Sometime reasonable wins...

[maygra]

If you have not tripped over heatherly's essay elsewhere, I encourage you to read it.

You know, if that's the sort of thing you like to read.

I say this in full admission of fact that I disagree, or rather, approach differently a couple of points in the second half of her essay -- primarily from a ideological and practical POV as opposed to disagreeing with her en toto of a writer's responsibility. I'm pretty sure I'll have additional thoughts on that in a bit, if I can get my thoughts organized in such a way as to present them as less contention than perspective.

Comments

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

see I draw a line between fiction/public speech and pornography/erotica. The latter has its sole purpose to titillate - and therefore (as long as it is properly labeled/restricted to age appropriate venues) there need be no restrictions or concerns or discussions of writer's responsibility. Just as there need be no restrictions (as long as no harm is being done) on what goes on inside the head. Or inside the bedroom (between consenting adults).

Fiction - as people have pointed out -serves a different need -- for storytelling, reflecting, shaping and shifting the reader/society. There I'd want more thought put into the writing and I'd want the writer to be aware of what impact their writing can have.

The real issue we're debating is not writer's responsibility - but how visible do we want pornography/erotica to be, is there harm in reading/writing it and should it continue to be written as freely and openly as it has been in the past 30 years? Some feminists have been arguing for years that pornography denigrates women and needs to be stopped. Religious groups come at this same question from a different angle. There are also groups that feel that hate speech needs to be silenced because it creates an atmosphere of tolerance. Parents look at TV and movies and worry that over sexualization and mindless violence is shaping their children into something unrecognizable.

So we’re not the only ones struggling with these questions, and I think it is time to start looking at this from a broader view. The issue is not whether *fans* need to be cautious in what we write/read but what we as people are willing to allow into public for consumption and to what degree are we willing to tolerate other peoples definitions of ‘good for society/bad for society”. Blogging creates its own problems because it creates an illusion of private space – where in reality it is as public as any other website