I am so tired of that. You write\read non-con! Oh, that means you aren't raping left in right just because you don't want to get in jail (or an even more absurd version for females "how can you want to be raped?"). Enjoying incest stories? You must be masturbating thinking about all of your relatives and would totally fuck them giving a chance. Are you enjoying cuckold content? You totally won't mind if your partner will fuck around, right? The list goes on. Why this misconception is so strong?
I assume that's because people like to think they can read other people easily. Also, a lot of people can't really make peace with their own fantasies because of the same line of reasoning: If I like rape stories, it must be I'm a wannabe rapist, deep down. So they hide behind some very vanilla fantasies and judge the others. But this is me thinking I can read other people easily so it is kind of paradoxical, I know
It's just how people are. I'm into...a lot of things. A lot that would shock you. But I can be pretty judgmental over things I don't personally approve of because I can't understand the people who would be into those things. It's difficult to understand the idea of things you're not into. You can't simply just tell yourself "When I think about it, this is actually really hot." It doesn't work that way. Sure, I'm into stories about non con, but so is most of the population as one of the most common fetishes? The amount of people who actually approve it as a real world activity is actually a very small fraction and I'm glad to not be one of them. Thing is, it's just fiction. It doesn't matter. This is partially why I don't approve of self insert characters or people modeling things around real life events. It crosses the threshold to what's mostly just harmless games into implying you either want those things to happen or did them. Why I hate author avatars is generally explicitly because it's how the author actually sees themselves. Not everyone who owns a keyboard is a mentally stable and reasonable person. How would you know? It sounds harsh, but ultimately, people judging you, it happens in your day to day life, and it's just part of the risk you take as a writer. But I'm more worried about the people who see everyone else as a potential rapist or pyschopath. One of the most common warning signs of an actual sociopath is someone who refuses to believe anyone else couldn't be like them so if they imagine everyone else thinks that way and the only thing holding back people's hedonistic impulses is legal consequences.....it's pretty telling. Regardless, I'm still one of the least liked people in the forums and I'm aware of the fact, but you know....I don't feel bad about it. I'm still here. I'll never lie to validate people or reinforce things I don't agree with and I wouldn't be able to get by with myself if I did. I know I'm not an actual murder, thief(Granted, maybe I've pirated a few games here and there.) or a rapist. I don't need to prove it to anyone because what is there to prove? As twisted as my sexual tastes in stories might be, I think I'd have to get myself comittited if I even tried to bother with mental gynamstics about how it should be fine for the real world.
Are you saying that I'm not well adjusted just because my profile picture is a guy pulling his brains out of his ear? Ouch, that hurts, man! Seriously though, you have to consider also the risk of emulation... I'm still kidding, but now seriously, there are people that think rapists, motherfuckers, murders, and even pedophiles to a degree, get their sick ideas from fiction. Hence the scorn that writing about rape sometimes brings forth. And hence the thought that if you keep reading/watching that stuff, at some point you too will turn into one. And following that, with a remarkable somersault of hindsight logic, you can see how you are now just a rapist in waiting, even if you don't know it yet. Though I have to admit it's kind of hard to defuse such a way of thinking: sometimes I still happen to think 'what kind of sick psycho gets off with Guro stuff? I have never perceived this, really. I like you just as much as the other regular forum users. Aren't you being just a little paranoid here? Or... did you mean liked like in likes they use to like likable stuff on the main site? Because that isn't right for sure.
Yeah, I had a debate about that. While said acts are inarguably detestable, is it really the right idea to strictly ban more extreme kinds of porn? I have made my view clear that a certain standard needs to be held, but if you wanted to argue the contrary then it could be debated providing potentially depraved people outlets whether you agree with it or not may be better than altogether banning those things and the individual in question having no outlet for their worse urges. Does it lessen those needs by not providing the means to cater to them, or strengthen those urges due to the lack of a place for them? It’s a tough question.
Might be an unpopular viewpoint, but I'm not going to pretend I haven't seen some stories that make me a bit worried about what the author's intentions were in writing this stuff. Non-con, sure whatever, just a fantasy. I don't mind it, even if the typical way it's written is something I avoid and don't enjoy. But like those really dark, revenge focused stories, especially ones that use real celebrities or 'feminists' that also tend to use a blank self-insert character as the male that the reader and author is clearly supposed to identify with. It just kind of creeps me out.
Whether it's the author's intent to come off as that way or not, they are still ultimately the creator of said content and it did come from them. That's all there really is to it. Of course, what you write doesn't necessarily reflect your actual views. But when you are the producer of the content in question, you have to be prepared for people making that assumption.
Oh. There are people who would do the stuff they write about given a chance to avoid consequences for doing so. My problem is the assumption that ALL people who turned up by fantasying about doing something perverted and\or immoral actually want to do that. When I read something like a story in which the protagonist strangles women to death during sex, it isn't arousing for me. It is disturbing. And I understand that we may have a potential serial killer there. But I also understand that, more likely than not, this person doesn't actually want to do this.
The stories you write come from somewhere within you. Your keyboard is not automated, and your hands do not have lives of their own. When you mentally compose a scene before committing it to the written word, what is it exactly that goes through your mind? The assumption that the judgemental reader you describe holds, at least in cases of kinks they dislike, is that the writer must have certainly been imagining something they want to actually happen. They are simply codifying their genuine desires. Often the assumption includes that they picture themselves in the position of one of the characters - especially the more offensive one, if they exist - or otherwise are taking an action or finding themselves in a situation that they cannot easily bring about in reality. Of course, the human mind is not so superficial, and stories are rarely so blunt a translation of an author's thoughts. Consider the textbook example of incest. The judgemental reader would, essentially, assume the worst of the writer: that they genuinely want to have sex with a family member, that the only thing stopping them is an issue of either legality, social acceptance, or reciprocation, and that the story is merely a manifestation of this actual unrealised desire. If you are not literally writing about a family member, then the differing characters and context must, according to this reader, be only a thin veil. Truthfully, there is a multitude of layers of possible reasons behind a writer choosing to compose such a scene, and they each lie on a spectrum wherein the literal desire for personal incest occupies just one extreme. Perhaps the writer does not personally wish to participate in incest, but would still like to see it really happen, between their own family members or perhaps related friends. Perhaps the writer merely enjoys the idea of incest and knows they do not actually enjoy it in reality, or at least has the self-awareness to realise as much. Perhaps the writer does not specifically like incest but more generally taboo sex, and incest is a prime example of a taboo because it remains a very real one in most modern societies - in fact, writing erotically about incest is often its own sexual taboo, and thus the author is, in a way, participating in a fetish, just not the particular fetish of incest. Perhaps the scene is merely a natural addition to the plot, and the writer is not actively opposed to its inclusion; perhaps the plot leads so explicitly to that place that the author finds themselves with little choice but to write it, even if it is not their preference. Each of these reasons is less literally related to incest than the previous, but none of them are unreasonable motivation for writing an incestuous scene. In fact, if the final product has sufficiently deviated from the obvious case of writing about an actual personal fantasy, some of the most unacceptable and even disgusting sexual acts may be worked into a creative piece while barely affecting its reception. A Song of Ice and Fire is a mainstream piece of media with sex scenes involving rape and minors, off the top of my head, and in the series adaptation Game of Thrones there is probably more on-screen rape than is really warranted by the story, but the books have no moral controversy among the general populace to my knowledge, and the worst thing you ever hear about the show is how disappointing its finale was. Even personally, the most infamous aspect of George R R Martin's reputation is how slow his writing process is, of all things. There are shades of grey in the issue, but some of them are very light and some are very dark. Some people have more black-and-white thinking, and some only ever see just one shade. Your genuine perspective on your subject matter might not always come through in your writing, but then sometimes it is abundantly clear. It may be overt in very serious works that the author was not masturbating when they wrote about the abuse the protagonist suffers at the hands of the irredeemable villain, and in something called "I Kidnap And Rape My High School Bully" it may be overt that the author would jump at the opportunity to drug the real Cindy Brown and handcuff her to his bed, but most CHYOA stories, being pornographic but not personal, lie somewhere in between.
