Non-Consent

LeandraNyx said:

Dude, you have no idea...violent dark fantasy is what got me interested in noncon in the first place, lol.

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Romance novels for me. Truefax.

Bramblethorn, you make a good point about the little, insidious things and the influence they can have. They're important in shaping my writing, too. On the other hand, before one even gets there:

Bramblethorn said:

For example, I don't see "woman ravished by burglar" fiction as particularly problematic. Everybody understands that this is bad IRL, and there's little risk of anybody missing the distinction between reality and fantasy.

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You'd think, right? But of course one of the central myths underpinning the multitude of everyday transgressions of consent that people do defend that you go on to mention is that "it's possible to like/want rape." Which, there's no way around it, noncon with a "pleasure" element feeds into at some level--in this sense the more "extreme" stuff is more honest, much as I can't bring myself to write it--and while people should be able to understand this is a conceit for the purpose of erotica... well, y'know, look on up the thread.

To take it afield from noncon for a sec: way back in the early Oughties when the Iraq War was ramping up, I noticed something about the pro-war narrative. Essentially, it was a narrative about a comic book version of reality. The whole idea was that you were going to solve the problems of the Middle East by going in and taking out one supervillain named Saddam Hussein; boom, everything would be happily ever after.

The people peddling that narrative -- at least the people around Dubya who were peddling it -- surely knew it for a convenient fiction, even if they were still profoundly overconfident about how well everything would turn out. But it struck me that a not-small number of adult American humans really believed that life could work like a comic book or a superhero movie. That this was a plausible way to solve complicated political problems.

Sometimes people do take the fantasy conceits of fiction too literally. They read comics and believe you can just sock evil in the jaw and make it go away. They read science fiction and believe colonizing Mars is a plausible alternative to preserving the environment. They watch action movies and try to build their masculinity around the implausible ideal on screen. They watch porn and try to make like pop shots to the face are a normal part of actual sex.

Unfortunately there isn't much that one can do about this except to try to support critical thinking at every opportunity outside of fiction.

I think you are overthinking things. There's no way to write anything that EVERYONE would get a clear message of.

But of course one of the central myths underpinning the multitude of everyday transgressions of consent that people do defend that you go on to mention is that "it's possible to like/want rape." Which, there's no way around it, noncon with a "pleasure" element feeds into at some level--in this sense the more "extreme" stuff is more honest, much as I can't bring myself to write it--and while people should be able to understand this is a conceit for the purpose of erotica... well, y'know, look on up the thread.

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It's not a myth though. As in, it is, truly, possible to want/like to be raped - it's a powerful fantasy that many people have.
And in a fiction novel - you can have victims who really liked the end experience.

The difference here, again, is between fantasy and reality that most people innately understand. It's one thing to fantasize and even want to be raped - the other is really TRULY wanting for it to happen in the real life.
It's like being a war hero. Many people read those books and fantasize about being that war hero and heroically fighting nazi, running up the beach while bombs explode all around you. But fantasy is one thing and reality is another, so if you actually give most people the opportunity to experience it - they'd refuse instantly.

You see, what you risk doing with the logic like that is to becone a nagging, over-explaining author who covers all corners and makes sure that even a stupid person understands the message clearly. But such things are never interesting to read. It's like building up your fantasy world and then deliberately destroying it and uncovering holes in it.

Any rape/non-con fantasy innately already has every needed red flag for people to understand it's not OK. You don't need to add more to it.
It already has the reluctance or pure fear and desperation of a victim, so as an author you don't need to double-back and stress again and again that it's not ok. It already has it.
If rape fantasy didn't have those flags - it wouldn't be rape in the first place. If the "victim" only enjoys it and has not one single bad thought or experience - it becomes rough sex, not a rape.

I stand by my words that titillating rape and non-con scenes are the horror and the thriller of erotic literature. And you never see author stopping in the middle of a brutal murder scene to make sure that EVERYONE, even you, Jimmy, understands that it's NOT OK TO KILL PEOPLE, Jimmy, and you should never do that in the real life, no matter how bad - are you listening, Jimmy? - how bad the murdered guy is.

Nezhul said:

I stand by my words that titillating rape and non-con scenes are the horror and the thriller of erotic literature. And you never see author stopping in the middle of a brutal murder scene to make sure that EVERYONE, even you, Jimmy, understands that it's NOT OK TO KILL PEOPLE, Jimmy, and you should never do that in the real life, no matter how bad - are you listening, Jimmy? - how bad the murdered guy is.

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Not sure this helps with the Lit hurdles and getting stories past Laurel, but this helps fabulously with my main stream project!

Laurel has her own rules. I will just write what I want all the same, and post it elsewhere if need be. I don't see a reason to limit yourself anyhow just because of lit rules

Nezhul said:

I think you are overthinking things. There's no way to write anything that EVERYONE would get a clear message of.

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I didn't say there was. I just said it's a fact of life that some people will in fact fail to separate the big-picture fantasy and reality stuff.

It's not a myth though. As in, it is, truly, possible to want/like to be raped - it's a powerful fantasy that many people have.

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This was already the stuff of the long debate with a certain individual up-thread and I swear before almighty Bob if you sic him on us again, you're cleaning up the mess.

Point being the fantasy bears no resemblance to desire for any real thing, even when the fantasy appears "realistic." I can fantasize all I want about being a kung fu master or a badass warrior, it has nothing to do with genuine desire for violence. Same principle.

You see, what you risk doing with the logic like that is to becone a nagging, over-explaining author who covers all corners and makes sure that even a stupid person understands the message clearly.

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Recognizing how texts work is a different thing from writing practice. If you ever run across a piece of mine that seems "nagging" over "over-explaining" feel free to let me know. Although:

It's like building up your fantasy world and then deliberately destroying it and uncovering holes in it.

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This has in fact been the stuff of some interesting novels. (Side point, though. I get what you're driving at.)

Nevertheless I don't think Bramblethorn is talking about anything similar to this:

And you never see author stopping in the middle of a brutal murder scene to make sure that EVERYONE, even you, Jimmy, understands that it's NOT OK TO KILL PEOPLE, Jimmy, and you should never do that in the real life, no matter how bad - are you listening, Jimmy? - how bad the murdered guy is.

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Which reminds me of Roddenberry's old quote about how in a police drama, you never see the cop stop to explain how his gun works. It's kind of a false problem: you don't need explanation to have explicability or to have certain assumptions embedded in the text. That's a separate question of craft.

For example I make a conscious decision in my stories not to feature heroines who are misogynistic stereotypes, because that's not an interesting element of erotica for me. That doesn't mean writing essays saying Look How Fleshed-Out This Female Character Is, it's just one of the background parameters for writing the story.

I stand by my words that titillating rape and non-con scenes are the horror and the thriller of erotic literature.

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I would actually say that function goes well beyond erotic literature. In fact one of the very best reason I know of for writing non-con fiction is that it's up front about what it is, which for my money is better than its being tacitly present in genres that present themselves as something else.

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In the realm of noncon, that means making it clear to the audience that the rapist is bad, and that there is absolutely no excuse for their behavior

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I avoid painting the villain in a positive light (i.e. outside of everything but the rape, he's really a nice guy!)

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I don't agree, because there are grey lines sometimes.

For example in my latest novels I wrote about a girl being mistaken for a clone made for sex, and taken to a place to be "trained" as a pet girl. The guy who is her coach there, and who is in fact rapes her in the process of this training - is a clone too. He has no human rights and can not choose to not fuck her. He states, however, that he enjoys his work, but says that he can't really be blamed for it because he was made to be like that (memories and all).

From the moral point of view, I don't think there's black and white with this character in that story. He's as much a victim of the system as he is a villain for the main character - it depends on the viewpoint. The real villains would be corporations who support such treatment of clones.

I don't insinuate that the victim "deserved" the rape, etc.

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Well, I wouldn't say I will never write something like that. Because I can see this working as a plot to some extent, and I don't think it's a bad notion.
Clearly, it shouldn't be a form of justifying the rape. But raping an otherwise evil character as a form of divine retribution onto them - why not?

I get what you're saying, it's just a tad too...optimistic, for my tastes. It's dangerous to underestimate human stupidity, and I know for a fact that on the darker corners of the internet, the mere existence of noncon erotica is used as "evidence" that all women "secretly want to be raped."

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Yes, you can't underestimate the stupidity, but if you start covering all grounds that leave any reason for doubt - you are severely limiting yourself as a writer.

The thing is, as I said before, you can't really account for anything either way. People who think the things you said will think them no matter what. It's not your book that's supporting them - it's them misreading pretty much everything, and twisting it to fit their desires.

It's just like blaming video games each time someone does a shooting in the school. First thing they do is check their computer and - Surprise-surprise! - there are video games on it, where you shoot something out of something. So clearly the video games are at fault, and let's just forget the fact that 99% of young men play them nowadays. It's like blaming air for every murder - hey, the murderer breathed it before committing the crime, didn't he?

that the real age of consent should (vomit) be closer to puberty

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Well, in some countries it's as low as 14 (and I don't take underdeveloped societies like some tribes in Africa.
With age of consent, I really don't think it should be that high. Sex is becoming an open and popular form of fun more and more. I don't see a reason why teenagers shouldn't have access to that.
But that's a whole other topic for discussion, and rather pointless one too.

That's why it's important to be careful about how you portray noncon content. Like Cyrano mentioned, it doesn't need to be tedious or even explicit. (Though I think it's always wise to include an Author's Note with a warning, at the very least.)

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Author's note - definitely a good thing.
But it's actually more for protection of the author than to discourage someone. Anyone who can be encouraged by a non-con novel will not think twice about the note, whatever you write in it.

I have read noncon where all of the above did apply, and the comments alone were enough evidence to indicate that yes, there are people out there who actually think that way and yes, they use erotica to justify their behavior.

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There will be always people who will justify their behaviour based on your work. If you write anything about crime, that is.
I think those should just be ignored or discouraged if they comment. I don't think you should somehow change your writing just to account for all the scum that lives in the world. You can never do that.

Every hobby/career comes with some baggage; I think that, as a writer, being consciously aware of and intentional about the kind of behavior you promote is a matter of professional ethics.

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Yes, definitely. But it's one thing when you PROMOTE rape, and another thing is when someone READS it AS IF you were promoting it.
You shouldn't justify crime or rape. Shouldn't depict it as something that should be done or accepted.
However that's where your responsibility ends.
If some sick bastard reads your novel wrongly - it's not your fault, and you shouldn't try to account for that or hold yourself responsible.

CyranoJ said:

You'd think, right? But of course one of the central myths underpinning the multitude of everyday transgressions of consent that people do defend that you go on to mention is that "it's possible to like/want rape." Which, there's no way around it, noncon with a "pleasure" element feeds into at some level--in this sense the more "extreme" stuff is more honest, much as I can't bring myself to write it--and while people should be able to understand this is a conceit for the purpose of erotica... well, y'know, look on up the thread.

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Oh, we're in agreement here. I'm uncomfortable with Literotica's "NC is allowed as long as the victim ends up enjoying it" standard for exactly this reason.

(pre-emptive note that "uncomfortable with" != "want to ban" or "people who write/enjoy this are bad"; more like "if you're doing this, do it with eyes open".)

Nezhul said:

I stand by my words that titillating rape and non-con scenes are the horror and the thriller of erotic literature. And you never see author stopping in the middle of a brutal murder scene to make sure that EVERYONE, even you, Jimmy, understands that it's NOT OK TO KILL PEOPLE, Jimmy, and you should never do that in the real life, no matter how bad - are you listening, Jimmy? - how bad the murdered guy is.

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I've read more than a few murder mysteries in my day. Overwhelmingly, authors do establish that Murder Is Bad, in all sorts of ways. They show the fear and pain it creates among those left behind. They show sympathetic POV characters working hard to catch the killer, and it's a very rare story indeed where the killer is allowed to go unpunished.

No, they don't stop in the middle of a murder scene to editorialise about it, but that's a straw man; nobody here was suggesting any such thing. Any halfway competent author knows dozens of tricks for persuading their readers to a particular viewpoint without having to spell it out.

IME, non-con fiction is a different kettle of fish. Stories are very often told from the attacker's point of view, it's rare that the attacker gets caught and punished, and they rarely emphasise the damage it does to the victim - except for a few extreme ones where that's treated as fodder for gratification.

Let's put it this way: how often do you read a murder story where the victim initially doesn't want to be murdered, but ends up enjoying it and begging for more?

LeandraNyx said:

That's why it's important to be careful about how you portray noncon content. Like Cyrano mentioned, it doesn't need to be tedious or even explicit. (Though I think it's always wise to include an Author's Note with a warning, at the very least.) As for me, I also like to avoid writing female characters who fit misogynistic stereotypes (i.e. are only drinking and/or dressing up because they want to have sex), I avoid painting the villain in a positive light (i.e. outside of everything but the rape, he's really a nice guy!), I don't insinuate that the victim "deserved" the rape, etc. I have read noncon where all of the above did apply, and the comments alone were enough evidence to indicate that yes, there are people out there who actually think that way and yes, they use erotica to justify their behavior.

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I've seen stories on Literotica that were very definitely nonconsensual, but commenters complained that it wasn't true NC because nobody was being physically forced. Bleah.

Every hobby/career comes with some baggage; I think that, as a writer, being consciously aware of and intentional about the kind of behavior you promote is a matter of professional ethics.

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Uh huh. I post stories here because I get a kick out of having the power to affect the minds of people I've never even met.

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LeandraNyx said:

Either the rapist (a) is an autonomous agent and is using his past as an excuse for his behavior to soothe his own conscious or (b) he isn't an autonomous agent and therefore, cannot be considered responsible for his own actions. If it is the former, it's still possible to feel sorry for him--to sympathize with the abuse he's been put through and the situation he finds himself in--without condoning his behavior or claiming it to be ambiguous. This is a pretty common tactic used by rapists--particularly child abusers--to justify their actions; it's the classic case of, "Well, I was abused and it messed me up so bad, I can't be held accountable for what I do!" Only they can, and failing to acknowledge that is unconscionable. Again, you can feel bad for an abuser and still hold them responsible for their abuse at the same time. These feelings aren't mutually exclusive. I certainly wouldn't call this scenario a "gray area."

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Yup. We might as well argue that none of us are responsible for anything because our actions are predetermined by the chemicals in our brain.

Yes, you could have one character rape another as a form of retribution and I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with that, but to portray it in a completely positive light, as if vigilante rape heroes are totally a thing that should happen?

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I do get a little creeped out about how hard people will labour to come up with far-fetched scenarios where it's okay to rape somebody. "Like, what if terrorists are going to blow up the entire eastern seaboard unless I do it, THEN is it okay for me to rape a woman? What if we're in Bizarro-World and not-raping a woman is as bad as rape is in our world, then can I rape her?"

I mean by all means, enjoy NC fantasies. I do, once in a while. I also enjoy reading about firebreathing dragons... but I don't put a lot of effort into coming up for reasons why people should believe that dragons are totally realistic and we should all believe they exist somewhere IRL.

I mean, sure, go ahead and write that if you'd like, but I'm still not seeing any "gray areas." Even assuming the victim in this case is a "bad person," who gets to decide that? And by what metric? Because you do realize that you're not the first person to come up with the concept of "corrective rape," right? It's actually pretty rampant in religiously conservative communities and usually, the bad guys in this case are gay and need to be "straightened out." So, it's not really an original idea you've got there--plenty of people are already claiming that the rape of "bad people" is okay and are acting on that belief. Now you want to help justify it by potraying it as reasonable?

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I wish I had a dollar for every asshole who claims to be totally against rape but also believes prison rape is hilarious.

(whoops, hit post early)

You say that any attempt to promote good values in your writing is limiting, but I've never felt "rape is bad" as being a major constraint on my freedom of speech, perhaps because I've never felt the need to argue that rape is good.

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I would add - creativity THRIVES on constraints. Some people write Shakespearean sonnets, some write complete stories as 140-character Twitter posts, some make movies with a limited budget, some aim to arouse their readers with scenes depicted purely in text. Every major genre has constraints of one kind or another, and meeting those constraints is part of the challenge.

We all choose which of those challenges we are and aren't going to accept. For me, "don't fuck up people's already-fucked-up understanding of consent" seems like a good one.

LeandraNyx
All I can say - don't put words into my mouth please. Never said anything about justifying rape by bad childhood. Never said anythign about raping "bad people" being reasonable.

Actually, it's not a pointless discussion--it's an example of yet more justification of rape by rapists who don't understand that children do not have the critical thinking skills or the life experience to understand the risks of having sex with an adult and thus, cannot consent. Or, at least, it's an example of rapists pretending not to understand. I refuse to believe that anyone who has made it to adulthood seriously believes that they were as mature at 14 as they were/are in their twenties.

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No, of course we are not as mature at 14 as we are in our twenties.
And by the way, we are not as mature at twenty as we are in our thirties, so maybe we should higher the age of consent by ten or twenty years?

Those numbers are arbitrary. I wasn't ready to start a business at 14, sure. I was mature enough to manage my own money or go to the shop responsibly.
Was I mature enough to have children? No.
Was I mature enough to enjoy safe sex? Definitely, although I didn't lose my virginity at 14.

It all boils down to very arbitrary numbers, which differ from person to person. Some people are responsible at 12, others are irresponsible at 25.

In modern culture, I view sex as something safe and fun, enjoyed by people for the pleasure it brings and not strictly as an act of loving or reproduction.
Sex is not harming, if you are consenting to it - and it doesn't matter at which age you do so. It's not like teenagers will regret having safe sex at 14 as they grow up. In fact, in US most people lose their virginity at 14 or 15, and that's totally normal.

I don't see many people who say that it was a mistake and they should have waited several more years. No. People who have lost virginity early are completely fine with it later on. So what's the problem about having age of consent lower than 18?
I would concentrate more on being responsible about having SAFE sex, rather than having sex AT ALL. Because sex on itself doesn't ruin anyone's life or harm "children".

This topic is kind of pointless, because there are laws in each country for that.

I'll just leave this here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent#/media/File:Age_of_Consent_-_Global.svg

As you can see, age of consent is as low as 15 in most of progressive counties. In Europe it's actually lower in many places, at 14 and 13 years old.
I'd think that would give you a clue, don't you agree?

So...you want to equate responsible writing with blaming air for murder? Seriously?

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I equate overreacting and changing your stories to trying to prove that by breathing air you are NOT a murderer.

But to say that we have no influence what-so-ever and therefore, don't need to take any responsibility for what we say or how we say it? That's absolutely ridiculous.

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Why even bother writing if you don't believe in the power of the written word? I get we're writing smut, but still. How can you argue that the media we consume--the podcasts we listen to, the stories we read, the shows we watch--has absolutely no impact on how we view the world and act in it?

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We DO have influence. But we shouldn't overthink and be overprotective about that influence.

If you wanna write something - do it. Don't start covering bases when you do. Have courage to present your stories exactly the way you see it.

p.s. No point in answering Bramblethorn's comment to my quote because (a) the issue he brings up has already been answered explicitly in one of my earlier posts, and (b) talking to him is like talking to a mirror - he has no memory of the conversation and will keep bringing up points that have already been discussed thoroughly before - in circles.

You talk a lot about responsibility as a writer, and I partially agree to that. Your responsibility as a writer - is to not portray crime or radical thougts as beneficial, good or excusable.

But it is NOT your responsibility to account for every person and make things more explicit than they are meant to be in your book.

In other words your responsibility is not to say that crime is good. It is NOT your responsibility to state that it is BAD - let the reader decide that. Most readers will know right from wrong, and those who don't - you will not dissuade anyway.
Author's note is enough for explicitly stating your opinion, but the text of your novel should not be altered to account for possible misconceptions, if you don't feel like it.

Nezhul said:

In other words your responsibility is not to say that crime is good. It is NOT your responsibility to state that it is BAD - let the reader decide that. Most readers will know right from wrong, and those who don't - you will not dissuade anyway.

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While this may be true, you can spin things differently...

How would you classify a religious cult that operates outside the law with no oversight, abducts children, engages in guerrilla warfare, maintains an unshakable conviction they are always right, and has the blessing of the government to conduct these activities, are used as enforcers for that government, foster corruption, execute the opposition, and they remove the free will of individuals. Sounds evil right? These are the beloved Jedi Knights of Star Wars.

Seems that good and bad is a gray area. I mean Val Jean did 20 years at hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread because his nephew was starving.

Nezhul said:

But it is NOT your responsibility to account for every person and make things more explicit than they are meant to be in your book.

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Well again, nobody has said "account for every person" or spell everything out in minute detail in the writing itself. This is at the point of becoming a straw man.

Practically speaking I sort of agree with this:

In other words your responsibility is not to say that crime is good. It is NOT your responsibility to state that it is BAD - let the reader decide that. Most readers will know right from wrong, and those who don't - you will not dissuade anyway.

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Except of course that there are plenty of ways to embed the writer's perspective on "good" or "bad" in the writing without hammering the reader over the head with sermons. Again I think you're confusing craft with principle.

There is no reason you can't construct a fantasy universe in which, say, rape and war are inherently and fairly obviously bad but many of the characters revel in both and the reader is left to navigate some moral grey areas. George R.R. Martin did it and it's called A Song of Ice and Fire, and as a text it's qualitatively different from, say, the neo-fascist mythmaking of Frank Miller's 300 series. There is no guarantee that some of those readers won't find ways to get off to the rapiness anyway, in fact Martin is often accused of clandestine noncon fantasy for this reason (although IMO that accusation sticks better to the HBO show "Game of Thrones" based on the books, over which he has less control), but that's not the point. The point is that for a reader to get out of ASOIAF the message that "rape is good," they would have to ignore large parts of the text in directly refutable ways.

It's a lot harder to walk a similar line in work that directly mines noncon for erotica, of course. But that's not to say that one doesn't have plenty of options for how to build some kind of moral universe into the text; subtle signals as to how not to take the whole business too seriously or literally, say. Ideally without the reader even noticing.

(We're getting pretty deep into discussion of craft in the course of all this, and maybe you think people are talking about prescribing ways everyone should approach writing, rather than the ways they personally approach it? I don't think you should be worried about that.)

Ldy_Sea said:

These are the beloved Jedi Knights of Star Wars.

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Also the worst grief counsellors of all time.


(W the actual F, Yoda.)

Although arguably Star Wars generally and the prequels specifically are just kind of a train-wreck, writing-wise.

Seems that good and bad is a gray area. I mean Val Jean did 20 years at hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread because his nephew was starving.

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Is that much of a grey area? Seems like a fairly strong example of unjust law.

Writing fiction is different from real life. It is possible to have a rape fantasy while at the same time realizing the horrible reality of rape. Fiction can depict that reality or it can add the element of enjoyment. The reality isn't very erotic. It's ugly. Rape works better in fantasy or historical pieces in my opinion. A rape in a pirate story, for instance. There has to be an initial reluctance for it to work, but it should end with satisfaction to both parties. A rape fantasy is basically a control fantasy, and the control itself should be a turn on for the woman.

There is no reason you can't construct a fantasy universe in which, say, rape and war are inherently and fairly obviously bad but many of the characters revel in both and the reader is left to navigate some moral grey areas.

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Yes, indeed.
But there's no reason you absolutely MUST go that route of establishing something as obviously bad.
You are talking a lot about responsibility of a writer, and that implies that such things need to be established somehow. I argue that it's in fact not the case, and they may or may not be established. The only real responsibility is not to depict crime as something good, and not to try and convince the reader to do more of it or tolerate it
.
Other than that, the author should be free to just write his story, and let the readers decide what is bad - based on the innate understanding of every human of such things.
People may argue that rape is good sometimes, but it's not like you can dissuade those no matter to what lengths you go in your story to depict it as bad. On the other hand, most people will see rape as a bad thing regardless of the fact that you establish it as such or not. Even better - if you try and establish it as good (which you still should never do), most people will STILL see it as bad, no matter how you try and say otherwise.

The notion that you should somehow through valid writer's tricks relay a clear message in your story - I can't agree with that. There's no universal formula to writing, and it can never create one. True, there are tropes as well as some accepted practices, but if you consciously try to follow those as an end rather than the means - you are failing as an artist.

If you don't want to say that rape is bad - don't. It's not a part of your responsibility as a writer.
Doing so specifically is not called being responsible - it's being cowardly to criticism and trying to cover yourself even before the blow comes your way. I say that Author's disclaimer is enough for that, and you should leave your book devoid of the influences of "what if someone reads it THIS way" logics.

Nezhul said:

You are talking a lot about responsibility of a writer, and that implies that such things need to be established somehow . . . no universal formula to writing, and it can never create one. . .

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Nobody has said anything similar to either of these things. You started off your last post complaining about someone putting words in your mouth. Physician, heal thyself.

(Maybe a little clarification would help. I do think it's a basic responsibility of creators to take responsibility for being informed about the elements of kink their stories exploit. I do think that's a separate question from how one approaches writing technically. I don't think my approach to dealing with what this implies for writers and readers is some universal prescription that I'm demanding you adopt, and I don't think anyone else on this thread believes this either, so I do think you should stop trying to imply that.)

As for this:

Doing so specifically is not called being responsible - it's being cowardly to criticism and trying to cover yourself even before the blow comes your way.

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I find this hyperbolic. Crafting your story to reflect something you want is a basic part of the creative process. Trying to portray this as some kind of cringe or attempt to anticipate every possible contingency -- a strawman you keep throwing up and it's just as wrong every time you do it -- just doesn't work, IMO.

Nobody has said anything similar to either of these things. You started off your last post complaining about someone putting words in your mouth. Physician, heal thyself.

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What ARE you saying then when talking about "building a universe and establishing things as bad there" or "building moral universe into the text"?

If those are OPTIONAL - then I don't see what you are arguing with me about. I'm sayign just that - those things are optional to have. Not necessary.

Crafting your story to reflect something you want is a basic part of the creative process.

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Yes, sure. But it's still not a given that a story with rape should definitely establish the act as a bad thing, somehow in some way.

Nezhul said:

If those are OPTIONAL - then I don't see what you are arguing with me about.

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I never said I was arguing with you, except insofar as you keep trying to imply that writing a story from a moral standpoint must mean sermonizing at the reader about every little moral point of your universe and that's just factually not true.

No I'm not. I'm repeatedly saying that you don't NEED to write it from a moral point of view and that FORCING that onto yourself is wrong. I never said that you can't do that or shouldn't. I only said you shouldn't feel obliged to force it if it doesn't fit your story.

And the replies to my posts talk about writers having a responsibility to make the message clear, so that you don't accidentally support a rapist in his delusions, and that it's easy to do so through different means.

Someone is clearly reading everything through a hazy glass here.

Nezhul said:

Someone is clearly reading everything through a hazy glass here.

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Yes, "someone" certainly is.



I mean, I'm reading the same responses from 'Nyx and Bramblethorn and as far as I can see all the hyperbole about how people "must" do this or that and "overreact" to the other thing is originating with you, not them. Outside of occasional mistaken claims about IRL rape culture, I've only seen anyone take issue with your saying that responsible writing is not possible and must mean forcing yourself to do [such-and-such ridiculous over-the-top thing]. If you think that's coming from anyone else in the thread, you may want to grab some Windex.

Nezhul said:

In other words your responsibility is not to say that crime is good. It is NOT your responsibility to state that it is BAD - let the reader decide that. Most readers will know right from wrong,

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http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/01/lots-of-men-dont-think-rape-is-rape.html

"Almost a third of the men (31.7 percent) said that in a consequence-free situation, they’d force a woman to have sexual intercourse, while 13.6 percent said they would rape a woman."

Implies that ~ 20% of men don't think that "force a woman to have sexual intercourse" qualifies as "rape".

So an alarmingly high proportion of men don't know right from wrong (I think "most" is a bad benchmark here, 20% is still "holy shit way too many"). I have no reason to believe that men who read NC fantasy are more enlightened on this topic than the rest of the population.

and those who don't - you will not dissuade anyway.

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Actually, research shows that it is possible to dissuade potential rapists, and in some cases surprisingly easy.

Men who rape are heavily influenced by the perceived attitudes of their male peers. So when other men make it clear that it's not okay to have sex with a woman who's too drunk to consent, that can be powerful in dissuading people.

See e.g. http://www.sparkmovement.org/2013/04/10/research-blog-teaching-men-rape-prevention-actually-works/ or the Vancouver "Don't Be That Guy" program: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/new...saults-by-10-per-cent-in-2011/article1359241/

BTW, being aware of this sort of thing is what I mean when I talk about writing NC responsibly. A responsible writer doesn't just tell themselves "my stories can't affect other people's behaviour" because it's comfortable for them to believe that. They make the effort to actually inform themselves so they understand the implications of their choices.