Would this be allowed? Should I write it?

Ray Dario

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An idea for a story is buzzing around in my head, but I don't know if it would be allowed on Lit or not. Nor if I should even write it.

The main premise would be the story of a very young girl, probably 6 or 7 who watches her father rape her mother and the effect this has on her. There would be no sex that involved the girl but she would witness it. I would portray the rape as what it is: brutal and horrible, not the fantasy of non-consent turned erotic.

I know if I write this it will not get great ratings here, but I think I could make it a powerful story.

Does a story like this have a place on Lit? Would it be accepted? Would the fact the young girl witnessed the sex be enough to nix it? With all the hurt and pain that exists in the real world, should a story like this be written at all.

Ray
 
Hmmm...

...a pretty perplexing problem.

I'm not sure that in and of itself it would be "erotic" unless there's more to the story you haven't mentioned yet. I did write a pretty horrific rape scene in one of my novels (a dreadfully long one--the book--not the rape) yet it had it's erotic aspects to it. It's a pretty twisted book as things go. The guy ended up in prison for murder (it was a setup) so there was a sense of "justice".

There is a style of erotica typified by books like Sex Macabre where a young girl who witnessed such an act might be affected by it to such a degree that it influenced her sexual behaviour later in life--with a sick or fatal twist as she sought revenge on men in general. It could be a really interesting story in my opinion.

At any rate--quite a dilemma to have a powerful story in mind but not be quite sure how to handle it.

Good luck with it!
 
Should it be written

One option would be a sci-fi or fantasy setting. Keep the age of the girl, when she witnessed the crime, ambiguous.

I like Closet Desire's suggestion. Bring the story back around, so the perp gets his just reward.

Hell yes, write it. What are we here, a bunch of limp dick wussies? (No need to answer that)
 
Ray Dario said:
Does a story like this have a place on Lit? Would it be accepted? Would the fact the young girl witnessed the sex be enough to nix it? With all the hurt and pain that exists in the real world, should a story like this be written at all.

Killermuffin has a story in the NON-Erotic section thats about a violent rape, so I think your story might be able to find a home here. I think that the violence of the rape would be more likely to nix it than the age of the witness would, though.

As I said on another thread just now, Laurel seems to be easily swayed into bending the rules by good writing -- although you'd have to write a VERY good story for the amount of bending this could take.

Since the story seems to be in your head already, it should be written -- otherwise, it will fester nd your head will explode. :eek: Whether it should ever be published is a different question entirely and depends on the finished story's quality as a story more than it does on the story's content.
 
Thanks to everyone for the input. I'm still unsure what I'm really going to do with this.

Since this is sort of related I'll ask it here too.

For the last month or so, the stories that come to me have been very atypical for me. They are darker, less erotic, and sometimes disturbing. Some I have gone ahead and written, "Visitation" was one of these. It was a MUCH darker, evil story when it started, but I worked it around to get it mainstream enough that I felt comfortable posting it. Even "The Desire Within" was much darker when it was first written.

It's not just affecting my erotic writing either. It seems that everything I write is now darker and usually has an unsettling tone.

Have any of you ever gone through this? How do I get out of it? Will it go away on it's own?

I hope so. I'm starting to think I losing my mind.

Ray
 
Should it be written

Schedule the CAT scan, Ray.

Just kidding. I go through dark periods too. Everything seems either repetitious or gloom and doom.

Snap out of it! Walk it off! Suck it up and get on with it!

There's your pep talk. Now, write that story and worry about the posting questions later.
 
hmmm, thinking out loud

perhaps writing evolves along similar lines to painting. some famous painters have had varying moods which clearly show in their work. (please don't ask me to name any, i'm just passing on what i heard somewhere rofl). actually i did a pile of black stuff a little while ago.

it isn't wrong that our mind travels down different pathways now and then. how else do we learn what we enjoy, what we dislike?

for my penny worth, i suggest you write whatever you feel like writing in the moment. the holding back from writing because it might not get other's (or even your own) approval in the end is merely stunting your own growth as a writer. a psychologist would possibly also say that it's merely putting off the inevitable (though maybe after a dozen visits or so ;) ). leave the submission part of it for a month or so after you've written it. see how it 'feels' then.

i have a similar path i am holding back from following. it's downright scary because i know i can write very well that which i'm afraid to try. i'm hoping i can have a time to myself where no interruptions will allow me the chance to spill the whole lot out in one sitting. a kind of get it over and done with attitude.

the need to write this particular route has not dissipated with time. actually, it's growing. so i suggest you go with the flow, let it work it's way through your system, move on from the end of it.

it will end. it's just a matter of getting enough out on 'paper' to move on from.

as a writer, if a thought crosses your mind, follow it as it ebbs and flows. leave the mechanics behind, feel the freedom and run with it. it's kind of like the freeness of character driven writing compared with plot driven writing... see i am learning stuff ;)

grief i waffle on. sorry. was just thinking aloud again. *hug*
 
I find anything sexual involving children repugnant, however, that's just me. I respect that everyone has a different kink. You're a good writer Ray, maybe this darker story of your's will change my thinking.

For what it's worth, not much I guess, I think so long as the title and the description make the content of the story clear there should no problem about you posting it.

Alex(f)
 
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How good is your understanding of psychology? Over the years there have been many stories - literature and cinema - that employ the device of a child witnessing a crime. For the most part, these crimes have usually involved murder (often within the family ) and have featured the psychological effect that witnessing this event had upon the child.

Eg. ‘Marnie' [Novel-Movie] ( Where the child actually committed the crime)
to:
‘Three Faces of Eve' [Novel-Movie] ( where there was no real crime, just a child forced into too close a proximity to a corpse.)

More recently, there have been mainstream stores about survivors of child abuse, always (in my reading, at least) from the child's grown up perspective. There may be some harrowing flashbacks, but none of them could be called erotic, they are euphemistic and repulsive rather than erotic. They usually try to show the psychological impact the event had upon the child, judged from a later, usually adult perspective.

In that regard, the author really needs to understand child psychology, and the effects of real - as opposed to fantasy - violence upon a child.

Best response about a child abuse victim, speaking as an adult, comes from ‘Nuts' [Stage Play-Cinema] where the now-grown victim castigates herself as a child, with the self-levied charge: "I never told him to stop!"

‘The Prince of Tides' [Novel-Cinema] comes to mind, as well.

As for whether to write the story, I agree with Weird Harold

Since the story seems to be in your head already, it should be written --
otherwise, it will fester nd your head will explode. Whether it should ever
be published is a different question entirely and depends on the finished
story's quality as a story more than it does on the story's content.

Except for the bit about your head exploding!
That's too Weird :eek:
 
Have a look...

...at some of the books written by the late French philosopher Georges Battaille. He wrote a number of books on the links between death, dying, and the erotic. When you remind yourself that we are big bags of chemicals wired together with impulses and low level reactions it's easy to visualise that death and the erotic are separated by a very thin boundary. DH Lawrence wrote about this as well in an excellent essay (which I'm happy to say was part of a paper I published on death, eroticism and Poe's The Black Cat). There is a darker side to the erotic.

In fact, we quoted Battaille in the Epigraph of Closet Desire II:

"The awareness of eroticism, unlike that of external objects, belongs to a darker side; it leads to a silent awakening."

Anais Nin too has described close encounters in which sex approached death

Finally, there were loads of French studies in the 1700's (which Poe read) that found prisoners, both men and women, being sexually aroused to climax at their executions. Leave it to the French!

Anyway, this is a wide open and very active field of study if you want to understand it better--it lies waiting to be discovered.

Cheers
 
It has all the ingredients of a solid, powerful story.

Whether it is erotic or not, I can't answer. My personal tastes would never permit me to read such a story for erotic entertainment.

However, my professional experience would make the story irresistable as I have worked with many children who have witnessed varying degrees of sexual acts, ranging from consentual to non consentual.

It all impacts the child.

I would be happy to help you in any way I could by providing feedback or input based upon my professional experience.
 
Just an idea

Ray, I think a story where a flashback is involved would be accepted more easily. If the character is an adult at the time of narrating the story, something like - a girl having some problems in her sex life and then it gets traced back to the incident...

-DP.
 
Rape Witness

Ray, did you write that story yet? Hurry up, it's a great idea!

Write already, let readers make up their mind. Unless you're trying to make a living from it, why should you care?

Most of my ideas are pretty dark too, and weird, but that's why I'm motivated into make stories out of them.

Joe.
 
Sub Joe,

Yes I wrote it. Sorry it will never be published anywhere. First off its quality isn't something I am proud of, nor is its content. it turned out far darker than even I anticipated, and, in some way, I think it shows a part of me that I am not ready to share. Yes the bad guy got his due in the end, but at the expense of the little girl's mind. Perhaps when this dark mood leaves me I'll consider a re-write and then I'll be able to share it.

I do want to thank everyone on this thread for their input. Special thanks to Weird Harold, because I'm taking your advice.

Ray
 
Well, you guys have freedom of speech AND the fifth amendment, lucky devils!

Sorry to harp on, but I'm also not really ready to share a lot of things: But that's why I've created a nom de plume (I'm neither Sub nor Joe), lots of my stories feature real people that I know, who'd recognise themseleves if they read them (and would probably never speak to me again!)

If you considered the story low quality, that may merely be because you have put a lot more of your feelings into it. I still think dark stories have the most potential for really striking a nerve with SOMEone, even if they are not the entertainment that many lit.com readers are looking for.

Joe.
 
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