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5/21/2020 What to Make of Isaac Asimov, Sci-Fi Giant and Dirty Old Man?

| Literary Hub

L I T E R A R Y H U B

What to Make of Isaac


Asimov, Sci-Fi Giant and
Dirty Old Man?
Despite Calling Himself a Feminist the Author of the Foundation Stories
Was a Serial Harasser

By Jay Gabler May 14, 2020

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 

e Sensuous Dirty Old Man (1971) is credited to “Dr. A”… but “the secret is out,” admits
paperback edition, naming the author as Isaac Asimov, “undoubtedly the best writer in Am
per the Mensa Bulletin. A response to a then-popular book called e Sensuous Woman, Asi
book instructs dirty old men on how to leer (“don’t peep at girls—STARE!”), make sugges
remarks (“What a magni cent dress… or am I merely judging by the contents?”), and fon

e sensuous dirty old man has learned the ne art of the touch, that of making
gentle and innocent that the young lady involved can scarcely believe it is happe
and therefore ignores it. is presents an exercise of innocence both on the part
toucher and touchee that should bring tears of envy to all beholders.

January 2, 2020 marked the centenary of Isaac Asimov’s birth; at least, of the birth date th
author celebrated. (In his native Russia, the date of Asimov’s birth wasn’t precisely recorde
anniversary passed with little notice, although Asimov was a towering presence in science
and one of the most proli c writers to ever live. A Golden Age grand master and a proteg
Astounding Science Fiction editor John W. Campbell, Asimov coined the word “robotics” an
wrote the Foundation series.

e Foundation stories beat J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings to win a 1966 Hugo Award
Best All-Time Series. Today, Tolkien commands a much more visible pop-culture presenc
Asimov, but the Foundation stories are still widely read; bring them up in any group, and
two people are likely to say they devoured the books.

From the 1960s through his death in 1992, Asimov was an iconic celebrity regarded as an
authority on science and science ction alike. e author of hundreds of books, he could s
lucidly on virtually any subject and made frequent media appearances. Today, though, his
—with its wide smile behind heavy black eyeglass frames, its bushy gray mutton chops, an
ubiquitous bolo tie—is most recognizable from vintage book jackets.

at image is set to gain fresh visibility with the forthcoming release of an Apple TV serie
on the Foundation stories (in pre-production, lming of the show was postponed at the en
March because of the coronavirus). e original stories were published in science ction

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magazines from 1942 to 1950 and later collected in a trilogy of books, ultimately supplem
with four late-career Foundation novels. ey chronicle a visionary scientist’s e orts to rel
chaos and su ering during an interregnum between distant-future galactic empires.

Repeatedly, women told Asimov he was out of line; many


more didn’t speak, likely cowed by his celebrity and the
double standard.

To read Asimov is to escape into a world where in nite progress seems tantalizingly possib
you’re inclined to spend a lot of time with Asimov’s work, you’ll come to an appreciation o
many gifts: his wide-ranging intellect, his amiable writing style, his optimistic spirit, and t
breadth of his imagination.

You’ll also, however, notice a frequently lascivious attention to his female characters. If you
to suspect that Asimov looked at actual women that way, you’ll be troubled by interactions
the author himself reveals in his two-volume autobiography: In Memory Yet Green, publish
1979, with In Joy Still Felt following in 1980.

In Memory Yet Green recounts a 1952 incident in which writer Judith Merril seemed to hit
Asimov, inspiring the author, by his own account, to speed away. When writing the book
invited Merril to comment, and Asimov included her response in a footnote. (Italics in th
book.)

e fact is that Isaac (who was at that time a spectacularly uxorious and virtuous husband)
apparently felt obliged to leer, ogle, pat, and proposition as an act of sociability. When it w
occasionally, beyond purely social enjoyability, there seemed no way to clue him in. […] A
was known, in those days, to various women, as “the man with a hundred hands.” On [on
occasion, the third or fourth time his hand patted my rear end, I reached out to clutch his
He never manhandled me in vain again.

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e following year, Asimov explained, he began to have extramarital a airs. His rst enco
left him “riddled with guilt,” he wrote, but he went on to boast that “once I gathered I was
in bed, I was automatically far more self-assured in every other respect, and I believe this
contributed to the mid-1950s as my peak period in science ction.”

Asimov writes that at his publisher Doubleday, “my small peculiarities were becoming kno
and allowed for… any woman I overlooked in my all-embracing suavity was liable to be
o ended.” He explains that “my attitude toward young women amused everyone generally
that he came to “suspect that new girls were warned of my feckless lechery in advance so t
they wouldn’t run screaming or, worse yet, bop me on the nose.”

About that. “When I am feeling particularly suave during the autographing sessions, whic
almost all the time,” he wrote in Joy Still Felt, “I kiss each young woman who wants an aut
and have found, to my delight, that they tend to cooperate enthusiastically in that particul
activity.”

As documented by Stephanie Zvan, Asimov was so infamous for this behavior by the early
that the organizer of a Chicago science ction convention o ered to “furnish some suitabl
posteriors” for a talk about, and demonstration of, “ e Positive Power of Posterior Pinch

Whatever the author’s conscious ideals may have been, his


female characters tended towards restrictive stereotypes.

“I have no doubt I could give a stimulating talk that would sti en the manly ber of every
the audience,” Asimov responded. However, permission would need to be sought from tho
being pinched, and “if they say ‘no,’ it will be ‘no.’ Of course, I could be persuaded to do so
very short notice; even after the convention began, if the posteriors in question were of
particularly compelling interest.”

By 1969, Asimov himself reported, he was being described by longtime friend Frederick P
someone who “turned into a dirty old man at the age of fteen.” Asimov, by his own accou
was “perfectly willing to embrace the title; I even use it on myself without qualms.” He wa
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kidding. Two years later, he published e Sensuous Dirty Old Man.

I have seen many a dirty old man with an arm that began at the lady’s waist, shif
such slow and gentle degrees as to pass eventually through the warmth of the ar
the budding softness of the maidenly bosom, without that shift ever being notic
the young lady. At least, she gave no signs of noticing.

For “the man with a hundred hands,” this “satire” was rather on-the-nose. “Laugh yoursel
death,” raved the Detroit Free Press.

Pohl’s wife, Asimov learned after her death, “thought I was a ‘creep’ and wouldn’t have me
apartment.” She wasn’t the only one who spoke up. When Asimov brought his usual “suav
to a meeting of the National Association of Non-Parents (N.O.N.) in 1975, the New York
reported on what the author described in his autobiography as an “imbroglio.” In the Tim
account,

One of the most heated parts of the convention came during a public discussion
whether N.O.N. should take a stand on feminism. It was prompted by the
disgruntlement of several N.O.N. members who thought that Isaac Asimov, the
author, had introduced Ellen Peck, author of e Baby Trap and a N.O.N. o ce
“sexist” way at the convention’s general session. He described Miss Peck, who w
wearing a clingy beige knit pants suit with her long blond hair in a Brigitte Bard
style, as “a sexual tornado.”

In his autobiography, Asimov added a detail the Times failed to mention: a dirty limerick
shared “to loosen up the early-morning audience.”

By the time he published his autobiography, Asimov was divorced from his rst wife Gert
and married to the writer Janet Jeppson. Even the rst time he met Jeppson in 1956, Asim
later admitted, he cracked a blue joke. As Jeppson pro ered a book for Asimov to sign, he
about her eld. When she said she was a psychiatrist, he responded, “Good. Let’s get on t
couch together.” Reader, she married him.

Asimov enjoyed substantive, mutually rewarding relationships with peers like Jeppson, Jud
Lynn del Rey, and Jennifer Brehl, a Doubleday sta er in the 1980s when she impressed A
with her insights. Brehl eventually became Asimov’s editor and “like a second daughter” to

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author, in the words of his biographer Michael White. Given these relationships, how cou
Asimov embrace “dirty old man” as a personal brand?

e answer is tied up in personal and social history. As a self-conscious, sexually inexperie


young man, Asimov learned that his lightning wit was a social lubricant. From early on, h
sprinkled titillating quips into his banter, using his physical ungainliness to frame his lasci
persona as a colossal joke.

is was never a safe prospect, though. Even before he’d achieved celebrity, his manner co
o ensive, especially when his quips were precisely aimed. His autobiography contains acco
women who’d tweak his insecurity about his own body, only to nd pointed and
uncomplimentary jabs shot back at them. A woman who mocked the author’s growing bel
shrieked at a response criticizing her chest, wrote Asimov, “could hand it out but apparent
didn’t like to get it back.”

Asimov’s willingness to go there—in both verbal and physical terms—continued as his fam
grew. He experienced mutual interest often enough to reinforce his behavior, but he failed
respect the line between reciprocal irtation and harassment.

Repeatedly, women told Asimov he was out of line; many more didn’t speak, likely cowed
celebrity and the double standard. White cites a friend’s wife reacting angrily to having he
bottom forcefully pinched by the author, who apparently made it a habit.

“God, Asimov,” she snapped. “Why do you always do that? It is extremely painful and bes
don’t you realize, it’s very degrading.”

In one of the most public spectacles involving Asimov’s “usual suave self,” he appalled his
and teenage daughter by propositioning a female guest on e Dick Cavett Show in 1970. B
following year, Asimov had moved out, divorce negotiations were underway, and he was b
Cavett wearing a bra on his face to promote e Sensuous Dirty Old Man.

Gender issues aren’t the only reason Asimov’s books have


proved resistant to successful adaptation: although his

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plots were clever and his ideas were big, he wasn’t a


particularly visual writer.

Chronicling even more harassment, Alec Nevala-Lee convincingly argues in Public Books
Asimov’s behavior was enabled by other men, and some women, who helped him o cially
o with books like e Sensuous Dirty Old Man. “In general,” writes Nevala-Lee, “Asimov
targets who were unlikely to protest directly, such as fans and secretaries, and spared wom
whom he saw as professionally useful.”

On the page, Asimov considered himself a feminist, decrying “male chauvinism” and argu
that women should be given wider professional opportunities. He was proud of his ction
robopsychologist Susan Calvin—but the cost that character paid for her extraordinary abil
was to have her physical unattractiveness constantly remarked upon.

“Susan Calvin was a plain spinster,” Asimov wrote in his memoir I. Asimov, “a highly intel
‘robopsychologist’ who fought it out in a man’s world without fear or favor and who invari
won. ese were ‘women’s lib’ stories twenty years before their time, and I got very little cr
for that.”

One of Asimov’s most important early robot stories, “Liar!” (1941), turns on precisely the
Calvin’s embarrassment after she dares aspire to be sexually appealing, wearing makeup to
at US Robot & Mechanical Men, Inc. When Calvin realizes that a well-intentioned robo
lied to her about a coworker’s mutual attraction, “the inexpertly applied rouge made a pair
nasty red splotches upon her chalk-white face.”

Whatever the author’s conscious ideals may have been, his female characters tended towar
restrictive stereotypes. ose characters range from Artemisia oth Hinriad, a comely royal
just can’t resist the man-of-action hero of e Stars, Like Dust (1951), to Bayta Darell, a se
newlywed whose feminine compassion underlies a pivotal plot development in the origina
Foundation stories.

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at was, of course, consistent with how many female characters were treated in genre ct
the era: readers won’t be surprised to nd a submissive space princess in a Truman-era scie
ction novel. ere’s another level of queasiness, though, in the way Asimov’s attention te
run all up and down his ctional women’s gures.

e author’s acclaimed early work was published at a time


when sensuality in science ction was strictly limited.

Nor is that attention always on characters like Artemisia, a stereotypically gorgeous young
woman ready to be painted for the cover of a pulp. When Bayta Darell meets her father-in
Fran in a 1945 Foundation story, the older man turns to Bayta with an “appreciative stare.
recites her age, height, and weight to save him the e ort of guessing, but Fran corrects her
says she actually weighs 120, not 110.

He laughed loudly at her ush. en he said to the company in general, “You can always t
woman’s weight by her upper arm—with due experience, of course. Do you want a drink,

e female character with the most complex journey in Asimov’s future history is Gladia
Delmarre, a stunning Solarian who proves well-matched with Earthman Lije Baley in a q
of robot novels. After the books dismiss Baley’s wife Jezebel (an ironic moniker), Gladia a
have a restrained irtation that nally blossoms into star-crossed love.

Asimov’s 1980s, though, were also the decade that gave us Bliss: a curvaceous earth mothe
appears in two Foundation novels. She plays supple lover to the aged Janov Pelorat, nag to
breathtakingly rude Golan Trevize (“She’s bottom-heavy!” he snorts), and instantly attach
mother to an orphan child with dangerous powers.

e author’s acclaimed early work was published at a time when sensuality in science ctio
strictly limited. After focusing largely on non ction throughout the 1960s and 70s, Asimo
returned proli cally to ction in the 80s, a more open era. He became more frank, but see

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incapable of writing about sexuality in a warm, human manner. (A rare Asimov novel from
70s, e Gods emselves, centered on the somewhat abstract sexual practices of a non-hum
alien race.)

A typical late-career passage comes in Foundation and Earth (1986) when a starship lands
secluded world and Trevize appraises the topless woman who appears to greet the visitors.

She was not much more than 1.5 meters in height, and her breasts, though shap
were small. Yet she did not seem unripe. e nipples were large and the areolae
though that might be the result of her brownish skin color.

e forthcoming Foundation show, with David Goyer as showrunner, seems to be remixin


stories’ sexual politics: at least three women have been cast as characters who are male in t
books. Robyn Asimov, the author’s daughter from his rst marriage, is an executive produ

Gender issues aren’t the only reason Asimov’s books have proved resistant to successful
adaptation: although his plots were clever and his ideas were big, he wasn’t a particularly v
writer. e best-known screen adaptations are the mawkish Bicentennial Man (1999), starr
Robin Williams as a robot who wants to be human, and I, Robot (2004) with Will Smith.

e I, Robot movie says it’s “suggested by Isaac Asimov’s book,” and even that cautious cre
may be putting it a bit strongly. Asimov was suspicious of Hollywood, but not in his wilde
nightmares could he have imagined Susan Calvin blowing robots away with a machine gu
would one ever use the word “plain” to describe Bridget Moynahan, the actor and model c
Calvin.

“To loyal fans of science ction and Isaac Asimov,” wrote the author’s daughter Robyn in
Gate upon the movie’s release, “the only thing more disconcerting than robots attacking h
—a violation of the author’s First Law of Robotics—is that the camera lming I, Robot fo
clearly on a bu Will Smith in the shower but not on the statuesque Bridget Moynahan, a
Asimov would have preferred.”

In the lm Smith plays Del, a cop assigned to investigate a suspicious death at US Roboti
an early scene, he steps into an elevator with Moynahan, who says she’s been instructed “t
you in any way possible.”

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Taking a beat and turning appreciatively to face his host, Del smiles. “Real-ly?” he says. “O
Smith leaves it at that. Asimov, in all likelihood, would not have.

Jay Gabler

Jay Gabler is a writer and editor living in Minneapolis. He is a digital producer at Minnesota Public Radio's The
and is a co-founder of The Tangential, as well as being theater critic at City Pages. He’s co-written, or co-edited
from the Sea (2016), Bright Lights, Twin Cities (2014), Future Cities (2013), Sociology for Dummies (2010), and
Reconstructing the University (2006).

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