AAAGH -- Final Fifty Shades book to be released!

[KeithD]

Sales isn't everything. I will not bash E.L. James, but the story was poorly written and created a lot of misconceptions in the community. That being said, the story was/is successful in finding it's audience.

My point was and continues to be to those sour grapes "why lousy her and not brilliant me?" people on E.L. James's books, which usually includes the declaration that they are better writers in the genre that she writes in, that she established the profitability and reader base for the genre for them and they should be sending her flowers rather than flaming her--and this is particularly so if they genuinely can do it better than she does. If they couldn't, they wouldn't have the opportunity to make hay out of it themselves. If they are better writers and more clever at selling themselves, she's now given them a genre that has an audience that wasn't robustly there before the 50 Shades series came out.

I never posted the she was a good writer. I hear she isn't, but I haven't read anything she wrote. That's no part of the point I made no matter how much others on the thread try to make it so.

The OP was just the typical sour grapes dump on someone who gave them a gift.

 

[MsNatalie99]

My point was and continues to be to those sour grapes "why lousy her and not brilliant me?" people on E.L. James's books, which usually includes the declaration that they are better writers in the genre that she writes in, that she established the profitability and reader base for the genre for them and they should be sending her flowers rather than flaming her--and this is particularly so if they genuinely can do it better than she does. If they couldn't, they wouldn't have the opportunity to make hay out of it themselves. If they are better writers and more clever at selling themselves, she's now given them a genre that has an audience that wasn't robustly there before the 50 Shades series came out.

I never posted the she was a good writer. I hear she isn't, but I haven't read anything she wrote. That's no part of the point I made no matter how much others on the thread try to make it so.

The OP was just the typical sour grapes dump on someone who gave them a gift.

She's got money and readers, why's she need flowers too? I don't believe that I am a better writer than anyone. I'd have to be pretty vain, in order to put others down just to lift myself up. I don't understand why you are upset. I only suggest that substance isn't the indicator of success, but that the story finding it's intended audience is. She's done well for herself, exceedingly so. For that she should be applauded. It doesn't mean that the work is flawless, and seeing the flaws doesn't mean that the author isn't recognized.

 

[KeithD]

Congrats or something for missing/avoiding the point.

I've spent significant time looking for and exploiting underserved/undersubscribed literary genres in the e-book era, so I can appreciate what E.L. James has done for BDSM writers.

ONCE AGAIN THE POINT: There was no robust BDSM publishing genre before the release of the 50 Shades series. There is now. E.L. James's works are what provided that. Every writer of the BDSM genre who can find a robust reader/buyer base now owes the opening of the genre to her works. Flaming her because she made a bundle out of it and they haven't is just sour grapes.

If you are a BDSM writer and you don't appreciate that, you aren't a deep thinker and/or you think it's all about you personally and what you fancy is being stolen from you, the obviously better writer and promoter.

 

[SimonDoom]

There are live people in this thread who experience the downside, the displeasure that comes from badly-written rep, and have been telling you about it. This is only "conjecture" if you believe people at the other end of the internet don't exist.

(other than the ones who send positive feedback, those people are real!)

I want to make sure I understand what you are saying and that I'm not misconstruing it. Id I am, please let me know.

I've read the comments in this thread and don't see support for the idea that the book, to the extent it mischaracterizes BDSM, has caused harm. My reading of what people have said is that by doing so it gives them concern or causes them offense.

But that doesn't count as a downside. The fact that 100 people like a painting and 110 people don't like it doesn't mean the painting creates harm, or is on balance a negative thing. It's not an argument that the painting shouldn't exist. The people who don't like something can choose to ignore it. There is a net positive as long as some people like it. So when I read people suggesting that something shouldn't be written or created because they don't like it, my reaction is, So? That's what it means to live in a free society. If you don't like it you don't have to read it. Let those who enjoy it, enjoy it.

If there's actual proof of tangible harm being created by a work of art, that's worth thinking about. But there has to be a strong presumption in favor of letting it circulate.

None of which is to say it's not perfectly fair to criticize James's book as bad art because of the way it presents BDSM and the way the characters respond to it. That was my biggest criticism of the book -- even bigger than my beef with the bad prose. But apparently millions of people disagreed and got a lot out of it, and that counts for a lot. I give her credit for writing a story that somehow connected with people.

 

[MsNatalie99]

Congrats or something for missing/avoiding the point.

I've spent significant time looking for and exploiting underserved/undersubscribed literary genres in the e-book era, so I can appreciate what E.L. James has done for BDSM writers.

ONCE AGAIN THE POINT: There was no robust BDSM publishing genre before the release of the 50 Shades series. There is now. E.L. James's works are what provided that. Every writer of the BDSM who can find a robust reader/buyer base now owes the opening of the genre to her works. Flaming her because she made a bundle out of it and they haven't is just sour grapes.

If you are a BDSM writer and you don't appreciate that, you aren't a deep thinker and/or you think it's all about you personally and what you fancy is being stolen from you, the obviously better writer and promoter.

Am I being scolded by the elite stealth pilot, the international super spy, the Diplomat, or the Prolific Author. I got your point. Loud and clear. I was only disagreeing on one small thing you said. Feel free to speak to me like a clod for not taking everything you say as scripture, but quantity does not always equate to quality. Sorry if this offends you, but you can no more change my mind than I can change yours.

 

[KeithD]

I really think we should dig Agatha Christie up and hang her for causing all of those country estate-weekend-in-a-blizzard murders by motivating gullible people to commit them by reading her books.

 

[KeithD]

but quantity does not always equate to quality.

Nice (and irrelevant) snark, but it's not an issue of disagreeing with me on this point. This point has nothing to do with what I've been posting. It is deflection for you to be introducing it and beating on it.

 

[MsNatalie99]

None of which is to say it's not perfectly fair to criticize James's book as bad art because of the way it presents BDSM and the way the characters respond to it. That was my biggest criticism of the book -- even bigger than my beef with the bad prose. But apparently millions of people disagreed and got a lot out of it, and that counts for a lot. I give her credit for writing a story that somehow connected with people.

Yes, I agree

 

[MsNatalie99]

Nice (and irrelevant) snark, but it's not an issue of disagreeing with me on this point. This point has nothing to do with what I've been posting. It is deflection for you to be introducing it and beating on it.

Ok, your right Keith. Always right. Let us all bow to you. My point is irrelevant. Other authors opinions are irrelevant. Good to know. Please feel free to inform me of what I am supposed to think so that I don't look foolish in the future.

And if my point has nothing to do with what you are saying, why are you arguing so aggressively against it?

 

[jaF0]

Same. There's something about his writing that doesn't connect with me. I've never successfully made it more than a chapter or two into anything, and haven't cracked one in probably 30 years.

Last real books I read were by Joe Wambaugh. Though he deals with a specific subject matter, he had a nose for comic phrases; ie the husband and wife team, Balls Hadley and No Balls Hadley.

 

[KeithD]

Ok, your right Keith. Always right. Let us all bow to you. My point is irrelevant. Other authors opinions are irrelevant. Good to know. Please feel free to inform me of what I am supposed to think so that I don't look foolish in the future.

And if my point has nothing to do with what you are saying, why are you arguing so aggressively against it?

Get off your high horse. Your point is irrelevant to what I was posting here. It doesn't have to be irrelevant to the thread or to the E.L. James broader issues. But just stop beating on me for something I haven't posted. And you can take your snark and stick it up where the sun don't shine.

 

[MsNatalie99]

Get off your high horse. Your point is irrelevant to what I was posting here. It doesn't have to be irrelevant to the thread or to the E.L. James broader issues. But just stop beating on me for something I haven't posted. And you can take your snark and stick it up where the sun don't shine.

'Get off your high horse ' says the pot to the kettle. This is a forum., an open exchange of ideas on a subject. So is no one allowed to offer any thoughts if you don't pre-approve them? I'm not beating on you. As for where the sun doesn't shine, you can pull the stick out of yours.

 

[KeithD]

'Get off your high horse ' says the pot to the kettle. This is a forum., an open exchange of ideas on a subject. So is no one allowed to offer any thoughts if you don't pre-approve them? I'm not beating on you. As for where the sun doesn't shine, you can pull the stick out of yours.

They don't assert I'm posting what I'm not and then argue at me on a position I haven't taken without being challenged on it, no.

And do, please, point out the snarky personal digs I've made at you on this thread that you are launching at me.

 

[MsNatalie99]

They don't assert I'm posting what I'm not and then argue at me on a position I haven't taken without being challenged on it, no.

I did no such thing. I said that... you know what, if you would like to continue this conversation, you can send me a PM. But this is getting entirely too childish to continue on a thread. I am assuming that this is just a misunderstanding, but I haven't the patience to try to break it down for you publicly.

 

[SamScribble]

I dipped into a bit of E L James – just to see what it was all about. It wasn’t to my taste. BDSM is not my thing. But far, far worse (to my mind) was her prose. What publisher thought that this ugly beast was worthy of an outing between covers? As it turned out, a very smart one.

I can only assume that her readers either don’t know or don’t care that she seems incapable of writing a decent sentence. They (apparently) keep coming back for more. I’m pretty sure that they’ll be back for dose number five. Will the prose have improved markedly? I doubt it. Will her readers care? Not one little bit. Will I be reading it? Hell, no!

 

[MsNatalie99]

I dipped into a bit of E L James – just to see what it was all about. It wasn’t to my taste. BDSM is not my thing. But far, far worse (to my mind) was her prose. What publisher thought that this ugly beast was worthy of an outing between covers? As it turned out, a very smart one.

I can only assume that her readers either don’t know or don’t care that she seems incapable of writing a decent sentence. They (apparently) keep coming back for more. I’m pretty sure that they’ll be back for dose number five. Will the prose have improved markedly? I doubt it. Will her readers care? Not one little bit. Will I be reading it? Hell, no!

I'm not a fan of her work, but I can agree with the consensus that she has brought attention to the Genre. She certainly has a strong enough following. I hope that future authors will capitalize on the door she opened.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I want to make sure I understand what you are saying and that I'm not misconstruing it. Id I am, please let me know.

I've read the comments in this thread and don't see support for the idea that the book, to the extent it mischaracterizes BDSM, has caused harm. My reading of what people have said is that by doing so it gives them concern or causes them offense.

But that doesn't count as a downside. The fact that 100 people like a painting and 110 people don't like it doesn't mean the painting creates harm, or is on balance a negative thing. It's not an argument that the painting shouldn't exist. The people who don't like something can choose to ignore it.

"If you don't like the smell of cigarette smoke, don't smoke, and let the guy next to you make his own choices."

I don't get a choice about whether people around me - doctor, therapist, friends, whoever - have absorbed harmful misconceptions about topics like BDSM from material like 50SoG. I don't get a choice about whether those misconceptions affect me. The only choice I get there is between the harms that come with disclosing and being judged by a stereotype, or the harms of non-disclosing and concealing relevant information and having people who are supposed to help me missing vital information.

I had something long typed up about how the kinds of tropes propagated by 50SoG have harmed me at one of the worst points in my life, about how it feels to be kicked when you're down by the person who was supposed to be helping you up (and getting to pay for the privilege), about how much filtering I have to go through figuring out what I can and can't disclose any time I meet a doctor or a therapist or a new friend. But you know what? It hurts to dig that shit up and I don't actually value your opinion highly enough to do that to myself.

I don't really need the Simon's Debating Club Seal of Approval.

There is a net positive as long as some people like it. So when I read people suggesting that something shouldn't be written or created because they don't like it, my reaction is, So? That's what it means to live in a free society. If you don't like it you don't have to read it. Let those who enjoy it, enjoy it.

Here's some art that some people liked:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Plakat_der_ewige_Jude%2C_1937.jpg

If there's actual proof of tangible harm being created by a work of art, that's worth thinking about. But there has to be a strong presumption in favor of letting it circulate.

In other words: the only point at which we can conclude that a work of art is harmful is in hindsight, once the damage is done and there's nothing useful to be done with that conclusion.

I give her credit for writing a story that somehow connected with people.

It's honestly not that hard to "connect with people" if you're not fussy about how you connect with people or what the consequences are.

 

[slave_]

A little bird told me about this thread. I had to stop in for the shits and giggles.

 

[SimonDoom]

"If you don't like the smell of cigarette smoke, don't smoke, and let the guy next to you make his own choices."

It's obviously a bad analogy. There's scientific, medical evidence of the harm caused by second-hand smoke.

There's no equivalent evidence of the harm of stories that you think transgress your concepts of decency, despite your vague suggestions that there is, or that I should credit people's "feelings" about these stories as such evidence. I don't credit those feelings. Feelings are not evidence. The feelings of those who are offended by a story are no more important than the feelings of those who enjoy it. Call me an old-fashioned, out of it Boomer or whatever you want, but that's how civilized people, IMO, mediate between differences of opinion, taste, moral, politics, and esthetics. One person's offense doesn't trump another person's enjoyment.

I don't get a choice about whether people around me - doctor, therapist, friends, whoever - have absorbed harmful misconceptions about topics like BDSM from material like 50SoG. I don't get a choice about whether those misconceptions affect me. The only choice I get there is between the harms that come with disclosing and being judged by a stereotype, or the harms of non-disclosing and concealing relevant information and having people who are supposed to help me missing vital information.

I have no idea what this means. And it's not because I'm not listening. I read this paragraph several times. You don't get a choice about what people around you read. So what? Misconceptions don't affect you. Actions affect you. A misconception that is not acted on does not affect you. If you have evidence -- I mean real evidence -- that real people in the real world have acted upon things they've read in 50 Shades and caused real, tangible harm to other people, that counts for something. Vague concerns about misconceptions don't count for anything. It's not an unrealistic thing to ask. Millions and millions of people have read the books or seen the movies. Is there any evidence of harm? It seems like a perfect case to test the hypothesis. I don't get the sense anyone wants to go to the trouble. They want to speculate and moralize.

I had something long typed up about how the kinds of tropes propagated by 50SoG have harmed me at one of the worst points in my life, about how it feels to be kicked when you're down by the person who was supposed to be helping you up (and getting to pay for the privilege), about how much filtering I have to go through figuring out what I can and can't disclose any time I meet a doctor or a therapist or a new friend. But you know what? It hurts to dig that shit up and I don't actually value your opinion highly enough to do that to myself.

I don't really need the Simon's Debating Club Seal of Approval.

You are under no obligation to go to a lot of trouble to reveal personal information to respond to something I said. I'm just some guy on the Internet. You have no obligation to dig up hurtful stuff to respond to me. I wouldn't do that if I were you. This is why I think it's generally better NOT to rely upon personal experience and authority in social media but to refer to evidence from third-party sources (something you often do very effectively). But it's gratuitous and a bit odd that you would feel a need to express that you don't care about my opinion. Obviously, I never implied you need my seal of approval on anything, so there's no need for you to say such a thing. It just comes across as snarky and gratuitous for you to say that.

For the record, while I often disagree with you, I DO value your opinion, because on many issues we agree and even when we don't your positions are almost always well stated, nuanced, and supported by evidence (though your last post falls short of your usual standard, IMO). Plus, there have been a few cases where you've caused me to reconsider my opinion, and I appreciate that.

Here's some art that some people liked:

So, Godwin's Law, basically. Nazis. That's the first rule of bad social media argumentation: don't suggest an opposing viewpoint endorses Hitler and Nazis. But you went there. That's a little beneath you, isn't it? Not to mention an unintelligent comparison.

Nazi posters were made as propaganda with the express intention of hurting real human beings. 50 Shades is a fantasy story, with no political agenda, adapted from a story about vampires, about BDSM by somebody who didn't know anything about the subject addressed to a readership of housewives/romance novel readers who also didn't know anything about it and were likely never to practice it. 50 Shades is a book for gothic romance novel readers, only it has whips and cable ties. It's not a legitimate comparison. It doesn't work at all.

In other words: the only point at which we can conclude that a work of art is harmful is in hindsight, once the damage is done and there's nothing useful to be done with that conclusion.

Yes. That's right, when it comes to speech and art. All we have is hindsight, and evidence gathered from observation and experience. Everything else is worthless speculation and completely compromised by ideological bias. So as a result we should default to a position of maximum freedom of speech and tolerance for what we find offensive. There's a cost to it, but the cost of relying on speculation to clamp down on what is disagreeable to us is greater.

It's honestly not that hard to "connect with people" if you're not fussy about how you connect with people or what the consequences are.

I don't know about that. I think there are probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of un-fussy authors who have failed to connect where EL James succeeded. The bottom line is that people liked what she did. Against that obvious evidence of pleasure and entertainment, what do we have on the other side of the ledger? Bad art, sure. But harm? The burden of proof is on those who advocate against it on the ground it causes countervailing harm. Nothing in this thread so far has shown proof of such harm in a meaningful way.

 

[Wifetheif]

Sales isn't everything. I will not bash E.L. James, but the story was poorly written and created a lot of misconceptions in the community. That being said, the story was/is successful in finding it's audience.

There is NO doubt that E.L. James is a very successful writer. A writer can be a major seller with “Primitive” prose for lack of a better word. People will put up with a lot if they find the book compelling enough. Do I wish I was as successful as her? Unquestionably! HOWEVER, James’s success was literally built on the back of another author. Without the prior success of the “Twilight” phenomenon, there would have been NO “Fifty Shades” phenomenon. That is a simple FACT. Without all of Meyers's sparkly vampires, there NEVER would have been a market for a slightly kinky version of the SAME characters in slightly different clothes. She even stole Meyer’s market, namely mothers who had read “Twilight” along with their daughters. Literally, nothing that she did was in any way original. FSOG started out as “Master of the Universe” fan fiction. Now there is no shame in producing fanfiction. Many fanfiction writers later go on to write scripts for their favorite shows or create their own ORIGINAL novels Most fanfiction writers do not have spouses in the publishing industry so that their book bypasses ordinary scrutiny. Would I have taken advantage of a family connection to get published, You bet! I’d be humble about however as I considered that my family connection means that some other probably more talented writer will receive a rejection letter. We don’t congratulate opportunists or nepotism -- nobody likes a weasel. If Stephanie Meyer had not allowed the publication of FSOG, James would still be a fanfiction writer. She owes ALL of her success to others. That is not “sour grapes” it is fact. Meyer created the world. Meyer created the market and James appropriated it. I maintain that virtually EVERY author here at L.com is a better stylist than her. In fact, James could NEVER have begun her career as an L.Com writer, because L.com has standards it is very difficult to get a story about say, Lois Lane or Powergirl published here because they are copyrighted characters. Had James tried to publish “Master of the Universe” here at lit, Laurel would have taken it down the first day. Literotica.com hs standards, E.L. James has none!

 

[Bramblethorn]

There's no equivalent evidence of the harm of stories that you think transgress your concepts of decency, despite your vague suggestions that there is, or that I should credit people's "feelings" about these stories as such evidence.

I've never invoked "decency" in this thread, and I don't have a high tolerance for people putting words in my mouth. This is the only warning I'll give on that before I put you on ignore.

Call me an old-fashioned, out of it Boomer or whatever you want, but that's how civilized people, IMO, mediate between differences of opinion, taste, moral, politics, and esthetics.

I have some views about that position, and of the appropriateness of putting those five things together, but I would not dream of attributing this to your age.

I have no idea what this means. And it's not because I'm not listening. I read this paragraph several times. You don't get a choice about what people around you read. So what? Misconceptions don't affect you. Actions affect you. A misconception that is not acted on does not affect you.

I didn't think I had to join those dots, but okay, let me join them: people who have misconceptions act on them, in little ways and big ways. I have been on the receiving end of that. It was not enjoyable.

You are under no obligation to go to a lot of trouble to reveal personal information to respond to something I said. I'm just some guy on the Internet. You have no obligation to dig up hurtful stuff to respond to me. I wouldn't do that if I were you. This is why I think it's generally better NOT to rely upon personal experience and authority in social media but to refer to evidence from third-party sources (something you often do very effectively).

I do indeed try to draw on reputable published research, when it's an option. Doing/using that kind of research is part of my job, and I have a great deal of respect for it.

I am also very much aware of its limitations.

One of those limitations is that some things are not easily quantified. How on earth would one begin to quantify the question of whether people are harmed by misconceptions that other people picked up from reading 50SoG? Would you survey the readers of that book, who don't know that their misconceptions are misconceptions and don't acknowledge them to be harmful? Would you survey the people who have been harmed from those misconceptions? How on earth could they confirm whether that misconception had come from 50SoG?

The closest I can think of would be to do a RCT: collect a bunch of people who've never read 50SoG, give half of them a copy to read, and give the other half something better-written on BDSM, along with a bunch of other reading material for both groups to mask the point of the study (because if they realise what the point is, that's gonna skew their answers), then do some testing to measure both groups' perceptions of BDSM and people who practice it.

(Of course, the answers somebody gives on a psych test aren't always a reliable indicator of what they'll actually do in a real-life situation, people don't even reliably report the stuff they have done, but let's ignore that extra challenge.)

Reading speeds are highly variable, but the 50SoG audiobook is about twenty hours. Let's say ten hours average reading time? If we give our subjects three other books of similar length, that's forty hours of their time. A good week's worth of work.

How much are we paying them? Let's assume we're doing this in the USA where minimum wage is $7.25, and that we're cheapasses so we don't offer them any higher. Throw in the cost of the books and that's somewhere over $300 per subject. It'd be more than double that in Australia, where minimum wage is considerably higher and you'd be expected to pay a 25% casual loading on top, but we're cheapasses so let's assume we're doing this in the USA.

How many participants would you like? Depends on a bunch of technical considerations around effect size/sensitivity/etc., but you'd probably want at least fifty in each group. Maybe a lot more, depending on those technical considerations, but let's lowball it at 100 participants.

So far, our costs are $30k. On top of that you have costs for subject recruitment, experimental design, questionnaire design and testing, data analysis, and possibly for publication, as well as all the admin involved in things like IRB approval for human-subjects experimentation. Let's say $50k all up? I don't budget these things so my numbers could be off here, but it's clearly going to be tens of thousands of dollars.

If you can rustle up that kind of money, I can probably find you some researchers who'd be interested in doing that work, even at the more or less inevitable price of becoming the central figure in a tedious newspaper article headlined "University spends $50k getting people to read porn". (Probably describing it as "taxpayer money" regardless of whether it actually is.)

Until then, if I've understood correctly what you mean by "evidence -- I mean real evidence", it is simply impossible to produce that kind of evidence. Insisting on this as the only kind of counter-evidence you're willing to consider is in effect saying that there's no evidence anybody could feasibly produce that would sway you.

But it's gratuitous and a bit odd that you would feel a need to express that you don't care about my opinion. Obviously, I never implied you need my seal of approval on anything, so there's no need for you to say such a thing. It just comes across as snarky and gratuitous for you to say that.

I say plenty of things that I don't strictly need to say. I'm not sure why this would be an issue.

So, Godwin's Law, basically. Nazis. That's the first rule of bad social media argumentation: don't suggest an opposing viewpoint endorses Hitler and Nazis. But you went there. That's a little beneath you, isn't it? Not to mention an unintelligent comparison.

I can't help but notice that for somebody who has been very insistent on the importance of people being able to express themselves in any conceivable way, regardless of the hurt it causes others, you're coming across as quite squeamish about the way I choose to express myself in this discussion.

If you can give me evidence -- real evidence -- that this is a bad thing to do, I will cheerfully retract and apologise.

FWIW, while Godwin's Law is commonly misrepresented as "first person to mention Nazis loses", it doesn't actually say anything of the sort; it's an observation of tendency, not an imperative or a judgement.

The "don't mention Nazis" principle often mislabelled as "Godwin's Law" used to be a good rule of thumb, in contexts where people were prone to making Nazi comparisons as unhelpful hyperbole. But there are times when it's quite appropriate to talk about Nazis, and unfortunately what used to be a helpful rule of thumb is now being used more and more as a diktat to shut down those conversations. Godwin himself has made it abundantly clear that there are times when it's appropriate to talk about Nazis and that his "law" shouldn't be treated as an imperative.

Contra your claims, I did not say or suggest (...or believe) that you endorsed Hitler/Nazis. There's only one poster in AH who I'd think about in those terms, and I mostly deal with them by minimising interaction.

What I wrote was "here's some art that some people liked", in response to your assertion that "There is a net positive as long as some people like it... Let those who enjoy it, enjoy it." I offered that example not as an accusation of Nazi sympathies, but as an invitation to consider some unfortunate implications of the principle you were espousing, implications which you may not have considered.

Nazi posters were made as propaganda with the express intention of hurting real human beings. 50 Shades is a fantasy story, with no political agenda, adapted from a story about vampires, about BDSM by somebody who didn't know anything about the subject addressed to a readership of housewives/romance novel readers who also didn't know anything about it and were likely never to practice it. 50 Shades is a book for gothic romance novel readers, only it has whips and cable ties. It's not a legitimate comparison. It doesn't work at all.

All parallels have their limits. I was half inclined to quibble when you offered "painting" as a parallel to a novel, given the huge and relevant differences between those media, but I decided to go with it rather than argue at the time.

You are quite correct in noting that Nazi propaganda was made with the intention of harm, whereas 50SoG was made with... let's call it more like lazy indifference to the possibility of harm. Obviously there are also significant differences in the degree of that harm.

But the relevant thing here is that art can do harm, to people who have no choice about whether to experience that harm, and that "let those who enjoy it, enjoy it" is a flawed principle because it fails to acknowledge the fact. Harming people through lazy indifference is not as bad as harming them wilfully, but neither is it morally neutral.

Yes. That's right, when it comes to speech and art. All we have is hindsight, and evidence gathered from observation and experience. Everything else is worthless speculation and completely compromised by ideological bias.

As a writer, I find it simply bizarre to assert that we can't possibly make some educated guesses about how our words might affect people, when so much of our time is spent thinking about clever writerly ways to put ideas and images in strangers' heads.

(Not that every possible reader reaction can be predicted, of course. But some are not particularly difficult.)

So as a result we should default to a position of maximum freedom of speech and tolerance for what we find offensive. There's a cost to it, but the cost of relying on speculation to clamp down on what is disagreeable to us is greater.

I think that perception depends very much on what fraction of that cost one is paying.

I don't know about that. I think there are probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of un-fussy authors who have failed to connect where EL James succeeded. The bottom line is that people liked what she did.

Strictly speaking, what we know is that people bought her books. There are a lot of reasons for why people buy books, and many of those reasons have very little to do with the qualities that the author brought to the book. People buy on the anticipation of enjoyment, or to find out what others are talking about, or even to mock the product, or because it's cheap, and all of those are compounded by how effectively it's marketed. Sometimes a publisher decides that they need a Big Thing and this might as well be it.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've never invoked "decency" in this thread, and I don't have a high tolerance for people putting words in my mouth. This is the only warning I'll give on that before I put you on ignore.

Fair enough on the point about the use of the word "decency." What word would you use in its place? I don't want to put words in your mouth. But I'm not sure it would make a difference. I think I would stand by my argument, more or less, whatever word you wanted to plug in place of "decency." My points would be the same. I think.

I think it's odd, and too bad, that you talk about putting me on "ignore." I haven't attacked you. I haven't gotten personal with you. I have no animus toward you. I have expressed respect for things you've said. I have a difference of opinion. I go to the trouble of writing a long response because I have respect for your ability to make an argument and support it with evidence. That you would raise the prospect of putting me on "ignore" seems odd to me. I would regret it if you did that.

We have a difference of opinion about the impact of words, and about the responsibilities of those who publish words. It's a difference that is worth having a discussion about, IMO.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

Consent Isn’t Enough: The Troubling Sex of Fifty Shades

This is just some old article.

But then again, in Feb 2020, this was just some old article....

Edit: I’ve never read 50 shades and have no plans to ever read it. Pretty sure my mom has.

 

[KeithD]

This is an adult site that users voluntarily sign up for and accept the responsibility for themselves to use. The site submissions editor decides what can be posted here and has included mechanisms to readdress that decision if someone thinks something doesn't follow site rules. Beyond that, users don't get the right to function as a site babysitter or monitor unless the site owner gives them that right. If they've chosen to participate here even though they have experiences of some sort that makes reading a particular treatment or theme here distressing, it's their responsibility to deal with that--to walk away or not to play on a site that permits content with which they have a debilitating history. Their responsibility to take care of themselves--not their responsibility or right to assume what others need protecting from material the site has accepted for posting.

I don't accept the premise that more than a few will use a fantasy story written to arouse to run out and run amok. If so, as I noted above, Agatha Christie should be exhumed and hung beside Stephen King. Murder mysteries don't produce murderers in mass. Those who do mimic them and go out and do it were primed stupid to do it regardless of the existence of any story or book.

I give a particular horse laugh to those who claim to perform BDSM in real life objecting to any way to how these elements are used in storywriting. The problem there, as I see it, is being someone devoted to humiliation and pain in sex in real life--not what is put in a story to height fantasy arousal.

 

[lovecraft68]

This is an adult site that users voluntarily sign up for and accept the responsibility for themselves to use. The site submissions editor decides what can be posted here and has included mechanisms to readdress that decision if someone thinks something doesn't follow site rules. Beyond that, users don't get the right to function as a site babysitter or monitor unless the site owner gives them that right. If they've chosen to participate here even though they have experiences of some sort that makes reading a particular treatment or theme here distressing, it's their responsibility to deal with that--to walk away or not to play on a site that permits content with which they have a debilitating history. Their responsibility to take care of themselves--not their responsibility or right to assume what others need protecting from material the site has accepted for posting.

I don't accept the premise that more than a few will use a fantasy story written to arouse to run out and run amok. If so, as I noted above, Agatha Christie should be exhumed and hung beside Stephen King. Murder mysteries don't produce murderers in mass. Those who do mimic them and go out and do it were primed stupid to do it regardless of the existence of any story or book.

I give a particular horse laugh to those who claim to perform BDSM in real life objecting to any way to how these elements are used in storywriting. The problem there, as I see it, is being someone devoted to humiliation and pain in sex in real life--not what is put in a story to height fantasy arousal.

I laugh at people who have no understanding whatsoever about a lifestyle or kink, and have never read a sentence of the book in question, but keep talking about it anyway because there just can't be a discussion happening on any topic without them blundering in squealing and launching passive aggressive attacks,

The same thing you do in the feedback forum where you by your own admission never click the link because you can't be bothered reading a single word not written by yourself, and constantly crash into threads trashing people for leaving feedback in a feedback forum when the person asked for it.

People are having a discussion and you just keep posting your nonsense over and over again while not bothering to address directly anything anyone is saying because as you have proven time and again, you don't even read people's entire posts, you see two words them yammer away on something that has nothing to do with what they said.

You have made it abundantly clear that not only do you think consent is not needed in sex, but also that women are forced into sex in any situation are responsible for their own assaults.

And spreading that type of misinformation is not without responsibility, you are openly justifying rape.

Meanwhile I wonder if you just don't notice, or just don't care that 90% of the time people don't even respond to you because they don't pay you any mind, which in topics like this is for the best.