This was Heidi MacDonald's question about the Crossed
torture covers. You can see the article linked below. But this reaction
interests me, because it’s pretty much the same reaction that many people have
to two dudes kissing. Or buying a book about someone who likes to dominate
other people, or be dominated by other people.
(You can start humming Sweet Dreams now)
But I suspect if someone were to publically say “WHAT KIND
OF SICK FUCK BUYS THIS SHIT????” about, say, S and M, then you’d get a much
different kind of response. But understand that whether you think enjoying S
and M or gay porn is equivalent to enjoying gore, you are essentially judging
someone by their taste in fiction in a way that demonizes and marginalizes
them. It says that if you like this, you are a fucked up human being. Torture
covers are apparently an acceptable target.
Now, I write an extremely violent and gore filled comic and
I am writing Crossed which, as you might guess, is ALSO extremely violent and
gore filled. So the full disclosure bit is out of the way.
What might surprise you is that I don’t actually like gore. I’ve
never been a gorehound, and most of the time I don’t find it all that
entertaining. Shit, some of the scariest and most disturbing movies are some of
the least gore filled. Note that despite their reputation, the first Halloween
and the orginal Texas Chainsaw Massacre are relatively tame affairs from a
strictly blood and guts perspective.
But I am a fan of horror, and as mentioned, I do write a lot
of extremely violent things, so I’ve had occasion to meet a lot of gorehounds.
So I am at least in some position to offer an opinion on what kind of sick
fucks they are.
Not sick fucks at all, usually. They are, as most people
are, by and large nice and normal people with no particular urge to violently
torture and murder people. People that know the difference between real and not
real, which seems to be lacking in some people’s ability to imagine stuff.
I do not understand S&M. I don’t. I can’t understand why
people would get off on domination or being dominated. I also know that Fifty
Shades of Grey made the author just shy of 100 million dollars, which indicates
that quite a lot of people enjoying reading about it or, at the very least, aren’t
bothered by it.
I could ask “WHAT KIND OF SICK FUCK BUYS THIS SHIT????”
because the ideas it supposes are unfathomable to me. But the fact that it is
hugely popular leads to the apparent notion that, perhaps, they aren’t sick
fucks and I should examine the inside of my own head a little better.
Or, if you want to get a little higher on the transgressive
scale, I’ve known at least two woman who have rape fantasies. I say at least,
because I suspect I know others who just kept that particular information to
themselves.
Again, I do not understand this. I do not understand how
something as horrifying as being the victim rape can be turned into a sexual
fantasy. But I also know that these women do not want to be raped, and would
just as hurt and damaged by the act as anyone else. Because, again, there is a
line between fantasy and reality, and because you enjoy something in fantasy or
fiction doesn’t mean you want to carry out the act in real life.
It doesn’t make you a sick fuck.
There was an article, which I am not going to link to, I saw
last week, where the summary I wish I hadn’t read was this: a newlywed couple
was in a car accident, and both of them died. The wife was killed on impact,
but the husband survived long enough to receive aid. He begged them to save his
wife, because she was pregnant. Their family only learned the couple was
expecting when they found the sonogram pictures in the wife’s purse.
This is horror.
And what is worse, this is something has entertained
thousands if not millions of people. They don’t think of themselves as being
entertained, but these kinds of stories, presented as news? They aren’t news.
They contain no information that you need to know, unless, perhaps, you knew
the subject. This is real people’s tragedy, packaged as entertainment and used to
make a profit.
And while you may have not read this particular story, it’s
a near certainty that you have read or watched with rapt attention while
someone else’s horror is presented to you as entertainment. I have. I try not
to, and I mostly succeed.
So how, exactly, are we not all sick fucks?
http://comicsbeat.com/so-what-kind-of-person-buys-a-torture-variant-cover-anyway-nsfw-trigger-images/
