Reddit reviews Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos

Hey, Lovecraft/pulp studies scholar here. I wrote a section on Lovecraft's views on miscegenation in my book, as well as American Dread: Alan Moore and the Racism of H. P. Lovecraft, and I'm working on a book examining Lovecraft's prejudices and the effect they had on his fiction. So maybe I can shed some light here.

> I did some research on him, and he turns out to have been a shockingly open racist. I

Well, no. He was a white male born, grown up, and living in the United States during the turn of the century - the period often referred to as "the nadir of race relations." When segregation was legal, the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi party both came to prominence, and there were horrible examples of racial violence such as the Massie Trial and the Scottsboro Boys Trial. So the fact that Lovecraft was racist, and even openly so, isn't shocking - nor was it terribly uncommon, if you look at contemporary writers like Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lord Dunsany, etc.

That is not to say that everyone was racist during Lovecraft's lifetime - we know so much about his racism in part because of his letters, where he argued the subject (and related matters) with much more liberal friends, such as James F. Morton, an early member of the NAACP and author of a pamphlet on "the curse of race prejudice." But in the context of his times, Lovecraft's prejudices were more or less mainstream - and in part inspired and supported by historical revisionism of slavery and the Civil War, as well as the scientific racialism and ultranationalism and nativism that was prominent during the period. None of that excuses his prejudices, but it does help place them in their proper context. Nor were Lovecraft's beliefs fixed throughout his life; as he traveled, met more people, read more widely, argued with others, he shifted some of his beliefs on race a little - not a lot; he was never not racist or prejudiced by today's standards, but he modified some of his beliefs at least.

And, it needs be said, the racism can be very shocking to contemporary sensibilities. In the 1890s, it was acceptable to name a black cat "Nigger-Man" - and indeed, H. P. Lovecraft as a child of about four had a beloved black cat with that name. He loved the cat so much, that he immortalized it as a mouser in his story "The Rat in the Walls" - name and all. Today, that is considered shockling racist; the N-word just isn't used as casually or non-pejoratively as that today. At the time, it passed without comment. So there is a degree of culture shock when you come into his writings in that respect, and you'd probably experience much the same when you realize Agatha Christie's Ten Little Niggers was released two years after Lovecraft died - so it wasn't just him.

> also Lovecraft wouldn't even mention sex, much less kinky stuff

You might be surprised

Lovecraft influence is all over the place tbh, it affecting everything nowadays from gaming to cartoon i mean thing like this existed

For your consideration: Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos by B. Derie
https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Cthulhu-Mythos-Bobby-Derie/dp/1614980888