Warning: Discussion of SA in literature.
I made a post last January, essentially mourning the downfall of one of my favourite authors, rotXinXpieces aka Rotty and compared it to the grief I felt when I lost my respect for JK Rowling when I found out she was a TERF.
I have spent the last year distancing myself from his fandom, while slowly slipping into the role of a silent reader, reading the books in hopes that they would improve over time and in hindsight of the stir and chaos my post caused in said fandom. I want to point that the post garnered a fair bit of attention as well as a fair bit of abuse, both because I dared to criticize the books, and the author's literary choices, but also, because I made the grave error of badly wording the comparison of my grief over losing respect for JK Rowling to losing my respect for Rotty. I have since edited it to read better and included an apology to Rotty and my trans siblings, because I truly never meant to compare a trans author to a TERF of all people, that is unimaginable to me.
With that said, I would like to point out that my criticisms were shoved aside and to the back while this poor choice of wording on my part took center stage in this arena of hatred that was being hurled at me by the fandom. I found that certain fans manipulated this particular mistake to draw attention away from the majority of the criticisms I made. I stand by my post and I have not deleted it, because it is the truth. It has been over a year since then and I find this happening all over again, and I don't think people realise what has actually happened in the last week, or the last month if we really want to go back.
There was a post made on Rotty's message board once again by a fan, I will not name them here, but the post and subsequent supportive comments criticised Rotty, and basically called him out for the gross overuse of SA in the books, the lack of resolution, the lack of repercussions for the r*pists and justice for the victims.They pointed out that the overuse of SA was starting to look like a sick fetish on the author's part, where the author was vicariously living out a fantasy via their books and the readers were their unsuspecting victims. Rotty acknowledged the post and promised to do better, citing his own traumas and how he was drawing from them.
He did not do better, Recently, he posted another chapter in his book Broken, whose protagonist Three’s love interest Tricho began toeing the line into SA territory, which then immediately led to another post being made on the message board by a reader, asking if we could please not have any more SA and that it was getting really exhausting. They further stated that they loved the books but that they were disappointed that the series was declining rapidly. They mirrored the previous post, saying that the blatant overuse of SA was starting to look like a fetish and that they felt that they were being forced to engage in it without their consent, with some commenters supporting them with similar messages and a few comments with unsavory language.
(Screenshot of the post below:)
Another post was made immediately after, stating that if people thought the SA in the series was *not so bad* that they should check out the following list. The list consisted of the books named in chronological order with the names of the characters that were SA’ed to some degree or the other or in some way adjacent.
(Screenshot of the list below:)
Rotty reacted to this by saying that he would take down the books and fix this. Following which, he did so without so much as warning the fans, which then led to a weekend long of hatred, anger and bullying.
The whiteknights defending Rotty attacked a server from which a few members had commented on the post, and the person that posted the list. But this post is not about a war between two rival servers of the same fandom. This post is about how once again, the criticisms were being brushed aside in favour of the few comments with unsavory language. This post is about how an author needs to take social accountability for the books he writes and publishes. If you look at that list, and you see 22 out of 30 books have SA in them, of which the 30th was still ongoing, and you feel offended for any other reason than how appalling that is, how jarring it is to see and know this is the series you have been following and loved for so long, then you need to look within yourself and think about why that list offends you.
Over this last week I've heard people say that SA is prevalent throughout Greek mythology, that they've forgiven their assaulter, that people have to face their assaulters on a regular basis, and to this I say:
(Screenshot of the two comments below:)
Yes, SA has been common throughout history and mythology, when such abusers were often in a position of power and the victims had little to no way of fighting back and / or seeking justice, if this series is set in a modern universe, which relatively it is, then this should imply that these characters should be held to modern standards of justice and equality, it may not be same in terms of punishment, but it should be in terms of accountability. If a politician or priest is or should be held responsible and punished, then so should these characters.
Granting one's abuser forgiveness is a personal choice, but the implication that forgiveness is perfectly normal or expected is a gross invalidation of a victim's experiences, especially when such experiences often leave behind continuous and deeply painful trauma.
On another note, yes, some people do have to face their assaulters on a regular basis, but that should not be the case and it definitely should not be expected of victims, especially when–
1) The victim has stated or displayed in the past the refusal or inability to be in the vicinity or presence of their assaulter, especially if the contact is unnecessary and avoidable. Sunday lunches for pleasure are not necessary and completely avoidable.
2) Familial relations do not mean a victim owes their assaulter anything, not lunch on sundays, not forgiveness, nor kindness in the face of centuries long of abuse and humiliation, simply because the author decided to give the assaulter a redemption arc, and I use the term redemption arc very loosely here, sarcastically even.
Now, before you hit me with the “An author can write whatever he wants to” and “If you don't like it, just don't read it” or “SA is normal, he's (Rotty's) drawing from his own experiences”, I would like to point out that yes, an author can write whatever he wants, but you cannot say this about works published online for free, on a website like Wattpad, where the books are not being regulated as well as you think and hope they are, and are available to readers as young 12 and 14, whereas when books are published through a publisher, they go through a set of checks and balances in the form of editors and beta readers. This is their social responsibility.
The “don't like, don't read” argument works for fanfiction on Ao3, where there are warning tags, or a book genre where the readers know what they are getting into, like Horror or Dark Fantasy, albeit which come with content and trigger warnings. You cannot say this to fans that love and have loved this book series for a decade, maybe longer, despite everything, when they only hate the gross overuse of SA and how inconsequential and poorly addressed it is, if at all.
SA is a real life issue and an unfortunate fact of life. It deeply saddens me that many people go through this trauma on a daily basis and it breaks my heart that Rotty has gone through this. However, SA should not be normalised, even if the author is drawing from his own experiences, when it is being portrayed to the extent that it is, with little to no justice for the characters, or accountability for the assaulters. SA is not a plot device, or a trope to be used in place as an excuse for lazy writing.
Young minds are susceptible to repeated exposure to such sensitive and graphic topics. These books are being read by pre- teen and teenagers, this will potentially lead to them normalising or even romanticising SA and not even realising it is wrong or bad, these young minds could grow into people that may fall victim to SA, because it has been normalised, or worse, become predators themselves. While victims of SA may read these books as a way to cope with their trauma, others might find it traumatizing or even be angered by the lack of justice for victims and the lack of repercussions for assaulters. And no, the slap on the wrist does not count, not while the character lives seemingly happy ever after with the one of most powerful characters of that world as their lover.
We need to stop sending messages that normalise marrying your abuser, or that dating your best friend's lover's assaulter is alright. We do not need to further fester the wound on society that is SA, by normalising them in books to the extent that they have been. This is why social accountability is important.
Yes, these books are fictional, the characters in them are not real, but their experiences are drawn from a lived reality for many. We live in a world where the SA of women is treated with outrage and demands of justice, where SA is SA whether you are a man, woman or child, whether you are straight, gay, or trans. Would these books be distasteful if the characters that have been repeatedly and brutally assaulted were women instead of men? Or would it just be normal?
As readers, we need to hold our authors to account, but that is useless if the criticisms of the art are treated like an attack upon the artist. When the author shields himself behind accusations of cyberbullying to hide his behaviour and lack of social accountability, it is those handful fans that stand up to him and his massive fanbase that are treated like lambs for slaughter, knowing full well that they are walking into a colosseum of hatred, like the gladiators of ancient Rome.