Rant sampler

And now it's time for me to post another random assortment of rants. Ahem:

• As I said before, the Middle Ages originated the idea of consensual sex—the consent of both parties is what makes marriage a valid sacrament. Fun fact, by the way: sex is the sacrament of matrimony, in Catholic teaching; a wedding is just the ceremony approving a couple enacting that sacrament.
  
  I've recently come across several instances on TV Tropes, where some mouth-breather holds up the ending of Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady (that what a woman wants is her own way), as an example of how sexist the Middle Ages were.
  
  That legend comes, I believe, from the Troubadours or something similar; I know it dates to the era of the sacramental controversies I describe above. Now, I trust it's hardly shocking that the story works out as a sort of metaphor for courtship—and a proper man leaves the whole thing up to the woman to decide. That is, it's an allegory about consensual sex being the only legitimate kind. Put more generally, it's simply, "Women want what they want, gentlemen, not what you want. Try asking."
  
  If it had come from now, That Retard Troper would be saying it was an Anvilicious anti-sexism story. But, because he assumes he's got the single most complex era in human history all figured out, he completely ignores the obvious point of the story.
  
  Seriously, who's reading him that wiki?


• So, Code GEASS: LeLouch of the Rebellion. First off, the word is actually geis, pronounced "gesh", and it means a taboo; it's only in Dungeons & Dragons that it's a command that has to be followed. Still, the mispronunciation lends to the show being called "Code Gay-ass", which it is.
  
  Personally I prefer to render the title "Code GEACPS", because of the ending: a coalition of the countries of East Asia, led by Japan, against Western Imperialism, led from America. There was a thing like that, folks, it was called the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperitiy Sphere. It has half a Holocaust worth of murders to its name, and is right behind Mao, Stalin, and Hitler in the "largest scale a-holery in history" contest—and Hitler barely edged it out for a spot in the Top 3.


• So, all the hooey about race, in fantasy books and science fiction especially. Apparently people in Western culture shouldn't default to assuming that a character whose race isn't specified, is white—even though everyone in Asia and probably Africa does, with their races.
  
  I hate to point this out, but this attitude isn't just ridiculously PC, it's actually racist. Essentially it's saying that white people are too good to be themselves; apparently the lesser races can have identities, but the master race has to transcend them all.
  
  Or to put it another way, you only presume you have to represent all races if you think you have the authority to speak for all of them.