I'm now about 2/3 of the way through Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan and ugh. Like, it's a cool mystery and has some neat scifi ideas in it. But I can't handle the Extremely Male Gaze™ shit.

Like, at first, I thought it was maybe trying to make a point about dissociation of having a new body and it's weird hormones doing weird things and how distracting it was. If that was true, it was a bit ham-fisted and over-gleeful, but, like, I get the point.

But now, most other dissociative things have stopped being mentioned and we're still hearing about women's bodies.

For instance, the main character and a lady cop were investigating some shit together and got jumped by a team of hit men. We're given to understand that they're both pretty serious operators and as such, there's a shoot-out, but they handle themselves OK with minor injury. But then they notice one of the hit men is strapped with explosives, so they flee the building before he blows it up, narrowly escaping. After, of course, the cops show up and the EMS and there's a circus as you'd expects. The lady cop got burned on her back and so the main character is waiting around for her to finish with the EMS to talk to her.

As she walks over he notices that she's wearing a new t-shirt with some generic cop slogan on it, since her other shirt got wrecked, you know, as makes sense. But then he notices that her breasts are "moving" underneath it (like, writhing of their own accord or…?). The way it's written itsn't, like, "I was uncomfortably aware of how her breasts moved under her new shirt," which would still be a bit weird, but at least would underscore that he's not really wanting to think of her that way (and there's a plot point that he's not wanting to think of her that way).

Instead, it's like, "Saw the bewbs move dewd. Low key high five so she doesn't notice, breaux. I'm p sure she's not wearin' a bra any more! And that makes me think about SEX! Sex is GOOD!" or whatever. I just... ugh.

Stuff like this is just rare enough that I sort of forget it's A Thing™ while I'm wondering who killed who and why and all that and then it sort of pops out of nowhere like this and I'm like, "Damnit, Morgan! Again!?!? Read smut on your own time!"

I think this is part of why I like to read lesbian fiction by women. The point of view character isn't generally hornin' all over every woman that wanders past. And attraction is usually presented more holistically, instead of like some fuckin' Jr. High boys trying to sneak a peak at just a few millimeters more cleavage or some shit. So even thought the subject of attraction is women and I can be like, "Yes. I understand. I, too, am attracted to ladies of a certain type," it's SO much more… IDK. Respectful? Human?!?

Ugh. OK. Rant over. I will probably still finish this book, but ugh. I hate this aspect of it.