For those who don’t know, Bradley was a very well-regarded fantasy and sci-fi writer who is best known for re-writing Arthurian tales from a feminist perspective – which is to say that she was a renowned bullshit artist. For example, she re-wrote the villainess Morgan le Fay as a well-intentioned woman fighting to save a Celtic matriarchy ( no such thing ever existed ) from the evil hordes of patriarchal Christianity. Yes, she did the “Maleficent” thing before Disney did.

Recently Bradley’s daughter , Moira Greyland, a professional harpist and singer, has come forward claiming that mommy dearest sexually abused her from the age of 3 till she was about 12. In an email to some writer I’ve never heard of Greyland states…

“The first time she molested me, I was three. The last time, I was twelve, and able to walk away. I put Walter (Bradley’s husband, himself a pedophile) in jail for molesting one boy. I had tried to intervene when I was 13 by telling Mother and Lisa, 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.”

Greyland also claims in some poems that Bradley beat her senseless, tried to drown her in the bath, and stoned a cat to death!

One must always be wary of mere accusations, no matter how heartfelt they seem to be, but in this case the evidence supporting Greyland’s claims is very strong. The first thing that rings alarm bells is that Bradley was knowingly married to a man, Walter H. Breen, who had, by the time they married, already been convicted of child sexual abuse. And there’s no way this guy could be seen as a pedo who made one mistake then got his urges under control and tried to live a normal life. This guy was a NAMBLA member who habitually defended pederasty as being perfectly okay, he even wrote an entire book on it called “Greek Love!” And Bradley knew about all this and defended his behavior!

What kind of woman marries such a man? The kind of woman who thinks there’s nothing wrong with child molestation, obviously. Seriously, ask the women you know if they would get hitched to such a creature and they’ll probably tell you to fuck off. On her choice of husband alone Bradley is rather suspect, then there’s the fact that she herself had been involved with the lesbian group Daughters of Bilitis when she was younger. Being gay or bi doesn’t support the idea that she was a pedophile, but it does provide evidence of sexual interest in females and it is a female who is making the accusations. All this, combined with her daughter’s testimony, adds up to, if not a certainty, then a probability that Marion Zimmer Bradley was indeed a pedophile. So, having established that Greyland is probably telling the truth, why does this matter to anyone other than Bradley’s victims? It matters because it’s a high profile example of female evil at a time in Western history when such things are swept under the rug in order to shore up the rapidly deteriorating myth of female superiority. The more Marion Zimmer Bradleys the world is made aware of, the less inclined people will be to treat women better than they treat men. It matters also in that such stories help to keep children safe by warning those around them to keep an eye out for suspicious behavior even when such behavior is being carried out by women.

This whole thing makes me wonder how common this kind of sexually abusive behavior is amongst feminist women. Could that be why there is so little feminist objection to the Vagina Monologues section entitled “The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could”? You know, the one in which the rape of a 13 year old girl by a 24 year old woman is depicted as “a good rape?” Could it be that feminists have something personal to gain from the portrayal of the sexual abuse of girls by women as a positive thing? Would we even bother asking that question if these were men who supported the depiction of the rape of a 13 year old girl by a man as a “good rape?” We wouldn’t, and there you have your answer. Don’t be surprised if similar claims are made by those close to them once Eve Ensler and her cronies have kicked the bucket.

And let me quickly address the question of whether or not the greatness or popularity of an artist’s works can excuse bad personal behavior. There are several answers to this…

“Sure – if your bad behavior is not bathing for weeks on end or picking your nose and then wiping it on someone else’s tie.”

“Maybe – if your bad behavior adds up to punching a few people in the nose or having their car towed to the wreckers without their permission.”

“No – if your bad behavior is killing, raping, torturing or permanently maiming any person, be they child or adult.”

And that last one is what is pertinent in this case. I don’t give a fuck if you are a great, such as Polanski, a supposed great, such as Bradley, or a hack, like Mark Wahlberg, if you cause someone serious, permanent damage in anything other than defense of yourself or others you are trash and the world will be a better place once you are rotting in the dirt. People who think otherwise are simply allowing talented individuals to get away with being scum. Greyland herself provides evidence that this attitude that we shouldn’t be knocking others’ idols is part of what allows such people to get away with their crimes…

“One reason I never said anything is that I regarded her life as being more important than mine: her fame more important, and assuredly the comfort of her fans as more important,”

Well, fuck that. Trash is trash, and if the evildoer’s fans can’t handle the truth about their idol they need to grow the fuck up and stop worshiping people who, as human beings, are rarely better than the rest of us – and who are some times much, much worse.