Fucking Guin, always startin’ shit.
“Do your basic research.”
No, it does not change my desire to (re)read her?
On the one hand, perhaps it’d make me a little more inclined to read her books - to see how the brain of a child rapist looks like. On the other hand, what I have seen of paedophiles, they always appear to be kinda stupid and emotionally stunted. So I’d imagine her books are rather dimwitted and one-diminutional as well. So that’s a negative.
Incidentally anything that starts with the words “trigger warning,” as one of the links do, is an instant turn off and makes me less inclined to read whatever drivel that is inside.
Oh? Think you’re too tough to have triggers? Of course, most of my triggers are HAPPY triggers. (SFW unless you work for Hobby Lobby, since they don’t carry sewing patterns. Not safe for wearing to work, especially if you are built like me. But a lady in HR has a Tinkerbelle costume that is racier and she doesn’t get in trouble, at least with the guys.)
Never read Bradley, have less desire now.
Rather than reply to any one particular post let me just say:
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I do not in any way approve of ANY form of rape, regardless of age, occupation, gender, or anything else. It’s all bad.
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I have always, in this thread, stated that it is bad. Never once did I phrase any form of rape or molestation in any positive way. It’s all either bad or worse.
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I don’t in any way defend what MZB did, I am no apologist for neither her nor her husband. Their acts were criminal and in their personal lives they were scum.
Apparently, my sin here was not in immediately joining the lynch mob but hey, that’s the Pit for you.
I’ve never read anything by Bradley, and I’m sure I won’t now. Not much of a stand on my part because I wasn’t interested before.
This is odd to me. It’s rather akin to saying “Jeffrey punched me in the face, but why would I stop hanging out with him when other people are bad, too?”
Just because other people may be bad too, in ways we may or may not know, doesn’t actually change whether Jeffrey punched me in the face and whether I can then refuse to hang with Jeffrey. Maybe Gary kicked a kitten, but I don’t actually know anything about it so I’ll still hang with Gary. Maybe Gloria eats thin mints, which makes her much worse than a face-puncher, but she doesn’t eat them around me, so I’ll still hang with Gloria. And maybe Bette is a child rapist and I decide that not only won’t I hang with Bette, I won’t go to her house and I’ll get rid of the nice scarf she got me for Christmas because it’s fucking oogy now.
All a boycott is saying is “I’ve found out something about you that I so cannot support that I withdraw such support.” Different people have different triggers for it. If there’s a store you won’t shop at because the proprietor stares at your breasts, you are boycotting it.
So, why Bradley? Because her actions are known and horrific. That’s all. Not everyone does what she did. She didn’t just do something minor that should be put into the “everyone does bad things” bin. It goes in the “some people do horrific things” bin. And it would be okay to boycott everyone whose transgressions are in the “horrific things” bin, even if other people do bad stuff, too.
But this ignores all the key points of Broomstick’s entire thesis:
If the author didn’t even depict child rape in her books, very often, and the child in question could have been physically mature for her age anyway, who are we to say it was really such a horrific act?
Besides, she has a friend who was able to reconcile things with her father who repeatedly raped her as a child. So there’s that. And about 110 years ago some racist old coot founded a car company… so where do we draw the line?
Yeah, that’s why we’re all up Skald’s face too…ooh, wait, no, we’re not. Because he (and others) just said it didn’t matter to him, he didn’t try and first do damage control on Moira’s bona fides, or try and use Moira’s past reluctance to stain her legacy as a reason for maintaining her legacy now.
You’re not supporting or boycotting the author. In fact she’s been dead for a long time and is in a place (possible very warm) where she’s in no way impacted by your reading habits. Reading a book is not the same as subscribing to a political party or shopping in Walmart. The book has a life of its own apart from that of its author, and besides reading ought sometimes be about being presented with outlandish and even outrageous and repellent ideas.
but not wholly apart (unless by Anonymous)
Please do not put words in my mouth. jsgoddess’ post was thoughtful and well reasoned and makes a valid point. Yours, on the other hand perpetuates falsehoods about what I have said.
People in this thread have been repeatedly challenged to provide a DIRECT quote, to point to the post where I say such things as you repeat and they can’t. Do you know why? I never said what you think I said.
I can speak for myself, thank you very much, which should be obvious by now.
But not all that bad if the kid has pubes. Or looks older. Or is a mutant 10 year old who looks like Clint Eastwood in “High Plains Drifter” but is still a ten year old.
And you still haven’t figured out that your stupid “it’s bad or worse” statement reverses to “it’s worse or less worse” aka “worse or better”. And that your crazy-ass defense of sliding scale of rape you cherish is based on what it says about the rapist, NOT what it does to the victim.
Because, yeah…the adult being “broken” or not is what matters, not the kid who was raped. :rolleyes:
Except for, y’know, the part where you deliberately lied about the kid’s age to minimize Breen’s crimes, the part where you implied that one of the victims was lying (Moira)…until a man (her brother) corroborated her, the parts where you express sneering puzzlement that anyone could be so disgusted with Bradley that their dislike spills over into their books…etc.
What MrDibble said.
But hey, that’s a delusional freak who’s so invested in some fantasy novels that she’s willing to keep fighting to minimize real-life crimes and lie about real life victims for you.
Again - I have made it very clear in every post that any form of rape is bad. It is YOU who insists that this somehow warps in bad vs. good when it’s really bad vs. worse. Again, what you posted is a twisted paraphase and not what I actually said. Why? Because what I actually said doesn’t support your outrage.
Of course it matters what happens to the kid. What happens to the kid is a crime and always bad.
Where it matters for the adult is whether rehabilitation is even remotely possible or simply impossible. I don’t think pedophiles can ever be rehabilitated. If they can’t control their impulses they should be incarcerated for life for the protection of other people.
I’m not rehashing the rest of it because we’ve already been over that.
Eh, can’t tell when you’re being mocked, can you?
But ephebophiles and hebephiles (what you really meant when you drew a distinction between pedophiles and ephebophiles), they’re totally rehabilation material!
:rolleyes:
I think it’s pretty damn unlikely there, too, to be honest. Their sexual focused is still messed up.
So you were incapable of reading to the point where I clearly state I disagreed with her decision to do that?
Here, let me help you - it was post #124. What I actually said, with emphasis added so you can now see the part that you couldn’t before:
Frankly, I still find such reconciliations baffling. I can’t imagine forgiving such a violation yet such things do happen.
I don’t have a problem with people disagreeing with me. I do have a problem with them lying about what I actually said.
Are those people who are attracted to teenagers? Everybody is attracted to teenagers. Or at least older teenagers. Most adult people just shouldn’t do anything about it because it is creepy and teenagers should be with other teenagers. But to classify it as a perversion would be foolish I think.
Then what.the.fuck was the point of you drawing the distinction in the first place?
No. Look it up.
No, this is not true. “Everybody” is not. Some people are attracted exclusively to mature adults. Or even aged folks.
I agree there’s nothing particularly perverse about an adult being attracted to a 17yo, but that is in no fucking way what we’re talking about, here.