This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
This commenter's post is deeply objectionable for a number of a reasons, but the cherry on top is the dishonest framing of the evidence provided. The link to the comic which was provided displays that this book was available in a CITY'S PUBLIC LIBRARY, not some middle school where it was part of the curriculum. Of course the argument that a public city Library should contain zero material for an adult audience is absurd and I believe hardly anyone would defend it (though I'm happy to be proven wrong), which is why I believe this argument which could be defended on truthful merits was ignored instead for this dishonest framing.
Furthermore, a link to an article shows us the news that some female teachers rape their young male students. This is deeply horrible behaviour that deserves to be condemned, but I'd like to ask the obvious question, which is: what is the rate of teacher rape you are asserting (de facto by not mentioning other professions) is so much higher than other positions that come into contact regularly with children? Do we have reason to believe it's higher than the rate of priests at the hypothetical church you might join? If so, the evidence has not been provided. In the lack of that evidence, it seems a strange leap to assert that teachers are some uniquely dangerous creatures immune to societal condemnation (especially when incredibly disparate things like rape and allowing a graphic comic to remain on a public library shelf are lumped together)
I am happy to defend the idea that drawn erotica is inappropriate material for a public library to carry. Tom of Finland may have made many gays very happy, but if they want his material they are free to pay for it themselves.
I stand on the null hypothesis that public libraries, until very recently, also agreed with me.
Would you like to defend or justify some sort of reasoning for the change?
So I have actually looked at the images in Gender Queer. I would not call them "erotica." It's supposed to be a coming-of-age novel about a queer kid experimenting with sex acts that she ultimately finds unappealing.
Would I want my pre-teen kids to read it? No. It definitely should be age-restricted. But "This shouldn't even exist in a public library" seems a bit much.
Influencing my opinion is the fact that I distinctly remember books like Flowers in the Attic and the John Norman Gor series existing in my school library when I was a kid. Now maybe you can make a case that text is less harmful/dangerous than images, but I would contest that. Those books had some fucked up themes and scenes, and the sex scenes weren't even explicit.
I extend to people the presumption that if they are engaging in the discussion, they have at least looked at the most salient examples of the topic, and so stating that I have “actually looked” at the examples could only be read as a veiled accusation that the other person hasn’t.
———
It’s a blowjob, dude. It’s erotica by its very nature. It shouldn’t be in the public library. Again I stand on the null hypothesis that until very recently, essentially every library in America agreed with me, and it is the change that has to be justified.
That being said, you bring up a good point. Flowers in the Attic and Gor shouldn’t have been in your school library. It shouldn’t have been in mine.
The sewage was already lapping around our ankles when we were kids, but that’s no excuse for letting things get worse. And yes, on the way back to having no metaphorical sewage flowing through our intellectual and spiritual lives, we have to pump the sewer back down to just around our waists, and then our knees, and our ankles, and so forth.
There are things that can be sexual but not pornographic, but those things are, culturally, well prior to Playboy.
Sex acts aren't inherently "erotica." The idea that no library books ever depicted sex acts (visually or textually) before Gender Queer is false.
Sure they are. We can do this all day.
Not once have I argued this. You brought in the question of text. I’m not sure who you’re arguing with right now.
What I have argued and will continue to argue is that there is a constant churn of Cthulhu swimming left, towards greater and greater degradation of the commons. Today it’s someone defending cutesy drawings of blowjobs in library books that librarians push or market towards young teens or tweens, 10 or 20 years from now it’ll be someone defending librarians pushing kids towards cutesy drawings of some author’s autobiographical exploration of the first time they let their dog fuck them. Maybe sooner! Things are moving fast.
Maybe that will be too much for you, or maybe it won’t, maybe you’ll continue to say, “Well, I read Gor in the school library when I was a kid, and I remember the Gender Queer arguments on the Motte (PBUI) and the kinds of assholes who took the counter-argument to me, so this is fine also.”
Or maybe you’ll find your grandkid reading it in the library’s booknook and you’ll be appalled. I don’t know. But your current arguments are toothless to me because my stance is that Gor in the school library was already too much.
We are merely having the discussion about Gender Queer because that is where the current battlefield starts. Unfortunately, from my point of view.
I agree with the pattern you observe (but I have mixed feelings over whether it is a bad thing), and I also find it very annoying that normie progressives simultaeneously show radical acceptance towards the thing of [current year] and hostile disgust towards the stuff that hasn't yet been normalised.
But I believe that: a) In the specific case of gender queer, it is not happening b) When it does happen (now or in the future), it's not that bad.
And if that does happen in the future, that would also not necessarily be erotica. It's not about whether you, personally, find the lifestyle choices being proselytised gross or icky - the question is "does this work attempt to convey complex ideas and emotions that provoke the reader to think?" (or in the other direction - "would anyone want to read this work with both hands outside of their pants?")
I can easily imagine a serious piece of literature being written on this topic, in the style of "Gender Queer":
And yes, we can play this game again for any other "degenerate" aspect of human sexuality that also currently lies to the left of the Overton window (pedophillia, necrophillia, vore, etc)
Why is it so terribly awful for children to be exposed to actual erotica? (I am now moving onto point b - I maintain that Gender Queer is not erotica) My school library did not stock "Gor", but it did stock an adult fantasy novel, whose last half was a thinly-veiled femdom porn fantasy:
The actual book is even more sexualised than even this account would suggest (his "training" spans many pages) - I recall the "Mord-Sith" telling the protagonist to focus on her latex-clad breasts to avoid the pain of the Agiel (it can read the
submissive'svictim's thoughts, and hurts them when they think bad things about thedommeMord-Sith), another Mord-Sith who is implied to castrate her "pets", and another still who actually makes them communicate in barks and go on "walks" with her through the town naked, collared and on all-fours.As a pre-teen, I did indeed find this "confusing" (I was not aware that it was supposed to be erotic, so I wondered if there was something seriously wrong with me for finding graphic descriptions of "torture" arousing), and I remember feeling deeply ashamed about my enjoyment of the book and all the fantasies I had that were inspired by the book. And now... I'm an adult - and nothing bad happened. I don't have some kind of PTSD, I understand that was just a fantasy written by a horny guy (and Denna is not an accurate representation of female sexuality), I didn't develop an irrational fear/hatred towards women because I associate them with Denna, etc. Reading this synopsis of the book now, I can only laugh at how silly and over-the-top the whole thing was in retrospect.
This was not a good thing (as in, I'm not going to encourage any future children I have to read TWFR so they can experience what I experienced) - but in retrospect, this seems to be on a similar level of badness to the long list of other minor things that made my teenage years less than storybook.
But going back to point (a) - I think it's borderline even whether something like TWFR counts as "erotica" (the first half was just a normal fantasy novel, with mature themes, and the book did seriously explore the idea of being tortured - the Mord-Siths were not dominatrices, the torture depicted was very real and non-consensual, with blood and genuine agony)
Gender Queer is nowhere close to this border. Having skimmed the book, it totals 240 pages, of which there are exactly 2 short scenes that are of a sexual nature (the strap-on blowjob mentioned by the media, and also a medical exam showing the author naked without any scenery censor) - all of the remaining pages are just ordinary comic book drawings with pro-LGBT storylines and perspectives.
It is a reasonable position to be against titles like Gender Queer on the basis that you are against their underlying message, and do not want to normalise pursuing sexually deviant lifestyles (especially not to impressionable young children) - as I said at the start of the comment, I also have mixed feelings over the LGBTQ+ movement. But I think it is completely unreasonable to object on the grounds that works like these are pornographic (because they aren't)
CREW: A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries
Bolded for the part that gets as explicit as possible, but of course most of the other criteria are easy to apply as well. I'm familiar with the general argument you're making, but I'm also aware that this is not how libraries actually work, and I decline to be a rube.
I am not claiming that this is the criteria libraries use in real life to decide what is allowed on their shelves (I will join you in not being a rube here), or even that it should be the criteria they use.
I'm arguing that this is the criteria for whether something is erotica or not, and that it's disingenuous to call Gender Queer "erotica" and deny the fact that it does indeed attempt to convey complex ideas and emotions (albeit ideas that offend some people's sensibilities, and whose spread may well be damaging to society)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link