Asimov was also writing every month to Brass Tacks, stating in one letter, “When we want science fiction, we don’t want swooning dames.” His nervousness around girls—he had never been on a date—could express itself as hostility, as it did throughout the fan community, and in a later issue, he added, “Let me point out that women never affected the world directly. They always grabbed hold of some poor, innocent man, worked their insidious wiles on him . . . and then affected history through him.” Asimov concluded that he should stop before he created a “vendetta” of all the female fans in the
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