Tackling taboo subjects

[Jo Zebedee]

I've read a couple of books recently which tackle taboo subjects well - and which I think literature has a place in supporting.

One was Stewart Foster's We Used to be Kings which tackles mental illness incredibly well. Another was our own @HareBrain 's The Goddess Project which dealt with the subject of possible incest very delicately.

On a more difficult note I also read Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller recently which was memorable but challenging about a father-daughter relationship which didn't just satisfy me as well.

And then I look at eg The Handmaid's Tale which seems to have more relevance possibly because it challenges hard subjects using the dystopian mirror.

So my question is twofold - does sf give a unique angle on tricky subjects? And which books - like The Goddess Project - do it well?

 

[tinkerdan]

I think that, despite other flaws that some people find with him, Heinlein did this quiet a bit in his work.
The most outstanding is cannibalism in Stranger in a Strange Land. This was so controversial that the first publisher had it taken out and glossed over.

 

[The Big Peat]

I am not particularly sold that SFF has a unique angle here. To use the example I'm most familiar with - could the possible-incest angle of The Goddess Project have been told without magic? Without being an expert on amnesia, and therefore possibly being wrong, I think probably yes. And I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there have been books with similar plot lines.

If SFF does have a unique angle, it is by being able to plug in races and philosophies that never really existed (although how often do you see a philosophy that genuinely never existed in some form, or a race that doesn't mimic real life cultures?). I don't think that makes a difference to things like incest but it can to racism. There is something to be said for re-running culture clash in a way where neither culture particularly mirrors ones we might have innate prejudices against. Pratchett's use of Dwarves and Trolls here springs right to mind - and I also think he did some clever things with Vampires and addiction.

I suppose there's the other unique angle of using magic/technology to create "What if" scenarios. That thought was mainly prompted by GKK's Tigana and the whole "What would you do if your culture was being obliterated before your very eyes?" scenario which is made a lot starker by the use of magic than the real world could ever manage, although maybe you lose something for the certainty.

Perhaps it is better to say that while SFF has some tools available to it that the rest of literature does not, it doesn't have to use those tools to address the taboo. We can write about two humans engaging in human behaviour with no supernatural influence as much as anyone else.

 

[Hex]

I find @The Big Peat's argument persuasive...

I haven't read it for years, but I thought The Cement Garden addressed sibling incest well, if not especially delicately (perhaps "unflinchingly" is the word I want). A lot of Ian McEwan's books tackle difficult subjects, and I don't remember sff aspects to them (though I wouldn't be too surprised if there were some).

TGP is different in dealing not with incest itself but with the taboo -- ie the societal horror and the paralysing power of social conditioning.

On the other hand, dystopian stories often do address problematic social/ taboo issues -- The Handmaid's Tale is one, and Never Let Me Go is another. In YA dystopian, the issue of abortion is dealt with... I'm going to use "unflinchingly" again... in Unwind by Neal Shusterman -- a world in which abortion of the unborn is illegal, but teenagers who are vulnerable or who have made poor life choices can be 'unwound' instead for the benefit of society (some themes are rather similar to Never Let Me Go). Skinned by Robin Wasserman (also YA) looks at issues of self -- if your consciousness comes back in robot form, are you you? I don't know how you could address that fully without using some form of sff.

[I know we don't discuss abortion on here, so if mentioning it as the central theme in Unwind is sailing too close to the wind, please remove that sentence, dear moderators ]

 

[thaddeus6th]

It can do. Things like racism, colonialism and terrorism were handled very well in Deep Space Nine, and it's easier when you're talking about spoonheads than actual races.

On the other hand, political topics can also end up being manifesto-publishing or preaching your own perspective which is something I'm really not into.

If you're going for medieval realism (even in fantasyland) then the disabled would get a pretty rough time of things (of course, that can still be the case today, but it's a difficult thing to write about).

 

[Danny McG]

I think when SFF covers incest it isn't really a main part of the story i.e. The Gap Cycle, he had the zone implants in his sister's brain and was thus coercing her to do various things to him. Two paragraphs as a minor sidebar pretty much covered the details, passage was only there to show how much of a baddie he was.
Similar with the Baron in Dune being a paedo, couple of throwaway sentences gave all relevant info.
I can't think of one where incest is a major plot element.
I think books from the sixties where there was a major homosexual part were covering the taboo issues of their time. Such activities could still incur a prison sentence back then.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

@peat - i don't neccesarily disagree that sff isn't needed to understand a subject (in my OP 2 of the books were non sff although one had a huge amount of sff easter-eggs in it). But I feel the way @thaddeus6th does - that there are some subjects where we approach them with a little added distance through using sff.

I think @Hex makes an important point about The Goddess Project which is that this is not a book about incest but instead puts the conflict of a great taboo into the world (to be clear, no incest is committed in the book - it is the fear of breaking that taboo that drives the character actions. To see how that is framed and dealt with I'd very much recommend everyone immediately buys a copy and has a read ). That could, of course, be dealt with outside genre.


*I had a review of Waters and the Wild yesterday that reflected on the mental illness aspect of the book - the interweaving of the fairy world gave a distance and an additional layer to that aspect of the book making the pathos of being a person with that sort of disorientating disorder stronger. I think would have been lost without the fantastical element.

 

[The Big Peat]

Oh aye, the distance is useful, although sometimes...

I haven't read it for years, but I thought The Cement Garden addressed sibling incest well, if not especially delicately (perhaps "unflinchingly" is the word I want). A lot of Ian McEwan's books tackle difficult subjects, and I don't remember sff aspects to them (though I wouldn't be too surprised if there were some).

... sometimes there's to be said for a head on collision with the subject. Although that can lead to some polarising views among readers, or at least "I liked it but X went too far", a subject which of course Jo is completely unfamiliar

I'm debating whether Jacqueline Carey deserves a "Did it well" for how she address BDSM in Kushiel's Legacy, but she certainly did it unflinchingly and I think that meant she dealt with it better than most. I've seen a lot of writers deal with sexuality in some form but in most cases they keep it pretty light, with the result that it doesn't really mean anything. I agree with Thaddeus that I'm not really into a trip to the pulpit but sometimes I feel the author's gotta run that risk.

I mean, take Mercedes Lackey. I think she deals with a lot of issues around sexuality and abuse (both sexual and non-sexual). But does she do it well? She does it okay but for me, she mentions them, shows some minor struggle, then resolves it neatly (like everything else is resolved) and... yeah. It doesn't really mean much. A spoonful of sugar helds the medicine go down but too much and the medicine never takes. Do any of the many rape and torture scenes hit me like Jo manages in Abendau? No.

 

[Dan Jones]

I'd echo Peat, Hex and Thad. SFF certainly does not have a monopoly on tackling taboo issues, or even tackling them well, but it's certainly capable of tackling philosophical questions, and has a distinct advantage where questions of science and technology are involved. So again, Never Let Me Go is a great shout, as is Black Mirror (ok, not a book, but it's still a good example). Contrarily I think SFF doesn't really have a good record when it comes to depicting religion and raising philosophical questions about it, preferring to toe the "religion = bad" line, particularly Christianity, although I expect I shall stand corrected soon (said the man in the orthopaedic shoes).

I mentioned this in the other thread about author perspective, but I think it's worth mentioning again: I dislike allegory, and prefer it when questions are raised as opposed to having the author's point of view force fed to me. JK Rowling's A Casual Vacancy is a case in point, whereas her Harry Potter managed to tackle sensitive issues in a less clunky manner. Perhaps she found it harder to clothe her opinions in a credible narrative within a Real World setting instead of a fantasy one.

The problem with taboo subjects is that sometimes they're just, well, taboo. When the issue of rape and sexualised violence was dealt with in A Song Of Ice And Fire, George Martin (and the show producers) were given a lot of flak, in my eyes unjustly. If you're telling the story of women in a medievalised war, and you want to do it truthfully, then it likely will clash with modern sensibilities. So you have to choose between a bitter truth and a sanitised fiction. That, to me, is the very definition of taboo. And perhaps SFF, particularly fantasy, again has the edge over contemporary fiction here, which to suit commercial tastes will be perhaps expected, or even pushed by editors, to lean towards current trends.

Good to see you around again, Hex.

 

[Hex]

It is kind of an issue with some hard-to-write topics, that the lived experience doesn't tuck things into a neat narrative shape.

I wrote a short story a quazzilion years ago about a woman with depression, and it's one of the few things I've written that got lots of reviews and not just reviews, but reviews by people with all sorts of political/societal axes to grind, mostly because they came to the anthology expecting it to be "fat positive" and were cross when some of the characters weren't happy with their weight. I guess fat is another taboo subject.

Anyway, in my story, the protagonist comes out of her depression towards the end -- or starts the process of recovery -- and a couple of reviews pointed out that the world doesn't work like that and it was almost a cop-out to have the depression lifting. The issue was, or the issue I thought I was dealing with then was, that it would have been really hard to write a satisfying story where the PND (because it was post-natal depression) continued unresolved, and it felt as if the narrative structure needed some kind of closing off. I don't know. Maybe I'd write it differently now -- probably, I wouldn't dare.

But it was interesting to see the reviews. It felt like many of the reviewers had wanted a series of stories that were essentially a political statement about how great it was to be fat. Some stories (not mine, thankfully) got ripped to pieces because they weren't "fat positive". It was the politics Thad was talking about, perhaps, that dictated what some people felt the appropriate attitude was.


(another) EDIT: I liked CS Lewis's books for children -- the Narnia books -- for religion. Although I know some people feel he's really preaching, I read them several times when I was a child and completely missed the religious component.

Also, I believe Star Wars can be read as a religious allegory

(another-another EDIT -- now I'm back it seems I can't shut up) For me, the issue with the GoT TV show wasn't the existence of sexualised violence -- though it doesn't really do it for me however it's presented -- but the glorification of it. So while rape happened a lot in war, it probably didn't happen with soft lighting and loving close-ups of the distraught woman weeping attractively. It took what isn't actually a taboo subject in fantasy(*) -- rape, it's everywhere -- and did all the worst things with it. Made it sexy, made it pretty and made the victim fall in love with her rapist about 30 seconds later.(**)

(*) Not always -- Jo did it well, and in Melusine Sarah Monette did it very well too -- as a horrible experience about power and coercion.

(**) She mightn't have, actually. I don't know. I stopped watching in disgust.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Picking up from Pete and Dan - when I first started Abendau I had no plan to write the scenes I did. I knew there had to be a 'great ordeal' (since I was aping the chosen one's journey) and that it would be done from a close character perspective since that is the way I write. But it wasn't until I googled real life torture regimes focused on disempowerment (particularly of men) that it became evident only one thing could logically happen in the scenario I set up. So, I suppose, it was real life reflecting into a fantasy world in this case.

In the books, in total, over a quarter of a million words I have two direct torture scenes, two dream sequences, one removed point of view section and a conversation scene that covers the rape element (I removed the POV scene for that). Probably 3000 words max.... but they are the scenes the trilogy will be known for as they seem to get under the skins of the reader (too much, sometimes). Still. My epitaph. I write good torture, allegedly (or perhaps have just too much darn empathy)

Edit - Dune deals with religion in an interesting fashion - particularly the Preacher/Muab'dib vibe.

 

[Brian G Turner]

There's a lot of discussion about big taboos, but it's actually the smaller ones I find more interesting to challenge - especially when it comes to anything relating to toileting or general hygiene. These are universal experiences that - when handled right - allow opportunity for characters to become a little more real and sympathetic to readers IMO.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

There's a lot of discussion about big taboos, but it's actually the smaller ones I find more interesting to challenge - especially when it comes to anything relating to toileting or general hygiene. These are universal experiences that - when handled right - allow opportunity for characters to become a little more real and sympathetic to readers IMO.

I remember writing a scene about a female child -of about 11 - wetting herself (Abendau again - all the taboos!) and one of the hard bitten betas who had barely turned a hair through all the hideous scenes in book one found that scene very uncomfortable reading.

 

[Toby Frost]

One of my favourite horror novels, The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons, is basically all about the breaking of minor social taboos. There are deaths, but more important is how the haunted house, which is in an upper-middle class suburb, causes the people who occupy it to lose standing and gradually become ostracised by the community. It's very good at revealing the almost samurai obsession with not losing face in front of your peers.

 

[Wiglaf]

Personally, my biggest problem in my current wip is not the threat on rape, but the factor slavery. My protagonist comes to the point that slaves should be protected against the worst abuses including rape. However, he can't imagine a world without slavery. I can't. condone slavery, but my protagonist could never realistically become an abolitionist.

 

[Danny McG]

It depends a lot on the target audience but also where you raise these issues. Taboo is some places isn't even noticed in others. Sorry, think I'm going off subject and into censorship so I'll belt up and let the serious writers discuss

 

[Hex]

It depends a lot on the target audience but also where you raise these issues. Taboo is some places isn't even noticed in others. Sorry, think I'm going off subject and into censorship so I'll belt up and let the serious writers discuss

I don't think you are going off subject -- I think that's a really important point. Taboos are pretty much all culturally specific (by definition). I can't think of any that haven't been considered as absolutely fine by some culture or sub-culture at some stage.

Which suggests an interesting aspect of considering a new character or society is to consider what *they* find taboo.

 

[Ihe]

I think that SFF's main contribution to literary taboo subjects is a greater suspension of disbelief and distance in time, as I think some have already mentioned.

In old/medieval fantasy you can get away with it counting it as realism, because back then, golly we were animals. But I find futuristic SF more interesting, because it adds a new level of speculation to the mix. As a civilization evolves, there are less taboos IMO (although i think that could very well be debatable--do we just replace some taboos with others as we evolve as a species?). With this assumption in mind, we could approach some taboos in a more casual manner (ie: once genetic mishaps are eradicated from the human genome, voluntary incest is no longer a taboo, insomuch as the origin of the taboo was centered around inbred offspring).

The what-if scenarios that SFF can provide overall makes it ideal to also treat worn taboos in a completely new fashion (mental rape without physical contact through magic or psionics, torturing your younger self as a time-travelling sadomasochist--just thought of this, I call dibs--imagining religion never existed-- and all the associated taboos ceasing to exist, etc). SFF can give a fresh out-there perspective that other more grounded genres can't manage within their contexts. We can invent our own civilizations and our own taboos if we wanted to. We have more freedom to play around with taboos, while shielding the writers with the distance a greater suspension of disbelief provides.

 

[HareBrain]

Good thread, Jo.

For me, the unique (one hopes) situation in which Orc and Cass find themselves in TGP was perhaps inspired less by wanting to explore the incest taboo than a much more common situation: being attracted to someone you spend a lot of time with but not being able to do anything about it. Making it mutual turns it from unrequited to something barriered, which gives it extra tension and force. In the real world -- in our culture, at least -- if two people fancy each other, then you have to work quite hard to give them a reason to not give in to their urges. Religious or family divide could work, but still leaves the option of doing it in secret. I don't think O&C's situation could have existed without magic, and thus outside SFF, (unless their joint amnesia could have been achieved with hypnosis).

What's surprised me in relation to taboos in TGP is that no reader has ever brought up the ones in Tashi's storyline, or not to me anyway: strangulation leading to ecstasy, for example (though religious in his case).

 

[Dan Jones]

strangulation leading to ecstasy

That's not taboo. It was so de rigeur in the 90s that half the Cabinet were at it.

Seriously though, I think that aspect of Tashi's experiences don't hit the taboo button because they're not overtly sexualised, and most taboo subjects do tend to be sexual in nature.

There is the episode where he sees Hannah in the forest and, er, you know... in a previous PM I described it as reminiscent of a key scene in Portrait Of The Artist.... which undoubtedly was a taboo in Joyce's time, but not now.