#Hogg by Samuel R. Delaney is next; I have only read Dhalgren by this same author

[saint-starflicker]

Other/Nuance. Back in the day, we had goatse and tubgirl memes. Don't look that up. Do not look that up, for the love of every pantheon in human history do not revive it. But, I mean...That was trolling culture. That was a specific way to be an annoying loser, and people getting upset about a troll spamming lemon party (don't look that up if you don't already know it) was the end-all be-all purpose of spamming those shocking images. This would be on sites that it would take such a long time to report and remove that content, and trolls were basically online droogs that revelled in it. That's what I had to navigate, so that's become my baseline: Is this discomfort from a trolling thing? Is the "artwork" or "writing" purposely violating as many people's peace for no purpose beyond that the troller can feel like they made some mark on the world by upsetting somebody else, as a distraction from their real-life problems or to feel superior? If yes, then ignore or block. It's pretty easy now, even if some trolls would feel triumphant that they got some reaction (blocking)—curating your online experience is a lot easier now than it was 25 years ago, isn't it? So curating your online experience is normal now. Trolls imagining a win are not my problem—that's between them and their court-mandated therapist, or whatever.

The above level doesn't really deserve as much effort as this next one, which is...when it's not a trolling thing.

It's an artist or writer doing their thing, there are warning labels, it's all art and fiction. Then, despite the warning label, something in it just happens to be very repulsively not a thing that I can stay with. Maybe I don't find any substance that makes the shock/upset/disgust worthwhile, and then there's nothing more to say. Maybe I can't explain it because the content activated my "yike" and click-away reflex so fast that I don't even remember it because I'm laughing with relief at that not being on my screen anymore (this has seriously happened to me. Buffy fandom, geocities site, 2002.)

So the reason I seem to have a threshold for it is because I can yike and click away with online art and stories. I can't do that with real life, offline, physically harmful people. These are not the same. The lived experience of the difference is strikingly obvious.

Beyond that, sometimes I have nothing to say about it. Beyond the shock, maybe the art or fiction is really banal and mediocre—but I don't even bother wondering if this artist/writer in (allegedly) earnest to create something is genuinely working through personal issues or exploring an idea, or disguised their trolling...because, just, nothing. Nothing from me, I can't help that, whatever. We all move on like ships that pass in the night.

Other times, I think the work had enough about it that I can say something about. "Night Eats Color" is the Persona 4 fandom's own Lolita in the way the child-abuser narrator gets to tell the story, but there's also a bit of Neil McCormick from Mysterious Skin to his victim, and I will argue that despite containing CSA and telling the story from the point of view of the abuser and the victim does not behave as expected of a traumatized CSA victim...this work still successfully frames the act as disgusting and reprehensible using various other literary techniques, details, story context and plot beats.

I did not tell the author this. I even probably have to say, "don't harass the author just because I said this exists".

Sometimes I think something has shocking subject matter and that it's not good art or writing at all—but that there is something to it that is interesting to analyze, even if the work itself is unutterably garbage. (I did not like the execution of A Little Life, but I can understand what it was going for but just not nailing it.) In those cases, I hope that even my complaints will be analytical. I should by then have clarified my standpoint within myself, so that I'm not railing against something because of misappropriated personal issues, like so-and-so idea represented reminds me of something I blame a bad breakup for or getting bullied in grade school or blah blah—I hate reading those sorts of things, I think it's a waste of my time and attention (because it's not a developing discussion, instead it's a You problem disguised as a This Show/Character Sucks problem, basically bad-faith criticism) so I hope I don't write those. If my discomfort is a Me problem, then I hope that's sorted out before I talk to anybody other than my nearests and dearests about it. Finally, I also should have clarified my framework by then: Am I analyzing/discussing the meaning of this uncomfortable art on the basis of its craft and skill in this medium? Or how it emerged from the culture it's in? Or its rhetorical purpose (whether that's good or godawful)? Those are not the same frameworks at all, and I get annoyed reading them conflated with each other (or one disguised as another) just because the reviewer/complainer is upset.

The standpoints and frameworks should be much better-defined, if anything worthwhile is going to be added to the discussion about it beyond "thing bad."

CSA mention warning in the video below, because Talk Salò 2002 is about (surprise!) talking about Salò 1975.

There. That's what I do. ☝️

Plz reblog for a bigger sample size