LJ Idol Presents:

Now that I'm out of the competition, I no longer have a vote-tally to defend, so I no longer have to keep my face-hole shut about potentially controversial opinions.

I don't blame the authors for writing to the prompt they were given; there's nothing to be done about that. But with that caveat let me say that everything about this week in Idol made me tremendously uncomfortable.

Let me put it this way. If me and a few of the guys decided to all write stories about exacting revenge on shrewish exes using female genital mutilation, and then slapping each other on the backs about how manly we're being, there would be a social media witch-hunt demanding tangible retribution.

Majicking away some dude's taquito - oh, but he absolutely deserved it, of course - and then being lauded for how womanly and empowering the story is though - 100% socially kosher.

I know this is extremely pointed, and I'm probably walking alone into the lion's den here, but I felt I had to say it.

From:

noodledays.livejournal.com

I'm going to raise a couple of points you may or may not have thought about -

1. Gary chose the topic.
2. without thoroughly checking, most if not all the contestants left are self-identified women.
3. none of the writers at this point should have felt a need to curtail the direction their story was going for worry of offending, particularly given the topic - strictly my opinion of course.

From:

anyonesghost.livejournal.com

On point 3: technically not, but if the idea is to make it accessible to as many readers as possible, some of the contestants may have cut off part of their potential vote pool. (Pun totally intended.) Mind, I don't know what percentile of the Idol viewership is male (in any sense), so maybe it's not an issue from a voting perspective. But folks can write what they wish, and folks can vote how they wish.

(I've neither read nor voted yet. Looks like this'll be a fun batch.)

From:

I agree with you for the most part. And I was made uncomfortable by the subject, as well. Castration fear, genital mutilation, revenge fantasy, and the psycho-somatic response to threatened genitalia are really not easy subjects. Nor is much of it funny. At all. There is little question in my mind that Koro has a psychological base in perceived societal emasculation. But that's a HUGE subject and probably not one that can be tackled in three days' time.

But using the comments section of a contestant's entry to make a social commentary doesn't seem appropriate. Especially once the piece has been written. Keeping in mind that most, if not all, of the writers are female.

AND...............regardless of kosher-ness...the desire to "majick" the penis (in several imaginable ways) is ages old and runs far deeper than the surface outrage or revulsion. Especially for women.

Why don't you homegame it? Your stance on this subject and the responses?

Edited Date: 2015-03-13 04:51 pm (UTC)

From:

noodledays.livejournal.com

I agree.

From:

*nods* Honestly, I see where you're coming from, and I understand why it makes you uncomfortable.

I can only speak for myself, but I tried to come at the prompt from a different angle. I was very aware of the minefield of writing, as you put it, a "womanly and empowering" story about a dude losing his genitals. Add onto that the fact that this term refers to a culture specific syndrome for a set of cultures which I've got very little personal experience with, and I wasn't sure I could do much with it that wasn't fraught. I ended up asking the question "ok, so what happens when someone thinks that this rather regionally specific thing is a global thing? And why would they think that? And what kind of shenanigans would it lead to?" and then plopped it into a spec-fic (spec-fish?) context, because that's what I do. I was tempted more than a little to have my protagonist be female, because hey, according to wikipedia koro is a thing women experience, too. I didn't go that route, but I do hope that I navigated those murky waters well enough. And I hope it makes you feel better (at least in some small part) about this week in Idol that this issue is a thing that was kept in mind and approached with at least some amount of care.

(A note: I've only read one story other than my own thus far - I glanced at the other entries this morning, but I'm running super behind and 'glancing at' isn't the same as reading.)

From:

"But using the comments section of a contestant's entry to make a social commentary doesn't seem appropriate. Especially once the piece has been written. Keeping in mind that most, if not all, of the writers are female."

I will respectfully disagree here, speaking only for myself. I'm not just writing these stories for myself - I'm writing them for an audience, and to a prompt, and in the narrow social context of this contest and the broader social context of this corner of the internet and so on and so forth. I want to hear people's reactions to the pieces I write. I want all kinds of comments and reactions, whether those reactions are "this really didn't work for me" or "this was great and I loved it" or "I was made uncomfortable for the following reasons" or "uh, I have no idea what you were doing with this and it made no sense to me". All of those are useful data points.

It's true that critical and negative comments do tend to have an impact on voting - and I think that's because once someone raises a point about a story other people are more inclined to tilt their heads and say "hey, yeah... that's a good point... I hadn't considered that." (I've observed this phenomena in book clubs too - everyone will be praising a book and saying what they like, and then I bring up the fact that the characters were actually pretty one dimensional and the author dropped the plot about 3/4 of the way through and whooosh their opinions and ratings drop. Heh. Psychology is weird). But again, that seems like a good thing to me, because critically engaging with stories is part of what it's all about for me. It's true that the stories are written and done, and in a tiny amount of time and to enormous pressures and constraints, but that doesn't mean they won't be revisited or tweaked or improved later.

Again, I'm only speaking for myself (and hey, if my vote totals go down because bunches of people come over to my journal and say "uh, this really didn't work for me" or whatever, I'm ok with that). If people aren't comfortable starting those conversations in my journal, I'm happy to have them via email or private message or whatever. Sometimes I don't have time or energy to do all the talking right away, but I think it's one of the more interesting aspects of the contest - people are seeing our words that wouldn't otherwise, and I would really love to know what they think. Brains are neat. And someone might have a reaction to what I wrote that's really unexpected and teaches me something new.

From:

suesniffsglue.livejournal.com

I went with the first thing that came to mind. It was exactly what you're talking about, and I do apologize for any discomfort caused. I didn't feel comfortable adapting a masculine voice on this particular topic. When I read the wikipedia entry, I panicked for awhile until I came to the part about witches being blamed. My brain latched on to that direction, because it's something I could relate to. Perhaps I should have stepped outside the box more. Hindsight.

From:

I think you're right that this is a touchy subject. I tend to err on the side of caution with comments unless someone has asked specifically for feedback. I did try to give concrit on all the concrit threads. I'm not sure that the comment section is the place for that in this competition. But yes, growth can absolutely happen with solid critique.

I didn't say anything in your post but I did have some pauses in the idea that the father was telling a little girl about how her mother threatened to remove his penis....and then how the father recounted that he was happy that the mother did not do this....for obvious reasons. I'm not sure that would be appropriate bedtime storytelling. ;) But I did enjoy how you cast a genitalia-free creature in your story! And I did think your piece responded to the prompt!

From:

And I commented with a high-five for female empowerment on your piece. Because a woman who exacts revenge on a rapist is empowering.

You and I briefly touched on how uncomfortable this prompt was.

Female genitalia has been maligned, abused, destroyed, and feared for aeons.

From:

suesniffsglue.livejournal.com

Female genitalia has been maligned, abused, destroyed, and feared for aeons.

And this is why the high fives happen. It is uncomfortable, and I don't want to make others feel uncomfortable. But what an amazing point.

From:

Yup, and those are in fact points I did think about, even while making my post.

For point one, that's why I said that I don't blame the authors. You have a topic, the pressure's on, time to write. What else could they have done? Not much, really.

Second point, yeah, I believe you're right. Which made this choice of prompt a little uncomfortable. If it were five men left in the competition, would everyone have been comfortable with cliterectomy as a prompt?

And for the final and most important point, I was venting my opinion of the entire situation, and my observation of social currents at large, not calling out individual authors. Me expressing those opinions do not and should not be misconstrued as shutting people down.

Also note that I said 'uncomfortable', not 'offended'. Nothing annoys me more than "that offends me [subtext: so you should be silenced]". Everyone can write what they want, and I can choose to like it or not. And express my opinions on it.

From:

*nods* The topic of criticism in comments is a touchy one, for sure. I know that my stance on it is different than a lot of other folk's, and I don't generalize out from myself to other people and just assume they want or welcome those kinds of conversations, publicly or privately. It's a personal thing, writing, and it's also a personal thing how one handles reactions to that work.

Ah, and thank you for the feedback! That makes your comment on the piece make a lot more sense to me. :) I think if I do any future iterations of that story, I'll make it clearer that the daughter is a young adult or older to try to sidestep some of that potential squick. I was raised by a single dad, so direct or indirect references to the fact that boys have different equipment than girls was not a big deal in my childhood or our household. I didn't spend a lot of time dwelling on it, but it was just one of those things. I was also reading Stephen King in second grade, though, so... yeah, I was a weird kid.

From:

You don't need to apologize. That's certainly not what I was looking for here. I also don't have some brilliant suggestion for what else y'all COULD have done. I just felt a certain way, didn't really think anyone else was gonna say it, and perhaps unwisely broadcast my thoughts on it. :)

From:

I absolutely understand your stance on this! I try not to privately contact folks....because I think that way lies madness...in so many cases. ;)

I get what you're saying about your reasoning there. And it just cements why I don't critique in comments because there is so much give-and-take in concrit. Your own POV, what you were trying to say. I'm not a woman who would EVER threaten, seriously or jokingly, to remove a man's penis because he walked in on me in the tub....so right off the bat, my own POV came into play. I feel that I cannot accurately critique a piece without knowing more about the writer's thoughts...so now I do and I HEAR YOU!!!!

From:

suesniffsglue.livejournal.com

Your comment really gave me a lot to think about, and the things running through my head now are important things. I am very glad you expressed how you were feeling. It was something I hadn't even considered, which I typically try hard to do.

From:

Yeah, I wasn't damning individual authors here, just expressing how uncomfortable the whole thing is. Which is not exactly news to everyone here, reading the comments in response. As I said elsewhere, if it were five men left in the competition, would everyone have been entirely cool with cliterectomy as a prompt? Nobody would try to silence the writing, or jump up and down or set things on fire, but would we all have been okay with it regardless?

From:

anyonesghost.livejournal.com

I admit, I don't share your point of view precisely ... but then, I didn't read the comments. You read comments on the internet? I mean ... ick.

From:

You are a deeply feeling guy and I'm glad you spoke up about it. And yes, your example of a cliterectomy or reference to "the wound that never heals" or chastity belts...or whatever....is well stated. Because. Yeah.

I struggled, personally, with the larger idea of a group of men feeling emasculated...and went to an individual level. And something about the worship of the artificial phallus tickles me. (?)

I would have very much liked to see what this prompt would have done back when we had several hundred writers.

(I think this is the exact kind of threading Our Dear G enjoys the heck out of...)

From:

Didn't think you were damning individual authors - I just wanted to offer up my own perspective (since that's what I've got) (hey look, I can make it about meeeee, she says wryly. Heh) and let you know that you weren't the only one feeling uncomfortable. And good lord, I'm glad we've never had cliterectomy as a prompt. *shudder* Let's not give Gary any ideas here, ok? Would we have been okay with it? Probably not. But I don't really know we were okay with this one either.

This is honestly the kind of interaction I was hoping would come out of this prompt - and part of why I wish I was more comfortable with / wanted to do more non-fiction writing, because starting a conversation like this as an entry would have been really interesting.

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