(no subject)

[rivka]

Home sick (my doctor thinks it's a sinus infection; I just think I want to rip my throat out and then go to sleep for a week), and reading Ayelet Waldman's Nursery Crimes. I'd read another one of her "Mommy-Track Mysteries" and thought it was fun, light entertainment, so the last time I was at the library I picked up this one, the first in the series.

I did not expect alt.poly to be completely slandered on pages 124-128.

The protagonist discovers that her murder victim's husband is having an affair. She finds out the name of the girlfriend and, as part of a general online search strategy, runs it through Dejanews. Girlfriend turns out to be a big newsgroup junkie, and among alt.postmodern and some other random choices, is a major poster on alt.polyamory.

She's one of those - "our intertwined souls," "tantric love dance," and cheating. She and the victim's husband have supposedly carried out their entire courtship on alt.poly, which Waldman seems to think would be a good venue for "raunchy Internet sex." But here's the worst:

"Within a couple of months, the newsgroup freaks started hounding them. Remember, the whole point of this movement or whatever it is is that they're supposed to be polyamorous, not just adulterous. Tigress and Coyote - yes, that is indeed his nom de guerre - finally succumbed to the pressure and decided to include Abigail in their little love nest or cesspool, whatever you want to call it. And, get this, they decided, with the help of their comrades in arms - and legs, for that matter - that the best way to get Abigail to go along with this multiple-partner thing is to have her walk into her bedroom one fine day and find ol' Tigress and Coyote waiting there, buck naked." [...]

"Surprise, surprise, Abigail was less than thrilled with the little Wild Kingdom tableau awaiting her. In fact, she freaked out - which, by the way, totally confused everyone in the newsgroup, all of whom apparently were under the impression that she would rip off her clothes and jump in the sack with the fabulous twosome."

Slandered, I tell you. Can a newsgroup sue for libel?

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I don't have the time to DejaGoogle it, but I'm pretty sure someone posted that exact excerpt in a.p not too long ago. And massive, collective eye-rolling ensued. (-:

Note to Prospective Authors: If you're going to use Teh Internets as a character in your next novel, please do the courtesy of actually spending some time, you know, researching it before you write.

And no, looking at a list of newsgroups and finding one named "alt.polyamory" does not constitute sufficient research.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

What? You mean alt.callahans isn't a place where the IRA raises money?

[ailbhe]

I'm not sure, myself.

[edschweppe.livejournal.com]

You mean alt.callahans isn't a place where the IRA raises money?

Well, every time I spent lots of time in alt.callahans, I noticed that my IRA didn't get any more money in it ...

[richtermom.livejournal.com]

She was old school. Her cursor highlighted her favorite newsgroup, and immediately upon hitting return, her killfile whirled into action. Numbers few across the bottom of her screen, and a little ascii whirligig spun.

She made a pot of coffee, watered her plants and flossed her teeth.

Her return was well timed. She saw the last circuit of the spinny thing before the final pronouncement: "No new articles."