For those of you who have read along with my journey towards getting accepted into a PhD program, I want to thank you for your sturdy company. I have been accepted into a PhD in Creative Writing program at a university in the UK. I will take a year off teaching to study starting in September.
For those of you who have stood shoulder to shoulder with me in the trenches in the battle against erotica censorship, I want to thank you for your brave and shining hearts. We have won, it seems, a small victory of sorts. PayPal has backed down and reformulated its TOS with regards to taboo erotic fiction. It is, sadly, only a small victory. Graphic novelists, game developers and comic book producers are still not being afforded the respect or freedoms they’re entitled to.
I’ve read a lot of post-game criticism of Mark Coker for his light-handed, politic way of doing battle. It might have not been my style of combat either, but I’d like to remind all of you that only he (Smashwords) and Selena Kitt (Excessica) put up any kind of a fight at all. That, regardless of his perennially mild tone to PayPal, he went a long way to getting you what you wanted – the freedom to write what you wanted and somewhere to sell it.
I want to thank the fabulous Rainey Reitmann at the Electronic Frontiers Foundation. The EFF emerged as a passionately vocal advocate and a ferocious activist in her fight to defend legal fiction from commercial censorship. If you do anything on the web, they deserve your donation.
I also want to thank No Boundaries Press for stepping up to the plate and offering a haven to a lot of writers who suddenly felt abandoned and kicked to the wall when the PayPal fiasco went down, and to the Comic Book Defense Fund who decided that our fight was theirs as well. And we should reciprocate the support, because content with drawn images is particularly under threat.
It is our experiences that define us. This month has taught me more about what it means to be a writer than the previous ten years. I’ve learned to articulate and defend what I do academically, legally, economically and morally.
I’ve learned who my friends are.
I’ve learned who my enemies are, too.
To the writers who blithely stepped aside while their fellow erotica and romance writers went to the wall, who said nothing, who looked the other way, who felt it didn’t concern them and carried on with business as usual: SHAME ON YOU.
To the smug assholes and bitches with their lips pursed around self-righteous, moralistic, parsimonious, off the cuff reprimands: FUCK YOU. I sincerely hope you end up in loveless, lustless unions with partners who cheat on you out of mindnumbing boredom and in response to your staggering mediocrity, your lack of human decency, your sagging tits, your shriveling pudenda and your unruly, ungrateful children.
To the fatuous, pasty-faced eBook retailers who knuckled under, and did nothing but send blunt and dispassionate emails of rejection to the writers whose books have made you money: MAY YOU FIND YOURSELF RELEGATED to the selling of undesirable tupperware and unfashionable shades of low-quality lipstick. You don’t deserve to sell the written word. You’re nothing more than ‘product floggers’.
To the brave writers who continue to push at the boundaries of the comfortable, the acceptable, the saleable and the polite: you will have your place in history. The canon of literature is a long list of authors who took chances, caused controversy and pissed off the placid.
To the intrepid readers who brave the discomfort of challenging writing, who support and encourage writers to reach further and write bravely, who joined us on the battle lines and demanded the freedom to buy and read what they wanted: everything I write is for you. You complete the cycle. Without readers, I would be no writer.
Keep writing what you write and reading what you read. Write the truest thing you know. And celebrate the little victories.
RG,
I cannot recall ever looking forward to reading a dissertation, but I am waiting eagerly to read yours. Congratulations on your acceptance, and your move into the next phase of your professional life.
As for the ‘Great Smut Purge’ of 2012, it has been the most illuminating thing I’ve participated in for quite some time. I found the most sterling of characters and brightest of minds were the ones working inside the darkest of shadows.
After some thought, I’ve decided why that may be. Because it’s the intelligent, the passionate, the truly inquisitive who seek to define and explore the human experience, in all it’s pain and glory. Writers lie you are the difference between painting and filling in a coloring book. You, and those like you–your genuine contemporaries–, throw vivid splashes of paint on the walls of your reader’s lives, without regard for this season’s fashionable color palette or what will look nice over the sofa. The rest are just posers coloring far inside the lines and pretending it’s art because someone patted them on the head and told them they were being good.
The haters are always gonna hate, because hate is the tool of ignorance.
Keep shining that light into the darkness. Keep exploring the boundaries. Leave the well-mapped ground for others to till, your’re better than that.
You’re very kind to say all those things. Still, I have to wonder why you don’t include yourself in that group. After all, you were actually the only one of us who turned adversity into a creative response with your Dirty Mind vs The Debit Card series. http://edenconnorwrites.blogspot.com. It was wonderful to read.
Indeed. It’s simple to write solely for praise, or for the next paycheck, to follow formula and never dare to question. Writing to explore, writing because it’s what you do and what you love — knowing it won’t pay the bills, and intentionally defying conventions that you fully understand for any reason (or no reason) at all… that’s what writing is.
Also, most haters are ignorant tools. Couldn’t pass the chance to point that out.
I adore you.
It’s mutual.
I said it before and I’ll say it again: You deserve great credit and a massive ‘thank you’ from all the writers and readers affected by the affair – which means just about everyone.
You rightly praise others in your post, their efforts were as you’ve described them. But it was you who began to organise the resistance, you who led the charge and you who then became the cheerleader when the others came to the forefront.
THANK YOU.
Thank you!
First – congratulations on your PhD – I am certain they will find you as erudite and delightful as I do 😉
Secondly, thank you – all the involved individuals and organizations, of course, but you in particular – for the massive effort you put into this fight against censorship. I would gladly stand shoulder to shoulder with you anytime.
As for the haters, the vile-filled, those that turned their backs and pretended not to see . . . I hold them no malice, but neither do I want them anywhere in my life. My trust, once broken, is never likely to be re-earned, especially as I have pruned them relentlessly from my virtual world as they made their feelings known.
The up side – I’ve met marvelous, wonderful writers and readers who aren’t afraid to stand up for what they believe is right, whether or not it affects them.
You’re a better woman than I, Sessha. I hold them a great deal of malice. And if they’re smart, they’ll stay WAY out of my way for a while. Now that all the smoke has cleared, I’m gunning for sheep.
It’s an honor to call you a friend, RG. <3
Ditto, Alessia.
At least it’s a victory to common sense – in parts.
RG – you are amazing. Keep up the splendid work – I adore your writing.
Ro.<3
That’s true. It is a victory to common sense. And these days, those seem very rare indeed. Thank you.
Now I should really write some fucking fiction, shouldn’t I?
I’d certainly be grateful for some fictional fucking — but your other writing is just as significant to me!
Congratulations and thank you. For what you inspired, what you braved and for saying what needed to be said, when few others were willing to.
I am adding this line to my affirmations: I align myself with those who fight for what they believe in, using all the tools at my disposal because it is the right thing to do.
I’ll send good thoughts winging your way every time I say it.
Thank you for all your feisty posts and comments. It’s pitifully seldom that the ‘right thing to do’ actually pays off. I guess we had payday.
Hugs!
I may just have to add that to my daily affirmations as well! Very well said, Ms T.
I stand corrected when I said this was our problem to suffer but maybe not ours to fix. I was thinking in old ways, not about the power of the internet, and thinking that it was the publishers who had to take PayPal on. I really have to shift my thinking about the power of virtual protests. You and everyone who actively worked on this effort (more than simply clicking Like buttons on FaceBook) were amazing.
I’m still very concerned though. Call it a nagging feeling. A suspicion. The “creep” of censorship may be next rather than the outright bludgeon. So… what do we do from here to keep this fight going? As you said, the graphic novel people are still under threat. Where do we direct out energies to make sure that every artist is free to create, and share, their work?
Why don’t you take yourself over to BannedWriters.com and join. We have about 100 people now. Propose something.
Congratulations, RG and thank you. You were the fulcrum for us despite your gracious humility.
Regards …GC
Excellent result.
Do EFF and CBDF take PayPal donations?
Hahah, they do indeed! Just don’t write anything too racy in the dedication 😛
Congratulations on your acceptance! I first discovered your writing back when you’d been discussing the roles of author and reader and how that works with Twitter; for a time I returned more often for your non-fiction than your erotica… though there have been several pieces of your fiction work that moved me very much, and I visit for all of your posts now.
By the time I made it down to those words, tears were openly streaming down my cheeks; this sentiment always resonates deeply with me. I see myself first as a reader, but I do write — and I would not ever do so if I did not write my truth just as I live my truth.
I am reminded of author Julie Anne Peter’s advice to aspiring writers: (at the end of the page)
[Emphasis is mine.]
RG, know that your work in this fight is appreciated; I am grateful to have authors like you and those that have fought with you — people who are unwilling to be silenced, who refuse to surrender in matters large or small, who explore in words the things we cannot easily confront in reality.
Know that there are people like me whose growth, whose understanding of self and of what it means to be human, is made possible by those explorations, by the unsettling questions and unsettled discussions they provoke. Please — keep shaking shit up, because when it all just settles… so do we.
Congratulations again, RG! You’re doing what I have often thought about doing and I know how exciting it must be.
Thank you as well for standing up, for being one of the first and the most organized. I do believe that without your influence and organization, the response to this would not have received as much attention as it did. I know it’s important to you that everyone be recognized but you should feel proud as well. You deserve the accolades you’re receiving.
Great post. I’m interested in the aftermath of the frozen accounts etc. If those authors get their accounts back in a timely fashion. If there was any follow through with the threat that account contents would be given to charity, and if so did the author get paid back?
It’ll be interesting to watch if there is a migration of authors to booksellers who fought for their authors, like the ones you mentioned above. I hope that the supportive booksellers get publicity so that readers can reward them by buying books from their website and not the others.
I agree! And that is something that Raziel is working on over at BannedWriters.
Congratulation on your PhD.
And thank you so much for your kind words both here and in groups about No Boundaries Press.
hehe. Don’t congratulate me on my PhD yet. It’s 3 years away!
I’m sure you’ll make it. The challenge is half the fun of it.
Kharisma
Brava! And brava again.
Congratulations on your PhD! And I am so incredibly proud to call you a friend of mine. I admire you so much. And I’m glad that I got my voice out there during this, if only for a small bit.
I’m just really glad that we made it clear that YES. As a group we can shout loud and demand some sanity.
You are awe-inspiring and I have nothing but admiration for your well-reasoned, articulate tenacity!
Congrats on getting accepted onto a PhD programme. I’m itching to know where you’ll be studying, and I look forward to addressing you as Dr Girl!
South London, so get your ass up to the big smoke every now and then, babe!