There’s an audience & if it gets you a check from ACME Website, well money is hard to come by. Is his objection that this will damage your writing reputation and hurt business? If he is, why not create a “Richard Bachmann” alter-ego and thats that?
But really… you are an author & your spouse gets Full Creative Control over all your fictional material? Writing is hard enough… getting the ideas, the inspiration & getting them down on paper fast enough when they all come together, is hard enough.
Letting someone read your ideas and letting them be critical is one thing (and that’s hard also) but this seems like both control and censorship.
These aren’t real people and this is your art and your craft. Why would you let anyone who isn’t signing your check or managing your brand dictate to you the areas that you can or can’t write about?
(Am I missing something here? Its just a short story.)
Well, as noted, it covers a very broad range, from the mild and innocuous to the really gritty and rough.
I won’t watch even the mild variety, because it makes me uncomfortable, but I only start to have ethical objections to the really harsh and violent varieties.
I won’t watch even mild “spanking” porn, because it doesn’t make me happy, but full-out, fist-to-the-jaw bruising and beating scenes are so rough, they trigger my ethical objections.
[QUOTE=Trinopus]
Well, as noted, it covers a very broad range, from the mild and innocuous to the really gritty and rough.
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Fair enough. For me, the line between what I find okay and what disturbs me personally is pretty abrupt. It’s not even consistent, just some stuff strikes me the wrong way and other stuff doesn’t so it’s pretty much a crapshoot. Just a weird part of human sexual wiring, I guess.
Perhaps I gave the wrong impression when I said it pissed him off. I’m not saying he threw down an ultimatum or held it against me or anything. He just didn’t like the story and was rather impassioned in his rationale. We argued about it in the same way we argue about other political or philosophical differences.
I intend to publish anything I write under my legal name and he has never attempted to control what I write. If he did, frankly I’d kick him to the curb, because there is no activity I love more than writing fiction, and anyone who tried to control my creative activities cannot truly love me. He has always been 100% supportive of me writing and publishing whatever I feel like. He’s so damned supportive he’s okay with me working part time to pursue professional authorship.
But he isn’t obligated to like everything I write. He likes my novel, all umpteen versions of it he’s read. He did not like this story for the stated reasons. As he’s my #1 beta reader I’d expect nothing less than complete honesty from him. I don’t need him to like everything I write, I just disagree on principle. I was more annoyed that it was a less a critique of my writing and more a critique of the underlying ethos of the piece.
For comparison, I was equally annoyed when Ebert gave a shitty rating to the movie Kick-Ass because it featured children engaging in violence. Part of being an effective critiquer is understanding what the author is trying to do with the work and suggesting changes based on that understanding, rather than imposing your own view of what it should be.
As far as the publication potential of this particular piece, I dunno. I have little experience writing short stories so it was more an experimental thing, trying to create a short piece with a distinct structure. It’s more intended as a self-teaching tool than anything else.
I brought up that I’d started this thread tonight (this argument happened months ago) and he seems rather less impassioned about his viewpoint than he was that night.
‘‘You said XYZ.’’
''Huh. Did I?" shrugs
[QUOTE=Ambivalid]
Your husband sounds a bit, idk, insecure maybe?
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He’s not the least bit insecure, he’s a stubborn bastard when it comes to his principles. Which 95% of the time is a fantastic thing and 5% of the time is annoying.
To give you an example of how fucking stubborn he can be, he recently said to me, ‘‘You know that argument we had three years ago about whether or not it was ethically acceptable to make the film The Interview? I’ve decided you’re right.’’
Writing squicky scenes is tricky that way. I wrote a story where the bad guy kills a dog, just to show how the deadly booby-trap works. I got some mail from people who were really mad at me. “Why did you have to kill the dog?” To me, it made sense: it’s what the bad guy “really would have done.” Hm, death trap, death trap… Needs to be tested first…
Readers have their needs. The critique from someone who loves and supports you could be taken as a warning that there may be others out there in readership land who will also not like the scene. So you have to balance your artistic integrity – which is a damn important part of writing, believe me! – with what you reckon the readers will want.
But I also have to take into consideration that he’s not my target audience.
And if I do submit it to writers group for critique, I’ll have to keep in mind that they aren’t, either. But it could be useful to submit just to learn about basic short story writing techniques.
The stuff in my short story is downright mild compared to a lot of stuff I’ve seen on Literotica, which would more or less be my target audience for this particular piece.
The novel is a different sort of thing, because it’s not purely erotic fiction, it’s science fiction with erotic elements. People seem to like it, even if it is a little off the beaten path, and the feedback from general audiences I’ve gotten is that the erotic scenes are well done even if they are not particularly into the D/s bondage scene themselves. I totally understand what you mean about reader’s needs being balanced with the author’s. My first draft of the novel was actually originally done in a non-magical fantasy setting and a couple of my writer friends suggested I rewrite it as sci-fi, and I am doing so without hesitation, because it doesn’t change the core meaning of the story at all, and the setting is a bit more interesting to people now that they aren’t whining ''why is there no magic?" Now, if critiquers came to me and said, ‘‘This needs to be less about trauma and consent and trust and poverty and war and genocide’’ I’d tell them to stick it up their ass.
[QUOTE=Spice Weasel]
Beth, and a man, Judd, had engaged in a kind of BDSM contract where he played a dominant/mentor role in trying to help her work out her anxiety issues. […]
The protagonist of the story, Kale, is Judd’s cousin, who is recovering from a bad breakup and severe depression. Beth accidentally publicly humiliates Kale at a dinner party by unwittingly referencing his attempted suicide when she first meets him. Beth is left feeling incredibly guilty and anxious for this social faux pas, and Kale is embarrassed and angry that this pretty stranger knows this stigmatizing thing about him thanks to Judd’s big mouth.
Judd decides to address the issue by sending Beth to Kale’s house and assigning her to be his ‘‘sex slave’’ for the weekend. Beth has a lot of anxiety about this proposition (as she does about virtually everything in her life) but she is genuinely interested in Kale and she had agreed to follow Judd’s orders. Kale is initially horrified and then reticent and then realizes Beth is interested in him, […] At the end, they make an emotional connection and more or less hook up to the extent you can have a Happily Ever After in a BDSM short story. Turns out Judd was playing matchmaker all along. Awww.
[/QUOTE]
Kale= severely depressed/suicidal & recently had a bad breakup
Beth= severe anxiety & guilt
Judd= Beth’s choice for a BSDM “psychological therapist” & a matchmaker who thought making his severely depressed cousin and severely anxious “client” “fall in love” would be a good way to form a long lasting and healthy relationship between the two?
I like the idea of clairobscur’s about needing a “sound mind” to enter into willing/ethical contracts. Can a mentally ill person enter a contract “willingly?” Is it ethical for one sound mind to enter into a contract with a demented (depressed/anxious/etc) person, who would probably have a different opinion of the terms once their brain problems are fixed? Can two mentally ill people really consent to anything regarding the other?
Is it ethical for a real psychologist to enter into romantic relations with their clients, even at their client’s insistence? is it ethically different before or after they are cured?
To all those things, I say that they are unethical. Just as I say that peddling homeopathic “medicine” as a potential remedy to desperately anxious parents who have cancerous children, is unethical. Their anxiety and desperation made them not “of sound mind” and they should not have to follow the contract that the snake oil salesman had them sign “consensually.”
I can see an argument for Beth’s and Kale’s “natural state” being depressed and anxious; and since they go through most of their life in that mental state, their “sound mind” is the ill one. But would that mean any abatement of their condition would be seen as their “unsound state” to be ignored until they change back? As no doubt a calm non-depressed/anxious person would severely regret, and want to revoke, some of the decisions that their depressed/anxious self consented to, and vise versa.
I blame Judd for being unethical, as he is in a position of authority and trust over both of them. He forced the two together beyond their initial non-consentual dread of his idea "Beth has a lot of anxiety about this proposition…Kale is initially horrified and then reticent.” I thought that no meant no, apparently not according to Judd.
Picking up on what some others have suggested, I just don’t see this as having anything to do with BDSM. Judd didn’t tell Beth to do this because he thought the kink value would serve their relationship. He did it for purely selfish reasons, to avoid having to apologize to Kale for having hurt him. To me, that’s a betrayal of Beth’s trust in his judgment, and it seems exploitative.
I kind of have a fire under my ass about Mad Pride these days thanks to AHunter3, so forgive me if I come off a little strong, but the ‘‘demented’’ individual you are speaking to is perfectly capable of consenting to sexual activity. I know the difference between sex and rape, and that’s a difference I know regardless of whether my brain is ‘‘fixed’’ or not. Certainly there is a line somewhere, a breakdown where people are too mentally disturbed to consent to sexual activity, but Kale’s depression and Beth’s anxiety don’t even come close to that line.
Absolutely not. There are no circumstances in which a client can consent to sex with his or her therapist. It is a fundmentally unequal relationship.
Judd’s not Beth’s psychologist, just a friend with benefits who is playing a mentor role as he helps Beth explore D/s relationships. As I mentioned upthread, the unwritten backstory is that they connected over the works of Viktor Frankl and are interested in the practical application of his philosophy. This story doesn’t even preclude Beth or Kale being in formal treatment for their issues with a licensed professional. Mentally ill people are capable of having sex lives, you get that, right? We’re also capable of implementing behavioral changes in our own lives to try to improve them, including learning from books we read, without having every single one of our activities rubber stamped by a psychologist.
I acknowledge that Beth’s anxiety complicates this discussion, but anxiety around sex is a part of life for many people, and it doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of consent. Sometimes we make an active decision to live with the anxiety inherent in certain activities because we know the payoff is worth it. It’s not any different than attending a social function that causes us anxiety because even though it’s uncomfortable at first, we know in the long run we will be better off for strengthening our relationships.
However, in any relationship where anxiety is present, communication is particularly important, and that’s why my characters talk too much for an erotic short story.
[QUOTE=Tom Tildrum]
Judd didn’t tell Beth to do this because he thought the kink value would serve their relationship. He did it for purely selfish reasons, to avoid having to apologize to Kale for having hurt him. To me, that’s a betrayal of Beth’s trust in his judgment, and it seems exploitative.
[/QUOTE]
To be fair, Judd isn’t really intended to be any kind of hero, he’s kind of douchey, he’s barely in the story, he’s a plot device. There’s kind of an intentional implication that Beth is better off with Kale than Judd, and Judd knows it. But his motive for sending Beth to crash at Kale’s place is largely pure. He knew they were both romantically interested in one another and wanted to make something positive happen for two people he cared about. Beth had need for a place to crash for a job interview and it made logical sense for her to stay with Kale. Once Judd hands down his ‘‘order,’’ Kale and Beth are already under the same roof; they have plenty of time to contemplate whether they want to have sex, including cooking dinner together and having a long conversation.
I guess I could easily resolve this potential objection by having it be Beth’s suggestion and not Judd’s order. But I don’t really see any meaningful difference, personally.
Hmm. Okay. Going back and rereading this story, I can probably do better about showing Beth’s sense of agency in this whole thing. Maybe it does come off creepier than I intended.
I still stick by the fundamental principle that in the abstract, there is nothing wrong with consenting to have sex with other people of a dominant’s choosing.
Nor is there anything wrong with people who have psychological disorders deciding to have sex with one another.
To begin with, there are vast differences between having mild psychological issues and being demented.
But more importantly : people are so worried about the issue of consent and validity of consent that they only see the issue from the point of view of the supposed abuser, thinking in terms of “does X (of perfectly sound mind) gets something from Y (of dubious sound mind)? If yes then abuse and this should be prevented”.
But what about Y? People of unsound mind also want sex, and to be cuddled, and to be loved, etc… By assessing any “unequal” relationship as unethical, or even worst by criminalizing it, you’re depriving them of those basic satisfations. For instance here, someone with some mental issue would be sentenced to chastity because of either the disaproval of third parties or the legal system. It seems to me that in many cases the victimizer isn’t the sexual partner but those third parties.
To take a real life example : there has been a thread in GD some months ago about an elderly man who was sentenced for keeping having sex with his wife suffering from Alzheimer. The question asked by the court was : “Is this woman of sound mind (and she wasn’t)?” While I think the question should have been : “Is this woman better off or worst off for the sex?” “Does she enjoys it or suffers from it?” “do we have any reason to assume she is harmed by it?” (and there wasn’t any AFAIR). By automatically sentencing the husband in the name of “protecting victims from evil abusers”, society is not only condemning him but also being cruel to her by depriving her of one of the few pleasures left in her life.
The assumption is always “better to have people staying chaste and being deprived of intimacy, whether they like it or not, rather than running the slighest risk that they coud potentially be harmed by sex”. And of course this applies only to sex (because, like it or not, our society is still extremely prude and refuses to view sex as a “regular” and normally harmless activity). My rule of thumb for deciding whether something is ethical or not is to replace “sex” by some other activity: did the husband do something wrong by feeding her chocolate cake (unless it is shown she’s diabetic and it’s harmful to her, or she hates chcolate cake, no he didn’t)? Did Judd do something wrong by ordering Beth to give a speech at her favourite local non-profit charity despite her social anxiety (maybe, maybe not, depends on specific circumstances)?
A couple other comments that crossed my mind :
-A lot of people won’t ever be “fixed”. Someone with schizophrenia is going to stay a schizophrenic all his life. Many people will struggle with depression, severe anxiety disorder, etc…all their life too. And even if they can be “fixed” someday, they’ve to go through their life now. Do you think it would better if any kind of relationship is denied to them, either at this point in their life or for the rest of it, because everybody having sex with them would be acting unethically? And how could we figure what their opinion would be if they were “fixed”? Maybe they’d pick someone more handsome instead of someone more supportive, for instance, but who’s is better able than themselves to determine what is best for them at this point in their life, with whatever condition they have now?
-Typically, people who stick with their partners, despite them having severe issues, be them mental or physical, tend to elicit admiration. If we followed your reasonning we should treat them with contempt instead because they aren’t acting ethically. Do you think that would be fair?
One theme in reading erotica is that the author and the readers often tend to get pulled into a constructed fictional world where “everything is fine if everyone participating is Ok with it” regardless of how much it challenges the sensibilities of those not into that particular kink. Imagine that you were talking about scat or adult incest instead of BDSM would you be so harshly critical of your husband then if he was offended?
Regardless of how much we may personally like a particular kink some things we may like will be viscerally offensive to other people. In the case of BDSM I can see how the concept of having a sex slave at your disposal might be very interesting and attractive conceptually, but off putting to our core ethical sensibilities regardless of how much we are told “It’s fine, the slave is OK with it”. To a lot of people (on a visceral level without parsing it out intellectually) having a serious, dedicated, all in sex slave/master, owner and owned relationship would be a oogy thing to be doing to, or with another person. I do get where his reaction is coming from even if he’s going to lose his rhetorical battle about sexual ethics.
