were for married white women to start. The rate of illegitimate births to black women, especially black teenage girls, was reaching "epidemic" proportions, conservative social scientists intoned repeatedly in speeches and press interviews. The pronatalists' use of the disease metaphor is unintentionally revealing: they considered it an "epidemic" when white women didn't reproduce or when black women did. In the case of black women, their claims were simply wrong. Illegitimate births to both black women and black teenagers were actually declining in the '80s; the only increase in out-of-wedlock births was among white women.

-Susan Faludi, Backlash: the Undeclared War Against American Women

[omegaverse-guide]

Omegaverse 101

So you've encountered the term for the first time - maybe you're 12 or very offline, or you've heard it before but heeded someone's advice to not look it up - either way, you're here, wondering. What is omegaverse, or alpha/beta/omega dynamics, as AO3 puts it? Here's a brief overview for you!

What is the omegaverse?

It's a trope mostly used in fanfiction, that has been spreading into published fiction, manga, and recently even into anime and tv shows. It can appear confusing to outsiders, since there is no unifying canon a/b/o authors draw from, and the details vary wildly between each story. The core is simple: On top of your gender, which is still identified at birth and works the same as it does in real life, you're also assigned to be an alpha, beta, or omega, though this tends to happen later in life, usually around when puberty happens. Whether you're male, female, intersex, non-binary, or any other sex/gender does not determine what you present as.

Alphas can sire children, even if they're afab. They tend to be seen as aggressive, competitive, and natural leaders. Whatever you associate with stereotypical, hypermasculine behaviour in the real world, that's now associated with alphas. They can go into ruts, a period of time where they get extremely horny and often aggressive/protective, and they may or may not be able to control themselves during that time. They generally have big dicks, though exact measurements are rarely given. Those dicks can swell at the base during sex, to lock them and their partner together for a while, which is called knotting.

Betas are essentially just baseline humans. They can have sex and feel horny, but only in the same way a real human can. Sometimes they're infertile, but other times they reproduce the same way actual humans do. Storys are rarely about betas, but they tend to be seen as rational and calm, good to have around to diffuse whatever the alphas and omegas have going on.

Omegas can bear children, even if they're amab. They're generally seen as submissive, caring, and weak. Women, basically, just more exaggerated. They periodically go into heat, which makes them horny and extremely appealing/irresistable to alphas in their vicinity. This is also the time period where they're fertile. Male omegas tend to have small dicks. Sometimes they have a pussy on top of that, other times their asshole self-lubricates and is connected to their uterus, whichever the author prefers.

How did we get here?

The terms originate from behavioural studies of wolves, and so does some of the biology (yes, wolves do have knots. in real life. if you didn't heed the warning to not look up omegaverse, at least heed mine not to look up wolf dicks. or any other animal dicks). Parts of the trope are pretty old - what's a heat if not a Pon Farr (Star Trek) for werewolves? Then, in 2010, a request was posted to the supernatural kink meme, requesting J2 smut with what became the basic tenets of the trope. It fit the already popular werewolf fic in the massive spn fandom, and spread like wildfire in just a few years far beyond spn or werewolves, and here we are.

Notes

Almost all omegaverse is m/m. Het omegaverse has found success (and a lawsuit) in original books, though I can say I haven't read any. The only het omegaverse I've ever read was fic with a female alpha and male omega, so don't ask me about this. Rare brave fans do write f/f omegaverse, and they have all my respect and gratitude. However, they're the exception, so for the purpose of this and any further discussion on this blog, please assume all parties are male unless specified otherwise.

Omegaverse can be abbreviated as A/B/O, or A/O if you don't have/don't care about betas. Some people simply use abo without the slashes, but abo is also a slur for aboriginal people in australia, so proceed with caution if you insist on using it.

There is NO one true way to write an omegaverse story. Nobody has the copyright to it. People will expect some of the above framework if you classify your fic as omegaverse, but you can do whatever you want forever. If you've read published manga, many of them share an explanation graphic that gives some base rules, but you don't need to stick to those, nor should you expect others to. It's a wild west out here. Write and read stories that do the trope how you like it, and don't read the rest. It's that easy.

[shinyruby]

“What’s the point in keeping Francesca’s storyline with infertility if she’s queer.”

Idk to give infertile women who don’t get miracle babies in the end a HEA? Because nearly every infertility story in fiction ends with a miracle baby of some sort, and there isn’t enough with infertile women not becoming fertile and just being happy with it?

I’m sorry, but you guys are riding so hard for “infertility representation” while not under standing Julia Quinn didn’t really do anything groundbreaking with it, nor was it representative of every infertile person’s journey, so it might be nice for some infertile people to get a version of the story that doesn’t end with a child? Idk.

[tinnictheguardian]

So I just caught-up to the latest chapter of The Remarried Empress on Webtoon and I have to say, I am really impressed.

Given that majority of people reading the comic (and the original novel) are not rich and powerful, it's would have been really easy for a story like this to not resonate with the reader. Because Lady Rashta, the one who drives the protagonist Empress Navier to divorce and later remarriage, is the natural recipient of the readers sympathy.

However, while Rashta had a hard life and her background as a runaway slave made her charmingly different to the rest of the noble ladies of the court, for the Emperor at the beginning. It soon becomes clear that she's just not a nice person.

At some level you understand, because she is nothing outside of her relationship to the emperor so you understand her doing whatever she needs to, to try and secure a level of comfort for herself. But around the time she starts turning her new found powers to hurt innocent powerless people at the slightest perceived insult, you lose all sympathy for her.

Of course, its not hard lose sympathy for Rashta and especially the protagonists first husband, who is one of the stupidest characters I have ever encountered in fiction, when Empress Navier is such an impressive person.

She takes her job as Empress seriously. She's isn't delusional about her place in her husband's heart and would have allowed him to have a mistress without too much fuss if he just wouldn't humiliate her. But her incredibly selfish and self-centred first husband failed basically to show her the basic level of decency and decorum.

Of course the background inciting incident in the story was the fact that Emperor believed the Empress was infertile, when all signs point to the Emperor being the one with the fertility problem. So at the end of the day, I think what sold the story to the majority of the readers was that outside of the Imperial Fantasy setting. The core is a very relatable, everyday story of a man who didn't appreciate what he had, refused to contemplate that he might be the problem in their fertility woes, took up with the first young hot thing that flattered his ego, and was shocked, shocked when his young hot thing turned out to be a cruel pile of hot drama!

[exuberantocean]

Amelia Pond

I feel like it's appropriate that Amy Pond was a model. A model's job is to be looked upon, projected upon, but we generally never actually get to know who a model really is as a person (unless you happen to know them well irl).

I feel that Amy Pond tends to live her fictional little life vibrant and real and whole but projected upon by the characters around her and, sadly, often flattened by the audience themselves.

Amy fills roles for people. The Doctor loves her deeply, depends on her, she becomes His Person. But the Doctor has always had a strong tendency to keep his relationship with his companions on his terms. There's a certain degree in which he uses his travel companions and ends the relationships with them (if they make it long enough) on his terms with only a few exceptions. The Doctor talks about leaving her "because you're still breathing." He can't live his whole life with her. She could live her whole life with him; but he won't. He isn't willing to work this on her terms, he's not willing to let his image of her grow into an old woman.

Rory's not much better. He wants his wife and yeah, he loves her, but I also don't think Rory always sees her. He follows her because he wants her but, you know, he has the air of a man on a reluctant vacation that he finds just a little bit absurd but he's indulging the misses. (Granted, he also at least knows her enough to realize he can't stop her). But, I don't think he really ever understand or engages in the part of her that loves, craves, this endless adventure.

But, I think the part I find most tragic comes down to her loss of fertility, the loss of her baby. This is where I think the Doctor, Rory, but even more so the audience itself often fails her.

There's this false dichotomy out there prevalent in our culture and yes even within many feminist spheres themselves that's seems to believe motherhood and reproduction and antithetical to feminism. And I've seen the attitude from a lot of fans that seem to scoff that, you know, Amy was marketed like this independent/well rounded/feminist/whatever woman but then they made her a mother. Or they made her fall apart about her fertility issues.

And I find this so...heartless. I assume these people have never miscarried or had a stillborn or wrestled with infertility. And it is shocking how, when you do become a mother, a lot of feminist spaces you were once comfortable in can now feel unwelcoming.

The truth is being a mother, wanting to be a mother, doesn't make you less strong, less desiring of a fuller and richer life, less of a feminist. Less of whatever people thought Amy was supposed to be.

But you know, the tendency to see people lose sight of you and who you are as a full person once you become a mother? That's painfully, painfully real. As is the way people can't see how devastating the loss can be. For a lot of us, this feeling of loss can and does come with a sense that your broken and that you've less than a woman or that you're no good for others. And yes, much of that is probably influenced by sexism and misogyny which is why these women need feminism more than ever but...a lot of feminist circles just kind of reject "breeders." Not all, but far too many (and hey, look they tend to use the same kind of dismissive language as misogynistic men).

Yes, Amy left Rory because she thought he wouldn't want her now that she can't have kids. And everyone goes on about how shitty that makes Amy as a character. No one, not one comment have I seen about how shitty that makes Rory for failing to reassure her and let he know he loved her for more than just that. No one sits there and sees it as a failure on her part. No one sits there and talks about how much of feminism pushes this idea of a strong, independent woman devoted to her career/passions and how much the mainstream society sees women as just mother (little else) and how much women with fertility issues and miscarriages fall through the cracks between both ideologies into the abyss.

The real and true tragedy of Amy Pond is that we see her red hair and hear her smart quips and look at her in relation to the men in her life and yet somehow, we never really see her. We reduce her to just a line, long before we close on her tombstone. That's the real tragedy of Amy Pond.

[onestepbackwards]

(no one in this scenario is particularly human). Idk where the fuck i was going with this, i was inspired by another fandom but puting it like this it… emmm, its a thought… So apocalypse right, they're grimy, filthy and all in all very brutal to live in. So imagine this, the worlds gone to shit, people fight for the scarce necessities for living, factions rise and fall within the ruined city. One thing is for certain, greed runs rampant amongst the streets, and you just happen to be the last fertile female member of their species. You can see where this is going.

Let's say you were found out by a rather morally good(ish) faction (at least when it comes to your personal space), not shabby by any means but not as big as some of the others. They have the manpower, shelter, technicians et cetera to somewhat have a stable work and living environment.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending how you view this) some of the higher ranking members become a bit protective of you and don't like to share. I mean you are practically there only hope so there's no denying that you'd be hunted down if any outsider catched wind of your existence. So you're put on a pedestal, your every need is taken care of.

Now biology time, due to lack of action through the years some members have probably lost their libido, or a good portion of it, some even becoming infertile themselves due to either old age or medical issues. So it's safe to say that you will be paired up with a select few members. But oh don't worry, they will take good care of you, they promise~

Also more on that not being human thing, due to the scarcity of you as a whole i wouldn't be too surprised if they went multiple rounds just to make sure your breed whole. Perhaps they produce more cum because biologically their seed has a hard time getting through so their body makes more to compensate for that. And if they are able to, you know, get you pregnant it doesn't have to be the standard 9 months wait, it could be weeks or days depending on how fast they develop, maby they would oviposition eggs into you. Who knows, it's your fantasy.

I think this is more interesting to think about, considering the stakes and what not, though I can see why not everyone would be into it, because you know, some can be pretty desporet.

Sometimes the plots that seem like they would be a nightmare just sound so good in fiction 👀

Oh how in this scenario, you would be pampered and pleased. They had to keep you happy and healthy after all!

If you are upset and stressed, that isn’t good for the development of any child you could be carrying, after all.

So anything you want, within reason, they will pull some strings to get.

Food? Old games? Drinks? They’ll… keep an eye, so long as they can keep you safe and full.

[roosterforme]

okay, so... Emily... i don't interact with you as much as i'd like bc you intimidate me (in the best way. you're like, too cool), and sometimes i do it on anon, but today is the last straw. you get familiar-me because i like you a lot, and i'm fucking finished with these anons.

this last chapter of AEOY (is that it? i'm terrible with acronyms, i'm so sorry)... Roo and Baby Girl... Chapter 9. you know what i mean... THAT chapter was a lot on my heart. but it's autobiographically-tinged fiction (i know that, and i love you) and these little BITCHES need to take SEVERAL seats and calm THE FUCK down. i'm single as hell, but i can't tell you what i'd give to be in a relationship where we loved each other so much that we just wanted to show each other how much we love each other. SEX IS OKAY. SEX IS GOOD. AND IT'S PART OF (most) RELATIONSHIPS (i'm trying to be aro/ace inclusive, i swear). so if you don't like Roo and Baby Girl fucking... FUCK OFF. and when things don't go as planned, the blame game is easy to slip into, regardless of communication, regardless of how well-adjusted (or not) we are as adults. we, as human beings, are DEEPLY flawed creatures. that is going to be reflected in EVERY relationship, platonic or romantic or any other kind. it's not toxic. fertility struggles and infertility are WILDLY common, but there is a MASSIVE stigma around it, so it's not talked about NEARLY as much as it should be. it makes people feel alone. feel like shit. feel unloved, unworthy, and plenty of other crappy ass feelings. shit, i might have endometriosis, which can affect fertility, and even though i'm not 100% i want kids, that shit still has me fucked up. so if ANYONE has ANYTHING negative to say to or about you or your writing, they are cordially invited to get fucking wrecked. i haven't addressed my anger issues with my therapist yet, and i've been looking for an outlet. (ง'̀-'́)ง there is no reason to inundate Em's inbox with negativity. you don't like her stuff? KEEP SCROLLING. it costs NOTHING to move on. you're literally WASTING energy shitting on her FOR NO REASON. so leave her the fuck alone and get a fucking grip.

love, a fucking cunt

Anya! Next thing I know, you'll be in my DMs. Thanks for this message. I'm pretty sure the anon just couldn't handle the subject matter and warnings listed on my fic masterlist. Which is fine, but I don't need to hear about it. Just excuse yourself quietly.

Having (consensual) sex is healthy. Not having sex at all is healthy. Being in an established, long-term relationship and having frequent sex is sometimes necessary. Also, this is a FANFIC and those parts are fun to read and write.

I'll send you a little smooch, because even if you don't like kids and don't intend to have them, any sort of fertility struggle can really mess with your head, babe. I'm trying to write this from experience. The feelings of isolation and blame are so strong, and not just for BG but also for Roo. You want to feel helpless? Realize that there is nothing else you can really do to help the one person you love most when they start shutting down.

I don't know why there is SO MUCH nasty anon hate in this fandom. And truly, the anon I got was nothing compared to what I have seen before in my inbox and on some other blogs. But it's really uncalled for. And Anya will kick your ass.

[dangertoozmanykids101]

Which comes first: The Science or The Fiction?

You gotta love when fiction ignites innovation. Doesn't The Original Star Trek Series get credit for several technological advances inspired by the show?

It's just as exciting when modern day scientific breakthroughs send your brain reeling with more creative juice than a bunny farm in the spring time.

BRING ON THE PLOT BUNNIES!

Prompt time: Look what I came across today.

That's right. Let's look at the scientific breakthrough where plastic artificial wombs are saving premature lambs. Using this to help premature human babies is an exciting hope and dream that's not as far off today as it was yesterday. Wow! Right?

NOW LET'S IMAGINE FURTHER.

Spring will be coming soon for the Northern Hemisphere, so let's get hopping and talk about making babies!

Then Autumn is just around the corner in the Southern Hemisphere, right? Are ya ready to start harvesting all those seeds and wild oats sowed several months ago?

I love the way Kaila Hale-Stern's brain works when presented with scientific news as this. Quoting the article I linked to above:

"The possibilities and ramifications therein are endless in terms of reproductive rights battles, infertility, surrogacy, maternal death rates, adoption—I could go on pretty much forever. If you could grow your baby in an artificial environment under ideal circumstances, would women choose to give birth naturally anymore? Would this become another province of the wealthy, already a concern in countries where surrogacy “farms” are the rise and childbirth is being “outsourced”? Would there come to be a cultural divide and battles between “old-fashioned” vs. “artificial” births? So many questions. BRB I’m pitching this TV show to Syfy."

Fun, right? This could be fascinating! NOW...

KEEP GOING. MORE BUNNIES!

I would LOVE to know what any of y'all might come up with. In fact I dare you to read this article and NOT have at least a couple baby plot bunnies start thumping around in your head begging for attention.

Dramatic, heartwarming, tear-jerking, sad, stressful, infuriating, inspiring, exciting, stimulating, arousing, kinky, scary, cheery, funny, dark, soft dark, suspenseful, thriller, terrifying, horrific, encouraging, adorable, fluffy.... ANY genre! ANY trope! ANY tone. ANY mood. ANY flavor.

Yep, one of the hops my plot bunnies did was wondering about an adult size womb. This sent my mind in the direction of sensory deprivation chambers with nutrient exchange for long term stasis. For Short-term or Long-term confinement. Latex and rubber kinks come to mind, of course. There are always plenty of full bodysuit images on the internet in a full range of colors. But don't mind me. Hope this didn't lose people. I'm just trying to illustrate possible extremes of the many many ideas some of y'all might come up with. There are wild kinks out there.

But also consider life support systems for space travel, storage, shipping, cloning, boy-in-a-bubble scenarios. Maybe an alternative to cryogenic storage. Matrix type of tropes. Genetic wars. A/B/O political conflicts or extinction prevention solutions. Medical drama, mad max, apocalyptic ramifications, utopian, dystopian, alien, modern day, futuristic, victorian medical steampunk innovations, mad scientist experimentations, fantastic fantasy witchcraft mixed with modern medicine, collector preservation specimens, genetic experimentations or manipulation. Political issues, religious issues, ethical issues, moral issues, big picture discussions, individual POV stories. Fertility problems. Society norms. Societal evolution. Breeding kink. Family starting. Genetic survival.

I think I'm starting to repeat myself. Oops.

@nildespirandum @caffiend-queen @latent-thoughts @redfoxwritesstuff @so-easy-to-love-me @muddyorbsblr @lokisgoodgirl @xorpsbane @nonsensicalobsessions @mooncat163 @frostbitten-written @boredbrooder @kind-of-crazy-butthatsokay @jtargaryen18 @myoxisbroken @imanuglywombat

I just tagged a handful of friends I thought might find this interesting or even Inspiring. Or maybe they'll just get a kick out of the random stuff I post? Give me a holler if you'd rather I not tag you, or if you'd like me to tag you. (I'm not too organized, but I can try.)

[weatherman667]

Humans Are Semi-Monogamous

Something that is almost completely lost in modern speculative fiction.  While we say that Humans are naturally monogamous, we have never actually been monogamous.  We are instead semi-monogamous.

Monogamy is an incredibly powerful concept that is the entire reason Human civilization is so successful.  This is one of the main reasons behind the Wage Gap.  The Wage Gap is not between Women and Men, but between Married Women With Children and everyone else.  Never married women without children actually make more than their male peers.  Two things happen when a couple gets married and has kids:

The mother needs / wants to take time off to take care of her children.

The father starts working more.

Single men tend to only work as much as they need to to survive.  Men with a wife and children make much more prudent life decisions, work harder, specialize more, etc.  So, by having every man marry, you basically double or quadruple their productivity.  They are much more willing to take up arms to defend their culture.  Basically turning them from grass eaters to meat eaters.

So, what does the Semi mean?

Humans, in the safe, modern world, are born 51% male.  The overall population is 51% female.  In the far less safe world, men die far more quickly than women do.  This creates a massive population imbalance.  If we had strict monogamy, they could never become mothers, and we would be idiotically throwing away their fertility, which is suicide to a population.  For people who think we’ve evolved beyond such quaint notions, pretty much every modern country has sub-replacement fertility.  We’re literally dying out.

If we accept a general principle of monogamy, then someone has to take up the surplus women.  This is usually the wealthiest men.  Rome put a stop to polygamy, not for any Feminist reasons, but to prevent squabbling between heirs.  They had more than enough squabbling between heirs, even with monogamy.  The women are then switched to something like kept mistresses.  Biblically, infertile women could also offer their hand maidens to take their place in baby making, and so a lot of this was taken up by the servile class.

i.e. lords would hire maids they could fuck, and then pay them off to take care of their bastards.

In Islam, it could be interpreted as taking the privilege of the upper classes cand giving it to the masses.  The problem with this is that in many Muslim countries ONLY the rich can have wives.  Because would often be the fourth wife to a rich man than the only husband to a poor man.  This creates a lot of surplus that don’t meaningfully contribute to society.

This isn’t me moralizing, or saying I support one thing or another.  This is instead focused on Speculative Fiction.  In Speculative Fiction, if you create a different society, you have to take this into consideration.  And this is something that is almost always ignored in Speculative Fiction, which is one of the main reasons taht Matriarchies always fail in fiction.

I can only think of two times when Matriarchies were done well:

Mass Effect:  Salarians:  They completely changed the biology of the species, and because of that the society changed to follow.  (Before anyone tries to say Asari, they only have one sex, so calling it a Matriarchy is technically accurate, but meaningless).

My Little Pony:  Friendship is Magic:  All they had to do was make the males (stallions) less ambitious.  They also made Friendship to be literally magic, which means that the conscientiousness of females (mares), plays a much more important roll in societal unity.  And this creates a justification for why the Alicorn Princesses are always female.

Outside of this, most matriarchies have absolutely no idea what they are doing.

Before anyone says we have traditionally had Matriarchies:

They have a female ruler, but the family unit is still patriarchal.

They are completely ineffective.

This is because in Humans, Matriarchies are not, and cannot be successful.  Without enforced monogamy to give men skin in the game, men do not act constructively for society.  Our attempts to artificially remove men’s place in the family has produced absolute bedlam.  The primary indicator for failure, (crime, drugs, etc.), is fatherlessness.

[dangeroustimemachinehologram]

Handmaid's Tales story, reviews and opinion... (book and a series)- a story about how not to treat women

 The Handmaid's Tale - a novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood published in 1985 in Toronto by "McClelland & Stewart. A dystopia maintained in the convention of sociological science fiction, the action of which takes place in the near future in the United States. The book won the first ever Arthur C. Clarke Award for the best science fiction novel published in Great Britain. The novel, feminist in meaning, is associated by critics with a reaction to the rule of Ronald Reagan, the Republican president of the USA when attempts were made to limit emancipation processes. The piece is a psychological study of a young woman placed in an extreme life situation. In 2019, the author released a sequel to the novel, The Testaments, set 15 years after the events described in The Handmaid's Tale.

The plot of the novel is set in the near future in the Republic of Gilead - a country created on the territory of the present United States. Created by a racist-nationalist terrorist organization with a religious profile - the Bank of Thoughts of the Sons of Jacob - it is an ideological response to the all-encompassing ecological disaster, infertility, and the collapse of society. The imprisonment and assassination of the president and the dissolution of Congress led to the downfall of the legitimate government and the suspension of the constitution. The new authorities quickly took on the characteristics of a religiously oriented military dictatorship and began to transform society according to new principles, based primarily on the Old Testament. The rulers of Gilead, literally reading the words of the Bible, breed crowds of fertile women to breed, the titled "handmaids". A handyman is given to a distinguished companion who cannot have offspring in his marriage. In an elaborate sexual ritual, the handmaid is impregnated by the man while resting in his wife's arms. The protagonist of the novel is an unnamed young woman captured while trying to escape to Canada, during which she is separated from her husband Łukasz, and their daughter ends up in an unknown place. The heroine is sent to a camp for handmaids, and after training, she ends up at the home of the Commander and his wife Serena Joy. There he meets Nick, the Commandant's young chauffeur, thanks to whom he has a chance to regain his lost freedom.

Freda is a Handmaiden assigned to the house of one of the Commanders. She must be absolutely obedient, abide by the rules of steel, and endure the Wife's treatment without batting an eyelid. Her only contact with the outside world is once a day, going shopping and secretly communicating with another Handmaiden assigned to her pair. Once a month, during the Fertilization Ceremony, she must pray to get pregnant. Handmaids that are infertile are assigned to Unwomen and sent to the Colony.

"Then she said, "I have Bilhah, my slave girl. Approach her that she may give birth to a child on my lap; though in this way I shall have offspring from you."

Genesis 30:3

The Republic of Gilead, where the plot takes place, was founded in the northern part of the United States, on the foundations of extremely orthodox principles. Due to the ever-decreasing birth rate, all fertile women were forcibly rounded up. They were forced into absolute obedience. In a submissive, passive way, they must obey a series of rules that apply to them. And actually, it's hard to say whether there are more things that must or that they can't.

They can't talk, they can't touch anything. All text has been replaced with pictures because they can't be read. They can't express themselves, they can't communicate with each other, and they can't look at each other.

They must obey their Commander's Wife and obediently lie down during the Fertilization Ceremony. They need to take care of themselves because they are the vessels in which new life will arise. They must pray as much as possible and must attend the execution of those who disobey...

It's not just the Handmaid's life that's hard. Over the course of the story, we discover that each woman has strictly assigned tasks that she must fulfill and show maximum subordination. What's most tragic, at every step they have to show how happy they are with the life they lead and grateful for what they do. Because they have had the honor of participating in great work.

"Better" is never better for everyone, he says. “It's always worse for some people.

Freda, as the heroine, is initially a very mysterious character. In order to show her life as accurately as possible (first person narrative, because it is her story) she allows us to feel how much she is really allowed. Her life is incredibly poor in experiences in every field. The greatest tragedy of her and her friends is that they remember the lives they led before. That they were wives and mothers. That they had a job, a home, and could laugh whenever they felt like it. These memories, on the one hand, give them the strength to survive the next day, and on the other hand, plunge them into more and more stagnation.

The hallmark of Atwood's novels is peace and quiet. No one screams in it, no one calls for justice, and no one opposes. Such controlled and dispassionate brutality literally deprives hope. And this is the most shocking because it shows silent surrender, hopelessness, and lack of possibility to change.

The world created by the author is quiet and gloomy, but this silence screams. And it's fascinating because I've never experienced such a climate anywhere else. Freda's thought process is completely opposite to what is going on around her and what she agrees to. And we wait all the time for something to break. And this anticipation, I must admit, is exhausting!

I highly recommend it.

Dystopian literature is probably my favorite genre, it arouses incredible emotions in me on the border of realism and fantasy. The book is not overrated, which I feared. It's a good piece of history, extraordinary and sickly fascinating. The ending is quite surprising and worth reading until the last line.

Mysterious deals with the Commander, secrets of the Wife, hidden, forbidden love, powerless underground. This book is bursting with events and emotions, although it is shrouded in paralyzing silence.

My rating: is 7/10

"I'm sorry that there is so much pain in this story. That it is torn like flesh pierced by a series of bullets.

But there's nothing I can do about it."

Characters

Freda, Handmaid

The main character was separated from her husband and daughter after the founding of the Republic of Gilead and is a representative of the first generation of Gilead women: those who still remember the period before the creation of this totalitarian state. As a fertile woman, she belongs to the most valuable wealth of the time and goes to the Rachel and Leah Center - a training camp for future Handmaids. She is then placed as a slave in the home of Commander Fred and his wife Serena Joy. She is to give birth to a healthy child.

Freda is not her real name, but a name that describes her affiliation (meaning she belongs to Commander Fred). Her original name is unknown (although it can be inferred that her name was June). We know, however, that during her stay at the Commandant's house, Podręczna is 33 years old.

Commander

His name is Fred. Little is known about his past - during one of his meetings with Freda, he mentions that he used to be involved in the so-called market research. He is probably one of the founding fathers of Gilead and the author of its laws.

Serena Joy

She used to be a TV star and now she's married to a fundamentalist religious regime she helped create. All power and fame, as well as other women, were taken from her by the regime. She is an old and infertile woman. She feels humiliated by having to use the Handmaiden, especially during the regular fertility ceremony - the Commander then intercourses with the Handmaid lying on his wife's lap.

Glen

Freda's neighbor, who, like her, belongs to the Handhelds. Every day they do shopping together in such a way that none of the Handmaids is ever alone and each watches over the behavior of the other. Glena is a member of the Mayday Resistance (a secret organization in rebellion against Gilead). Unlike the relatively passive Freda, Glena is very brave. During the so-called Participation (a cruel ritual in which the Handmaids are goaded into beating a man accused of alleged rape and infanticide) Glen stuns the man about to be lynched to spare him the pain. Glenn eventually commits suicide before the government arrests her as a member of the resistance.

Freda then gets another Handmaid as a mate, also named Glena, who refuses to share her feelings about Gilead and warns Freda against making such judgments.

Nick

The Commander's driver lives above the garage. At the suggestion of Serena Joy, Freda begins a sexual relationship with him to increase her chances of getting pregnant and saving herself from being sent to the infamous Colony. Over time, Freda develops feelings for Nick, even telling him about her life before the founding of Gilead. Nick is an ambiguous hero, and Freda doesn't quite know if he's on the side of the government or the resistance. At the end of the story, however, Nick reveals his true political affiliation and arranges Freda's escape.

Moira

She is Freda's close friend from her student days. An important aspect of Moira is her homosexuality and resistance to the new regime. Moira ended up at the Red Center (officially called the Rachel and Leah Center) for future Handmaids shortly after Fred. During her stay in the center, Moira manages to escape - she steals Aunt's clothes (sister superior) and leaves the Center in her disguise without any problems. Freda loses sight of her for several years.

He meets her only in Jezebel - an exclusive brothel for senior officials of the regime. Moira tells Freda in the restroom that after escaping she was captured and given the choice between being sent to Cologne or prostitution.

Remember the story of Jacob and Rachel from the Old Testament? A quick reminder - Rachel was infertile, but she really wanted to give a child to her beloved. So she gave him her maid, Bilhah, who had no choice but to hand them over to their legal guardians after the children were born.

Several thousand years later, God decided to punish people for their sins, licentious behavior, and hedonistic tendencies. He cursed them with a declining birthrate. Unable to cope with the situation, the people decided to return to what is written in the Bible, because only the humble will be blessed. Thus begins a revolution in the name of a better tomorrow. A revolution in which women are fertile cattle, all minorities are eliminated and the notion of freedom disappears for good. Welcome to the world of The Handmaid's Tale. Praised be.

In recent years, dystopias on the big screen have mostly been associated with teenage blockbusters. Some of them cannot be denied bravado in their approach to the subject, but most lacked depth. Even earlier, "Children of Men", "V for Vendetta" and "Blade Runner" cemented the anti-utopia genre in film history. Interestingly, both cinema and television derive their dystopian ideas mainly from literature. It is no different with "The Handmaid's Tale", which is based on Margaret Atwood's novel from 32 years ago.

The timeliness of such mature material may be surprising. It might seem that in our time the events presented in the series are not supposed to take place. However, it is enough to read about the procedure of women's mutilation through circumcision or the liquidation of people with a different sexual orientation to understand that we are already partly living in the reality of the series. Maybe that's why "The Handmaid's Tale" is so emotionally charged.

The story of June (the brilliant Elisabeth Moss), who was named Offred in a post-coup world, is the story of a mother whose daughter was taken, her husband killed and put into the service of the Waterford State. Service in which I assume the role of the aforementioned Bilhah. What does this mean in practice? June is raped by the master of the house while his wife holds her on her lap. All in the name of the greater good - the conception of a child. Any attempt to escape or disobey ends in torture. In this new, fanatical world, no one can be trusted, and any privileges are reserved only for men.

Gloomy photos are a great way to show the barrenness of the post-revolutionary world. Empty and sterile rooms, limiting the characters' costumes to a few colors show the ideal order of the new regime and increase the feeling of hopelessness accompanying the heroines.

At certain moments, the creators could resort to greater subtlety, and some threads are conducted in an overly obvious way. You can also attach yourself to not always hit songs that simply do not match the scenes presented. This does not change the fact that the blow we get in the face watching this dark, the dehumanized story is extremely strong. Once a character says that "Better is never better for everyone. It's always worse for some." Better is the enemy of "good", it becomes an excuse in uncertain times. Sometimes, however, even the worst state of affairs can be better than a revolution. Especially when it leads to treating people with rules written several thousand years ago.

[mediaevalmusereads]

Red Clocks. By Leni Zumas. Little, Brown and Company, 2018.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genre: literary fiction

Part of a Series? No

Summary: In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo. In a small Oregon fishing town, five very different women navigate these new barriers alongside age-old questions surrounding motherhood, identity, and freedom. Ro, a single high-school teacher, is trying to have a baby on her own, while also writing a biography of Eivør, a little-known 19th-century female polar explorer. Susan is a frustrated mother of two, trapped in a crumbling marriage. Mattie is the adopted daughter of doting parents and one of Ro's best students, who finds herself pregnant with nowhere to turn. And Gin is the gifted, forest-dwelling homeopath, or "mender," who brings all their fates together when she's arrested and put on trial in a frenzied modern-day witch hunt.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: abortion, blood, gore, animal death, references to domestic violence, infertility, references to cannibalism

Overview: I put this book on my TBR list after Roe was overturned in the United States, and I’m only now getting around to reading it. When I did pick it up, I finished it in the span of one day, and that’s perhaps due to a number of things I liked: the short, vignette-style chapters; the lush, evocative prose; the sympathetic yet flawed inner lives of the protagonists. There are things I feel like I can criticize - such as the lackluster story of the female Arctic explorer - but overall, this was a well-written novel that really resonated with me as a reader interested in reproductive rights. Thus, it gets 4 stars from me.

Writing: Zumas’ prose is very literary in that it combines lyrical descriptions with a kind of experimental, loose structure. Some readers may be put off by this style, but personally, I found it incredible engaging and it held my interest, perhaps because I find the topic of reproductive rights more meaningful when driven by emotional, human stories (as opposed to debates about power and statistics). Zumas has an incredible talent for writing emotion, and I felt like I could understand what each character was experiencing without being told “XYZ happened” and “this character did this.”

I do think, however, that the little snippets of the life of the Arctic explorer, Eivør, were under-developed. These snippets occur between each chapter, and most are only a few lines or a paragraph. While I do think they added to the tone and setting of the novel, they didn’t really do much for me in terms of the themes of the book. If Eivør had been another character in her own right or her life was much more strongly about rejecting motherhood, I think it would have fit in better, but as it stands, the snippets felt a bit like filler.

Plot: The plot of this book follows four women in a small Oregon fishing town as they try to navigate issues of motherhood and womanhood in a world where abortion, IVF, and adoption by single parents have been banned. Over the course of the novel, we watch Ro (a single woman in her 40s) struggle to conceive a child using artificial insemination; Susan, a mother of two who is trapped in an unhappy marriage; Mattie, a teenager faced with an unwanted pregnancy; and Gin, a “witch” who lives on her own and distributes remedies to the local women.

Zumas seems less interested in telling the reader what happens than she is showing the reader various impressions of the protagonists’ emotions, and personally, I liked it better than your traditional dystopian novel. Zumas doesn’t put power and government at the center of these women’s lives, but instead focuses on their inner lives and what challenges they face in a post-Roe world.

As a result, this book perhaps hits a little differently today than it would have at the time of publication. Reading it in 2022, the “dystopian” elements are less a product of imagination and more a reflection of the very real reproductive rollbacks we’ve been seeing in the United States. The “Pink Curtain,” for example, calls to mind the recent discussions surrounding restricting women to travel for abortions; the claim that less abortions would mean more available babies for adoption - while seemingly farfetched in the novel - was actually said by a US lawmaker this past year. All in all, the scary similarity to today’s world makes this book feel less “speculative” than something like The Handmaid’s Tale, and perhaps that’s why I took to it so readily.

Characters: There are quite a few characters in this book, so for the purposes of this review, I’m going to focus on our four protagonists: Ro, Susan, Mattie, and Gin.

Ro was incredibly sympathetic in that she was desperate to have a child and was irritated by all the judgments put on her regarding her age, marital status, and income. Reading her perspective made me understand how earth-shattering it could be for one’s life to go in an unexpected direction, and I think her story was an important look at what a post-Roe world would mean for (potential) mothers who were not your typical young, married, upper-middle class white women. I did get annoyed by her when she began to feel resentful of Mattie’s pregnancy, and I got the sense that she was almost entitled at a certain point - but this was a very real and understandable flaw that doesn’t necessarily come from a place of rationality, and it made Ro a bit more realized as a character.

Susan was also sympathetic in that she was presented as both a loving parent and a parent who felt trapped by her kids and her marriage. Reading her perspective illuminated the pressure that many women feel to present themselves as devoted wives and mothers, and after reading about how Susan’s husband is absolutely useless, I was rooting for her to find some happiness away from her family. Susan also has some flaws in that she can be judgmental - especially of Ro - but again, it’s a very human flaw, and though I might be irritated as a reader, it also meant that Susan felt like a real person.

Mattie was perhaps the perspective that tugged at my heartstrings the most. At age fifteen, she gets pregnant and seeks an abortion, going so far as to attempt to escape to Canada and avoid arrest when visiting underground, unregulated providers. Her perspective was filled with fear, and I think it would be hard to look at someone like Mattie and tell her to just have the baby - so much was at stake, including Mattie’s future, and I desperately wanted her to be okay in the end.

Gin was a very intriguing perspective in that her role as the “village healer” was an interesting callback to the days when women’s local knowledge was in conflict with male institutionalized knowledge. Gin seemed to have a cure for any ailment, including unwanted pregnancies, and her failure to finish school just hammers home the gap between knowledge and education, as well as the history of women taking care of other women. But what I really liked about Gin was her rejection of the “normal” world and her insistence on living her life on her own terms. Even in her more grumpy and eccentric moments, I took a liking to her, and I think her trial was an important lynchpin that tied many of the book’s narratives together.

TL;DR: Red Clocks is a eerily prescient look at a post-Roe America, focusing on four very distinct women as they navigate the nebulous category that is “womanhood.” While the prose style and organization might not be to every reader’s taste, I think the more impressionistic look at a post-Roe world makes for a great emotional impact, and I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the effect that a rollback on reproductive rights might have on individuals.