A fan I tweet with regularly told me my books mess with her head and take her places she doesn’t want to go, but she goes there anyway.
I regularly hear the arguments that reading fiction can teach you empathy or give you a peek into someone else’s world. In other words, fiction is good for you. Like eating your vegetables is good for you.
Except…romance, which is porn for women. And young adult, which is too dark and dangerous.
Throughout my life at church, I’ve heard the call to seek out things (books, music, TV, etc.) which are lovely, praiseworthy, and of good report. I’ve gotten hammered for writing explicit sex and dropping the f-bomb. I’ve heard all the arguments about why fictional violence is more acceptable than fictional sex. Then there are the above-linked articles that basically say, “Protect deh wimminz anna childrinz cuz dey doan know no bettah!”
Thus, fiction is bad for you. It makes you experience things you ought not to experience.
Well…yeah. That’s the point. Imagine the following conversation:
Bishop X: “Sister Mojo, you said you wanted to confess something?”
Me: “Yes, Bishop. I killed a man and had sex with a woman yesterday.”
Bishop X: [jaw drop]
Me: “And I want to repent.”
Bishop X: “Uh…how did this all come about?”
Me: “Well, I turned on my Kindle…” [insert confession of murder and lesbian action]
Bishop X: [steely glare] “Why are you wasting my time?”
Fiction takes you places. It’s a way to explore things you wouldn’t ordinarily explore without the risks involved in or resources needed to actually explore it. Maybe you don’t have a sparkly vampire handy.
You may or may not want to go there, but if you do want to go there (you dirty-minded perv)…
Well, look. It’s a whole lot easier to ’fess up to reading a murder mystery than it is to ’fess up to homicide.
Very well said, MoJo. I am so tired of these articles. It’s as if people have forgotten the point of having an imagination.
Well, they haven’t forgotten the point of having an imagination. They’ve been busy beating its existence out of our children for the last 20 years and the next phase is to eradicate the people who will give them their imagination fix.
Get Senseless by Stona Fitch. You won’t just go there, you’ll be traumatized afterwards.
Well-said.
Brava!!!!! Keep your morals out of my library rates right up there with keep your laws off my body.
And yet…you’ll be able to go back to your normal life none the worse for wear.
Kullervo, welcome to my twisted mind. 🙂
LOL Mojo! I would have sssoooo many things to repent for. 😀 Thanks to “literature” (not just romance) I have killed people, had extramarital affairs, destroyed marriages, raped, been raped, stolen money, you name it and I have read a book that covers it.
Me too.
And I had fun doing it.
Heh, you just love messing with peoples heads. 😀
And I so not clicking on those links.. they will just mess with my head.
Why don’t they go pick on TV, which is mindless, at least fiction makes you think.
and yes at good moments, messes with my head completely.
The links would mess with my head in a not good way.. that was supposed to be. heh
Moi?
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I wrote a piece on my blog why going to those dark places is important: http://byzantium.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/one-way-or-another-the-bacchae/