ZERO TOLERANCE FOR THE ZERO SUM GAME

Interestingly, given my recent response to Julian Darius on the morality of the *zero sum game* conflict between male and female interests, the phrase reoccurs in a recent BEAT piece in which Heidi *seems* to express her zero tolerance for the aforesaid concept.  I, of course, posted as follows.

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So if I understand Heidi correctly, there is no "zero sum game" for publishers if they were to expouse more female-friendly books, because whatever hardcore male audience they might lose would be replaced by a hardcore female audience (re: Salkowitz's assertion that "girl nerds can outperform boy nerds.")  If one assumes for sake of argument that this transformation could take place, then logically Heidi would be right--

For the publishers, that is. They would be doing either just as well or better.

But for the hardcore male audience that wanted to read half-naked Catwoman stories, that would be a "zero sum game" indeed.

There might even be a tiny fraction of female readers who liked half-naked Catwoman, for whatever reasons, but I think males would be preponderant (heh) in that regard.

I dunno, Heidi. I've seen a lot of readers-- even some who represent themselves as liberals-- who've said things like, "Let 'em go back to straight porn."

I'm curious to know if that's your position as well.  Either way, it still seems like a "zero sum game" again, even if you cloak it under "market demand."

Anyone here live in a small town?

I've heard it's hard to buy Hustler and Playboy these days.  Wonder why.