Taboo topics 

A taboo is something forbidden or prohibited. Something you cannot do or say in your society without fear of punishment or social sanction. All cultures have taboos of various strengths, but what is taboo in one culture/generation may be acceptable in another. Writing on taboo subjects or activities is risky by definition. You are pushing the edge of decency, ethics, and conventional values.

So why do it?

If you just want to shock people or offend them for the sake of offending, you are approaching the topic like a kid, not like a professional writer. While sensationalism, shock, horror, and grit sells books, magazines, and newspapers, you can not afford to turn off the majority of people who buy these things. Therefore, taboo subjects must be clothed in redeeming social or literary values if they are to be acceptable to us.

Lately, erotica (esp female erotica) has become fashionable because of its literary merit. Erotica supposedly distinguishes itself from pornography by aestheticising sexuality, distancing us from the raw act with a thin veil of mystery or an appeal to higher emotions. Erotica can be clever, poetic and enlightening, as well as prurient. Victorian erotica has shed light on the sexual ethics of that particular moment in history. There are cross-cultural differences between modern English, French and American erotica, which suggest deep-seated dissimilarities in terms of pycho-sexual orientation and pre-occupation.

There are other reasons to write on taboo topics. Feminists have long brought unspoken women's business into the light in order to free themselves from the shame some societies place on natural processes or feelings. Such topics range from menstruation to post-natal depression. Men have taboo topics as well which the men’s movement is airing for the sake of political and emotional liberation. Such writing can be liberating.

Why not do it?

There are a number of arguments for why writers should not push this edge. There is the simple pointlessness of going out of your way to offend just because it make you feel good. That is akin to vandalism. But there is also an ethical point much debated from Plato onwards to Helen Demidenko and Martin Bryant. When the book American Psycho came out, it was banned from some bookshops and libraries because it portrayed horrendous crime from the sympathetic first-person view of the criminal. It made despicable crime enjoyable from the subjective, internalised perspective of the reader which is stronger than the more distanced, objective third-person account. It still remains the only R-rated book in bookstores.

When it comes to exposing, explaining, or reporting violence, child abuse, incest, murder, cults, and other brands of insanity and evil, you may be open to the charge of reproducing and promoting the very thing you are trying to expose or prevent. Some societies prefer to censor all such speech because the risk of imitation is much to high. There are also what might be called public safety issues. You are not allowed to yell Fire! in a crowed theatre. After Orson Welles "War of the Worlds" broadcast, you're not allowed to imitate real news or events without ample and evident disclaimers.

In other words, it is taboo to raise false alarms, incite to riot, perpetuate a fraud, or otherwise mislead the public. 

Another taboo activity, an act of textual transgression is plagiarism. Plagiarism is a kind of fraud, yet under the guise of intertextuality, textual poaching, or other politically motivated acts of literary rebellion can work. Certain kinds of unattributed liftings, borrowings, inclusions argue against conventional notions of originality and ownership.

Here is list of some topics and activities that are taboo depending somewhat on how they are presented. The list includes things you possibly should not write about or that people just do not write about, things that for some reason are unspoken. For instance, it can be challenging to articulate the unspoken assumptions behind certain political or social statements made by prominent people. You can get in trouble for pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. It may be quite radical to question statements made by prominent people. You can get in trouble for pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. It may be quite radical to question what is silenced or suppressed in some advertising.

Obscenity | Incest | Sex | Adultery | Homo erotica | Erotica | Violence | Racism | Rape | Suburbia | Old age | Pedophilia | Religious beliefs | Boring things | Private lives | Boring stuff | Private lives | Threats | False alarms | Crazy stuff, nonsense | Inciting to crime or mischief including how to shoplift of make bombs | Frauds | False advertising | Defamation, slander and libel | Plagiarism | Unstated assumptions | Anarchy | Opposition | Impersonating someone, assuming a false identity | Religion | Politics |

Here are some Web sites that you might like to peruse before writing this piece. Beware: some of them contain graphic material, both textual and pictorial.

http://homepages.enterprise.net/powell/This is a site devoted to Death

http://www.persiankitty.com Probably the largest pornographic site on the Web including collections of erotica (GRAPHIC)

http://www.paramour.com/parafict.htm Samples from Paramour; an online magazine of literary and artistic erotica (GRAPHIC)

http://www.pscw.uva.nl/sociosite/NeukenEng.html a short article about why its not nice to talk about that great f*** you had last nite

http://www.eroplay.com/barb.html a weird review

http://www.eroplay.com/tcr.html The Cherotic Revolutionary - check this out

Article dealing with Hate groups, terrorism and right-wing propoganda on the Web (by RA)

http://www.teleport.com/~room101/saucebox/saucebox.htm One last site - Saucebox: the Journal of Literary Erotica (GRAPHIC)

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Exercise for next week

Write a piece which would be judged taboo by contemporary standards. Your piece can be on a forbidden subject or in a forbidden mode or both. You can use pictures/illustrations etc. Length should be around 500 words (or more). Is there a history to this genre of writing? Why is it taboo? Do you overcome some of those taboos? 

You should preface the piece with an Introduction which gives a short account of the ethical implications or sources of discomfort it may have raised for you in writing the piece, and what effects you intended it to have on the reader.

Have fun with this one,

RA