Is Censorship Acceptable?

[Sasha Distan]

i was going to reply this morning, but i ran out of time with all the good points. More have been added since then.

 

by and large, for most of my stories, i write what appears in my head. i do not censor. if i write something which i know will not conform to the rules of GA, i take it elsewhere. there are site where anything, and i do mean anything, goes. if i need a demon to do something absolutely horrifying, or if a character of mine displays a particular graphic violence, i still write and i still post.

 

Mostly, I agree with Kitt. if we fail to talk about the bad crap that happens, that doesn't actually mean it's not there. as for the acceptance thing, surely all i as an author am going is showing, along with so many others, that we are not stereotypes, and the horrible-awful that exists within straight culture also exists within ours. some people are evil, it has very little to do with their sexual orientation.

[Zombie]

i was going to reply this morning, but i ran out of time with all the good points. More have been added since then.

 

some people are evil, it has very little to do with their sexual orientation.

 

I think you mean "nothing to do with their sexual orientation"?

[Sasha Distan]

I think you mean "nothing to do with their sexual orientation"?

 

sorry, true. my brain ran away without my fingers...

[Kitt]

His fingers always have a problem keeping up with his brain.

[rustle]

His fingers always have a problem keeping up with his brain.

 

Mine sometimes act on their own accord, and have witnesses. My mouth, too.

[colinian]

I'm the webmaster for Codey's World. We censor stories. We have a submission policy that is clear yet ambiguous enough so it lets us make decisions that push the edges of the policy both to make it less inclusive and more inclusive — mores change over time. Our submission policy is censorship:

 

Our submission policy is simple: No gratuitous or graphic sex, drug usage, or violence, and no Fan Fiction. Almost anything else is acceptable.

 

Who's the judge? We prefer authors to self-censor what they submit to Codey's World. Otherwise, there are several of us who review unsolicited manuscripts and make the decision if a story is accepted or declined.

 

Why do we have a submission policy that censors what we allow on the site? It's because we have a lot of young teens who visit the site, and we cater to that audience. And it's the policy that Codey established when he started the site. Nothing graphic. Talk about two guys having sex but keep it off-stage and watch your language and how you're describing what's going on off-stage. Too steamy for Codey's World? Submit it to our parent site, AwesomeDude, or to GA or Nifty or someplace else.

 

Colin

Edited October 24, 2013 by colinian

[Kitt]

And being a teen oriented site that is exactly what I meant as acceptable censorship.  You do not tell people what to write or how to write it, simply if it can be posted with you or if they need to take it elsewhere.

 

The issue of changing what you write to present an issue or group in a better light however is a totally different ball of wax. No amount of flowery language is going to make rape, forced incest, and child abuse any prettier. Trying to, or refusing to address the topics at all, only make things worse.

[JamesSavik]

The issue of changing what you write to present an issue or group in a better light however is a totally different ball of wax. No amount of flowery language is going to make rape, forced incest, and child abuse any prettier. Trying to, or refusing to address the topics at all, only make things worse.

 

There are ways of presenting these topics without being sensationalistic.

 

A character can be a victim of rape, incest or child abuse off camera and you can work with the effect.

 

In fact, we probably should pay more attention to recovery than we do. All three of those acts can cause all sorts of psychological and relationship problems in their victims and create opportunities for great drama.

 

The act itself has little to do with sexuality. Rape, incest and child abuse are all crimes of power (or powerlessness). It's not erotic, it's psychotic. It's a very sick thing and no exploration of the act itself can be anything but sick if it is honestly done.

 

-*-*-*-*-

 

Tom & Bob  - a mini story

 

Tom meets Bob at the county fair and they have a hot, steamy one night stand.

 

Some months later they discover that they are in the same floor of the same dorm at State University.

 

Tom pursues Bob who is happy to have sex but isn't into relationships. In fact Bob is having sex all over the place.

 

Tom wants Bob but can't understand his promiscuity and is probably his only friend.

 

Bob gets into trouble with his promiscuity (he gets the clap) and as part of his treatment, the doc suggests counseling.

 

There Bob discovers that he has been the victim of childhood sexual abuse, he has repressed the trauma and needs a lot of counseling to get his head together.

 

Yada, yada and of course yada. Tom stands by his man and they live happily ever after.

 

___________________________

 

OK: does this story need to be censored?

 

Could this story be a positive thing that is more about recovery than depravity?

 

 

IMHO there are things in this story that as adults we can be in denial of but that's not going to make it go away and... it may bite you. HARD.

[Zombie]

It's curious that people who might have no issue with Tarantino's gratuitous and explicit screen violence might balk at non-gratuitous story-relevant depictions of taboos In this thread the prevailing view seems to be that nothing should be off limits. Equally, all these "taboos" should be handled "appropriately". So, if the story justifies it, things can be described - maybe even explicitly. But the qualifier here is that it should not be gratuitous or written to titillate.

As for explicitness, sometimes this is needed to make the audience have no doubt about exactly what happens. Explicit need not be gratuitous. And let's be clear about this - there is no horror or depravity you can conceive that has not already been dealt with in fiction, drama or film. Dealt with by respected writers and directors. And you don't get writers more respected than old Bill Shakespeare. And you don't get graphic rape and child cannibalism more shocking than in Titus Andronicus.
 

[Daddydavek]

 And let's be clear about this - there is no horror or depravity you can conceive that has not already been dealt with in fiction, drama or film. Dealt with by respected writers and directors. And you don't get writers more respected than old Bill Shakespeare. And you don't get graphic rape and child cannibalism more shocking than in Titus Andronicus.

 

 

Not that anyone here on GA is in the same league as W.S. or T. A.

 

But Zombie's point is well taken as well as most of the others who have contributed.   Censorship is a reality in some parts of the world.  It is appropriate in some venues depending on the target audience and it is tolerated even here at GA which does have some limits as well.  Having said that, the point is that human beings can be terrifyingly evil and supremely self-sacrificing.   Welcome to the real world.

[thebrinkoftime]

And you don't get writers more respected than old Bill Shakespeare.

 

I agree with your post Zombie, but my editor senses started to go all tingly here. For sure, good ol' Billy is one of the most well-respected today, but it took a while to get there and there were some periods that weren't very kind to the Shakes, which kind of demonstrates a facet being discussed in this thread.

[crazyfish]

As for explicitness, sometimes this is needed to make the audience have no doubt about exactly what happens. Explicit need not be gratuitous. And let's be clear about this - there is no horror or depravity you can conceive that has not already been dealt with in fiction, drama or film. Dealt with by respected writers and directors. And you don't get writers more respected than old Bill Shakespeare. And you don't get graphic rape and child cannibalism more shocking than in Titus Andronicus.

 

yeah.

 

I don't mind explicitness.  I don't even mind reading transgressive fiction a la Palanuick or Burroughs even, but the problem is it is so easy for a lesser author to reach for the grab bag of fucked-up shit just to capture reader emotion. especially on a free fiction site, where capturing the flighty reader's attention is the mission. 

 

  I know, I know, it's hard to craft a compelling story about ordinary people going through ordinary problems, as that would require a compelling voice and character insight. Much easier to burst out a rape or an abuse scene to garner reader sympathy.  Sigh. 

[Sasha Distan]

No gratuitous or graphic sex, drug usage, or violence, 

 

And that would be why I've never been there...

[Daddydavek]

And that would be why I've never been there...

 

And why would you when you spend most of your days locked up with adolescents?

[Cia]

I still like to think GA, which in reality is the site staff, is pretty fair when we review/censor 'questionable' material, including that which shows different, often uncomfortable, facets of society and personal relationships. We have strict limits, and we have soft limits. When we are confronted by an issue, we discuss it as a team. I am the front line in reading stories from new authors, Renee is the front line of the anthologies, and we all keep an eye on the content older authors post. If anyone has issues with content we find, or we get a report from members, we ALL discuss it so that we get a fair, consistent decision with as much of a consensus as possible.

 

Limits are set on behavior all the time in real life, and GA is no different. I don't think we all need to write sanitized, life is wonderful and no one acts in ways uncomfortable/inappropriate/flat out wrong types of stories, but I do think how some subjects are approached, and shared, must be limited. You can find similar issues online in some other places affecting publishing authors as well.

 

There has been a lot of controversy over some mainstream retailers/payment facilitating sites who are limiting certain types of fiction because they're 'immoral and/or obscene'. Paypal stirred up some serious crap last year when they struck out against bestiality, rape, incest, and pseudo-incest by imposing sanctions against sites that allowed that content, forcing them to either use an alternate payment method or comply with their regulations. Amazon has been accused this year of making it harder for fans of erotica to find content by excluding certain tagged titles from searches, thus imposing a subtle form of censorship on authors who choose to write sensitive material.

 

All this boils down to the decision authors have to make for themselves. Is the 'censored' content necessary for the story they are writing? Do they want to work within the confines of the regulations being imposed by whatever sites they are using (GA, Amazon, etc...) or will they find another place that allows them to write what they want to share?

[Thorn Wilde]

I know, I know, it's hard to craft a compelling story about ordinary people going through ordinary problems, as that would require a compelling voice and character insight. Much easier to burst out a rape or an abuse scene to garner reader sympathy.  Sigh. 

 

I think this is pretty cynical. I put my characters through a lot of shit, but I don't do it because I think that will attract readers or get sympathy or whatever. I do it because that's where I think my story needs to go. I do it because that's what I want to write. And the sad fact is that sexual, physical and emotional abuse are far more ordinary problems than anyone would care to think about. And anyway, unhealthy relationships are a lot more interesting and fun to write about than healthy ones.

[rustle]

Cia, you make a good point regarding the standards at GA. Based on what I've seen posted, I'd say the standards are rather permissive. I doubt I'd appreciate anything raunchy enough to not make the cut. I don't believe subject matter is tailored by site staff to present any one group in any certain light, either. I hope it never is.

[Cia]

There has been a time or two, or ten, over the years when I've wished for brain bleach to be a reality. Usually this happens from the authors who join and post without bothering to read our FAQ, which is a huge pet peeve of mine, anyway. LOL

[rustle]

There has been a time or two, or ten, over the years when I've wished for brain bleach to be a reality. Usually this happens from the authors who join and post without bothering to read our FAQ, which is a huge pet peeve of mine, anyway. LOL

 

There's an FAQ?

[Kitt]

I'm not sure I understand how and why this thread has taken the turn it has?  The initial discussion was not the  taboo's and there is in fact an entire other thread about that.  What we were discussing here was if an author should "self censor" and write his/her story in a manor that is different than he would like to make it more acceptable.  One author said, and I happen to agree, that to do so would be compromising personal integrity. 

 

No one is ever going to write a universally accepted piece of fiction. People are just too different for that. 

 

As for myself, I wrote a prompt response that had as a turn of the plot a teenage girl who was very wary of men due to the fact an adult had molested other girls she was aquainted with. There was no on screen activity in this area, just a reference that it had happened. Since it was a prompt response, I did not post a tag about it in the "story" description, but I did put a warning up in the pre-chapter notes, as well as a statement in the post chapter notes.  I did this so that anyone uncomfortable with the subject could skip reading that entry. I could have gone back and "self censored" the story, but I write what comes to mind, and to go back and change it to make it more comfortable reading for more people would have defeated my purpose in writing in the first place. I have no problem if someone is uncomfortable with the idea and chooses not to read, hence the warning I posted, "Warning, while there is nothing explicit, this does hint at child abuse. If the concept bothers you I suggest you skip this one."

[thebrinkoftime]

Many ages ago when women were still heavily looked down upon and discriminated against George Eliot wrote Silly Novels by Lady Novelists, an essay railing against her contemporaries for the idiocy she found in their novels. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it. There's a reason it's lived on for over a 100 years.

 

Many years later, in 1950, that man among men, Raymond Chandler wrote The Simple Art of Murder, which was a plea for more realistic detective fiction that scorches his mystery-writing contemporaries.

 

Both of these authors wanted a brighter future for the portrayal of a disenfranchised part of society. For Eliot, it was women. For Chandler, it was the poor, the downtrodden, the not-so-innocent. Both authors were pleading the same thing: please, for god sake, think before you write. They were asking for a certain level of censorship to further a cause. They were both heavily outnumbered by contemporaries who didn't necessarily agree with them.

 

It's analogous to today. Partially because of Chandler, the mystery has evolved beyond the dapper gentleman, the doilies and the unrealistic venom below the daffodils into trying to portray the realities of crime and punishment. Partially because of Eliot has women's fiction blossomed into the obvious equal of fiction written by men. And it will partially be by discerning gay authors that gay writing thrusts a blinding light into the shadow puppet plays that many consider the gay experience and replaces them with the real stage, full of sound and fury, signifying something.

 

But it will not be due to the gallons of alphabet snot phlegmatically produced by writers who do nothing but worship their uncontrolled id. That kind of writing laces the literary water pipes with arsenic.

 

It isn't simply a question of bowing down to an authority who decides what is normal, because they are out to stamp out expression they don't agree with, wherein the obvious answer is to follow your instincts. There is a certain element of thinking that would have us believe our snowflake-like expressions are best brought to life with the least amount of tampering, lest they ruin the artful inspiration behind them. This leads to fortress-like egos who won't lend their ears to criticism and hide behind the walls of their opinion castles, shouting, "Well, I think it's good, so there" while they stick out their tongues. It leads to "flower bed" mysteries. It leads to silly novels by lady novelists. It leads to eye-rollingly bad attempts to challenge the status quo with taboos in gay fiction. If you've read Chandler and Eliot, you know they didn't look away from an uneasy reality, oh no, it was the novelists who didn't think about what they were writing and considered themselves realistic writers who did.

Edited October 25, 2013 by thebrinkoftime

[Palantir]

 

Both of these authors wanted a brighter future for the portrayal of a disenfranchised part of society. For Eliot, it was women. For Chandler, it was the poor, the downtrodden, the not-so-innocent. Both authors were pleading the same thing: please, for god sake, think before you write. They were asking for a certain level of censorship to further a cause. They were both heavily outnumbered by contemporaries who didn't necessarily agree with them.

 

I certainly don't question the influence made by the works of Eliot and Chandler. I've read and reread, with great enjoyment, some of those iconic PI stories at different stages of my life.

I do question the way you equate a plea for thoughtfulness in writing with 'censorship to further a cause'.

If anything, it would seem to me that both Eliot and Chandler were looking to go beyond the bounds of their current mores, fighting the strictures of their contemporaries in a kind of 'anti-censorship to further a cause'.

I think the paradigm changes they wrought had less to do with their 'railing' and 'scorching' and more to do with the thoughtfulness and quality of their writing, and, to link this back to the posted topic, maybe thoughtfulness and quality of writing (as expressed in the title of our site) are essentials for positive portrayal in any genre. - Yes I certainly agree with the main thrust of your post.

 

 

 

But it will not be due to the gallons of alphabet snot phlegmatically produced by writers who do nothing but worship their uncontrolled id. That kind of writing laces the literary water pipes with arsenic.

 

It isn't simply a question of bowing down to an authority who decides what is normal, because they are out to stamp out expression they don't agree with, wherein the obvious answer is to follow your instincts. There is a certain element of thinking that would have us believe our snowflake-like expressions are best brought to life with the least amount of tampering, lest they ruin the artful inspiration behind them. This leads to fortress-like egos who won't lend their ears to criticism and hide behind the walls of their opinion castles, shouting, "Well, I think it's good, so there" while they stick out their tongues. It leads to "flower bed" mysteries. It leads to silly novels by lady novelists. It leads to eye-rollingly bad attempts to challenge the status quo with taboos in gay fiction. If you've read Chandler and Eliot, you know they didn't look away from an uneasy reality, oh no, it was the novelists who didn't think about what they were writing and considered themselves realistic writers who did.

I am astounded by the incredible mix of wonderful words and imagery, convoluted thought and aggressive assumption in parts of your post.

 

You have the talents to write a thoughtful, high quality story.

Edited October 25, 2013 by Iarwain

[crazyfish]

I think this is pretty cynical. I put my characters through a lot of shit, but I don't do it because I think that will attract readers or get sympathy or whatever. I do it because that's where I think my story needs to go. I do it because that's what I want to write. And the sad fact is that sexual, physical and emotional abuse are far more ordinary problems than anyone would care to think about. And anyway, unhealthy relationships are a lot more interesting and fun to write about than healthy ones.

yeah I'm cynical. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone at this site. Actually this site doesn't bother me in that regard. I'm thinking of my perusals of other sites like AO3 , in which every other story is about abusive situations.  Or like the case of Fifty shades of grey, where you have a silly stupid hero, suddenly bursting out his child abuse backstory, like that is supposed to garner my sympathy. 

 

The problem for me is that these topics are very visceral, and they can easily overwhelm the narrative without leaving an inch for developing nuance.  I want to be interested in your character, and not because I feel so so sorry that he's been raped or abused. 

 

Anyway we're veering off-topic. 

 

So censorship ... don't do that. Go out there and be your own rainbow butterfly. 

[Aditus]

So censorship ... don't do that. Go out there and be your own rainbow butterfly. 

Brief and concise, perfect.

[Persinette]

To put my two-penneth in on Ron's original question:

 

I don't think that any minority group - queers, women, whoever - carries any particular obligation to Give The Right Impression in its fiction. A basic element of equal rights is the right to be terrible people without it being taken to reflect on your entire group. In some ways, I honestly think that is the marking of equality: to be taken as individuals. As people.

 

And I don't think that is achieved by conforming to the image of Good Queers. I think it just helps to reinforce a false kind of equality; an equality where we are tolerated until we step out of line.

 

Many years later, in 1950, that man among men, Raymond Chandler wrote The Simple Art of Murder, which was a plea for more realistic detective fiction that scorches his mystery-writing contemporaries.

 

Forgive me, thebrinkoftime, but you brought up The Simple Art of Murder and I have a lot of capital-t Thoughts about that essay. Care for a nerdy discussion?

 

Both of these authors wanted a brighter future for the portrayal of a disenfranchised part of society. For Eliot, it was women. For Chandler, it was the poor, the downtrodden, the not-so-innocent. Both authors were pleading the same thing: please, for god sake, think before you write. They were asking for a certain level of censorship to further a cause. They were both heavily outnumbered by contemporaries who didn't necessarily agree with them.

 

The issue I have with Chandler's essay is that he strays dangerously close to both misrepresentation and hypocrisy. Many of the stories he rails against so heavily are cozies - an entirely different mystery genre to his noir. It's akin to criticising high fantasy for not meeting the same criteria as urban fantasy. Some of his criticisms are still perfectly valid, but some of them are just flat out his demands that other authors cease writing in a genre he does not like.

 

Where he strays into hypocrisy is what he holds up as real and what he holds up as fake. He judges other writers for having convoluted, contrived plots, but writes utterly unbelievable shapes and characters into his own stories. He laughs at fictional villains with complicated schemes, but has a character believe she killed somebody because the murderer tells her she did. I think he was an excellent and highly accomplished writer, but not one whose opinion I would take unalloyed.

 

It's analogous to today. Partially because of Chandler, the mystery has evolved beyond the dapper gentleman, the doilies and the unrealistic venom below the daffodils into trying to portray the realities of crime and punishment.

 

But we haven't evolved beyond that. We have moved beyong that particular style of mystery, but primarily because the world has moved on. The young lord is now the magician living in a windmill. He's Jonathan Creek, Jack Frost, Rosemary and bloody Thyme. The cozy is still as popular - and still as legitimate - as it ever was.

 

It leads to "flower bed" mysteries. It leads to silly novels by lady novelists. It leads to eye-rollingly bad attempts to challenge the status quo with taboos in gay fiction. If you've read Chandler and Eliot, you know they didn't look away from an uneasy reality, oh no, it was the novelists who didn't think about what they were writing and considered themselves realistic writers who did.

 

Chandler wrote in pure unreality. He wrote about dirt and corruption and blood, but that doesn't mean it was realistic. He wrote from the id, he wrote the things which made his heart pound. He wrote an awful lot of utter fantasy.

 

Dorothy Sayers gave her hero a wealth of worldly riches and a fancy car because she didn't have those things. Raymond Chandler created small, emotionally unstable blondes who attempted to seduce his hero because they excited him. And he made corrupt mayors and crooked cops and thugs with a shred of redemption in them, because those were his ideas of ugly reality. She wrote a generation of young men with shellshock because those were hers.

 

They both wrote reality and unreality in equal measures, but I do not consider his version of an exaggerated world to be any more truthful or well-written than hers.