Work Text
You say that any ship can be written compellingly, but if a person dorsn't want that? What if they just want to, say, write (or read) smut? Or pointless fluff? *insert anything else that does not require any plot or deeper meaning* Would you disapprove of that if a ship is "problematic"?
-- Ladyofthelabirinth
I think this is actually a much wider question about how we react when we encounter material we feel is depicting horrible things in an inappropriate way, and material we are told is depicting horrible things in an inappropriate way. Further, I think that ultimately, how we understand that comes down to how we approach the concepts behind "high" and "low" art.For example, (1) let’s say we have a piece of work depicting the sexual abuse of a pre-pubescent child in a purely erotic manner, as stated by the author who has tagged it with pwp, but has tagged it as not containing child sexual abuse1.I would disapprove of this fic. It is inappropriate, and harmful.(2) Alternatively, if the exact same fic as above was explicitly tagged as containing, or even potentially containing, child sexual abuse, then I have no issue with this story's existence, because what is harmful about the first example, is that it is not accurately tagged.The second story is not pretending to be without abuse, regardless of how it is written, or even why it is written. Due to this, people may opt out of reading it for their own reasons, survivors can access it as a contextual tool, and abusers cannot access, nor disseminate it without acknowledging this. Even appropriated outside of the context of its warnings, the work carries this indelible provenance, and further, misuse of a work is not the fault of the creator. Might as well ban candy whilst we're at it.It is actually vitally important that these types of stories exist too - rose-tinted, romanticized depictions of abuse - because many abusers frame real abuse in the same romantic, rosy light.Recognising abuse - even when it doesn’t look like what we think abuse should look like - is really important for everyone.I personally feel we have a responsibility to sensitively handle this material, but that responsibility genuinely can begin and end with appropriate tagging.The more complex way of explaining this is that defining what is and isn’t meaningful art is more complicated than sorting pwp and fluff from “real literature”. It requires nuance, and discussion, and we rarely agree on it. Things that have been considered to be "low art" or "non-meaningful" works include; fanfiction, rap, novels, sculpture, performance art, works in different languages -- stop me when I get to one you think can be meaningful.The point here is that there exists endless disagreement over not only what art pieces are saying, but on which mediums are even permitted to speak. Therefore, to decide what is and isn't a compelling piece on a sensitive topic is a complex matter, and easily used as a way to marginalize voices and communities. So let's talk about the elephant in the room.Works that we feel depict horrible things in an inappropriate way, when the author does not feel a horrible thing has been depicted.(3) This is difficult ground to cover, because fiction exists in that unique limbo between objective, and subjective. As I said, we can’t just separate out the “art” from the “trash”, because people don’t agree where the lines are and our experiences of every story are different, but at the same time, we also can’t say all stories are art since this implies that due to subjectivity, meaning is now dead (hello postmodernism!) and - quite frankly - that’s a load of shit. Our own subjectivity as audience responds to an extant and objective material: the content of a story, so there’s not just subjectivity at play.Sorry that got pretty wordy, but it does start getting into weird shit when people try to make definitive low art, and high art categories, and this sort of thing would take a whole fucking essay to clearly get into.And these categorizations are definitely what we are talking about when we try to determine if something is a meaningful depiction, or not.Instead, I’m going to use some examples:
(a) 50 Shades of Grey, which I would say depicts not only an abusive and violent relationship, but also the first book contains a scene that depicts rape, inclusive of a verbal revocation of consent. However, the author, E.L James does not believe their story depicts these things remotely, and the scene in question depicts a consensual sexual encounter.
(b) a well-known, and very popular thiefshipping fanfiction, which I used to enjoy, but I now feel depicts a troubling amount of sexual coercion.
(d) an even more well-known, and popular puzzleshipping fanfiction, which I still enjoy, and whilst it depicted rape in a tasteful, emotionally cathartic manner, I used to feel it handwaved, and glossed over the aftermath of this abuse. Nowadays, I feel differently. I think it made a hugely important argument centering the forgiveness of a survivor, over the guilt of a former abuser.
(e) I wrote a story about a miscarriage once, and when framing it, one of my characters compared both abortion and miscarriage to murder as part of contextualizing the loss and guilt involved. I did so very clumsily, because, frankly, I was inexperienced. Although both characters also repeatedly argued pro-choice, and my own position is itself firmly pro-choice, I still ended up with some damn awful subtext, that wasn’t saying what I meant it to say at all.
(f) the author of Simon Vs Homo Sapien Agenda (the book behind Love, Simon) has a section where Simon thinks to himself that wlw have it a lot easier than him. Some readers understood this as Simon is sometimes an asshole, whilst other readers instead saw it as Albertalli genuinely believes wlw have it easier than mlm. The author herself has said that they do not believe that, and that Simon was being an ass, but also that even though Simon is contradicted in other parts of the text, to properly frame this moment, the author believes she should have contradicted Simon on this point within the same page.
What I’m trying to get at with these examples is that there is no clear-cut interpretation, nor solution to this.As shown by Example 2, there is a great deal of meaning and worth in something that has content indistinguishable from Example 1. As such, we cannot use any individual person, or community’s interpretation in any one moment to demand censorship, or level abuse at authors or audiences. I think, at most, it is reasonable to request the use of a tag, or warning is applied to a piece.However, we also can’t just wash our hands of it all, and declare god is dead – that’s irresponsible. Therefore writing about writing about these things is the most important thing. I believe criticism, and discussion about how we handle writing these things, and how we handle reading these things – about what we personally feel is inappropriate, or not – is a good thing, so long as it continues in good faith. Good faith is perhaps a nebulous term, but what I mean by it here is that harming, silencing and villifying the audiences and creators of troubled works is not criticism, so much as an act of violent authoritarianism and moral puritanism.Also the scope of fanwork, and oft’ inexperience of fan creators should be especially recognized, and is why (b) and (d) are remaining nameless in this essay.So, yes, I disapprove of some stories, but no, I think my disapproval is only valuable as discussion, not as tool with which to bludgeon someone from the illusion of a high horse. And no, I don’t think my disapproval is definitive, or always relevant. And yes, I feel authors do have a responsibility with handling sensitive content, but that responsibility is not to create what any reader (individually, or collectively) determines is “true literature”. In my opinion, that responsibility begins and ends with appropriate and mindful tagging.