seperis | i'd like to point out first, my del.icio.us tags include amtdi and non-con

You know, I thought I talked myself down off this one, because frankly, Twilight is not great literature and mounting a defense takes up valuable time reading non-con amtdi porn.

But you know, I just feel that inspired, plus I ran out of Dean/Castiel reading and my son still has Twilight in his locker. Go figure.

I have to know something; did I miss the memo that I'm supposed to be ashamed of being twelve? My apologies; see, when I was twelve? I never really considered to form my actions to meet an arbitrary standard that would come into existence twenty years later on my reading habits, because that? Would have totally pulled the Gor novels right out of my hot little hands.

As in, please to be putting down your AMTDI non-con for a second while ranting on how Twilight is ruining young girls. I will totally be there when fandom as a whole stops finding aliens made them do it rape as a fun and lighthearted fanfic pasttime. I mean, I will be there, but I'll still be writing it. Hell, throw in eroticized slave-fic with idealized sexual slavery and falling in love with your enslaver controlling boyfriend who stalks you...wait.

Writer responsibility comes up a lot with this, which I suppose is fair when one is writing cross-alien-species sexual hijinks and one is struggling to portray those sensitivity, or the reality of slave trafficking in the modern world, or hell, magical healing cock after rape and lets toss in mpreg for kicks, because there's a genre that's incredibly sensitive and socially conscious. I have zero interest in writer responsibility, to be honest, except for one key points--did they tell a story? That's it; that's where it starts and stops, with some codicils of audience. Twilight was readable to a huge group of people.

Maybe the mystery is the plotline? Because I agree; I cannot imagine why anyone would enjoy a fantasy novel about two people obsessively in love with each other and would do anything to be together.

You may pile your under the bed romance novels over to the left, please; lets do this right. Let's blackball the entire romance novel industry already. I want petitions against VC Andrews, Johanna Lindsay, Judith McNaught, Catherine Coulter, Virginia Henley (Okay, I could stand to lose her), and anything set in Viking England with a wee Saxon lass.

Seriously. I get hating them for being bad, as beauty is in the eye of the beholder; shaming young girls for something they've found to love is edging right into the reason I'm trying to stop myself from ever using the term "Like a twelve year old girl" again in any slash fic I write. Which will probably be something I'll have to pick up on beta because comparisons to teenage girls as insults to men is surprisingly common.

Please lay off the girls. And remind me again how Seeds of Yesterday ended. For the life of me, I couldn't find it with my other VC Andrews work.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't know anything about Twilight or Stephanie Meyers, and I gather I wouldn't want to. I can only speak generally to a couple of points in the thread about fantasy, parenting, and a child's moral development.

A healthy fantasy life is essential to moral development; morally-stunted individuals (like psychopaths) tend to have a very poor (or one-track) imaginary life. Moral intuitions are triggered by moral emotions, rarely moral reasoning (unless you're a trained philosopher), which is why we teach moral rules through storytelling, or search for the origins of morality using thought and scenario-based experiments, or empathize with known individuals better than abstract groups, or worry so much about what the kids are reading and who they're hanging out with.

When in doubt, we make sense of our moral intuitions and work out what behavioral rules derive from them by bouncing them off our friends and relatives.

Kids can't make sense of moral intuitions on their own. Those who are forced to do so don't fare well on the mental-health scale later on. There is no moral development in a social vacuum.

So between censorship and leaving well enough alone, I stand firmly on middle-ground. Give them access to material, but don't let them deal with it alone. They can't. Their brains aren't equipped. Some neuroscientific evidence suggests that the brain-formation process continues into an individual's early twenties (explains so much about those undergrad years, doesn't it? ;), and even as adults we keep figuring what to do by bouncing stuff off each other (example: this thread).

So shaming the girls (or individuals of any constitution), I think not. But declaring their fantasy life off-limits, I don't think so, either. Engaging with them is a good thing. Between the so-called sanctity of anyone's fantasy life, and life-long mental and social health, I'd choose the latter.

That's my moral intuition, anyway. What's yours?

I'm on board with discussion, but I say that easily because so far it works extremely well with Child (ask me one day about the day the Palestinian speaker came to Child's social studies class and reading/blank scrabbling for further information thereafter), but the shame and mockery components are what are irritating me about the entire mess. Parental duty should require knowing what the child is reading; this is why God created allowances, receipts, and doors without locks. But restriction, mockery, and making it difficult to explore those concepts aren't discussion, and overreaction to concepts found in fiction aren't those things either. Current hysteria regarding the books is the problem, not the books themselves.

I don't see how any child can be overly influence by teen romance unless the parents are literally not in attendance on their lives. Equating a romance novel with a life changing religious experience isn't acceptable on any level; Twilight is not that good and this is not The Yellow King. So it comes back to my original point--leave the girls alone to explore and answer their questions as they come up. Or you know, read what they do, which is why I had to read my way through more books on reptiles than I wish I knew existed and The Watchmen, despite the fact I am not a huge fan of the graphic novel format.

Okay with everything, except I don't know what "The Yellow King" is. And I'd leave the girls alone...to a point.

Neither did I and I thought I knew my Lovecraftian writers (I do not remember the author's name off the top of my head). The Yellow King was a play where everyone who saw it committed suicide due to something in the play. It's on my post-Christmas reading list, because this, this is a moment of shame, so I won't have better detail until I've read it. I blame

synecdochic for reminding me how much I love when fanfic fuses to Lovecraft and company.

I agree, mostly. I think the key is conversation and guidelines over censorship. Nothing is banned in our house (at least nothing that has come up SO FAR. Knock wood.) but several things have an age barrier. My daughter is 11 and knows that she is not allowed to read "Mature" manga until she is sixteen. And she knows why. And she chafes at this, but would rather read some manga online than none, and so we come to an agreement.

:-)

Her fantasy life is pretty much off-limits because I can't get inside her head, but what FEEDS that fantasy life is well monitored, discussed, and placed in context. An example is in the comments just above this.

What I try not to do, is judge her on the quality of what she likes - and let me tell you, that is REALLY difficult when she is watching Hannah Montana re-runs. *shudder*

I would WAY prefer Twilight over Hannah Montana.

;-)

I love Hanna Montana! I watch with my niece. I am not reconciled to Bratz at all, but for a kid's show, that one works for me, at least of the few episodes I've seen of it so far. Better by far than the Britney Spears' sister's show or some of the other kid and tween tv. *shudders*

Hannah Montana makes my brains run out my ears. And yet I do not ban it. *I* am the ultimate tolerant mother.

:-)

Although I do occasionally force her to change in the middle of an ep I know she has watched twenty times. I make her put on SciFi channel and we watch Dr. Who re-runs! Much better for one's moral fiber!

Yay Captain Jack!

:-D

Child's love for Torchwood is epic. He's on me every day about when the new Dr. Who and the new Torchwood come out. Hey, have you tried her with Merlin yet? Thumbs up from the eleven year old male side, and I liked the pilot a *lot*. Also Sarah Jane Adventures if she hasn't seen them already. I can upload them for you if she hasn't seen them yet.

She loves the Sarah Jane Adventures. I haven't really tried her on Torchwood yet - it isn't on TV here, and she hates watching them while huddles around my computer screen. I'm think when she is a bit older they will make great Christmas presents on DVD. By then they will be cheap and she will be old enough to watch some of the really rather fucked up sexual antics on the show (and no, I don't mean Jack! LOL)

I have seen stuff about Merlin, but I've never seen it on TV - What channel is it on?

It's BBC, so I don't know if it's on regular TV. I can upload the pilot, so email if you're interested and I'll send the link.

i'd like to point out first, my del.icio.us tags include amtdi and non-con

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject