thoughts on noncon and censorship

[mamajoan]

I should be eating and going to bed, in that order with nothing in between, but instead I'm going to write up one of those "deep" posts I keep saying I want to write. Because it's been bothering me for a while now.

I had a conversation a couple weeks ago with blueraccoon about noncon (rape) in fanfic, and I didn't like how it ended up. I felt that I hadn't really thought through my feelings/opinions on the subject, and I said some stuff that came out wrong. And that makes me unhappy for a number of reasons, not least of which is worrying about what blueraccoon might think of me after it.

I know rapefic is a sensitive subject so I'm gonna do a cut here...

So basically what happened was that blueraccoon had written a fanfic with some strong noncon stuff in it and she wanted to know what I thought, and I tried, ever so clumsily, to express how strongly it squicked me without hurting her feelings (because it wasn't badly written at all, and I know, do I ever, how sensitive the authorial ego can be). The issue was not just plain ole noncon, but noncon where the victim ends up enjoying it. And we got into talking a bit about rape fantasies, how a lot of women can have those fantasies and be aroused by them but it absolutely doesn't mean they actually want to be raped. And blueraccoon pointed out that it's not a very large leap from fantasizing about it to actually writing it in fanfic.

And after much discussion I ended up saying that I felt that while it's okay to have those fantasies, it's not okay to write them in fic. And now I hate that I said that -- I feel really unhappy about it. I wish I could take it back. (Some of the stuff I say after about one a.m. is interesting, but much of it is just completely stupid crap.) And I've been thinking a lot about what I was really trying to express.

I certainly don't think that rape in fiction (fanfic or otherwise) is just flat-out bad with no exceptions. To say that would feel far too much like censorship, and that squicks me even more. I just feel. . . hmm.

Okay, let me start here. There are times when a piece of fiction tackles a social issue and that's cool. There are times when you don't want to be bothered with the issues, you just want to write your story with the issue in it but not "tackled," and that's cool too. But I also feel that there are some social issues that you can't fuck with in that way. If you're going to do a story that involves that particular issue, it *has* to be an "issue story." You have to address it somehow. You can't just put the thing into the story -- rape, racism, whatever -- and not *deal* with it. And you can't put it in gratuitously, either. It has to serve a point, it has to mean something, even if it's "just" character exploration (what would this character do if s/he were raped? what would drive this character to commit rape?). But the point is that the story has to *do* the issue. Not just dump it on you and leave it unanalyzed.

Of course, what I phrase as "have to"s or "can't"s, obviously that's not really "have to" but my opinion. Obviously I can't force anyone to adhere to my standards. So really I should be saying that the above is the explanation of why I reacted so strongly to Bec's story. But you know, it may be arrogant, but I feel like this is stronger than just "my opinion." I feel like it's responsible authoring to recognize that there are some things you have to treat differently. And of course it's open to interpretation, it's subjective; one person's handling it sensitively is another person's not exploring it enough.

Oh. And to address the whole extra topic of the victim enjoying the rape. What I said above about responsible authoring? I feel that being a responsible author also involves an awareness of the boundaries that you're pushing and the messages you're sending. It's all very well for the producers of violent movies to disclaim responsibility when stupid kids go imitating their stunts, but.... It's abhorrent to me to even *think* of suggesting that a real rape victim could be turned on by the experience. (And the fact that it might be physiologically possible is irrelevant, really.) And yeah, fiction is fiction, but to me rape is such a sensitive subject, so fraught with blaming-the-victim issues, that you just can't dismiss it by shrugging and saying "well, it's just a story." Maybe after a lot of deep contemplation and soul-searching, and THEN "I'm okay with this, because it's fiction," but no less than that.

I feel like I'm rambling now and it's taken me like two hours to write the above (with various interruptions) so I'll stop, at least for now. But first there's one more very important point I must make, which is to say that I don't in any way want blueraccoon to feel attacked or slighted by this. I absolutely don't mean it that way at all. I think she's a real sweetie, and if her Lex/Chloe obsession is a little weird to me, well hey, to each her own. And she writes some really good fic and works at it a lot, and I don't mean to be ragging on her, or this one story, in any way. I just, obviously this one story pushed some really sensitive buttons and I needed to try and work out what they were and why. I don't think I've really finished doing that yet, but this is a start.

Comments

[blueraccoon.livejournal.com]

But first there's one more very important point I must make, which is to say that I don't in any way want blueraccoon to feel attacked or slighted by this.

I don't. At all. You were absolutely right in your criticism of my fic, and there's a reason it's been on hold since then. I raised some issues in it I hadn't dealt with adequately and I need to work on that before (if) I ever post this fic. I wasn't offended then and I'm not now, hon. I promise.

I'll respond to your thoughts more tomorrow, when I'm a little less foggy from lack of blood to my brain.

[munoz.livejournal.com]

Ultimately, I don't think it's the writer's necessary responsibility to "deal" with every issue that one wishes to write about. In fact, sometimes I think it's better not to: instead simply to put it out there, force comments like the ones you made, and produce dialogue by those means. How do I feel about the specific issue under consideration? Well, honestly, I'm 100% on the other side of the issue. Rape fantasies come in all shapes and sizes, and some are exactly as you described: the idea that a severely non-con situation becomes full-con as it progresses. Though it may squick you, and probably a great number of people, it doesn't squick everyone and certainly not the people who have these particular fantasies.

When we start talking about the responsibilities of authors we do, as you suggest, get into the area of censorship. I don't think that authors are de facto responsible for anything other than not writing poorly. But I also don't think the gravest problem is one of censorship. I worry far less about books that get banned because of their subject matter than I do about books that don't get written at all, out of some sense of social obligation to an abstract readership. While it's perfectly fine for an author to feel social obligations that make him or her want to write in a "responsible" fashion, it's not at all fine for an author to feel that social obligation as an external force or coercion or guilt-trip.

I've written serious stuff about rape (not as fantasies) and child abuse. In some of these cases, I "ask" hard questions and offer no answers. If I had felt the social obligation to avoid writing these particular works just because I raise the questions without trying to solve them, I wouldn't be the writer I am.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to imply that you have to have/give all the answers! Or even some of them. There just needs to be awareness of the questions you're raising. You can certainly examine without answering. Hell, I do it all the time (thinking about the Middle East now -- to analyze the issues is not necessarily to arrive at a solution).

But the story needs to show the author's awareness of what's going on, of the issues that the plot is raising, even if only implicitly.

While it's perfectly fine for an author to feel social obligations that make him or her want to write in a "responsible" fashion, it's not at all fine for an author to feel that social obligation as an external force or coercion or guilt-trip.

Oh, I agree, but "social obligations" aren't really what I mean when I talk about responsible authoring. I'm thinking more of the integrity of the story, an obligation to make it "whole," for lack of a better word, by ensuring that the issues it raises don't go unexamined. And yeah, you can say "I'll just stick this in here and leave the examining of the issues as an exercise for the reader," but IMO, and in most cases, that's just lazy or sloppy authoring.

[canadian-snoopy.livejournal.com]

It has to serve a point, it has to mean something, even if it's "just" character exploration (what would this character do if s/he were raped? what would drive this character to commit rape?). But the point is that the story has to *do* the issue. Not just dump it on you and leave it unanalyzed.

This is what bugs me about a lot of the stuff that's written in the 'net (and let me clarify that I do not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean that all stories that deal with stuff like this have this characteristic). I often get the feeling that many of these 'social issues', as you call them, are tacked on to a story (much like you said before) for the shock value or even for allowing the author to say that a story isn't a raunchy PWP after all but a gripping social commentary.

Bullshit. I mean, you couldn't have it said it better when you said that you just can't fuck with it that way. If you're going to tackle social issues, go. Do the research, bounce ideas off friends and betas. Sit down and think these things through because when you're dealing with social issues, people tend to have opinions and these opinions will rarely agree with yours to the letter. If you want to create a dialogue and have people talk about your writing, more power to you. Go forth and write the most non-con'ingest thing that you can possibly come up with.

But (and this is a big but) I feel very strongly that if you're going to do this sort of thing, you must to do your homework. This doesn't tend to be the kind of thing that you can sit down and write in ten minutes. The subject matter doesn't lend itself to that sort of... facility (my brain is slowing down as I write ^_^) and I feel that it isn't fair to the people for whom your social issue of choice (be it whatever you make it) is a fact of life and something they have to actively deal with.

Sometimes I worry that my views can be seen as a sort of censorship when I truly don't mean it to seem that way...

So yes; this is whole post could have been reduced to 'me too'. Feeling very long-winded tonight ^_^