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SOCIAL_REGISTER

                                            This was a friend of 
  There once was a young lady from          a friend of mine, not  
  Stanford...  who decided to hit           that that helps much.         
  on a guy by going to his room                          
  one night and using a routine             Don't know the guy.
  like "It's hot in here, do you                               
  mind if I take my sweater off?"                              
  She had nothing on under the
  sweater.  He did nothing to
  acknowledge that she was sitting
  there, topless.  She put her
  sweater back on and left.
         
        Not the way men are supposed to react, right?
        At least not in stories.  But in reality,
        this is so far away from the way women are
        supposed to act (outside of stories) that I
        would guess the guy had no idea about what to
        do, and probably not even an idea about why
        he has none.

                                                    (On the other hand, this
                                                    *was* a Stanford man.
                                                    maybe I'm giving him too
                                                    much credit.)
 
 A scene from Delany's _Stars In My Pocket
 Like Grains Of Sand_: An elaborate social                  DELANY
 eating ritual involves formal dinners where                      
 everyone offers food to each other on the
 end of long ornamental forks.  Normally, each
 accepts the food by taking a small bite of it.
 A group of outsiders decide to snub everyone
 by refusing to participate.  This isn't something
 that anyone inside that culture would do... it
 isn't so much taboo as literally unthinkable.
 The main character stupidly offers his fork
 to them over and over, with no way to break the
 programmed loop.








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