Ethics and Erotica

[HordHolm]

1. Do you accept the idea that there are ethical limits on what kind of erotica you should publish? Why or why not? What are those limits?

Absolutely. I'm currently writing a police procedural. Within that, I think that I shouldn't include, e.g. how to make a fertilizer bomb, regardless of how much verisimilitude it would add. However, that becomes more difficult when limiting the question to above the age of consent erotica: a step-by-step 'how to' that detailed methods of sexually abusive behaviour is on the edge, regardless of notions of consent contained within the story as a whole, and might stretch the notion into a difficult zone where someone could potentially use something I wrote in an illegal manner (unlikely, but possible). But... this is really specific, and I don't see the overwhelming body of erotica falling within that, provided informed consent is part of the core ideas the erotica contains.

 

[Bamagan]

I'm not interested in getting involved in this discussion, so please don't tag me again and try to drag me into it.

You're spot on.

Ethics are the external rules we agree to as part of a society. Morals are our personal decisions on our actions. It actually raises a question about the validity of the premise of this thread since we all joined this society and by default agreed to the rules or ethics it prescribes.
While we draw the line at child porn, our collective ethics include Nonconsensual sex and incest which are both considered extreme taboos in the larger society as are, for that matter, a lot of the other categories.

So, I guess what we're discussing is how our morals deal with the conflict of our inner circle selective ethics that say, to an extent, rape is OK (NC/R), and the outer circle societal ethics that place it higher than murder on some scales of egregious behavior.

Am I as 'guilty' as the person that writes story after story in NC/R just because I paid my cover and am watching the dancers dance even though it makes me nervous to do so because one of the dancers looks like my teen age niece?

Is my personal involvement of writing stories in T/CD any less bad than NC/R, especially considering the epic kerfuffle going on in society right now around that same issue?

Lots of questions, and at some point @Bamagan is going to pop in here with a picture of a buxom redhead, but damn, that's sexist objectification, which we seem to have tacitly accepted in our inner circle ethics.

I agreed to the rules when I joined the game, so my ethics are fine. I choose not to go too deep into NC/R and I/T, but have dipped my toes in that end of the pool a coupe of times. I pretty much live in T/CD so that external kerfuffle is on my mind a lot as the risks presented by the outside larger circle ethics do bear on my real life.

My morals tell me that our right to freely express our art, because that's what this is, makes what you and I do here OK. In fact it almost makes it mandatory. If there's no one to push the boundaries, then those boundaries will collapse in on us and then where would we be? Sure, some, or maybe a lot of what we do would be offensive and perhaps reprehensible outside our circle, but so are so many other things when taken out of their proper context.

As an example, I lost both of my parents to different kinds of dementia. Their death certificates said, natural causes. The facts are we, me, my family, the doctors, drugged them and starved them to death because it was more humane than the alternative. Context.

So, I've come full circle. The issue here isn't ethics. That's been defined for us by the societies and groups we choose to belong to. As for morals, we each get to choose those for ourselves, and depending on context, well, each one of us is right.

EDIT: I really don't have an issue with NC/R or I/T they just seemed the best options to make my point.

 

[ElectricBlue]

OK, so I think I've been reading you as prescribing for everyone. But I should be reading you as describing yourself. Is that correct?

Correct. I've detailed why I write what I write, and the philosophical stance behind my content.

 

[Cagivagurl]

[No personal attacks or trolling - including creating accounts for this specific purpose. Heated discussions are fine, even welcome. However, personally attacking / kink-shaming a fellow author or reader is not allowed within the Author's Hangout. Threads which devolve into the exchanging of insults will be closed and repeat offenders will be given a timeout, per the AH rules.]

 

[Britva415]

Regarding the notion that "I don't need evidence for my beliefs," or, more to the point, "there isn't evidence for my beliefs, that's why they're beliefs," I don't buy it.

They were formed somehow, nobody was born with beliefs. Someone might superficially think that their beliefs don't require evidence or weren't ever formed from any sort of evidence, not even something anecdotal like "my mama told me," rather than something verified or verifiable. But this doesn't stand up to scrutiny beyond the superficial. Even though someone might think that, it seems like what must follow from that would be that nothing could ever change their mind.

Certainly not evidence.

As evidence for my conclusion, I submit that there is plenty of evidence that evidence doesn't change some people's minds.

 

[HordHolm]

6. When you write stories, do you do so with an ethical purpose in mind?

No. I might come from an ethical 'do no harm' standpoint, but not all characters are going to behave in an ethical manner (stories would be pretty dull if they did). This extends to the point that characters behaving unethically might get away with it, but I would like to think a reasonable reader will be able to see that a character is behaving unethically, doing things that shouldn't be copied.*

I'm including non-erotic, non-Lit work here. But in general, I don't have a 'purpose' in mind, even to the extent of being entertaining - I try to be, but that's not my purpose, which in general is to get the damned story out of my head and make space for something else. Oh, and to satisfy a publisher to publish it.

*This only really applies to non-Lit work I've written, and in that context the said unethical behaviour has, so far, been of a fantastical bent. So unless readers possess some very specialised, fantastical abilities, they won't be copying anything any time soon.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I'm not interested in getting involved in this discussion, so please don't tag me again and try to drag me into it.

Deal. My bad. I removed the tag.

 

[SimonDoom]

Ethics are the external rules we agree to as part of a society. Morals are our personal decisions on our actions. It actually raises a question about the validity of the premise of this thread since we all joined this society and by default agreed to the rules or ethics it prescribes.
While we draw the line at child porn, our collective ethics include Nonconsensual sex and incest which are both considered extreme taboos in the larger society as are, for that matter, a lot of the other categories.

So, I guess what we're discussing is how our morals deal with the conflict of our inner circle selective ethics that say, to an extent, rape is OK (NC/R), and the outer circle societal ethics that place it higher than murder on some scales of egregious behavior.

I generally believe it's fair to interpret thread topics broadly and take them in directions not contemplated by the person who started the thread. But to make clear my intention when I started the thread, when I refer to "ethics" I mean a code of conduct that we believe everybody should abide by. I don't distinguish morals and ethics. If it's something personal, not universal, then I see it as a matter of preference and taste, not ethics.

I also think it's important to be extremely clear in distinguishing the ethics of human actions and the ethics of reading and writing about those actions. These are two completely different questions. In the case of reading a story, the consent of the characters in the story is of no ethical consequence (IMO) because they are not real people. The ethical interaction is between the reader and the author. If it is consensual, then the relationship is consensual regardless of whether the story is about nonconsensual behavior.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm glad this was said, because it identifies a very important distinction that often gets muddied when discussing this topic. "Is it wrong to write X?" and "should people be prevented from writing X?" are not the same question.

Definitely. And to be completely clear, the intent of my thread is to address only the first question. This isn't about what should be legal, it's about what's ethical.

But there's a significant amount of overlap between the two that distinguishes both of them from matters of mere taste.

When we enter a dialogue and say, "Here's what I think is ethical," we're not just saying, "Here's how I choose to do things." We are saying, "Here's how I believe people, generally, should do things, and if someone acts against this principle, that person is doing wrong." That's what makes it ethics as opposed to mere personal taste, like pineapple on pizza. So when people enter a conversation and say, "Here's what I think is the ethical approach to writing erotica on this particular subject," I think they should be prepared to defend why they believe this should be a universal rule, applicable to everyone, the violation of which might entitle others to criticize or censure a person for violating that rule ("censure" not "censor").

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I don't distinguish morals and ethics. If it's something personal, not universal, then I see it as a matter of preference and taste, not ethics.

I think we're at least in the same chapter, if not on the same page. Your passage above sort of illustrates my understanding of the subtle difference between morals and ethics. They are often interchangeable. When they divert, it is usually along the lines you imply; Ethics are the "...code of conduct that we believe everybody should abide by." As you also state, matters of personal preference are not ethics. When morals and ethics differ, those personal choices are the moral choices not the ethical ones.

If I'm reading you correctly, then I'm in agreement that as an author, I set the contract within my story that says drugging someone and having them gang raped, sold into sex slavery, and trained as a house pet is just fine as long as I tag a happy ending on the end of the story. Those are my rules and as you said, are of no consequence because it is fiction. None of this actually happens to anyone that can suffer any consequence.

As I mentioned, I used NC/R and I/T because their subject matters are the most egregious outside the world of fiction. My best example, though is my personal involvement with both writing T/CD stories and living in that world.

in our safe little world of fiction, I can have my characters say and do whatever I want. There is an implied contract with anyone that reads one of my stories that they accept full responsibility for their reaction. (Those that don't understand that leave me very nasty comments.)

The ethical dilemma between our inner circle ethics and the outer circle ethics of society is still real. There's another thread that references it heavily as people discuss how private they keep there hobby. For me, that is the true ethical dilemma we face.

You said I could take this in a direction you hadn't contemplated, right?

Great thread. I'm glad you brought it up.

 

[SimonDoom]

The ethical dilemma between our inner circle ethics and the outer circle ethics of society is still real. There's another thread that references it heavily as people discuss how private they keep there hobby. For me, that is the true ethical dilemma we face.

Interesting. I hadn't thought of looking at this as ethical. I keep my online erotic writing activities mostly private. A few people know that I write erotic stories, but all but I think one don't know where, and nobody knows my pseudonym. But my reasons for staying private aren't ethical. I know that people "out there" often are judgmental and negative about this activity, and I'd just rather not deal with that. It's easier to stay private. But ethical concerns don't really influence my views on that.

 

[SimonDoom]

It shows you to be void of any ethics. IMO.


Cagivagurl

I will ask you again to stop making personal, ad hominem attacks. I have reported your comment. You've been warned before by the moderator about inappropriate personal attacks. Please refrain from making them in this thread, which I hoped to avoid those kind of comments.

 

[XerXesXu]

1. Do you accept the idea that there are ethical limits on what kind of erotica you should publish? Why or why not? What are those limits?

That ‘one’ should publish? Yes. Firstly, 'Do no harm'. This is a maxim of general application. ‘Harm’ isn’t ‘Offence’. A reader may be offended about one’s use of pronouns, who cares? Not me.
A reader may go out and rape a woman who’s never read your story. That woman is harmed. The essence of ‘Harm’ is that it’s caused to a third party by one’s reader who has contributed to the chain of causation.
One shouldn’t write anything which promotes, glamorises or validates harmful behaviour.

2. Do you believe that your stories are likely to have an impact beyond the space of this forum? What kind of impact? Why do you believe what you believe on this question?

No. Unread works are unlikely to have much effect on the world.

This won’t be true for others. Lit is the largest erotica site on the internet, except that its readers claim to be over 18 nothing is known about them. It’s a reasonable assumption that a subset of them come in search of eg: misogynistic, domination and rape stories. Some may simply enjoy the stories, some will find them glamorising, some will find that they promote their activities, and some will find they validate their activities. One must take one’s readers as they come, one can’t pick and choose.


3. Do you have any personal background or knowledge, or professional experience, that bears on the question?

Yes. I had a niche ‘dangerousness’ practice which involved applying for the release of sexual and otherwise dangerous offenders from prison or detention in Special Hospitals. Their psychosexual history was always gone into in great detail. No one is born an offender and the factors which were causative in their offending can be various, but reading materials which validated their behaviour was often contributory.

4. Do you know of sources of evidence or analysis elsewhere that bear on this question in a significant way?

Is this as trivial as history question?
It’s replete with people being put on bonfires and set alight by ‘good’ people who were told/read it was the ethical thing to do. Think Holocaust, think 9/11, think 7/11. Where did the ideas of punishment/snuff rape come from, not the Bible or Koran? Recreational reading?

5. Are you open to having your mind changed on this question?

It would take a landslide of evidence and a reimagining of what it is to be human.

6. When you write stories, do you do so with an ethical purpose in mind?

No. Without thought or reflection I can write within my own ethical guidelines.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Interesting. I hadn't thought of looking at this as ethical. I keep my online erotic writing activities mostly private. A few people know that I write erotic stories, but all but I think one don't know where, and nobody knows my pseudonym. But my reasons for staying private aren't ethical. I know that people "out there" often are judgmental and negative about this activity, and I'd just rather not deal with that. It's easier to stay private. But ethical concerns don't really influence my views on that.

I guess I see it differently because of all the furor around being transgender and what that means that is going on in society and social media these days. A lot of people seem to consider even talking positively about the issue is promoting the castration of children. Hyperbolic to an extreme but very real, and those same people can and will do people like me harm. Facts no longer hold sway, and laws are being passed to make me and people like me criminals just for wanting to live our lives. Like I said in my first post, context...


EDIT: PLEASE, PLEASE, please, do not run with the transgender issue. That is not what this thread is about. It is just an example that expresses my point. Thanks.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Recently I read a story where the heroine spills her rice and apologises for her clumsiness

Citation? Sounds right up my alley.

 

[SimonDoom]

EDIT: PLEASE, PLEASE, please, do not run with the transgender issue. That is not what this thread is about. It is just an example that expresses my point. Thanks.

Don't worry about me doing that. I write many stories about incest. It's consensual incest, but still, it's a subject that would probably cause some people "out there" in the real world to look at me sideways if they knew I wrote these stories. It's just easier for me to keep it to myself and to avoid those possible headaches.

 

[madelinemasoch]

Do you guys think you need consent from them to use real people as inspiration?

 

[SimonDoom]

EDIT: PLEASE, PLEASE, please, do not run with the transgender issue. That is not what this thread is about. It is just an example that expresses my point. Thanks.

I hope you don't think I'm making too light of this subject, but the silliness and moral inconsistency of some Literotica readers is such that if I wrote a story about an incestuous mother who had a transgender friend, I'd probably get a comment from somebody saying, "No self-respecting mother would put up with a friend like that!"

 

[Cagivagurl]

I will ask you again to stop making personal, ad hominem attacks. I have reported your comment. You've been warned before by the moderator about inappropriate personal attacks. Please refrain from making them in this thread, which I hoped to avoid those kind of comments.

It wasn't an attack.
It was simply a statement of fact.
Lets remember. You were also warned about your behaviour.

I feel comfortable with my statement. I crossed no boundaries. No lies were told.

I am simply saying. If you want to discuss something as important as ethics, you should always treat people with equally.

I have cast no insults. Merely highlighting what I believe was unethical behaviour. In a thread discussing ethics.
If you are that uncomfortable with your actions, then...

Cagivagurl

 

[SimonDoom]

Do you guys think you need consent from them to use real people as inspiration?

This is a great, thorny question, but it probably deserves a separate thread to be handled right. I think it has been covered in other threads. My intent is to explore the issue of ethics and erotica on a general level rather than to explore the ethics of specific issues. But if you think exploring the specific question sheds light on the general question, then by all means bring it up.

 

[TheRedChamber]

1. Do you accept the idea that there are ethical limits on what kind of erotica you should publish? Why or why not? What are those limits?

2. Do you believe that your stories are likely to have an impact beyond the space of this forum? What kind of impact? Why do you believe what you believe on this question?

3. Do you have any personal background or knowledge, or professional experience, that bears on the question?

4. Do you know of sources of evidence or analysis elsewhere that bear on this question in a significant way?

5. Are you open to having your mind changed on this question?

6. When you write stories, do you do so with an ethical purpose in mind?

Art is complicated.

One of the most affecting moments in my life was seeing the great guitarist Peter Green play in the late 1990s when I was still a teenager. He had suffered a mental breakdown in the 1970s due to taking LSD and even 25 years later the effects were still clear. He was frail beyond his years and, in all honesty, his playing was emotional but not as sharp as it had been. The use of hard drugs in the 60s and 70s and beyond destroyed the lives of many of the great rock talents as well as other ordinary people. I have never used hard drugs and do not support their legalization.

For all that, 'White Rabbit' by Jefferson Airplane is my favourite ever song.

Society and art often exist in a feedback loop. Jefferson Airplane wrote songs about drugs because drugs were part of their lives and the community they lived in, but also the fact that they and others wrote songs about drugs undoubtedly made them more acceptable and wide-spread (outside of the communes in Haitt-Ashbury for example). Similarly, the punks were (rightly) angry at life and the government in 70s Britain, but by making their anger known they made other people angry as well. Gangster Rappers sing about guns because guns are a necessary part of their life, but also, in doing so, convince others that they need a gun.

And a lot of the music is still great even if you don't happen to agree with the implied or explicit message it carries.

Plato thought that it was a bad idea to have any characters in a play do something bad because someone might see that play and copy the bad act. Since it was impossible to write an effective drama where the characters only act properly, he decided that the best thing to do was to ban all drama.

I'd argue that most stories are founded, for good or bad, on some kind of ethical principle. At a base level, we want to see good triumph against evil. Even in those stories where evil wins, we're usually able and encouraged to look at them and decide why evil won in that case (The Joker wouldn't have become the Joker if mental healthcare support was better in America)

Occasionally you encounter a story whose ethical principles are so far from your own that it completely destroys all sense of drama or enjoyment. This happened to me recently when I watched the Wagner opera Lohengrin - a story whose moral seems to be that women should never question their husband's secrets because the husbands are always pure and virtuous (and pulled across lakes by white swans). Wonderful music but you spend the whole time going 'what? really? no!" (I could also talk about my issues with Pixar's Red which if anything were worse, but need a longer conversation)

Gah, only halfway through and need to go. I'll post this now and come back to it later.

 

[SimonDoom]

It wasn't an attack.
It was simply a statement of fact.
Lets remember. You were also warned about your behaviour.

I feel comfortable with my statement. I crossed no boundaries. No lies were told.

I am simply saying. If you want to discuss something as important as ethics, you should always treat people with equally.

I have cast no insults. Merely highlighting what I believe was unethical behaviour. In a thread discussing ethics.
If you are that uncomfortable with your actions, then...

Cagivagurl

I have no objection to your questioning the ethics of what I did, but when you accuse me of being "void of ethics" you are making an outrageous personal attack that is unwarranted. It is not a "statement of fact." Telling someone "you did something unethical" is completely different from telling someone "you have no ethics."

I am not at all uncomfortable with my actions. I felt then, and still feel, that I acted ethically in that particular case based on the abusiveness of the comments made. I suspect if someone used personal messages to attack you in a personal way, you might feel similarly.

The site never got back to me to tell me I should have not have disclosed that remark, but if it did, I would remove it and not do that again. I respect the site's rules. They trump my ethics.

The site has never deleted any of my comments. It has deleted some of yours as being personal attacks, and you are making them again.

I don't want to get into a tit for tat. It spoils the thread. I would request that if you have objections to certain things that are said you should address the substance of the comment and refrain from attacks on me or on others as being unethical people.

Besides, that comment was made two months ago, and it's irrelevant to this discussion. If we limited ethical discussions to the perfectly ethical, we'd have a lot of silence.

 

[Voboy]

Do you guys think you need consent from them to use real people as inspiration?

This is a great, thorny question, but it probably deserves a separate thread to be handled right.

I disagree. I think it's right on point for the intent of this thread: a sober discussion of the ethical concerns involved in writing smut.

I believe that if I wrote a story about (let's say) a serial killer, and had in my head a mental image of my realtor (let's say) as the killer, it would never in a million years dawn on me that I should seek his consent for the inspiration he's lent to my story.

It would occur to me to look at erotic fiction the same way: I don't believe there are any ethical landmines there. Fiction is fiction.

 

[madelinemasoch]

I disagree. I think it's right on point for the intent of this thread: a sober discussion of the ethical concerns involved in writing smut.

I believe that if I wrote a story about (let's say) a serial killer, and had in my head a mental image of my realtor (let's say) as the killer, it would never in a million years dawn on me that I should seek his consent for the inspiration he's lent to my story.

It would occur to me to look at erotic fiction the same way: I don't believe there are any ethical landmines there. Fiction is fiction.

Thanks for that.

 

[SimonDoom]

There was a thread a couple of months ago in which someone posted a link to a very interesting, long, thoughtful article about ethics and fiction, and I can't remember or find the thread or find the link to the story, and I cannot remember its title, author, or source of publication. Does anyone remember it? I'd like to link to it and recommend reading it, because it takes a complex, nuanced approach to the issue.