I’ve got a comment and a question.

My comment is on the Gor novels. The problem, in my opinion, is that the ultimate misogynist fantasy was a great set-up. That and the most obvious clashes would have made a great novel the size of Dune and, like Dune, could have birthed lots and lots of smaller stories with the pre-existing society that you don’t want to re-create over and over.

We live in a time of popular dystopias, but there are limits to what people will or ought to tolerate. My point is that the author blew it in terms of literature….but I’m sure he cried all the way to the bank at the head of a long line of naked women carrying his cash haul.

If I’m wrong and the Gor stories got back on the rails, I’m sure somebody will correct me. But it’s a fact that the author lost me when he started repeating himself without really resolving even the most obvious conflicts he had set up. Having only read two and a half of many, I opine based on what I read — a tiny fraction of the total.

I have to be really grossed out to leave a book in the middle. I was and I did.

Now, the question. I’ve already asked Medium how I can use a nom de plume behind the pay wall and the answer was that I can’t. Some stories about sex, valuable in either the money sense or the philosophy sense, remain unwritten because I don’t have that much to say about masturbation. It’s not just that I’m well known where I live — several of the ladies involved could not be effectively disguised. I am a Hippocratic writer: first, do no harm.

It violates federal law to start a bank account under a fake identity. A nom de plume linked to my bank account means Medium would have to be in on it and Medium says no. I could start an account with my real name rearranged, but there’s that pesky Social Security number.

l’ve noticed your main point about stories involving sex. I expect it works so much better for women than for men I would probably make my fake name female. I just got a chuckle remembering that it was “common knowledge” that the author of The Story of O was a man writing with a female pen name…until the real person de-cloaked. The part about the author having real literary credentials turned out to be true, but the gender identity…not so much. I wonder how many people had to be in on her escapade? I’m willing to trust one or two folks, but there comes a time when the secret gets loose by adding up innocent clues.

Of course, the problem of making up a name puts the cart before an entire herd of horses.