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Recently I've been reading the book Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein and I was enjoying it. However, I had to stop reading it, all because of an underlining theme that just got worse and worse as the book progressed. It wasn't the religious undertones, which was the reason I stopped reading it the second time I tried to read it. In fact, I quite enjoyed that section now that I am a little more secure about my beliefs.

No, the problem I had with the book was the amount of sexism in it. Every male in this book, apart from the protagonist Smith, is a sexist chauvinist and its driving me nuts. If this wasn't enough, all of the women practically fall under terrible female stereotypes. Flirty, have sex at the drop of the hat, there for men to be stared at. They're all intelligent yes, but each of them is in one form or another rather degraded. And it just completely turned me off. I found myself reading through it after two thirds of the way in, desperately looking for something to validate me continuing to read. But by the time I reached the blatant homophobia, I had to put it down.

Its too bad, I was really enjoying the story and how it progressed. But it just became too much. Much like many other books I've been reading. For a few months I was reading the 007 books and enjoying them for the trash that they were. My absolute favorite was Dr. No, with the maze and the squid and killing people with a sand blaster. Spoiler: Bond survives, kills the villain and sleeps with the girl.

But I had to stop reading the series after Goldfinger. The whole thing just became too much. If you've ever read anything by Ian Flemming, you can tell that the man is sexist, racist, homophobic and... well probably intolerant of quite a few things that people should be more tolerant of. But in Goldfinger, he does something that is completely unforgivable. Pussy Galore. Even the name is horrid. This characters sole existence in this book is a homophobic statement. She's the head of a group of lesbian cat burglars, hired by Goldfinger to pretend to be nurses during their scheme. James meets her, then he broods about homosexuals. Basically he sits, spews nonsense about them, then comes to the conclusion that homosexuals are sick.

So what does Pussy Galore actually do in the book. Get this: Not much. She pretends to be a nurse, which amounts to being pointless. She's on the plane when Goldfinger holds Bond hostage, but she does little to help him escape other than to wink. Then when he does escape, she sleep with him. "Because I never met a real man like you, James". I thought wanting to barf was only a saying.

So I gave up on James Bond as well. I'm not ashamed of reading them, nor do I regret it. I learned a lot from them. But I will never do it again. Stranger in a Strange Land I've given up for now, but maybe I will try again when I'm more tolerant of intorlerance.

Not sure where I'm going with this, as usual, but I think I will leave you with hope. I started reading a novel of one of my favorite characters, Nero Wolfe. It was a story involving racial rights, during the fifties. I was worried I would ditch one of my favorite characters in this one, especially Archie Goodwin. Goodwin is known to be a womanizer and a bit sexist, but the books are written in such a way that Goodwin often comes across as flawed rather than a super man. But I wondered how he would handle race. But then came the most brilliant line ever. Archie was thinking about racisim and he narrated: "If I need to feel superior to someone, and I often do, I need a better reason than the color of his skin"

Did you ever have to stop reading a good book because of one aspect? I stopped reading the Sookie Stackhouse books because of the Fellowship of the Sun. How about you?

Peace and blessings
Eric Rawlinson
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