Spoke to someone who is a very famous, and acclaimed author, and she told me to be ready for a triggered reader or several because my novel has sexual violence. So I prepared myself, I thought.
I have received so many comments about this that I wanted to really look into it. The comments are from “How dare you?/!” to “Thank you for putting this out there”.
So I decided to address it here.
Sexual violence is one of those things that I think we avoid in general conversation. You might hear a quickly whispered, “She was attacked” or “she was you know…” in some circles. These women, mostly, just can’t bring themselves to discuss such a horrifying situation.
Others, advised they don’t want their daughters to read about sexual violence in a book. They don’t need to know about that. I wanted to respond “Really?”, but didn’t. Again, I decided to respond here.
What is sexual violence? According to the CDC, it is when sexual activity is when the consent for sexual activity has not been given freely.
Why do we avoid this subject? Why is something that is happening to men, women and children every single day such a taboo in conversation?
I am a staunch advocate for parental rights. But, wouldn’t you think that if a parent buys a child (meaning anyone below 18) a book and gives it as a gift, that they would be responsible for the content? Shouldn’t a parent that is concerned about their child’s reading material, simply look into what they are reading? Is it really fair to put that responsibility onto the authors of books that have adult content?
I remember as a young child, before I was of school age, one of my brothers and I were with our grandparents at this flea market type place. I remember it was a huge warehouse with all kinds of cool stuff. The two of us were amazed at all the things to look at. As children are wont to do, we wandered off and found these cool boxes in a corner behind some really dusty chairs. Of course, we immediately found the magazines buried in these boxes. We opened them up to pictures of naked people in various poses. I am sure it was some type of adult entertainment, but as a child it was just weird. Both my brother and I said “Ewww!”. But as curiosity knows no bounds, we continued to look at the magazines. Suddenly our grandmother appears like an avenging angel snatching the magazines from our little hands. She explained to us in no uncertain terms, that we were not to be looking at these magazines. Back then, there was no sweet sit down and gently explain things to unruly children. She simply let us know not to do it again and we knew we had better listen. But she didn’t blame the warehouse for the content, she simply taught the children what was acceptable and what was not.
As for other triggered individuals, I totally get reading about dramatic experiences might be upsetting. But again, the aim is to not only shed light on these issues, but more importantly to shed light on hope, healing and to move forward.
I solidly stand by my decision to portray Lexi’s experience and hope the reader also finds the healing and love given by the Creator is also a huge part of the storyline. Because these types of things happen in our world. If those of us who decide to portray them in our fictional works are censored, the question should be, “Why?” or maybe even “How dare you try to censor my heroine’s story?”.
If you have felt triggered by or upset by Lexi’s story, then you most certainly will be in the following books in the series. I have explored many criminal activities that are committed by perpetrators daily in America. I will also continue to explore the amazing love and healing that only God can provide in these stories.
Likewise, my hero’s and heroines will continue to develop and their stories will hopefully improve as my writing abilities gain both time and experience.
To answer the original question from the top of the page, my answer is a resounding, “Yes, authors have the right to write about anything, including sexual violence, and in this case the recovery from it. We have the right to express our art just as any other creative person does.”
