I'll start this out by saying, Archive of Our Own is amazing. Why? Because it is a platform built by writers for writers. The problem that comes from Archive is the people who say it is a bad place because it allows writers the freedom to write whatever they want, provided they tag appropriately. This means that the people who don't want to see a subject written, have no control over that writer. The writer can put whatever they want to the world, including heavily controversial subjects like rape, underage sex, and more.
If you've read my work, you probably know I tend to be dark. It's therapy for me, in a lot of ways, and I use my writing as a catharsis. I like to break characters and then heal them from that breaking point. Because I write explicit works, sexual scenes are usually involved.
So, what I'm getting at, is there is an audience for every type of writing, and even the most reprehensible forms of abuse in the world may be portrayed by a person recovering from that abuse. Sometimes, the darkness becomes our friend, and sometimes we have to share that darkness with the world.
I'm anti censorship. Of any kind. There are plenty of things out there that I have to wonder why the writer wrote them, but in the end censorship is a slippery slope. Who makes the call? Who decides what gets censored and what doesn't? Where is the line between what is okay and is not and how do we figure it out? Let writers write. If there is no one that reads a thing, if it is just too much, then so be it. But someone usually has a reason for writing a thing, and someone else has a reason for reading it.
Comments