Deceiving The Lie: Part VII (B)
This is a smidge early because I just got back from a business trip and per usual, jet lag has destroyed me. 10 hour flight for a two day trip to arrive back at home at zero in the morning. Business trip planning fail. I’m going to bed now, and hopefully I’ll be awake by Monsundnesday, but I don’t want to risk falling behind. I’ve been doing sooo well. I’m also posting a lot of side stuff next week (a couple of background stories, chapter synopses, etc.) and I don’t want it to feel like a free for all with so many updates. So, I figured I’d post now so as not to worry about it later.
New subject: I’ve never avoided sexuality in my writing, but I don’t think I’ve ever approached it as directly (or with possibly unnerving implications) as I have in this update and in upcoming updates. I would never be overtly graphic, or obscene, but I’ve decided to completely commit to the 18+ness of 18+. That said, this is 18+ with strong sexual themes.
I would actually still like to hear the opinions from my readership about the line between squicky and sexy, edifying or terrifying, but I am so fuzzy right now, I can’t really create a coherent foundation for discussion, so I’ll come back to it. But I will say, this may be leaning toward the squicky side of things. Edit: My readership is awesome, and I think too hard. Nevermind.
there’s a squicky side of sex? You mean when you don’t brush your teeth…ok that’s not what you mean. From someone who has pushed as far as I can, always mindful of what is going on with the characters – whether they wonder how they got there, love it, use it, or would rather be shaving their legs in a dark room – go for it. It’s one of the most powerful tools in any world. Too many people are just fine with seeing someone’s head blown off but run screaming if there’s OMG SEX.
S.B.
May 8, 2009 at 2:51 pm
S.B.!!! I am soooooo glad you said that! But it’s not really the sex that was getting me. And it isn’t really this update that I’m concerned about, but it is the beginning of what may be a theme. Yeah, Jax is sexy and all, but he’s doing all of this sexually charged stuff to a woman against her will. And I was afraid it’d be squicky. Well, not afraid, because in some ways that sort of thing is squicky, but you know you can pull out all this philosophical mumbo jumbo about vampire lore and sexual parallels anyway.
So I suppose I mean that CONSENSUAL actions don’t even click on my radar. I’m gonna write about it, it’s gonna happen. It’s the nonconsensual stuff… like what is kind of going on here, that I’m concerned about.
Veron
May 8, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Oh. Ok. Nonconsensual. Somebody forcing somebody else. Jax and whatever he happens to want to use.
I’m trying to come up with a reason why you should not use a power play like that. Sex as power. I can’t. Even if you pushed it further than that (as in he wasn’t remotely seductive and she did whatever for some other reason), I still can’t see any reason not to do it.
Define nonconsensual. Turn it around. Go for it.
S.B.
May 8, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Yeah… I don’t even know. Oh gosh, I wish I could tell you what happens next!!!!!!!!
Well, okay, forget this situtation. If you look at Mickey’s past, which it what I’m mostly concerned about because I’m about to release her background story (which is probably where I should have put the warning) and there will be a bunch more vignettes of her past in later updates. She was a teen when all this shitty shit happened to her, and she was taken advantage of. As a teen, by grown men. Even if it wasn’t a sexual violation (per se), since it’s all psychic stuff and blood, it was a definite violation of her body.
I suppose I wanted to just see where the line was drawn, and if I should really talk about that directly, or just leave it to random comments Mickey makes occasionally.
Like, if the line was drawn at Jax fondling Aeryn, then there is no way that I’d be able to approach Mickey being abused as a teen. You see what I mean?
Veron
May 8, 2009 at 7:19 pm
I hope it is ok to jump in here. Where you are going with Mickey’s past is not squicky at all imho. I believe we all have a sense of what happened to Mickey in her past and the idea of exploring it more definitively and openly will be very powerful. It has been inferred so knowing and understanding it in a more direct way is good. Again, powerful. And the rest of it was well done.
Gayl
May 8, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Go for it, Veron. Characters can be as real as people sometimes. Sometimes the dirty truth builds us into the people we are today.
Mickey is awesome. And damn strong, to boot. That didn’t come from nowhere.
I don’t think you’d offend anyone by going back and telling how it came to be, regardless.
Mao
May 8, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Oh thank you guys for commenting. I was half afraid that no one would acknowledge it and I would just be stuck worrying myself. I think it’s just because I’m also giving my words form… in the shape of sims.
It’s one thing to see it in your head, and another thing to see it in a word document, and another thing entirely to visualize it.
But I’ll stop worrying. Right now.
THANK YOU. Thank you thank you thank you. Thank you.
Veron
May 9, 2009 at 12:24 am