Testing readers 'morality'

[Voboy]

I think it is extremely naive to think that when your writing glorifies something, it does not increase the chance of it happening in the real world. It may not be a big increase, but it almost certainly does go up. People are VERY suggestible. Propagandra has understood this for a century.

Yeah. That's simply not any level of responsibility I'll accept.

If I write a story and that story inspires a reader to do something Bad? I'll take 0.0 percent of that accountability, and I'll sleep just fine at night. That reader's actions were the result of a million different variables, and my story was merely one of them. So... nope.

 

[Gamblnluck]

Dexter is my Hero, no finger Anti-Hero ever!

Dexter had a moral compass. You wanted him to go about murdering and chopping people up.
It goes back to something I've said several times. If there is some kind of light at the end of the tunnel, some kind of justice you will see more approval for the story overall. Even if the road there was reprehensible.

 

[Gamblnluck]

I recently (a few months maybe) read a story where the guy called it a 'dark fantasy'. In it a couple of women were destroyed. I mean that literally, emotionally and physically. They were blinded, teeth pulled out. One had her limbs chopped off, the other locked into a box that would expose her genitals for torture. That was to be her fate.
I was surprised to see comments that found that 'hot'. Not only hopelessly cruel, it is impossible. You can't even restrict movement for a few days without decubitus ulcers forming. Death from infection would occur before long. I personally found that kind of story disgusting.
That said, I love a well written non-consent, reluctance. Plus like a few people have pointed out in my comment stream, what is keeping the victim from turning?
I try to include a reasonable explanation because in my opinion, there is nothing more dangerous than a person who has lost all hope. In movies, stories, or real life.

 

[Britva415]

My reading preferences have zero to do with my morality. Sometimes I want to read a hot non-consent, dark fantasy. Do I think that is right in the non-fiction world. NO! But I want the fantasy. So... not sure it's kind to judge readers like that.

I think the test wasn't about "would they enjoy the smut."

I think the test was about exposing hypocrisy: Enjoying the smut and then shrieking about its moral depravation.

Nobody's judging anyone for enjoying depraved smut. But it's totally fine to judge hypocrisy.

Hell. In 2025, it's almost the only thing left to judge anyone for.

(actually, this was true at least as far back as 1995, when Stephenson wrote that idea into The Diamond Age)

 

[pink_silk_glove]

These two statements contradict each other.

A certain percentage of people will be encouraged to do something they read even if it is wrong, as long as it is glamorized properly for them. I hold those people responsible for their actions. But I also hold the writer a little responsible as well.

I am only arguing what I think is moral. I do not believe my morality (or anyone else's) should be enforced legally. That is a truly dangerous path.

You hold them responsibility but with what consequence? Your personal disdain? That is not a consequence, therefore no one is being held accountable/responsible for the messages in their art. You hold them responsible but you don't at the same time.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Wait though.

So, just because I might write about rape, IS NOT saying that I'm encouraging people to go out and rape. Or stalk. Or cheat. How can you judge the writer for that? Unless they are writing a non-fiction and promoting rape.

Exactly. Any glorification 100% in the eye of the viewer/reader, not the artist. the artist ultimately has no control over how his work is perceived. He can try to influence the perception and he may or may not be effective or to what degree is never known, but ultimately if someone watches a movie thinks that stabbing someone seems cool and then actually acts on it, that is not the artist's fault - at all. Most people would think watching someone get graphically stabbed would be gruesome, and those who would think that it is cool, the vast majority of the time none of them ever act on it, so don't blame the artist because one person for whatever reasons can't control his impulses.

Trainspotting. This movie got slammed for glorifying heroin abuse. Glorifying?? Renton was so hard up to get high that he fishes his hit out the worst toilet in Scotland before he swallowed it. A baby died because everyone was too high for days on end to remember to feed it. Renton's best friend Tommy got hooked, got HiV from dirty needles and fostered dozens of cats in his depression, then because in his bad health couldn't clean up after them he caught an infection from the feces. This is the exact opposite of glorifying. This not glamorous, this is gross. Yet many people thought that it somehow promoted heroin use. Glorifying was the exact word all over the press at the time. You can't control people and their perceptions. The only way not to offend anyone was to not make the movie, and it's quite a good movie with plenty to tell us about addiction, friendships and life choices.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

when your writing glorifies something,

Everything glorifies something if it reaches a wide enough audience. The artist has ZERO control over that. You cannot hold someone responsible for something that they cannot control.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

As artists, we have a significant opportunity to challenge conventional moral thinking

But no obligation.

If an artist wants to take a moral stance, he may do so 100%, but he is not bound to at all.

one of the greatest strengths of art is to help people see where the line should be

To help people see where they think the line should be.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

If there is some kind of light at the end of the tunnel, some kind of justice you will see more approval for the story overall. Even if the road there was reprehensible.

What many people never realize is that justice itself is often reprehensible.

 

[iwatchus]

You hold them responsibility but with what consequence? Your personal disdain? That is not a consequence, therefore no one is being held accountable/responsible for the messages in their art. You hold them responsible but you don't at the same time.

My personal disdain is all I have to do to them. Anything more than that is forcing my morals on other, which I don't want to do.

But I can state my own personal beliefs and hope to encourage others to honestly consider theirs. But I am still aghast at the willful ignorance of some otherwise very reasonable people on here, afraid to accept any responsibility for their actions. Do you honestly believe that art cannot cause harm? While I don't think he could be held criminally responsible for any of them, I hold D. W. Griffith morally responsible for the wave of lynchings that followed the showings of Birth of a Nation. Does Goebbels not bear some responsibility?

If you wrote a rape story that idealized rapists and it was demonstrably true that it led to more rapes, would that not bother you? I would not be able to live with myself in that scenario. I am almost certainly not a good enough writer to cause that and most of us have a small enough audience here to not have the impact of Birth of a Nation. But why take the chance?

 

[pink_silk_glove]

But I am still aghast at the willful ignorance of some otherwise very reasonable people on here, afraid to accept any responsibility for their actions.

I take responsibility for my actions, yes. If I write a rape story, someone reads it and goes out and rapes someone, that is not my action. That is the rapist's action.

f you wrote a rape story that idealized rapists

Stop right there. Whether the rapist is idealized is 100% in the eye of the reader. If you read a rape story that was intentionally written to promote rape, would you go rape someone? Would you even entertain the notion for more than 30 seconds?

I didn't think so.

and it was demonstrably true that it led to more rapes, would that not bother you?

No, it would not. If I put a disclaimer on the cover saying "psychopaths, do not read this, you might become a rapist," it won't stop psychopaths from reading it. I have zero control over that.

Now if I were a psychologist working with rapists, I would think that during my job, exposing them to rape literature (or even any sexual erotic literature) that might trigger their urges would be a bad idea, so I imagine that I would refrain, sure. But as for writing something for the general public consumption, no, not at all.

 

[Voboy]

I take responsibility for my actions, yes. If I write a rape story, someone reads it and goes out and rapes someone, that is not my action. That is the rapist's action.

This. I think this is the definitive statement on this sort of thing.

 

[iwatchus]

This. I think this is the definitive statement on this sort of thing.

The Sacklers made the exact same statement.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

The Sacklers made the exact same statement.

The Sacklers weren't making art. That argument is a dead end.

 

[iwatchus]

The Sacklers weren't making art. That argument is a dead end.

I think that is exactly the difference in our positions. I don't see declaring something as art as being some magical get out of jail free card. I personally think we are responsible for every act we take, every product we make, regardless of how we choose to categorize it. Horrific things have been justified as art.

This will be my last post on this issue. If you want last word, have at it.

 

[Voboy]

I think that is exactly the difference in our positions. I don't see declaring something as art as being some magical get out of jail free card. I personally think we are responsible for every act we take, every product we make, regardless of how we choose to categorize it. Horrific things have been justified as art.

This will be my last post on this issue. If you want last word, have at it.

It's fine. We just disagree. There's no expectation that people will agree about moral or ethical questions.

Ethics is about accepting that people are responsible for their own behaviors, not the behaviors of others. If I so readily took accountability for my effect on others' lives, I doubt I'd ever be able to leave the house for fear I'd "cause" someone to make a bad decision. That's not a life I want.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I think that is exactly the difference in our positions. I don't see declaring something as art as being some magical get out of jail free card. I personally think we are responsible for every act we take, every product we make, regardless of how we choose to categorize it. Horrific things have been justified as art.

This will be my last post on this issue. If you want last word, have at it.

I most certainly will. Making a movie or writing a novel is completely different from conspiring to hook innocent people on opiates for profit. If one can't see that gaping distinction, then one is not even qualified to debate the issue.

 

[jehoram]

I read a story on another site about a woman who was tortured to death by another woman while a third one was forced to witness it. The writer explained in her blog, IIRC, that she herself had been abused as a teenager and that the story was a way of her earning catharsis. She saw the different women in the story... torturer, victim, and witness... as aspects of her own personality as seen from different vantage points. It was an attempt to project herself as a person both in control of a situation and as a person who had no control at all over it.

It made sense to me as a writing exercise, even if it didn't reflect the actual morality of the writer.

 

[MillieDynamite]

@iwatchus Does writing about the Holocaust promote genocide? Does writing murder mysteries with a debonair villain encourage murder? Is Jeff Lindsay promoting serial killers as a way of Justice? Is a person who's been raped who writes about rape, pormoting men to rape? What morally reprehensible things can we write about without promoting those morally reprehensible things? Must we all write children's stories?

 

[M_K_Babalon]

As time goes on I find myself getting bored sometimes with writing and decide I want to play some kind of game with a story and see reader reaction.

A few weeks ago I published a story which was a sequel to one from a couple years ago. Won't go into a lot of details as to how and why etc, but a 21 year old has been having sex with his best friend's mother who is recently divorced, and she's also friends with the MC's mother. They've been sneaking around to avoid drama because it was supposed to be just hot sex, so why get into it?

The two then find they're falling in love and decide its time to say something...but then get caught by the son who flips out, goes and tells the MC's mother who flips out, lots of drama ensues.

But here's the game I was playing. We get a lot of moralists here (especially in LW) who apply real life "Man, that's fucked up" to fictional sex stories set up to where the 'fucked up' is part of the draw. What I wanted to see was this: would the readers call out the fact the the two main characters were totally, 100% wrong for even being together at the start, let alone months of lying to their loved ones. Or, would somehow, because the two were generally good people which was established in story one, and did love each other and were just in a no win scenario that the son/mother would never except.

In other words, would they be seen as sympathetic somehow, or would the readers take them to task? I played this to the hilt in the confrontation with the son and mother and in the end the son moves out while the mother begrudgingly accepts it because she doesn't want to lose her son. More emotion and drama than you'd expect in a milf story, but I enjoyed writing it. My personal take? They were wrong and they betrayed those close to them over what in the beginning was simply sex.

The reader reaction? IN the comments no one seemed to be against them, and in several feedbacks only one person said they were 'reprehensible' and the score is over 4.7 so not a lot of low votes.

So, is this a result of the way it was written? Are most people (outside of LW) able to put morality aside for entertainment? Or would they somehow think it was fine in real life?

Or, is this all meaningless and I really am just looking for ways to amuse myself and none of it really matters?

Good question. My mature wip has the same thing in it, guy next door hooks up with his childhood friends mom. I think some folks might excuse or look past the morality because hot sex.

 

[iwatchus]

@iwatchus Does writing about the Holocaust promote genocide? Does writing murder mysteries with a debonair villain encourage murder? Is Jeff Lindsay promoting serial killers as a way of Justice? Is a person who's been raped who writes about rape, pormoting men to rape? What morally reprehensible things can we write about without promoting those morally reprehensible things? Must we all write children's stories?

What I think I said repeatedly was glorifying an evil. So, yes, I think writing stories that glorify the holocaust are immoral. I have no problem having someone creating art about bad things, if they express the horror of it, rather than glorify it. Personally, I cannot watch Amistad or Schindler's List, but I do not condemn Spielberg for making them, the subject matter is too horrific for me, personally. But it is a horror that needs to be exposed to the light.

There are people right now (hopefully no one on the forum) who are writing stories glorifying the Holocaust, the slave trade, hoping to encourage a return of them. I would hope almost everyone would see such writing, even if "art", is morally reprehensible. I can understand an ethical framework where the artists intent matters. I hope no one is writing rape stories here, hoping to encourage more rapes. My personal ethics are a bit more nuanced, I see some forgiveness for unintended consequence, but I also think everyone has a responsibility to consider wholly predictable consequences.

 

[Actingup]

What I think I said repeatedly was glorifying an evil. So, yes, I think writing stories that glorify the holocaust are immoral. I have no problem having someone creating art about bad things, if they express the horror of it, rather than glorify it. Personally, I cannot watch Amistad or Schindler's List, but I do not condemn Spielberg for making them, the subject matter is too horrific for me, personally. But it is a horror that needs to be exposed to the light.

There are people right now (hopefully no one on the forum) who are writing stories glorifying the Holocaust, the slave trade, hoping to encourage a return of them. I would hope almost everyone would see such writing, even if "art", is morally reprehensible. I can understand an ethical framework where the artists intent matters. I hope no one is writing rape stories here, hoping to encourage more rapes. My personal ethics are a bit more nuanced, I see some forgiveness for unintended consequence, but I also think everyone has a responsibility to consider wholly predictable consequences.

I agree with this take. Personal anecdote - when I was at school, we studied Schinder's Ark, the (Australian) book on which the film was based, and our teachers organised for one of the real people in the book, Leo Rosner, to come and play accordian for us and talk about his experiences and the book. The experience as a student was unforgetable and profoundly moving. I'm sure that many people in my city benefited from meeting Leo, bless his soul. Did that glorify the holocaust? Of course not. It helped us understand it and it humanised the victims and even to some extent the criminals (which is important in my opinion, because many of them wore flash suits and looked perfectly respectful). Schindler's Ark is an exceptional work of art, and the film did it justice.

 

[Gamblnluck]

Stop right there. Whether the rapist is idealized is 100% in the eye of the reader. If you read a rape story that was intentionally written to promote rape, would you go rape someone? Would you even entertain the notion for more than 30 seconds?

NO it is not 100% in the eye of the reader. The way you write that image has a lot to do with how that perception is attained. I'll agree you are not responsible for the person's actions. But NEVER underestimate your influence.
Just look at when one of these school shootings happen. Or many crimes, for that matter, the FIRST thing the authorities look at is his browsing history. Part of that is for direct contacts. But often they will allude to other sites, discussions etc. Why? because there is influence.

 

[Gamblnluck]

I think that is exactly the difference in our positions. I don't see declaring something as art as being some magical get out of jail free card. I personally think we are responsible for every act we take, every product we make, regardless of how we choose to categorize it. Horrific things have been justified as art.

This will be my last post on this issue. If you want last word, have at it.

I have to agree. Some people need to understand what propaganda is. It is NOT just the spouting of political statements. As one classic example. Look at George Orwell's Animal Farm. How many politicians, teachers etc expounded on the detriment of a communist/socialist society. Yet Orwell influenced many by a story about animals setting up a society on a far. People reacted viscerally to that story. It changed minds.
You think everything you read has no influence on you? Well the converse is true. What you write and others read has some influence. You may call your work 'art' but don't think if it strikes somebody, makes them think a bit, it has no influence. And that influence is NOT your doing.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Just look at when one of these school shootings happen. Or many crimes, for that matter, the FIRST thing the authorities look at is his browsing history. Part of that is for direct contacts. But often they will allude to other sites, discussions etc. Why? because there is influence.

You think the authorities know what they're doing? That's sweet.

--Annie