MESSAGE BOARD TOPIC #27

[Comicality]

I listened to a Marilyn Manson song today. And later on tonight, I was blasting Eminem in my headphones at full volume. I've seen plenty of violent movies in my life, in fact I was weened on horror movies! "Fangoria" magazine? You BET!!! I'm just sad that I haven't let those weird influences compell me to disembowel somebody yet. Funny, I thought it would have kicked in by now! Hehehe!

 

Anyway, we are surrounded by influences that might be deemed 'questionable' by many impressionable minds. As artists and authors, we don't have to adhere to a certain level of responsibility...but we DO have to be aware of it. That can be a very thin tightrope to walk sometimes.

 

The question for this week is...

 

=As writers and readers of teen erotic fiction...do you feel that we condone, or maybe even 'provoke', certain behaviors in other people?=

 

I'll be honest, I felt really bad for my feelings and was totally depressed over it...until I found Nifty, where there were many more people who felt the same way as I did. Hell...it's because of nifty that I was able to start writing and began feeling comfortable with who I was as a person. Am I a product of someone else's work? To all of you readers out there, and you writers, do you feel that these stories make certain taboos 'ok' in their presentation to the public? Can they 'influence' their audience to do things they normally wouldn't? Or is that make-believe? A way for the people of today to say "The Devil made me do it"? Is it possible that someone who would never touch a teenage boy, might be persuaded to do so by reading a sexually stimulating story online? Or that teenagers might be more inclined to race out and have sex after reading something someone else wrote?

 

Bottom line....is art imitating life? Or is life imitating art?

 

The board is open! Let's hear what you've gotta say!

[Crackerwriter]

Firstly, previewing this, the colour is sick, but I don't know how to change it being new to here. Now on with the reply.

 

 

From personal experience, I think a bit of both.

 

I was lucky in that at the age of ten, I found my first true boyfriend and sexual partner, and we explored just about every avenue of sex that it's possible, just using our own bodies, by the time we reached our mid teens. We literally discovered sex between males on our own before we were eleven even though there was no ejaculation from either of us. We just figured what needed doing.

 

I wrote and posted the story of this on Nifty. It'll be here on Gayauthors shortly. I know since then that having had relationships with others, reading about what is apparently acceptable has made one or two, well perhaps more, (!), more adventurous in what they tried for themselves. Without having read about it, they might have merely only tried a quick fumble and wank.

 

On the other hand, knowing what is possible in fully enjoying the physical side of gay sex, I have felt less inhibited about writing it into stories. Maybe this will influence others to try something that they otherwise would have been too embarrassed to try.

 

I think this might be an interesting thread of comments!

 

Mike.

[Crackerwriter]

Thank god it's legible after posting!!

[ethan thorn]

you know i dont know i know there are some real sick people out there and they do what is in the stories just for fun now that is wrong.

but to let your mind be the only thing doing anything then no there are a lot of teens i have that about it that way but would i do anything with them no i would not.

the way i see it is what goes on in our minds is our bis. if some one says well so and so's story made me do it to that kid they are messed up in the head.

a fantasy is just that its not real there for if you know whats right and wrong you will not run out and find the first cute 14 year old and do you know what if we condone or provoke that in other people then its not us its them and there grip on the real world.

Edited October 4, 2004 by ethan thorn

[Guest jamieanderson]

Please forgive the mstooks, I

[Guest sam_lakes]

A child will see 100,000 acts of violence on TV by the time they are 18. Does TV influence kids - I don't know ask the advertisers.

 

My personal opinion is yes it may influence some. I think some kids are predisposed to acts of violence, crime, hate crimes, etc.

 

 

How would you feel if you or some witer wrote a story about some kid who decided to take action against gays and wrote it in a way that glorified killing and murdering of gays (there are probably writers who would) and let's say that you and the one you love are at a gay rally and some kid who has be taught by peers and/or parents that gays are evil and should be eliminated. This kid reads the story and says "Hey! I could do that!" and does it, killing your loved one.

 

My personal opinion is the author owns some of the responsibility for what happened.

 

I think an author who doesn't care how his story may influence others is irresponsible.

[Sparhawk]

This really is a hard question to answer. I really belive the answer is both yes and no. Not everyone is created equal and unforturnatley some do have weak self control.

 

I will never forget a couple of years ago I was having a disscussion about Fantasy writing with a Christain lady that I think of the world of. She is very down to earth and not very judgemental at all. She was telling me that her Grand Daughter was a avid fan of "Anne McCfrrey". The Grandmother had even read a few of her books and loved them. The problem was, the Grand Daugther actually belived that "Pern" was a real place. The Grand Daughther was 20 years old at that time.

 

Here then is where the problem lies, some people belive that what ever they read is true. It does not matter weather it is fiction or non-fiction (and belive me, I do not think that all non-fiction is all that factual).

 

However, I do not think that a author should be held accountable for a fictional story of any type. I think that 98% of all people that read them realize that they are just stories.

 

Stories for enjoyment

 

Stories to make you think

 

Now as to being an author of these stories. You can not blame yourself if someone does something bad after reading one of your stories. Now I will qualify that a bit, if you have a reader respond to you saying that he was going to go out and do some really bad shit, and you repled telling him to go ahead and do it. Well then, I do belive that you done a wrong in that case.

 

We all have fantasies and they are very diverse, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as they remain fantasies, or are totally between consenting parteners.

 

But as to my feelings on the question, Yes there is always that small percentage that will belive whatever they read and perform there actions based on that.