Article on the pitfalls of Sensitivity Readers.

[Jo Zebedee]

I understand and agree with this post. Unfortunately, it gives me nothing to decode your previous criticism. There has to be something concrete about what gets one called a bigot.

There really is nothing concrete. I live in a place divided by sectarianism. The grey lines are everywhere, in the nuances of language, in what we listen to, in who we admire. Words are slippery, there to be deciphered, not always clear. And they can be misconstrued, or we can have a hidden bias that we don’t recognise, no Matter how balanced and fair We think it is. Looking for definitive isn’t always possible.

 

[Swank]

There really is nothing concrete. I live in a place divided by sectarianism. The grey lines are everywhere, in the nuances of language, in what we listen to, in who we admire. Words are slippery, there to be deciphered, not always clear. And they can be misconstrued, or we can have a hidden bias that we don’t recognise, no Matter how balanced and fair We think it is. Looking for definitive isn’t always possible.

Certainly. But perhaps a higher standard of surety is called for before we plaster yet another damning label on someone?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Certainly. But perhaps a higher standard of surety is called for before we plaster yet another damning label on someone?

How would you suggest calling that line? How will you decide what each person is sensitive to? I think you are looking for something not possible, as long as people get to people

 

[Mon0Zer0]

‘Liam,’ I said, ‘I love you. You have to promise me to always use a condom and never get AIDS.’

I get at the time AIDS was the worry but she could have put a full stop after condom and it would have worked - instead of portraying the walking talking AIDS machine that my friends were made to feel like.

This is a historical conversation. One of the important things to talk about when reporting on the past is realising the pressure that the combination of social attitudes, politics and HIV was putting on gay people of the time. If you strip that from the text you lose that element of truth, even if it's for the best of motivations. We have to be sceptical about sanitising the past.

It's important to know just why she was even having the conversation in the first place and what it says about the times. Young people today in the west, simply do not fully know the context, and in our desire to protect them we impoverish them.

The danger is, as we see all over the world at the moment, rights can be rolled back and unless you understand the context and mindset of the past you run the risk of forgetting how those rights were won and what the world looks like without them.

 

[Swank]

How would you suggest calling that line? How will you decide what each person is sensitive to? I think you are looking for something not possible, as long as people get to people

Usually there isn't a line, but the "reasonable man" standard of courtrooms might be a starting point. This thread has however many people participating - how many think the quote is from a homophobe?

This is a smart, sensitive group. What is blatant to one of us should at least be visible to most.

 

[JunkMonkey]

To write, or talk, about the gay scene from the 80s -- mid-noughties without mentioning AIDS is inauthentic and a whitewash. (The thing that has changed is we tend to refer to it as HIV, not AIDS nowadays.) In those decades AIDS was to us as the Cold War fear was to kids growing up in the 70s and 80s. It saturated everything. If she had not mentioned it, then she'd be blind, and for the sensitivity reader to claim this was homophobic was, quite frankly, ignorant of their own history. And gay life in small seaside towns is experienced differently than big cities like Manchester and London who have a far more diverse gay scene, so how many gays did she get as sensitivity readers?

And what age groups? The language and sensitivities of different generations within what is often presented as a 'community' differ vastly too. I was scared shitless by the AIDS advertising and the language around it back in the day. Scared right back into the closet. It's only now 30 years later that I am comfortable with describing (or even thinking of myself) myself as bi - though in a very monogamous hetero marriage. My eldest daughter came out loud and proud aged 12 and identified as lesbian. We've been supportive of each other but had some real ding dongs, over the years. about words she claimed she was allowed to use and that I wasn't, and about the way things that seem so obviously 'wrong' now were unremarkably 'normal' back then.

An older/elder gay sensitivity reader would have the memory of the fear you mentioned still lurking in the back of their mind; a younger one's awareness of the "Gay Plague" narrative would be to see it as an almost abstract part of history and/or conspiracy theory. Very different views.

 

[The Big Peat]

Thanks for sharing pB. I've yet to work with a sensitivity reader, but have at times tried running a couple of scenes past various people for their reactions, and my main feedback is don't expect your family to answer your emails

More seriously, I'd add that the only good example of a controversy involving sensitivity readers I know of well in adult fantasy is that of Naomi Novik's A Deadly Education, which I believe had copies recalled due to a particular line involving dreadlocks that made it through the sensitivity readers. There was a week of controversy on twitter about a slam document some blogger put together about various other insensitivities, many points of which were torn apart by more knowledgeable bloggers. The moral of this story is that sensitivity readers can help you, but they're not an infallible shield.

Also, I can choose to hide my fabulousness if I want (away with the boas and sequins), where -- for example, race or disability cannot be hidden as easy.

Point of pedantry. Not all physical disabilities are obvious all the time.

One thing that seems to have been missed as far as the original article goes, is that the sensitivity reader's mandate for a memoir is more broad, and perhaps allowed to be more brutal because it is a real person's memories/biography, not a character created like, say Jack Torrance. Characters can be homophobes, racist, misogynistic, ableist apostates, real people/autobiographers can't (or mustn't!).

I have to say I find this bit a bit troubling (not saying you're wrong), as we're effectively saying the sensitivity reader's job is to edit history to present its subject in a better light, which I've generally been brought up and trained to view as a bad thing. The reputation of many a medieval monk and the like has taken a severe battering many centuries later because of such behaviour. I would personally suggest the only method with which sensitivity readers should be handling such material is to read it, and either go "publish, hardly anyone will complain very much" or "don't publish, you don't want to be associated with this person" to the publisher. I question even letting the authors find out what they've said.

 

[Dan Jones]

It usually means someone that inflexibly believes something intolerant of others. Like "homophobia".

If you want to be technical about it, your example of homophobia is a synecdoche, but that does not disqualify the definition I proffered. A bigot is somebody who is completely intolerant of any opinions, beliefs etc that are not their own.

 

[Brian G Turner]

How would you suggest calling that line?

Indeed - we're a dedicated science fiction and fantasy group and we can't even define the difference between the two, let alone define nuanced social political issues.

And on that point, as no one appears to have any experience with sensitivity readers it seems this thread will simply be a run of opinions on social politics, which is beyond the remit of this forum - so thread closed.