‘The First Time She Molested Me, I Was Three. The Last Time, I Was Twelve’

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Moira Greyland is the daughter of famed novelist Marion Zimmer Bradley, who died in 1999. Greyland’s father — Bradley’s second husband, Walter Breen — was accused of sexually molesting a 12-year-old boy in 1989, ten years after he separated from Bradley, who was accused of covering up her for husband’s pedophile activities. Bradley’s own tendencies toward lesbianism have been noted, but now Moira Greyland has claimed that she was molested by her mother:

The first time she molested me, I was three. The last time, I was twelve, and able to walk away. I put Walter in jail for molesting one boy. I had tried to intervene when I was 13 by telling Mother and Lisa [Waters, Bradley’s personal secretary and reputed lesbian lover], and they just moved him into his own apartment. I had been living partially on couches since I was ten years old because of the out of control drugs, orgies, and constant flow of people in and out of our family ‘home.’ None of this should be news. Walter was a serial rapist with many, many, many victims (I named 22 to the cops) but Marion was far, far worse. She was cruel and violent, as well as completely out of her mind sexually. I am not her only victim, nor were her only victims girls.

Paul St. John Mackintosh discusses the case at TeleRead. Greyland was born in the mid-1960s and, if her parents were part of an “out of control” scene that included drugs and orgies in the 1970s, this would have made them part of the radical counterculture. And what do we know about the content of Bradley’s fiction?

An undercurrent of feminism runs throughout the Darkover series. Bradley frequently examines sex roles and the limitations they place on the individual. . . . Critics have praised Bradley’s ability to incorporate feminist and utopian ideals into the harsh realism of Darkover without diminishing the credibility of the characters or their society.
Bradley’s feminist interests are also evident in . . . The Mists of Avalon (1982). This novel, which retells the Arthurian legend from the viewpoint of the women involved, has received considerable critical attention.

Furthermore, we know that Bradley wrote lesbian pulp fiction under pseudonyms, including I Am a Lesbian (as Lee Chapman, 1962) and The Strange Women (as Miriam Gardner, 1967).

Marion Zimmer Bradley (left) wrote lesbian novels under pseudonyms.

What else do we know about her?

Bradley . . . professed a lifelong interest in the occult and in the early 1980s described herself as “neopagan,” explaining her faith as one that “rejects the Christian belief in man’s dominion over the earth.”
She said she also believed in clairvoyance, extrasensory perception and reincarnation . . .

This is not to say that all neopagan lesbian feminists are bad people. Just saying you can’t blame this one on the heteronormative patriarchy.

(Hat-tip: Commenter “Mm.”)

 

56 comments

  1. Another one bites the dust. The challenge seems to be finding someone who didn’t or doesn’t want to have sex with kids.
    Thanks for the hat tip.

  2. The problem with the Cult of the Consenting Adult is that very quickly they abandon both the ‘consent’ and ‘adult’ parts.

  3. But Larry Correia is mean and hateful and evil for saying the story should come before LBGTQA propaganda and worse yet – that women should be trained and armed to fight back against would-be rapists. It’s enough to make me seriously reconsider being known as a science fiction fan.

  4. Bradley’s wiki says she was a co-founder of the Society for Creative Anachronism. I did not know that, but given my experiences of that organization in the late Seventies I cannot say I’m the least bit surprised.

  5. You heteronormative patriarchal oppressor types are sooooo 2012 – it’s LBGTQAA now. The final “A” stands for “& Allies,” which presumably means those poor souls who are oppressed in spirit but just can’t squeeze their naughty bits into any of the other lettered categories.

    Report for reeducation at an Approved Delousing Center near you.

  6. Grateful though I am to see members of SF/Fantasy community confront the crimes of one of its holiest icons, all the blather about “trigger warnings” and these accounts causing the author to vomit up her lunch make me want to roll my eyes and move on to someone who’s a little more stable, like, say, a chihuahua mainlining espresso. But at least they’re saying something about it. Baby steps.

  7. My experiences with the SCA over the past few yeasrs has been that their respectable, decent, if a little weird, folks. There are a few that I know who wouldn’t report a kiddy-diddler to the cops but only because they’d be too busy torturing the scumbag and burying the body in the mountains.

  8. When you’re fighting the biological reality of race and gender, a fuzzy concept like consent doesn’t stand a chance.

  11. On the other hand, Samuel Delany is still a respected elder in that community despite being a public admirer and promoter of NAMBLA.

  13. I’d heard the second ‘A’ was really for “autosexual”… And there is also ‘P+’ added recently for “pansexual, polysexual, polyamorous”, etc…

  14. See, this is why I stopped paying attention to the fandom years ago and approach my onetime dreams of being a SF / Fantasy writer only desultorily. One reads the crap Correia is going through, then learns about Delany, and one wonders, what’s the effin’ point?

  16. I used to think Charles Addams was incredibly inventive to imagine such a profoundly strange subculture as his Addams Family series of cartoons.

    Now I realize he was simply chronicling reality in some wealthy circles, with a thin veneer of whitewash to make it less horrifying.

  17. I will assume thst many of you all know that Marion Zimmer Bradley was a Pagan for many years. I have some mutual friends. Bradley and Dinaian Paxon had a coven in Bradley’s garage. They were part of the lesbian dominated Convent of the Goddess

  18. LOL I used to be a member in the early 70’s but the infighting and drama was way too much and I dropped out.

  22. Well, that spares me the need to ever read Mists of Avalon…not that it was at the top of my list anyway.

  23. The heteronormative patriarchy is the global warming of the culture war. No matter what happens, it’s always because of the heteronormative patriarch…and Bush.

  24. It’s interesting what’s come floating to the surface since the SFWA declared Holy War on Vox Day.

  25. And we know the script.

    Ubiquity = Normality.

    All things “normal” must be legalized.

    All things legal must be accepted, or it is “hate.”

    I have lived too long.

  26. Covens. I used to snicker. Now that I’m educated, I vomit.

    The ancient Europeans raped their own kids on a regular basis. They also “exposed” them – left them out to die in the elements – when they didn’t want them.

    One of the early missionaries to Ireland reported that “these people are absolutely addicted to incest.”

    The “Old Religion” being something respectable is a fantasy at best. It’s no wonder it’s favored by those who follow fantasy fiction so devoutly.

    Christianity was the best thing that ever happened to Europe. Now that it’s fading, we see those old Celts reverting back to what they were: Jimmy Savile and the BBC child-rape ring.

  27. Today’s “parasitism” bears little resemblance ancient paganism. Neo-Paganism is a reglion of narcisism and the mirror

  28. Very interesting reading about Marion Bradley. Someone should do the world a favor and update this information to her Wikipedia entry.

  30. Oh for crying out loud! “Sexual deviants” covers the entire spectrum and is lots easier to remember.

  31. For a second, I thought you were leading up to another Florida “incident” and had to do a quick scan to see if my town was mentioned by name.

  32. It is going to save APA one hell of a lot of time writing DSM-6 because they’ll have them all wrapped up in one simple to remember initialism.

  34. Click the “Talk” tab at the top of the Wikipedia page, then click the “Archive” icon to see some past discussion of the matter.

    With the Wikipedia rules, I am guessing that they might eventually be willing to add the information if it’s first reported by a “reliable source” (Wikipedia-speak for “a mainstream-media source”).

  35. Until yesterday, I had never heard any of this. It’s still shocking me, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. The worst thing, for me, is that Tor, and a section of fandom, knew all of this, and helped cover it up.

    I do not attend conventions, and I don’t read or hear the gossip of the community, so there was never so much as a rumor that reached me. I knew, from her books, that MZB was a feminist; I surmised, from two, at least (Hawkmistress! and The Mists of Avalon) that she had rather a hard time connecting with children; and I thought her interest in lesbianism was obvious, but…well, I’ve never really cared, very much. I read some of her books, but found most of them rather dreary, so I didn’t go on reading them.

    None of this has prepared me for this. It’s a shock, and I cannot believe people are still holding her up as a “feminist icon”!

  37. Yes, let’s talk up Larry Correia! He’s fighting this fight well and very articulately!

  38. All costume groups are hysterical and incestuous. They also, during the off-season, have a designated victim whose fate it is to be run off by spring.

    The worst ones wear corsets.

  39. I never got past page 5, so…well, I never could read Delaney. I read one book, and I couldn’t figure out what the point was, at the end.

  40. Which explains Diana Paxon constantly being surrounded by a bunch of gorgeous young men, how?

  41. I’m wandering around scratching my head, because Vox Day is surely an unlikely candidate for person on whom to declare Holy War. But…what Larry Correia calls the Social Justice Warriors are as bad as any tiny sect, and need a designated victim as badly as any costume group.

  45. I was being a little facetious. Wikipedia, from what I’ve seen, has a bit of a reputation for being edited by more leftists than right-wingers and therefore results in any unsavory facts about leftist icons disappearing from their pages.

  46. Meh. She only raped children. It’s not like she said something bad about Obamacare or any other sacred leftist cow. The rape of children can be forgiven and even sympathized with; it just proves she was a liberated woman that didn’t take crap from the patriarchy.

  47. Beat me to it. Wicca and similar sects of neopaganism are no more the “Old Religion” any more than I’m Cleopatra. Admittedly, it’s only the “fluffybunnies” who still believe in nonsense like “the Burning Times”.

  48. Mine were, as well.

    Though I still find it bizarre that a group that takes pains to make things as historically accurate as possible was founded by a crazy woman with no sense of history whatsoever. MoA makes respectable historians want to kick puppies.

  49. You are missing absolutely nothing, no matter what the fluffybunnies say. It’s not a “classic”, it’s written worse than a typical Anne McCaffrey novel, doesn’t even try to be historically or mythologically accurate, and there’s Japanese porn which does a better job of a (somewhat) feminist take on Arthurian mythology. Even some neopagans recognize it as trash.

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