Authorial Endorsement -- what do you think?

[SamScribble]

I wrote a short story about a gangster taking the body of a rival to be dumped in a lake on the edge of town. As the gangster drives out to the lake in his classic Humber Super Snipe, he has a young boy with him in the car and he feeds the boy titbits of advice for a good life. Set clear goals. Work hard. Don’t steal. Pay your debts. (The action takes place on the Ides of March.)

At the lake, an ‘associate’ is waiting to row the body out and dump it in the deep water. When the body has been ‘left to sleep with the fishes’, the gangster gives the ‘associate’ a couple of fivers and tells him to buy himself some flowers. On the drive back to town, the gangster gives the boy more good life-advice.

As the author, do I get credit for the good life-advice? Or am I guilty of encouraging people to get rid of their rivals by feeding them to the fishes? Just wondering.

 

[Emirus]

We're writing FICTION made up stories with made up people

That word, accountability is what it comes down to. Losers can't possibly be responsible for their own behavior, so when they rape someone or kill someone or do something wrong, it must have been a book or movie or a song because they can't possibly be responsible for themselves. .[/

This comment gave me the biggest smile I’ve had for a while:

“But its still a good topic, hell, at least its not about scores and H's and votes.”

and that’s me speaking as one of the guilty.

Here’s a new topic, just posted, for everybody interested in red H’s. Sorry, but I just had to do it.

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1531036

As for this topic if writers were held responsible for other people’s actions there wouldn’t be any writers. Except for Ray Bradbury. I’ve got a nasty assassination in one of my stories if anyone’s interested.

__________________

 

[holliday1960]

To my way of thinking, these things are all equally valid or invalid. I'm inclined to say: just write your story and indulge your fantasy if that is what you want to do. But, while many seem to agree with this concept in theory, they don't when it comes to certain issues that hit their buttons.

For the last time, Simon... I wasn't the one who gave your tentacle-sex story all those 1*!!! Now, put it behind you and get out there and write a NORMAL story!!!

 

[SimonDoom]

write a NORMAL story!!!

What fun would that be?

 

[BiscuitHammer]

I must admit, when it comes to people posting things I don't like, I just keep scrolling. This is an erotic fantasy website. There don't have to be consequences for unprotected sex. There can be giant dicks on every guy, and gravity defying huge boobs on every woman.

Is it unrealistic? Maybe. Does it give me unrealistic expectations of the world around me? No, I've got eyes, I'm smarter than that. And I don't feel cheated because I read an idealized story somewhere. I read erotica stories to enjoy good storytelling. I'm not here for reality, that's all around me.

As for people who get offended by something (and please note I'm differentiating between the merely offended and the genuinely triggered), thankfully you will NEVER be the grand moral arbiter of humanity. If you've got time to jump up and down, waving your hands in the air and yelping 'Ooh, pick me! Pick me to be offended!', then you're probably doing life incorrectly.

Policing ones cultural apparatus for wrongthink is a full-time job, and requires anaerobic beings, because who else could possibly survive in those thousand mile-tall ivory towers, screaming judgment down upon humanity?

You're the person? You're a better man than I am, Gunga-din.

Where was I?

I think the tags system does a decent job of letting a person know ahead of time what they're considering reading. If I see something in not into, I move past it. If a story completely sucks, I stop reading, and I don't even rate it. I've never 1-bombed a story, ever. It's not worth my time.

My trigger, is you will, is horrific grammar or fragmented storytelling. It happens on here, unfortunatement. If a character starts pooping in another character's mouth, I close the link. Done.

I like the thread and thank the OP for opening a discussion. Basically, I consider this an erotic fantasy website. Let people have their fantasies. Draw the line to protect children and animals. After that, I trust Laurel to keep the dangerous out of here.

Thanks again, OP.

 

[AlinaX]

Thought this was interesting:

However, the findings regarding sexually explicit stimuli are inconsistent with the feminist perspective, whose proponents often contend that exposure to pornography is one of the causes of violence against women. ... Other data suggest that exposure to certain types of pornography, particularly violent pornography, does not change adults' sexual arousal patterns, including sexual arousal from aggression (e.g., Ceniti & Malamuth, 1984), but may increase men's callous attitudes towards women, acceptance of rape myths, and aggressive behavior in the laboratory (e.g., Malamuth & Donnerstein, 1984).

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ffec/9d555801e99bab6919c0d4c88f515bd014a3.pdf

 

[Bramblethorn]

One, I'm skeptical of the grounds for believing that erotic fiction, especially erotic fiction published at Literotica, can have adverse consequences. I believe words are powerful and have consequences, but I also believe their impact is complex, multi-faceted, sometimes conflicting, and often almost impossible to ascertain with any degree of reliability.

I think you're trying to have it both ways in saying that everything is so nebulous and uncertain that we can't possibly know that certain fiction could have adverse consequences... while also confidently proclaiming that the publication of stories is a major social good.

To me, it's a little like weather forecasting. It's an inexact science, and some kinds of predictions are hard to make. But we can still predict an awful lot with a great deal of certainty - indeed, a large chunk of discussion on AH is based on the premise that we can influence our readers in a predictable sort of way through the choices we make when writing. We talk about how plot arcs, characterisation, word choice, even punctuation can be used to play with our readers, but when it comes to the potential to influence them in negative ways: unpossible!

The world is much better off, IMO, for the publication of Lolita, even though it is about the statutory rape of a young girl by an older man. It's possible that somebody, somewhere, was inspired to commit a crime because of that novel. But I still think the world is better off because it was written.

Thoughts?

I think you're being very inconsistent with your standard of proof here.

 

[KeithD]

Thought this was interesting:

However, the findings regarding sexually explicit stimuli are inconsistent with the feminist perspective, whose proponents often contend that exposure to pornography is one of the causes of violence against women. ... Other data suggest that exposure to certain types of pornography, particularly violent pornography, does not change adults' sexual arousal patterns, including sexual arousal from aggression (e.g., Ceniti & Malamuth, 1984), but may increase men's callous attitudes towards women, acceptance of rape myths, and aggressive behavior in the laboratory (e.g., Malamuth & Donnerstein, 1984).

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ffec/9d555801e99bab6919c0d4c88f515bd014a3.pdf

Whew, I'm safe (for most of the stories). There are no women to be callously treated at all in most of my stories. (and virtually no feminist men to be picked apart either.)

 

[Bramblethorn]

Anybody who believes this should be campaigning to have the remaining Beatles locked up because of Charles Manson.

Judging a work of fiction based on how a reader or viewer might misinterpret it is untenable. Is it Martin Scorsese's fault that John Hinckley shot Reagan? Is JD Salinger responsible for John Lennon's death? Pointing a finger at an author because you fear their work might inspire bad behavior is to allow the worst readers to set the standard for judgment.

I think both of you are being a mite disingenuous here.

The fact that some consequences of a story (or song) are unforeseeable doesn't mean that all of them are, and the fact that some readers grossly misinterpret a work doesn't mean that all interpretations are misinterpretations. It's like the guy who says "remember that freak storm the forecasters didn't predict? That's why I never heed weather forecasts."

For example, I think somebody who reads "My Rise And Fall" is very like to come away from that feeling more compassion and empathy towards women in prison, and I would honestly be very surprised if Melissa had not been looking for that reaction while she was writing it.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think you're being very inconsistent with your standard of proof here.

I think there's some truth to this, but I don't think those who advocate freedom and those who advocate regulation and banning things have the same burden of proof. I think the burden of proof, in a decent and civilized society, is on those who say: "You shouldn't write this!"

I don't have to prove that I should be able to write something. You have to prove that I shouldn't. You cannot make your case simply by claiming that what I write is immoral. You must prove it by showing that it has bad consequences. I don't think you (I mean the generic you, not you, specifically) can do that.

Consider Lolita.

I know that Lolita has a social benefit, because I enjoyed reading it, and I know for a fact that millions of other people enjoyed reading it. That's a benefit.

Possibly, millions of people did NOT enjoy it. Perhaps a forensic expert could produce a study showing that 70% of those who read Lolita did not like it, and that a majority wished it to be banned.

Would that count for anything? In my opinion, no. It would count for nothing, whatsoever. They have the option of not reading it. If the book is banned, I don't have the option of reading it. In a free society, we don't see these things as equal. We do not put equal burdens of proof on those who advocate for the dissemination of an artwork and those who advocate for its restriction. It's a fundamental matter of principle, and it's one I believe in.

I'm entitled to claim that Lolita has a social benefit without proof, because I know that I, and others, like it. In a free society, that counts. Those who want to ban it, on the other hand, in a free society must meet a much higher burden of proof. They must show that it is harmful by means of something much more than simply saying "It offended me" or "I didn't like it." They have to make a plausible case that it caused cognizable harm, something more than just offense and outrage.

I don't see that case being met in most instances where people criticize an erotic story on the ground that it endorses an allegedly "harmful" viewpoint.

 

[RejectReality]

I think both of you are being a mite disingenuous here.

The fact that some consequences of a story (or song) are unforeseeable doesn't mean that all of them are, and the fact that some readers grossly misinterpret a work doesn't mean that all interpretations are misinterpretations. It's like the guy who says "remember that freak storm the forecasters didn't predict? That's why I never heed weather forecasts."

For example, I think somebody who reads "My Rise And Fall" is very like to come away from that feeling more compassion and empathy towards women in prison, and I would honestly be very surprised if Melissa had not been looking for that reaction while she was writing it.

Well, the whole world should be full of wannabe meth kingpins and mobsters considering how popular Breaking Bad and the Sopranos were.

People who commit crimes or become assholes are going to do it anyway. When not provided something they like to latch onto that directly relates to their deranged fantasies, they decide a Beatles album is code for starting a race war, or they need to shoot Reagan to win Jodie Foster's love.

Holding makers responsible for the deranged acts of deranged people is a recipe for the complete collapse of all culture.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I think there's some truth to this, but I don't think those who advocate freedom and those who advocate regulation and banning things have the same burden of proof. I think the burden of proof, in a decent and civilized society, is on those who say: "You shouldn't write this!"

You talk as if these two were the same thing. Do you understand that there's a vast difference between them?

We've discussed this topic more than once here, and it seems like this false equivalence keeps coming up: telling somebody "X is bad, you shouldn't do it" is not "regulation and banning things".

The writer is free to write what they want, and within the USA they are mostly free* to publish it by any means available to them. Equally, the reader is free to tell them "that's a shitty thing and you shouldn't have written it", and publishers are free to make their own choices about whether they want to help the writer publish.

It'd be nice if we could have these discussions without equating criticism with government restriction.

*caveats: defamation, copyright, very occasionally obscenity though you really have to work at it to get convicted under US laws, and probably something about terrorism.

 

[SimonDoom]

You talk as if these two were the same thing. Do you understand that there's a vast difference between them?

We've discussed this topic more than once here, and it seems like this false equivalence keeps coming up: telling somebody "X is bad, you shouldn't do it" is not "regulation and banning things".

The writer is free to write what they want, and within the USA they are mostly free* to publish it by any means available to them. Equally, the reader is free to tell them "that's a shitty thing and you shouldn't have written it", and publishers are free to make their own choices about whether they want to help the writer publish.

It'd be nice if we could have these discussions without equating criticism with government restriction.

*caveats: defamation, copyright, very occasionally obscenity though you really have to work at it to get convicted under US laws, and probably something about terrorism.

I keenly understand the difference and my concern, here, is with the "you shouldn't do this" perspective. This has nothing to do with government regulation, and nothing in my post addressed the government. I'm reacting in part to posts I see with a fair degree of frequency to the effect that "I wish Literotica wouldn't allow stories of that sort to be published." And I'm responding to those who believe stories should be criticized on the basis that they are irresponsible. My point is that I'm skeptical about whether there is ANY cognizable negative impact by a Literotica story on the real world, and, perhaps more to the point, whether there is any predictable or foreseeable impact. There are so many stories and so many readers that it's likely that some of them have some impact. I just don't believe that anyone has an empirically sound basis to predict what those impacts will be, and that criticisms of stories on the ground that they are irresponsible probably are based on unsound assumptions.

 

[KeithD]

I think some Literotica authors should put more effort into their own story files and their own writing and less in what other authors are doing--that they should just let Laurel worry about that. If they don't want their stories to coexist with any others here, they have their own options they can invoke. I don't think the Web site has established a "morality police" position and advertised for volunteers.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Well, the whole world should be full of wannabe meth kingpins and mobsters considering how popular Breaking Bad and the Sopranos were.

...have you looked at the world lately?

People who commit crimes or become assholes are going to do it anyway.

Citation needed.

When not provided something they like to latch onto that directly relates to their deranged fantasies, they decide a Beatles album is code for starting a race war, or they need to shoot Reagan to win Jodie Foster's love.

Holding makers responsible for the deranged acts of deranged people is a recipe for the complete collapse of all culture.

Nothing in the essay, or the context in which AMD originally posted, references Hinckley or Manson or similar cases. Nowhere does it attempt to argue that creators should be considered responsible in a case of that sort.

It would be great if people felt like engaging with some of what actually is in the essay, instead of arguing against a position it never took based on extreme and unusual cases that it never mentioned.

"People should wear seatbelts in vehicles because it reduces the risk of injury in accidents."
"Yeah, well, what about the HINDENBURG or the TITANIC? Seatbelts wouldn't have saved anybody there!!!"

—this is how it sounds when people go leaping for the Hinckley/Manson arguments in reply to something that wasn't remotely about that kind of case.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I keenly understand the difference and my concern, here, is with the "you shouldn't do this" perspective. This has nothing to do with government regulation, and nothing in my post addressed the government. I'm reacting in part to posts I see with a fair degree of frequency to the effect that "I wish Literotica wouldn't allow stories of that sort to be published."

If you were talking only about site policy, then I submit that this was considerable hyperbole:

I don't think those who advocate freedom and those who advocate regulation and banning things have the same burden of proof. I think the burden of proof, in a decent and civilized society, is on those who say: "You shouldn't write this!"

I don't have to prove that I should be able to write something.

No rule Literotica makes impinges at all on your "freedom" to "write something". They might decide they don't want to host it on their site, but as a privately-owned, privately-run website they're simply exercising their own freedom to choose what they do and don't want to do with the servers and bandwidth they're paying for. None of us ever had the right to a platform here. You still retain the freedom to write it, and to find some other publisher or to self-publish.

This kind of rhetoric only makes sense in the context of regulations set by a government, or perhaps a major tech monopoly.

I'm also not convinced that Literotica can accurately be described as "a decent and civilized society"...

 

[RejectReality]

It's only a matter of time and outrage once you start down that road. Have you looked around the world lately? From cop shows to Cardi B. The NBA. Huck Finn. Everything has to be banned and everyone cancelled, until there's nothing left. Everything is too dangerous for someone to allow to continue.

When they come for you, will there be anyone left to speak for you?

Unless Australopithecus was pantomiming some primitive version of Natural Born Killers, I'd say it's safe to assume that mental illness, homicide, and violence have been around longer than art and culture.

Humans are animals with sufficient self awareness to give us ephemeral reasons for violence beyond the instinctual need to survive and procreate.

It also gives us the ability to create.

Stifling creativity only leaves the violence.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I think both of you are being a mite disingenuous here.

The fact that some consequences of a story (or song) are unforeseeable doesn't mean that all of them are, and the fact that some readers grossly misinterpret a work doesn't mean that all interpretations are misinterpretations. It's like the guy who says "remember that freak storm the forecasters didn't predict? That's why I never heed weather forecasts."

For example, I think somebody who reads "My Rise And Fall" is very like to come away from that feeling more compassion and empathy towards women in prison, and I would honestly be very surprised if Melissa had not been looking for that reaction while she was writing it.

I certainly was. But I am cognizant there there are other people who might read it and think, "Wow. She really liked fucking on cocaine, maybe I ought to check that out." The question is whether or not I have a moral responsibility for their decision.

I get what you are saying, Manson and Hinckley are outliers. But I don't see how the same principles don't apply, whether the influenced behavior is shooting a president or committing a micro aggression in the office place. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't consider the potential consequences of what you write, but that it is one consideration among many, and not necessarily the most important.

By the way, I think there is a world of difference between Manson and Hinckley. There is nothing in the Beatles repertoire that could possibly have been construed by a sane person as it was by Manson. Taxi Driver is much more problematic.

 

[Omenainen]

The main point I'm going to take from this topic is to be aware of what I'm endorsing. I don't think it's a matter of consequence at all, I think it's a matter of intent. Any story is going to be endorsing something, whether it's "good" or "bad" is open for interpretation. So, I want to be aware of what I'm endorsing, because if I didn't want to endorse it, why do it at all?

One concrete consequence I can easily believe in, though, would be a reader thinking, "what a pile of crap, I don't want to read anything else from this author if they're endorsing that"; why risk it, if it's not important in the first place, either for the story or for me personally? The more controversial the topic, the more important it is to at least not endorse anything by accident.

I don't think the aspect of authorial endorsement can be dismissed by saying "but it's fiction", or "it's just erotica", I think we as authors just need to own what we write.

So that's what I'm thinking.

 

[davet_1_1]

I stole my disclaimer from the brouhaha around the film Zero Dark Thirty, which some seized on as pro-torture when the filmmakers explicitly said it wasn't: depiction is not (necessarily) endorsement.

People have been banging on about how horror movies/porn/novels and probably cave paintings have a deleterious effect on viewers/readers, and I've never bought it. Besides, it pales compared to cable 'news' and internet conspiracy loons.

 

[PennameWombat]

<snip>.

Review link: https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1516126
Article link: https://mythcreants.com/blog/authorial-endorsement-101/

<snip>The theory is that the author, knowingly or unknowingly, may be endorsing bad behavior.
<snip>
1. To what extent should a Literotica author be mindful of how the story might be interpreted, or of how it might influence people? Is it a realistic concern? Should you be concerned that because you write an erotic story about rape you make it more likely that rape will happen in the real world?

2. Are there things an author can do in a story to remove it from this type of scrutiny? To flag to the reader that "This is fantasy and you should not see it as reality?" Or is there nothing the author can do? Or does the author have no obligation to do that?

3. Is an author wrong to depict people doing bad things and getting away with it?

4. Is it wrong for an author to depict a certain type of behavior -- e.g., incest -- in a positive light even if in most cases in the real world that behavior is not positive?

My view, to get this discussion started: I'm a skeptic, though not necessarily an absolute disbeliever, in this theory, and in this approach to analyzing and evaluating fiction, including erotic fiction. I have two reasons.
<snip>
I think there is enormous social and artistic value to granting the right to fiction to be a free-wheeling fantasy space where people can pretty much write whatever they want, without regulation or consequence.
<snip>
Thoughts?

I might be late to the party here, but I finally had a chance to go read that blog posting.

And... the first thing it reminded me of was “CAP Alert.” You don’t know CAP Alert? Rational Wiki article on the Child Care Action Project. (Anyone who recalls me bringing up Jandek on another thread, this one’s another... um, product of Texas...)

CAP Alert is run by a fundamentalist Christian dude in Texas who since the mid-1990s has been doing movie reviews based on ‘biblical principles.’ Basically, there is no ‘art’ where CAP Alert is concerned, he takes everything utterly literally. But read the Rational Wiki article. It’s fair. Go read the actual movie reviews. They’re... anyway. They’re there. And long before I’d made it to the end of the blog posting my memories of CAP Alert had been dredged up in full color. The statements there just put me in the same space that “you’d better assume readers will take every word literally.” Just like the CAP Alert dude says of movies.

The “authorial endorsement” argument means I’m apparently a strong proponent of vigilantism, at least against terrorists and rapists. Of course, I previously endorsed rape and a terror attack using nanobots at Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice.

As the points:
1) See below about orgies in churches. Not rape, but another story had a couple who intervened to prevent a sex cult from performing human sacrifice but in the effort accidentally caused a huge fire that killed almost fifty people... Including many of the cultists. Is my message... it’s good to prevent human sacrifice just don’t kill fifty people doing it?

2) My stories are set in the ‘real’ world, but not really. I have aliens, energy vampires. But I also have outlaw bikers, crime gangs, police... My goal is a level of realism and these latter are real. But while individuals are sympathetic their choices aren’t whitewashed. But hey, justice is not clear and concise.

3) Holy shit. What are we supposed to write about? Ok, my Summer Lovin 2020 entry doesn’t have violence or rape... oh wait. It has premarital sex and the story ends with a Happily Ever After (well, Happily So Far) (alert, alert, CAP Alert dude! Sin!) Where, oh where, are we drawing the line? And it’s probably my most anodyne story. See CAP Alert. Define ‘getting away with it’? My couple that caused the huge fire? Their secret held.

4) If I had a thing about ‘glorifying’ violence, this point for me then essentially nukes something like 90% of 20th century popular entertainment. Think almost every western movie, where the Good Guy eventually blows away the Bad Guys, not to mention every other genre. I’m personally more bothered by the “treat them mean, keep them keen” viewpoint than incest. But I see it more my job to avoid because it annoys me.

I try to keep the moralizing out of my erotica--especially current-time political correctness. I include current scenarios in my writing but I depict them as they seem to be--leaving out the "should be" fairy dust. My characters tend to be "badder" than I'd ever be. When I'm reading (which, with erotica, is rarely) and the author gets political/social preachy, I'm gone.

To me, erotica is about creating sexual arousal. That's it.

And, in terms of assessing what others have written, I look for evidence that they've managed what they seemed to be trying to convey within their own perspective. I don't set it against my own political/social views and grade it on me rather than them. If a story is far off my own beam, I put it down--I don't, though, then write a review that reflects my own political/social views and promotes my own standards rather than what the author was trying to do. When I encounter a reviewer who is intrusive of their own political/social views, I just walk away from them too.

Emphasis added above. I agree. I generally avoid reading I/T and NonCon, although I have aspects of those in my stories. (City of Angels had all kinds of suggestion-driven orgy action.) I don’t care if they exist and with Categories and Tags I simply move along. I would never say “oh my god, a mother and a son! The horror!”

As to point 4 and this, I didn’t expect mass orgies to break out in public libraries and churches because of my story.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Any story is going to be endorsing something, whether it's "good" or "bad" is open for interpretation. So, I want to be aware of what I'm endorsing, because if I didn't want to endorse it, why do it at all?
.

I agree. Readers are going to react to what you write, so if you want to elicit certain reactions and not others, it's up to you. Many erotic stories take place in a fantasy land where STIs and rapists don't exist and everyone is always up for it - and for obvious reasons people like reading such stories. I find them a bit boring after a while but that's because so many are similar rather than a reaction to any individual story.

When stories purport to be real or in a realistic setting, then if they don't treat certain people with the respect or care that humans deserve, then I will judge the author, especially if it looks like it's their view rather than just a poorly-written protagonist. Most importantly, it'll turn me off. Many writers are probably writing only for guys like themselves - fine, they can, but you don't get to both put your story in the public domain and not be judged on it.

It's the lack of diversity in stories that bothers me more than any individual one - a person writing works where women are basically orifices to be penetrated, consent is never mentioned, and the descriptions of acts performed make clear either the author has never fucked a woman or doesn't care if she's injured - that's one thing, but when that's by far the most common sort of story on a site or in a category, what does that say about the culture?

I wonder if there's an age difference as well - people who don't remember sex before HIV are more likely to be jerked out of a story if safer sex isn't alluded to, ditto if you were raised to look for enthusiastic consent from a partner?

Laurel's Editors Choices are always stories that are a little bit different, I've found, and always interesting reads.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Anybody who believes this should be campaigning to have the remaining Beatles locked up because of Charles Manson.

Crazy and evil people are going to do what they're going to do. They latch onto things because their synapses aren't firing correctly — not the other way around.

What he said. I get a story in my head, I write it, and most of my stories are first person so I get right into my characters heads. Does that mean I endorse what they do? Nope, and I don’t really give a fig for critiques involving authorial endorsement as a critiquing approach. If someone wants to read that into my stories, it says a lot more about their head than mine and I honestly think it’s rather ridiculous, and yet another aspect of the Orwellian thought control Mindset that we see far too often now.

 

[Jamie_and_Lisa]

Reductio ad absurdum, its all the fault of prehistoric residents of what became known as the Vézère Valley of France who decorated caves with charcoal.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I might be late to the party here, but I finally had a chance to go read that blog posting.

And... the first thing it reminded me of was “CAP Alert.” You don’t know CAP Alert? Rational Wiki article on the Child Care Action Project. (Anyone who recalls me bringing up Jandek on another thread, this one’s another... um, product of Texas...)

CAP Alert is run by a fundamentalist Christian dude in Texas who since the mid-1990s has been doing movie reviews based on ‘biblical principles.’ Basically, there is no ‘art’ where CAP Alert is concerned, he takes everything utterly literally. But read the Rational Wiki article. It’s fair. Go read the actual movie reviews. They’re... anyway. They’re there. And long before I’d made it to the end of the blog posting my memories of CAP Alert had been dredged up in full color. The statements there just put me in the same space that “you’d better assume readers will take every word literally.” Just like the CAP Alert dude says of movies.

The “authorial endorsement” argument means I’m apparently a strong proponent of vigilantism, at least against terrorists and rapists. Of course, I previously endorsed rape and a terror attack using nanobots at Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice.

As the points:
1) See below about orgies in churches. Not rape, but another story had a couple who intervened to prevent a sex cult from performing human sacrifice but in the effort accidentally caused a huge fire that killed almost fifty people... Including many of the cultists. Is my message... it’s good to prevent human sacrifice just don’t kill fifty people doing it?

2) My stories are set in the ‘real’ world, but not really. I have aliens, energy vampires. But I also have outlaw bikers, crime gangs, police... My goal is a level of realism and these latter are real. But while individuals are sympathetic their choices aren’t whitewashed. But hey, justice is not clear and concise.

3) Holy shit. What are we supposed to write about? Ok, my Summer Lovin 2020 entry doesn’t have violence or rape... oh wait. It has premarital sex and the story ends with a Happily Ever After (well, Happily So Far) (alert, alert, CAP Alert dude! Sin!) Where, oh where, are we drawing the line? And it’s probably my most anodyne story. See CAP Alert. Define ‘getting away with it’? My couple that caused the huge fire? Their secret held.

4) If I had a thing about ‘glorifying’ violence, this point for me then essentially nukes something like 90% of 20th century popular entertainment. Think almost every western movie, where the Good Guy eventually blows away the Bad Guys, not to mention every other genre. I’m personally more bothered by the “treat them mean, keep them keen” viewpoint than incest. But I see it more my job to avoid because it annoys me.



Emphasis added above. I agree. I generally avoid reading I/T and NonCon, although I have aspects of those in my stories. (City of Angels had all kinds of suggestion-driven orgy action.) I don’t care if they exist and with Categories and Tags I simply move along. I would never say “oh my god, a mother and a son! The horror!”

As to point 4 and this, I didn’t expect mass orgies to break out in public libraries and churches because of my story.

I don't think the author of the blog post, or anyone here, is calling for writers to refrain from writing stories that contain violence or other objectionable conduct. The issue is whether or not you present it in a manner that conveys your approval of it. If that is your intention, you are well within your rights, and others are within theirs in voicing there objections to it, but that's not the point.

I may not have expressed myself clearly in this thread. I agree with the premise of the article, although I think some of their examples are poorly chosen.

Bramblethorn brought up my series, My Fall and Rise. I'll let her speak for herself here:

For example, I think somebody who reads "My Rise And Fall" is very like to come away from that feeling more compassion and empathy towards women in prison, and I would honestly be very surprised if Melissa had not been looking for that reaction while she was writing it.

She is absolutely right. But at the same time, the story contains explicit scenes of drug use and other bad behavior. The narrative requires that using cocaine, ecstasy and other drugs is, at some points, depicted as exciting, alluring, desirable.
You can say that the point of the story is to illustrate why that perception is wrong, but, I have received a surprising amount of input from readers who ignored the main premise, telling me how much they love having sex when they are high, and even inviting me to forgo my recovery and joining them.

I wrote scenes clearly intended to make fucking on x and coke sound as exciting as possible. Without explaining the allure to readers, it is impossible to convey the consequences. Now, if a reader says, "woo, sex and drugs, sounds great" and ends up in the hospital with a fentanyl overdose, do I bear any moral responsibility?

So, there was an inherent conflict in my intentions that can not be resolved within the story itself. I can't do all the work for the reader. They have to bring a willingness to absorb and understand what the story is saying. I bear the responsibility of writing a story that conveys my intentions to the best of my ability, as I feel responsible for putting out my best work in all the other aspects of storytelling.

I don't think of readers as passive observers. They are active participants in the process. They depict the characters in their own imaginations, they "see" the action in ways that are subtly different from the author, they draw their own conclusions about what it all means.

So, while I agree with the concept of authorial intent, I recognize its limitations.