MESSAGE BOARD TOPIC #32

[Comicality]

You know...during the many hours of reading that I've accumulated with other erotic stories over the years, I'll have to admit that there have been a rather large number of them that I found...'distasteful'. (Putting it lightly) I don't claim to be any great authority on what is and what is not 'good' fiction, but as far as my personal opinion goes...'yuck'. You know?

 

What I mean is...I tend to stray away from the series filled with rape, enemas, abuse, spankings, random 'slut boy' sex stuff, and the like. It's just not my thing, really. But can I really say that they're wrong for exploring their fantasies through the written word? I mean, for every rape story that I turn away from, there are ten gay men who look down on my stories for involving teenage boys. And for every teenage story that THEY look down on, there are ten straight men who look down on them for writing stories about being gay. And so forth and so on.

 

So the question for this week is...

 

=Is there a certain 'moral fiber' that we, as authors should set up and stick to? Does the freedom to write what you want sometimes go too far in your opinion?=

 

And if it DOES go too far...who makes the decision on what 'too far' is? Should rape stories and abuse stories and forced bondage and the like be allowed to exist for the people that want to read it? Why or why not? I mean it evidently has an 'audience' if the genre has survived in abundance for this long. Right? Do you view this as a 'problem', do you see it as a 'right to express what you want', or is it simply a matter of 'out of sight, out of mind'? Whatever your answer, keep in mind that the negative opinions you have about one story...may reflect the negative opinions that someone has about one of your OWN stories, or one of your favorites to read.

 

The board is open! Speak your mind and let us hear what you think!

[Guest hns]

I have sort of a mixed opinion of this. I don't think there is a 'too far' in terms of what should be allowed to be written or read. It comes down to why it was written and possibly how it could affect the readers.

 

I wonder why some authors choose to write a story featuring boys who aren't even teenagers yet. Especially since they tend to be in the vein of Dawsons Creek and talk as if they are at least university students of philosophy. In those cases, where the story doesn't need them to be that old, it seems that it's the author satisfying some desire of his own. When these authors are frequently many times older than their characters I'd rather not know what goes on in their heads when they write.

 

There's a book called Lucky by Alice Sebold that is about rape. It is very well written and without a doubt should have been written and should exist. And though I haven't read them, I know there are countless stories about rape on the internet that perhaps shouldn't have been written, and would make the internet a better place if they didn't exist.

 

The fact that these stories have an audience doesn't validate them. There are many things that have large followings that are detrimental. There is a demand for child pornography, but there are very, very few people who would claim that the demand justifies the supply.

 

And while in the case of stories it is harder to see the victim, people who get pleasure from reading about stories involving a victim are perhaps not that far from the characters in the stories that perform the act they themselves only read about.

 

I've always thought books are a much bigger influence than movies or computer games. In books you create the images in your mind, and can often, particularly in the case of first person stories, lead you to place yourself in the place of the narrator. If literacy wasn't put up on so high a pedastal books would be accused of being insidious far more often.

 

As to what 'too far' is it's nearly impossible to define. In real life 'consenting adults' is a nice catch all to cover nearly all sexual practices that aren't illeagal. If a story could give a suggestable, disturbed person the push they need to commit crimes they've only read about then it would seem to be too far.

 

Ideally censorship would be a good thing. But it would have to be ideal censorship. With an ideal censor; free from all bigotrys and preference, immeniently educated, superbly intelligent, rational, empathetic. Such a censor doesn't exist, which leaves only the hope that individuals that are responsible for publishing stories will be blessed with the judgement to make the right decisions; which of course, they won't always.

 

that's my, slightly rambly take on it

hns

[Guest jamieanderson]

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