Ethics and Erotica

[ElectricBlue]

I wish this thread would veer away from discussions of what morality is and back to how erotica authors decide how (or whether) it (however they define it) relates to their writing.

You can rarely steer an AH thread. They go where they want to go, with the ebb and flow of the discussion. I think there's a pretty clear view as to how different folk apply it to their own work, though.

It's an interesting discussion, let it run .

 

[XerXesXu]

It is right by my own morality no matter who does it, as long as they are using the money for something altruistic.

Like the 'Robber Barons', Bill Gates, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller etc: 'What's good for the goose is good for the gander.'

 

[TheRedChamber]

Having read three pages of this discussion I see yet another opportunity to highlight my campaign for simple erotica. I'm not campaigning that everyone should write it, or that anyone should read it, just that it shouldn't be dismissed as throw-away writing with terms like "stroker." The reason I bring it up here is to point out that not all erotica involves good and evil, as some have claimed explicitly and that others have implied.

Is the dom in a bdsm story evil? If you're just writing about erotic experience, not about the people experiencing it (think essay on joys of yoga), then it can't be (is not often?) about good and evil.

I suspect that story-telling evolved as a way to model behaviour. We started to tell stories to tell our young how to behave and then find comfort and enjoyment in them ourselves. It doesn't have to be Good with a capital G versus Evil, but generally, we tend to enjoy stories where people reach a goal or satisfy some need by bravery, cleverness, kindness etc. Stories for children are of necessity simple, but adults still tend to want more nuanced versions of these.

Romantic comedies focus on who we should find as suitable romantic partners and the obstacles that prevent this. We enjoy someone who is typically lonely or otherwise sad at the start of the story finding the right partner for themselves and then developing a relationship and then not being sad and lonely anymore.

The thing with most BDSM stories is they tend to focus on the emotional and psychological needs of the sub. These needs are usually met by the dom (who often has supernatural insights into what the sub wants without even being told). By and large, we don't enjoy stories where an asshole whips someone who doesn't want to be.

An essay on the joys of yoga, btw, isn't a story, although in this case it is ethical because it aims to spread joy.

I suppose the other way to look at it is to say that people have sexual fantasies - ideas of the perfect partner and what we'd like to do to them. And people certainly can write these down or discuss them. You probably can write a series of words about the simple sexual act - how she bent over and he did her from behind and if you can stick to that then the story is amoral, I guess.

But I don't think it takes very much for elements of your world-view to creep into things. At the very least you are going to start to reveal what you think a 'hot' man or woman looks like. You're going to reveal what actions you think are necessary for good love-making from both the man and the woman. Doubts and problems are going slip in and characters are going to have to deal with these. You're going to show certain characteristics and personality traits. And, even though you said you were just going to write a single scene, you might be tempted to go back and explain how these two people ended up in bed together.

 

[AG31]

I suspect that story-telling evolved as a way to model behaviour.

Back to the yoga thing. Imagine a "story" detailing the joys of yoga. In a number of posts I've offered examples of "simple erotica." They have more in common with a description of the joys of yoga than an example of a way to model behavior.

The thing with most BDSM stories is they tend to focus on the emotional and psychological needs of the sub.

And how frustrating to me that is. Mine don't, and my favorite ones (few and far between) don't.

An essay on the joys of yoga, btw, isn't a story,

OK. A "story" about my experiences with yoga.

 

[Omenainen]

I believe that fiction can influence people's lives, and I don't think erotica is somehow an exception to this. Representation matters. Good representation is important for minorities, and while bad representation is not necessarily as damaging as good representation is affirming, it means strengthening the existing power structures. It is not a neutral act.

My stance is that while no subject is such that it should never be addressed, it matters how one addresses it.

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?

I think the subject matter sets some ethical requirements to how it should be handled. For example, if I'm writing a story about kidnapping and raping young women, I see no reason to include details that could work as a "how-to" for some sick bastard who would actually do something like that. I don't think that is the point of the story anyway. I guess that in a way the above can be formulated that if my goal with a story is to teach someone how to kidnap and rape others, then yes, I should not publish that story.

I see this similar as to when making a documentary about someone who's built a home made bomb and killed people, you don't include the details on how exactly they made the bomb. It's not relevant to the issue at hand, and if it serves no purpose for the story but it might serve a purpose to misuse it, why would you include it?

Taking my kidnapping and raping as an example, my reasoning goes something like this (not a comprehensive list and probably not a flawless example):
1. creating a fantasy world in which this is in some way less hideous: yes, good, you do you
2. setting the story in real world but making it somehow believable: hmm, okay, could work
3. setting the story in real world and including details and tips on how to do this: I'll give you a side eye and go, what are you doing?
4. implying all young women actually want to be kidnapped and raped, and including tips on how to do that: I'd be disgusted and probably wouldn't read any more of yours. Now this kind could also be the author taking a stance against this kind of behavior, but it would need to be done skillfully and I still think there shouldn't be details that would actually help the baddies.
5. implying in an off-hand way that all young women actually want to be kidnapped and raped in a story otherwise handling something else entirely: I'd say, go back to the middle ages, you're not welcome in this century.

If one's kink includes objectifying somebody else, I think they should really sit down and think through on how to serve their kink so that it doesn't hurt the real people they are objectifying in their stories. Fantasy settings are one useful way to go about this, but even with fantasy settings, it needs consideration.

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?

I know for a fact that my stories have impacted people. I have inspired others to write stories and I have encouraged people by providing good representation.

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

Personally, I have been deeply impacted by pieces of fiction. While I might be flattering myself to think I could ever affect someone like that, I do know it is not impossible and so I shouldn't rule it out.

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

I'm too lazy to look. I think there's been incidents where a film depicting teen suicides has inspired a few copycat suicides in the real world. It can be argued that those kids would've ended their lives anyway, and probably they would've, but I tell you, I'd feel absolutely crushed if my fiction was in any way included in something like that.

My friend, who's a teacher, said that among teens around here there's this widespread notion that anal sex is a good idea because you don't need to worry about pregnancy, and they say that "if you really love him it won't hurt", so they're faulting the poor girls for feeling discomfort in the hands of these clueless, hormone-driven youngsters. I'm quite positive that the idea of anal sex has been picked from porn, which is so easily available nowadays. And into porn it's been more and more widely included because people have been desensitized to want more and more, so all the porn flicks tend to include anal and deepthroating and such, which they didn't some 30 years ago.

These things don't exist in isolation. I think saying "my story is just one story and it's just fiction and hardly nobody reads it anyway" is not intellectually honest. In however small a way, we are doing something with our art, and I think we should know what and why, be purposeful, and stand behind what we do.

It's not wrong to write about kidnapping and raping young women. I do think one should know why they do that, what's the erotic focus, and how to serve that erotic focus.

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

Well, not really. I think we have responsibility in all we do and this certainly includes publishing fiction.

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

Sometimes I do. I take great care in how I represent trans women for example. Whether I succeed or not is another matter, but I do have representation in mind and craft my stories accordingly.

I'm sure I've failed in something sometime, and included stereotypical characters of people in demographics I'm not a part of. But I acknowledge the issue and try to do better. I think that's what counts.

 

[vagrantx]

Sometimes I do. I take great care in how I represent trans women for example. Whether I succeed or not is another matter, but I do have representation in mind and craft my stories accordingly.

I'm sure I've failed in something sometime, and included stereotypical characters of people in demographics I'm not a part of. But I acknowledge the issue and try to do better. I think that's what counts.

Honestly, representation in erotica feels a bit odd to me. I know it's important to some people and I'm not trying to force my oppinion on anyone else, but as a gay asian woman (christ, that's a mouthful that I don't like saying out loud) I haven't ever found any such representation so far that isn't (doesn't feel like it's) purposfully there for fetishization. Yellow fever stories just makes me close the tab instantly.

I purposfully leave descriptions of my characters completely out, or atleast vague and focused on stuff that can be modified by the person like hair/nail color, clothing, etc, but maybe this is just cowering away from an issue I don't wish to deal with. I also realize this is impossible in stories featuring trans people as physical characteristics are integral to the story, so, it's a varyingly complex issue depending on the minorities in question.

How do you write good, positive representation while not leaning into fetishization?

 

[Omenainen]

Yes. I believe that writing has the power to change the way people view the real world - even when that writing is understood to be fiction - and that change can be harmful or beneficial. Where there's reasonably foreseeable harm, not outweighed by some other consideration, that would be a limit.

I don't find it helpful to propose "never write about X" type rules; it's far more in how one writes those topics and how they sit within their context.

For instance, if I'm writing about characters from a minority group, I'd try to be aware of harmful stereotypes about that group and avoid repeating those stereotypes without challenging them.



Yes. For instance, I've heard from several people who read "Anjali's Red Scarf" and came away from that realising that they might be autistic. I know from personal experience that that can be a life-changing revelation. They might have got to that realisation eventually by some other path, but presumably it would've been later, and that delay has consequences. I also heard from non-autistic people who told me it had helped them understand autistic people in their lives and to support them better.

On another story, I had a comment to the effect of "as somebody from a country where [group of people] are perceived as the enemy, this made me rethink my attitudes".

I've also had several in this vein:

View attachment 2307153

For folk who are used to seeing people like themselves as the star of the story, it might be hard to understand how important that kind of recognition can be to people who don't get to take it for granted... but it really, really is.



When I grew up, my main exposure to the term "autism" came through the character of Raymond Babbitt in "Rain Man", who's described as an autistic savant. To the best of my knowledge, nobody involved in the creation of Raymond was autistic - not the writers, nor the actor, nor the two real-life people on whom he was based. (One was believed to be autistic at the time, but that was subsequently revised.) And despite being the title character, Raymond isn't even the protagonist of his own story; he's merely the catalyst who provides an opportunity for his brother Charlie to learn important life lessons and grow into a better person.

Raymond? He starts the story institutionalised, he gets a few days outside the institution when Charlie thinks he might be able to exploit Raymond's abilities to make money, and then he goes back to the institution.

At the time I finished high school, and for some years after, that movie was my main reference point for "autism". For some people, it still is; one of my readers on Red Scarf told me that all they knew about autism came from "Rain Man", more than thirty years later.

That's not to say that Raymond was the only "autistic" character I encountered in my childhood, just the only one labelled as such. There were others who, in hindsight, were patterned on autistic stereotypes - absent-minded professors, men with obsessive interests in one or two topics, that
kind of thing. (I say "men" deliberately; I can't recall any female examples.)

What they all had in common, apart from being male, was that they were two-dimensional characters. They were comic relief, suppliers of McGuffins and gadgets; I can only think of one who was the protagonist of his story, and even he was very much a caricature. In particular, none of them had anything approaching a love life. And they were the only people like me who I could find in fiction.

Fiction is fiction, but we learn many truths from it. I learned a good deal of physics and astronomy from Clarke; I learned about WWI fighter aircraft from W.E. Johns; I learned about early Australian settlers from Mary Grant Bruce, all of that long before I studied those topics in school. I learned a fair bit about distinguishing the fictional elements of a story from the real ones; I understood that Captain James Bigglesworth was presumably fictional, a character who appeared only in one author's works, but that Sopwith Camels and the Red Baron were probably real because they showed up in stories as disparate as Biggles and Peanuts, and because I could look them up in an encylopaedia. The more I saw of an element across multiple stories, the more consistently they presented it, the more likely that this was something I could believe.

The idea that people like me could never aspire to be more than the background nerd, could never have any kind of social skills worth having, could never be sexual beings who might be desirable to others... that was presented very consistently across very many stories.

Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie has an excellent talk on this kind of thing: The Danger of a Single Story.

I grew up thinking of myself as weird, broken, unlovable. (In a romantic sense, that is; my parents were there for me.) It's a perception that caused me a great deal of completely unnecessary pain and missed opportunities as a young adult. I fell in love without believing in any possibility that it could be reciprocated, so I kept my feelings to myself and went home and cried in my room. Not to bore y'all with early-twenties angst, but it just might be the closest I've come to dying.

I had the great good fortune to find a kindred spirit some years later, and in my thirties I started encountering more information about autism that finally helped me understand who I was. That knowledge has helped me find ways to deal with the things that are hard for me, to find my own people. But it's a lifetime's work undoing the consequences of 30+ years of not knowing those things.

Recently I read a story where the heroine spills her rice and apologises for her clumsiness, something she's long been self-conscious about. Instead of giving her some "your inner beauty is what counts" cliché, her love interest - a potter - talks about how English bowls aren't designed for eating rice, goes off to his kiln, and makes her a bowl that's designed for rice and sized for her hand. Had I read stories like that as a child, teaching me to ask whether it's really me that's broken or if it just might be the world, and stories where protagonists similar to me got to have happy and loving relationships, I think I would've saved myself some very bleak times in my twenties.

So, yes: fiction matters, and bad portrayals can be damaging.

As to professional experience: I'm limited in what I can say about my work, but I take a strong interest in the topic of neurodiversity in the workplace, I've done some career mentoring for neurodivergent people, and what I've seen is consistent with the above. In that context it's usually about real stories rather than fictional ones, but they work in much the same way. It's not entirely true that "you can't be what you can't see", but it is vastly easier if you can.



[Fair question, one which I don't have time to answer adequately at the moment.]



Not sure which of your many questions above is "this question".

I am very much open to persuasion about exactly what kinds of stories are helpful or harmful; I'm always keen to hear how stories have affected others.

Having been significantly affected by fictional stories myself (or perhaps by the lack of certain kinds of stories), it would take a great deal to convince me that stories have no power to influence their readers and hence the real world.

If somebody did manage to convince me of that, I'd probably give up writing fiction altogether.



Sometimes. I don't think it's ever been the sole driver, but it's certainly been a major consideration for things like "Red Scarf".

I agree with all of this. Just pressing “like” didn’t feel like enough agreement.

 

[Omenainen]

How do you write good, positive representation while not leaning into fetishization?

By writing characters that are well rounded people instead of fetishized cardboard cutouts.

How to write fetishization respectfully is a much more difficult question in my opinion. Personally, my kinks don’t require fetishizing other people, so I haven’t put a lot of thought into it.

 

[vagrantx]

By writing characters that are well rounded people instead of fetishized cardboard cutouts.

Even then (and this only applies to erotica) I feel like it's only there to highlight rare characteristics for the purpose of fetishization. If a character is indeed fleshed out with a great identity, then they could be the same person without delving into ethnicity, sexuality, bodytypes et cetera. It takes time to delve into the experiences of living as a minority, both the good and the bad, time that is usually too long for short stories. But maybe I've just read crappy representation so far as I've never really sought it out on purpose. If anyone knows of any well written asian characters here on LE and could share the story I'd greatly appreciate it.

In full length novels, movies, shows et cetera it's easier as the focus is on their person, and I fully agree with what you're saying then. An easy example would be BEEF on netflix showcasing korean christianity in the US, a beautiful scene, vs say "sucky sucky?" from full metal jacket.

 

[CalebZhass]

I'll throw out some questions to get the thread going:

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?

I think there should be a minimum baseline of ethics expected in literature (erotic or otherwise). While I strongly believe that no work should ever be censored, that only goes so long as the work is not malicious in nature. Works that urge you to harm yourself or others, works that exploit unwilling victims or are used as weapons against certain groups or people are not okay in my opinion. That's about it.

I must add, that for me to consider these things bad, they must really be explicit and clear in nature. I do not condemn a smith for making a knife, just because someone then uses the knife to kill another. Neither will I condemn a wordsmith for writing something that someone else then uses for malicious purposes, when that was never intended.

I realize that this is a rubber rule that can be stretched along subjective opinions quite a lot, but that can't be helped.

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?

I believe that every story has the potential to have an impact on the readers. Our whole world view is formed by our experiences and what we read is just another experience. Realistically though, in the big picture, my work will likely not leave a lasting mark on the world. Then again, who knows, that might change one day without me even realizing it.

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

Other than knowing how what I've read over the years have affected me? No.

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

Not something that would be part of my regular everyday activities, so no.

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

I never say never, but at 40+ someone changing my mind on something this fundamental is very unlikely. It has to be a pretty convincing argument with some damn good evidence to back it up.

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

What would be an "ethical purpose"? My purpose is to entertain. I strive to do so while staying within my own moral boundaries. Not sure if this is what you meant or if you wanted to know whether I try to "teach" people my own ethics in my works, in which case the answer is a clear "NO".

 

[Omenainen]

Even then (and this only applies to erotica) I feel like it's only there to highlight rare characteristics for the purpose of fetishization. If a character is indeed fleshed out with a great identity, then they could be the same person without delving into ethnicity, sexuality, bodytypes et cetera. It takes time to delve into the experiences of living as a minority, both the good and the bad, time that is usually too long for short stories. But maybe I've just read crappy representation so far as I've never really sought it out on purpose.

There is some point to this, but it kind of comes down to there being some ideal default people who should feature in erotic literature. Probably vaguely all american, white, young, stereotypically hot in a Barbie and Ken type of way, or what? At least they seem to be over represented in the Lit stories I’ve read.

I prefer to write messed up, anxious, middle aged people with an assortment of body types, not to fetishize them but because they are my characters. I guess my stance is that there should be a greater variety of people in erotica too. So that it wouldn’t be so that the default ethnicity is Caucasian and the default gender is male.

(Is it Caucasian or is that somehow outdated? I so very rarely have these types of conversations and almost never in English.)(White? White as an ethnicity sounds silly.)

In full length novels, movies, shows et cetera it's easier as the focus is on their person, and I fully agree with what you're saying then. An easy example would be BEEF on netflix showcasing korean christianity in the US, a beautiful scene, vs say "sucky sucky?" from full metal jacket.

I think we can do this in small scale too.

I’m not saying that people should go out of their way to write about all the different demographics in the world just for the sake of it, only that when they do, they should think about how they do it.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Even then (and this only applies to erotica) I feel like it's only there to highlight rare characteristics for the purpose of fetishization.

It's a widespread problem, especially for gay women. You're not the only one who's noticed.

 

[Bramblethorn]

You and I, on the other hand, are more or less in exactly the same position of knowledge regarding the possible harm of erotic stories. Neither of us has knowledge comparable to what you have in your scenario, and neither of us is as blind as your friend in your scenario.

Granted; it's a simplistic example to illustrate a principle, not an exact parallel.

We might have read different things or been exposed to different bits of evidence or experience, but our states of knowledge are still pretty similar.

Are they, though?

Even if we were working from exactly the same evidence/experiences (which we're not), we don't all process things the same way, and it's possible to come to very different interpretations of those experiences.

If I believe that I should not, as a moral matter, publish stories I have reason to believe will cause harm, then it seems to me that, rationally and ethically, I should not want you to publish such stories either.

Quite so. And I don't want my friend to push their pram out onto that crossing, either! But "not want you to" and "consider it immoral for you to, given your state of knowledge" are different things.

If I am totally indifferent to whether you cause harm to others, then I don't see how I can claim that my choice not to publish such stories is a moral choice. It's just a personal preference, like the pizza example.

I'm not suggesting "indifference" here. I would rather nobody else published the kind of stories that I consider wrong for me to publish. But this doesn't automatically imply a judgement on them.

I might believe that the policies of the Mauve Party are enlightened and will benefit everybody in my country, and that those of the Purple Party are misguided and will lead to ruin. It is then wrong for me to vote Purple, and I would very much like if nobody else voted Purple either. But it doesn't follow that I am in favour of banning them from doing so.

 

[SimonDoom]

I might believe that the policies of the Mauve Party are enlightened and will benefit everybody in my country, and that those of the Purple Party are misguided and will lead to ruin. It is then wrong for me to vote Purple, and I would very much like if nobody else voted Purple either. But it doesn't follow that I am in favour of banning them from doing so.

Let me make completely clear my discussion has nothing to do with "banning." The question here is moral/ethical, not legal. It's a question of how strongly I'm willing to judge others for not following my moral principles, not whether I want them to be punished.

I think your political analogy is similar to your pram analogy in the sense that there's uncertainty about the facts, and with factual uncertainty it's not possible to make a crystal-clear moral judgment.

Political views rest on a foundation of both normative beliefs and empirical beliefs, although I think many of us don't really acknowledge that. We have different ideas of what the facts are and how the world works that aren't necessarily moral in nature. Economic views, for example: If government raises taxes, will it adversely affect the economy? Your answer to that is not moral, it's empirical, but if you're a rational person your ultimate judgment should be informed not just by your gut moral view but by your empirical belief in what will happen or what the facts are. I can't pass judgment on my friend with the pram because I don't know her state of mind, but if I was fully informed about the facts and knew that she knew just as much as I did, I WOULD pass judgment on her.

In politics, I like to think I'm right, but if I'm a sane person I have to admit to myself that there are equally informed, or better informed, intelligent people whose beliefs about the facts are all over the map on any given issue. So I should be a bit cautious about making judgments, and, like you, I might say to myself, "I wish my friends voted my way" but I'm loath to judge them too strongly because I might be wrong. But if by some improbable method I could be substantially certain I knew what the facts were and I knew that others knew them, I would feel much freer to pass judgment on them.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I think your political analogy is similar to your pram analogy in the sense that there's uncertainty about the facts, and with factual uncertainty it's not possible to make a crystal-clear moral judgment.

I think it's fair to say there's also significant uncertainty about the facts where fiction and its real-world consequences are concerned.

In politics, I like to think I'm right, but if I'm a sane person I have to admit to myself that there are equally informed, or better informed, intelligent people whose beliefs about the facts are all over the map on any given issue. So I should be a bit cautious about making judgments, and, like you, I might say to myself, "I wish my friends voted my way" but I'm loath to judge them too strongly because I might be wrong. But if by some improbable method I could be substantially certain I knew what the facts were and I knew that others knew them, I would feel much freer to pass judgment on them.

Agreed. But I don't think we are all operating from the same understanding/beliefs about the facts here.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think it's fair to say there's also significant uncertainty about the facts where fiction and its real-world consequences are concerned.



Agreed. But I don't think we are all operating from the same understanding/beliefs about the facts here.

I agree. I think it's fair to say that all of us are making decisions based on a lot of factual uncertainty. There's some data, but it's spotty, and I think it's fair to say it's susceptible to different interpretations. I also think it's fair to say we can all differ somewhat in where we put the burden of proof and how heavy we want that burden to be. I'm at one end of the spectrum that thinks you should be able to write what you want unless there's a good case to be made for the risk of harm, and I would put a substantial burden of proof on the person making the case for harm. But others are going to draw those lines in different ways. And, let's face it, gut biases are going to affect most of us in where we draw these lines. I understand that somebody who has actually experienced sexual assault, which I have not, may look at non-con differently from the way I do. Somebody who has experienced bigotry, which I have not, may look at interracial stories differently from the way I do.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

If anyone knows of any well written asian characters here on LE and could share the story I'd greatly appreciate it.

The only one I've found, after 15 years on this site, is 0007 Asian Neon and its sequels. It's set in a futuristic Asian metropolis. All the characters are Asian. I especially liked the auntie.

It's one of the reasons I started writing my own. I'll leave the "well-written" to you to decide, but Snowed In with a Predator was meant to be a story about being 2nd generation Chinese-American.

 

[vagrantx]

It's a widespread problem, especially for gay women. You're not the only one who's noticed.

That was an interesting watch, thanks! I'm not big into any fandoms, haven't followed that scene at all, but her info on Evil Lesbians hit home. Just have to remind myself to never kill off any of my villains..

The only one I've found, after 15 years on this site, is 0007 Asian Neon and its sequels. It's set in a futuristic Asian metropolis. All the characters are Asian. I especially liked the auntie.

It's one of the reasons I started writing my own. I'll leave the "well-written" to you to decide, but Snowed In with a Predator was meant to be a story about being 2nd generation Chinese-American.

Thank you so much for the recommendations! I'll get to read them tomorrow! But only 1 in 15 years is... shocking.
-
Swapping back to movies and TV, I think the only time I've felt something was really spot on for me, personally, is this scene from King of the Hill. "We're laotian! From Laos! Stupid..."

 

[AwkwardMD]

That was an interesting watch, thanks! I'm not big into any fandoms, haven't followed that scene at all, but her info on Evil Lesbians hit home. Just have to remind myself to never kill off any of my villains..

Thank you so much for the recommendations! I'll get to read them tomorrow! But only 1 in 15 years is... shocking.
-
Swapping back to movies and TV, I think the only time I've felt something was really spot on for me, personally, is this scene from King of the Hill. "We're laotian! From Laos! Stupid..."

The infantilization and oversexualization elements apply to lots of demographics, though for different reasons. It's good stuff to think about

 

[joy_of_cooking]

But only 1 in 15 years is... shocking.

Yep. I proposed a non-white characters event, but that turned out to be controversial.

the only time I've felt something was really spot on for me, personally, is this scene from King of the Hill. "We're laotian! From Laos! Stupid..."

That was hilarious. The repetition of the original question at the end really completed it. Invalid input discarded, retrying...

This is one reason I have my characters self-identify as Chinese or whatever, rather than generically Asian.

 

[vagrantx]

Yep. I proposed a non-white characters event, but that turned out to be controversial.

Funny... Wonder how a, say, BBW only or bodybuilders only event would be recieved.

That was hilarious. The repetition of the original question at the end really completed it. Invalid input discarded, retrying...

The amount of times I've had lei hao ma or ni hao thrown in my face, only to be met with blank stares at the mention of Laos... it's gotten a better in the last decade or two, at least. how often do you hear konichiwa? and why is it never annyeong.

This is one reason I have my characters self-identify as Chinese or whatever, rather than generically Asian.

That's smart.. But harder for us smaller countries. Maybe I'll give it a try!

 

[AwkwardMD]

Yep. I proposed a non-white characters event, but that turned out to be controversial.

That was hilarious. The repetition of the original question at the end really completed it. Invalid input discarded, retrying...

This is one reason I have my characters self-identify as Chinese or whatever, rather than generically Asian.

You might enjoy my series Long Haul. Chinese and Singapore characters.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

You might enjoy my series Long Haul. Chinese and Singapore characters.

The spaceship one with the futanari character whose prosthetic penis had to be artificially inflated and deflated with pills? Yeah, I did!

 

[AwkwardMD]

The spaceship one with the futanari character whose prosthetic penis had to be artificially inflated and deflated with pills? Yeah, I did!

Real penis with vasodilators and relaxants. The meds were to make her heart work at a crazy rate, but yeah! That's the one!

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Oh, wait, for Asian characters? I guess I didn't catch the cultural nuance.

But, to be fair, it was a far-future setting, and I don't know much about China proper and even less about Singapore, and I skimmed a bunch (pill-driven dicks squick me out, apparently).

It mostly struck me like Firefly at the time, using a few snippets of Chinese profanity for color. Although you used real Chinese profanity and didn't have anyone roasting dog meat, which is miles ahead of Firefly!

It was a fun story, regardless.