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Aug. 3rd, 2004 02:55 pmWheeeee!!! He finally said it!!!!
Aug. 3rd, 2004
(no subject)
Aug. 3rd, 2004 07:03 pmNo Pity. No Shame. No Silence.
I write a lot about sexual violence. I write a lot about people whose lives are destroyed for one reason or another, and I write a lot in general. Somewhere, sexual violence had to come into play.
One of the most cherished reviews I ever got (actually for a piece of fan fiction) said that I described rape, and the aftermath of rape, very well, and that she hoped it wasn't from personal experience. It wasn't, actually, it was from reading primary source accounts. Texts from rape victims. I always did believe in going to the source. I stayed up all night from seven in the evening till seven in the morning reading those accounts. And took a very long walk afterwards. Never come lightly to the blank page, says Stephen King. Those pages weren't blank, and they weighed a ton.
This isn't fiction. I write fiction, and I thank the Goddess daily that I have to research in order to write believeable fiction. But this is real. What happens to each and every one of my victimized characters happens to someone for real. One out of every for women was the last rape statistic I read. How many female friends do you have? What's the statistic for male rape victims? All I can guess is that it has a lower report rate.
I don't know what to do, except to write. My fiction is the best way I know how to get the message across, to impress upon people the atrocit of what happens, often right under their very noses. If I can write a sequence so horrific, so real, that people stop and take notice and maybe are a little more careful, a little more vigilant, or (Goddess, please) a little more restrained... then it's worth something.
No pity. No shame. No silence.
I write a lot about sexual violence. I write a lot about people whose lives are destroyed for one reason or another, and I write a lot in general. Somewhere, sexual violence had to come into play.
One of the most cherished reviews I ever got (actually for a piece of fan fiction) said that I described rape, and the aftermath of rape, very well, and that she hoped it wasn't from personal experience. It wasn't, actually, it was from reading primary source accounts. Texts from rape victims. I always did believe in going to the source. I stayed up all night from seven in the evening till seven in the morning reading those accounts. And took a very long walk afterwards. Never come lightly to the blank page, says Stephen King. Those pages weren't blank, and they weighed a ton.
This isn't fiction. I write fiction, and I thank the Goddess daily that I have to research in order to write believeable fiction. But this is real. What happens to each and every one of my victimized characters happens to someone for real. One out of every for women was the last rape statistic I read. How many female friends do you have? What's the statistic for male rape victims? All I can guess is that it has a lower report rate.
I don't know what to do, except to write. My fiction is the best way I know how to get the message across, to impress upon people the atrocit of what happens, often right under their very noses. If I can write a sequence so horrific, so real, that people stop and take notice and maybe are a little more careful, a little more vigilant, or (Goddess, please) a little more restrained... then it's worth something.
No pity. No shame. No silence.