It’s funny to me when people will gladly write out brutal torture, and understand that fiction is not the same thing as reality, but absolutely baulk at any kind of sexual violence being included in fiction.
Like yeah I’ll write my little guy being skinned alive in agonizing detail but NONCON NUDITY???? YOU’RE A REAL SICK FUCK THAT’S TAKING IT TOO FAR. THE PANTS STAY ON FOR THE SKINNING!!!
It’s interesting to see where that line is for people. I can absolutely sympathize with feeling like sexual violence is more deeply violating in a way that’s difficult to explain. If you’re uncomfortable with reading it, that’s absolutely valid!
What’s odd to me though is how people will be fully on board in understanding that writing violence doesn’t mean you would support those actions in real life, but as soon as sex is introduced, then you’re a bad person for writing it and surely must support it in real life. There are whump writers here who go out of their way to shun noncon whump writers and protest noncon whump with everything they do, that’s how much they hate it.
A lot of those same people like all the chapters of my noncon whump as they read it. They keep their likes private so no one notices, and often unlike it once they are done reading. People who are very publicly against noncon whump without anyone’s prompting, even people who base their entire presence in the whump community as morally objectionable to any noncon whump. Why do they do this to themselves?
Where is the line of acceptability? Why does that line symbolize a crossover into pure moral objectivity? What explanations and defenses for enjoying whump exist that can’t be applied in the exact same way to noncon whump? Why is this fiction okay, but this other fiction isn’t?
I think back on a bit from The Body of Christopher Creed where the main character puzzles over the depictions of Jesus being crucified. Here is a horrific image, of a body left on display after being tortured to death in a way that many criminals were. Normalized in art, in jewelry, in stained glass, in statues too numerous to begin counting. It’s deemed appropriate to see this violence on display in public all around the world where Christianity has invaded.
Typically, you can see the wounds in his hands and his feet. And the stab wound under his breast. And the crown of thorns on his head. Sometimes, depending on the detail, the lines in his back from where he was whipped. But you know what? Jesus, as well as all the other criminals subjected to crucifixion, was crucified naked. Yet the depictions of him, time and time again, show his genitals covered - by loincloth, leaves, or smoothed over like a Ken doll.
Why is violence more acceptable to depict than nudity? Normal, nonsexual nudity. Everyone has some form of genitalia. Not everyone has a mortal wound. Violence is more appropriate to be displayed in public and in church, than natural human anatomy. Why is that? I know it seems a long extrapolation from being against noncon whump, but the concept I’m pressing on here is how depictions of grievous violence can be considered appropriate while nudity and sex are deemed inappropriate.
There’s a funny line that humans draw there. Is there a real moral reasoning behind it? Or is it based on feelings? Where do people in the whump community stand on the political censorship of sexual content, consensual or not, as a wave of online censorship comes down the pipeline in so many countries? Should whump be censored? Should noncon whump be censored? How can someone justify censorship of noncon whump, but not other violent whump?
I don’t know. Just musing. Thoughts welcome, but if you’re just going to try to tell me off, save yourself the effort. I don’t feel a need to defend myself, I just think it’s interesting how divided the community is on it, for one taboo subject vs another.
