What's Taboo in F/SF?

[ellenkushner]

SFSignal's MindMeld invited a bunch of authors to address the question:
Once upon a time, sf/f was full of taboos: no swearing, no sex, etc. We're thankfully past those days, but are there any taboos still remaining or new ones that have sprung up? Have you ever had trouble with publishing something, or caught yourself self-censoring?

My answer is somewhat lame, but it's there for all to see & respond to, along with those of Margo Lanagan, Hal Duncan, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and other notables.

Comments

[carpe_noir.livejournal.com]

Any excuse is a good excuse to break out the Berry icon!

[epithalamium]

Caitlin R. Kiernan wrote something about censorship in a Poppy Z. Brite story compilation (I think she also delivered it as a lecture for a convention), in which she said that the first kind of censorhip comes from the writer himself. It's one of the many concerns that plague a writer who's just starting to get published, I guess: trying to gauge what can get published in their ouvre and choosing the least offensive ones to show to the publishers.

I guess in the end it's all a game of chances between the writer and the publisher, aside from the reading public that's being targeted.

[rojomojo.livejournal.com]

I read a lot of stuff. Ah, to be rich so I could dither away the hours at poolside, with boat drinks and books. and football season, bit I digress.

I find that if the books offends me, I have the option of putting them down. However, there have been some fiction books lately I have read which were quite good, but I kept thinking in the back of my head that relationships between mythical creatures who are way old (great technical term) and teen girls as a motif bothers me. The same way a Pat Calfia essay on pedophilia liberation bothered me. and I can't put my finger on why. I have never been abused and have actually seen some relationships between men in their fifties and younger women work creatively, though most often it is either a trophy wife, gold digger or messainic motif. Not too many comments about the "staff of life", please. They are just hard to repress.

The two abovementioned books and essays bothered me in the way "A Modest Proposal" never did. That one you knew was sarcasm. These were to close to what to me is bothersome sexuality. Does that need censorship? no. But I certainly would not want young adults reading the latter of those two works.

rojo

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

The most effective use the word fuck I've heard was from Bruce Cockburn, who had hardly ever dipped into his Swears budget.

The most effective use that I can imagine would be from Anne Murray, who hasn't even touched hers yet.

[bookuniverse.livejournal.com]

I think the best response to certain books is ridicule. Yes, if I had a teenage daughter, I'd want to do some serious talking to her about the squicky subtexts in, say, TWILIGHT.

Aside from the implied pedophilic aspect of the 100+ year old vampire boy "in love" with the fifteen-year-old, there's the obsessive-possessive-stalker vibe, and the overall "warm-fuzzy"-ing of what was a HORROR archetype. Making the bloodsucking sexual predator a cute, sparkly, G-rated, "Mormon-safe*" pretty-boy is like turning a phouka into My Pretty Pony. I'd want to make sure the teenager knew that, in Real Life, powerful older guys and possessive, obsessive boyfriends aren't "romantic" or safe.

But as a bookdealer, I opted to just stock some t-shirts with the message "...and then Buffy staked Edward. The End." instead of the book series.

[*That quote was from a friend at a recent con, who pointed out that the author's a Mormon and was apparently trying to write paranormal-romance-fantasy that'd be "okay" for her Family Values community-of-faith.]


Getting back to the original topic, I've sometimes wondered what would count as really edgy, pushing the limits, if something like THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS were to be published today. The stories in the original DV certainly stretched MY boundaries when I read 'em as a college freshman, but even the incest/pedophilia one (Sturgeon, IIRC) is pretty tame by today's standards.

Lots of "transgressive" or "dangerous" themes are things I personally wouldn't care to read for fun (I've got a low "squick" threshold for most horror), but I wouldn't want to stop others from reading them. I get a bit twitchy, too, if age-inappropriate material is available for children or young adults... but still lean more towards "Parents should be aware of what their kids are reading/finding online/watching on TV/playing on videogames".

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Great discussion - thank you both for posting!