Taboo subjects in art and writing

[unknown_user]

I mean the things like:

• Serious talk about death and suicide (especially if you don't condemn the last thing unequivocally).
• Dead bodies and all possible ways in which living people can use them (besides funeral).
• Different kinds of non traditional sexual stuff (especially linked with violence and/or participating of minors).
• All the stuff which may insult religious and national feelings...

...and many, many other topics, which discussion is strongly restricted in contemporary society.
Does your creative work cover any of such a topics? If yes, how do you avoid possible problems, conjugated it? What do you think about arising these topics in creative works in general?

[unknown_user]

I will begin with statement my own opinion. It is simple: I think, that creative works shouldn't have any restrictions in topics which they cover. Moreover, I think that all problematic and taboo topics actually should be calmly discussed, analysed and clarified. Things don't dissapear if you don't think or talk about them, anyway. And sometimes it may be important to sort them out (or just interesting).

[skicoak]

I personally don't think anything should be "taboo" from the arts....I understand different cultures/generations look at this differently.

Again personally, I'm not much of an envelope pusher as a creator. I tend to find too many works that center around a taboo are pushing an agenda, and that tends to weaken the storytelling.

[Wumbl]

Sure I cover these things. The most important thing is the context and portrayal.
The one thing you want to avoid is glorifying these things or making them look in any way positive.

For example, a character in your work can be racist/sexist/otherwise bigoted, but it shouldn't feel like it's encouraged, forgiven or like it's a good thing. A lot of us have run into bad racism allegories before and we know how silly they get (looking at you Bethesda ahem)

All sorts of stories include violence but a lot of readers are put off if it's meaningless or doesn't reflect something important about the setting somehow. I find that young teenagers are the worst at portraying violence because they're old enough to not be scared of it but too young to recognise it for what it really is.

A lot of people claim it's bad because it can retraumatise people with existing trauma. As someone with two forms of violent trauma I have to disagree. Some traumatised people can be retraumatised by any contact with the subjects, yes, but not all. For some it helps to escape from reality and to shield themselves from the existence of things but for others, like myself, writing about these things but tastefully and carefully it beneficial.

The bottom line is, write about what you want as long as you're not encouraging or inciting violent or hateful behaviour. People like horror but they don't like shoddy old creepypastas as much. Nothing should be "taboo" but everything should be done with good research and a sensible approach.

[silverraven0]

The answer for all of the list : yes. I only got one or two out but most of my ideas covered those heavy and dark theme.

I will try, real hard to be respectful and don't push my opinion on my writing and drawings. Putting reality, on my own work is what I wanted, but I know that I can't always be successful on getting away with the aftermath. So research research research. Though my research source is only the internet, I do will try to find what what's on the topic I covered. It might not be all 100% accurate, bit I'll try to get as close at that, and fix things if I'm completely wrong with if possible.

There's always something the peoples will find fault on, and it is up to you to ignore the bad and take in the good advice and criticism.

In the end note, I need to be able to take responsibility of the things I made. If I get things completely wrong and ended making up serious troubles, even unintentional, I need to humbly accept it, but if the things I covered is true in essence and what I seemed as something I must do or important in the story itself, I need to be able to stand on my ground to defend myself and my story.

(anyway m I getting out of topic?)

[vothnthorvaldson]

Serious talk about death and suicide (especially if you don't condemn the last thing unequivocally).

May be a cultural difference, but I never saw that as a taboo? An uncomfortable subject maybe (not necessarily), but not even close to the point of the other things you listed.

More generally, I do think an artist should be allowed to cover any subject they want, any way they want (even if it's extremely offensive to me).

If the artistic aim is the main aim, I don't think anything should be censored (by the artist or by the society). However, if art is only at the service of a ideological work pushing illegal or excessively immoral ideas (imo), I would have a less lenient attitude toward the works.
And.. well, it happens regularly with these subjects that the main aim is not art, and that's where the problems begin (no one is competent to decide if art is the main focus of a work).

[mariusthered]

I don't think it's what you write about it how you write about it.
I agree that no subjects should be taboo, but writing with care not to cause pain to people inflicted by subjects is something that should always be forefront of your writing.
in my comic i have on occasion spanking as punishment. this is unpopular with the younger generation readers so i reduced the amount of spanking art in the free stories and decided to put more in the chapter im going to put up for sale.
( i was going to cut it out all together but a survey given to my fans gave me 50/50 results when ask if it should go)
if we stop writing about things that are taboo then we get a world of cover ups and secrets, leading to a world of forced thinking. just because a subject is not pleasant to read about dose not mean lessons are not there.

[MK_Wizard]

The best thing to do is to research it first and get to know people who suffered like that so your facts can be accurate. Secondly, you have to show what you wrote to other people to make sure you are doing it right.

[ForLackOfStars]

i think that there are very few places that fiction cannot go, but it's really important to know when you're dealing with a topic that is controversial or very emotionally charged. If you are, then you do your research, run it past other people before putting it out there for the world to see, and do your best to cover things in a manner which is respectful.

CW: Sexual Assault

The thing that I think a lot of people don't consider, however, is how including a taboo subject changes the dynamic of a story. Let's say you have a fairly standard, comedic high fantasy novel. You add a scene where one character explicitly discusses their sexual trauma at the hands of another character. No matter how well you handle it, by including this scene, the dynamic of the entire novel has now changed. You're acknowledging to the reader that "Yes, horrible things like this do happen here," and breaking the conceit that this is fantasy and there are certain limits on the awfulness of what can occur in the story. It suddenly becomes more difficult to switch back and forth between comedy and action, because the fact that sexual assault is a possibility in this world is lurking in the reader's mind. Moreover, every scene involving isolated or captured characters becomes deeply tense and unsettling, because the reader is aware that something truly awful could happen to the character in question. When you talk about something especially dark or taboo, even briefly, it can change your entire story. Among all the other reasons to be cognizant of how you depict things, this is important to keep in mind as well.

I think it's fine to write about taboo subjects, but it's also important to be aware how much a taboo subject can warp the tone of a story around it.

[HGohwell]

I'm a big fan of "darker" works that cover a lot of taboo subjects. I love writing them often as venting but sometimes seriously. I think one of the most interesting ones you see come up, and see a lot of the forum when people mention things they don't want in fanwork or in comics, is incest ships. And I find people's reactions to incest in fiction, or even the idea of it, fascinating for many reasons:

1. If they are, as they often are in works that are simply trying to be taboo and edgy without going too into a "bad" relationship, genuinely consenting, sane, adult who are both aware of the situation and accept it, why is it so awful? Simply because it's illegal? There are many things that have been illegal that we've decided aren't actually hurting anyone. One of the most common forms of this is the siblings who have been separated since they were young, have started dating, find out they're siblings and both agree that they don't care, they're in love. Suddenly, even though all else about the relationship is healthy, it's a bad abusive relationship. Another cast is when set in historical society, it was quite common to marry your cousin to keep the money within the family and, by the logic of those days, the blood line strong. This was perfectly normal, and often consensual, even if often only for money and good sense rather than love.
2. There is a comic at the moment that's frequently in the popular section that deals with incest between cousins. As far as has been shown so far, this is quite clearly somewhere on the non-consent to "dubious"-consent scale (the only question being, does he agree because he wants to not deal with trouble from this obviously abusive household, or does he not agree at all). However, it's not uncommon in the comments to see people condemning the creator for somehow promoting incest. As if involving it in their comic, even in an obviously negative way like that, somehow promotes it.
3. A personal and I think quite hilarious example. Early on in my comic creation, I friend mentioned Percy and Eric have good chemistry and would make a good ship. I didn't say anything either way. However, when it's mentioned Percy and Eric are cousins, this changes, despite in the same scene it being explained they're only cousins in the old fashion sense, they're from the same family line/house, but their branches of the family tree split off nearly 500years ago. They're about as far apart on the same line as you can get. But it was interesting that even after explaining how distantly related they actually are, they still consider this incest. Also, highly amusing because this is not ever anything but friendship and familial love in canon, it's entirely them seeing it but somehow I did it.

I think fiction should be allowed to cover whatever it likes, as long as it's done well, but there are a lot of cases where people consuming fiction are just unfair and you can be condemned for just including it, no matter how you do it or the context. But it's also interesting, there are some subjects considered more taboo than others. I've written stories about incest, usually of the type 2, and been told to stop because it's illegal and disgusting (again, as if writing it negatively is encouraging it???) and yet no one has ever told me to stop writing murder stories because murder is illegal and disgusting?

[unknown_user]

Serious talk about death and suicide (especially if you don't condemn the last thing unequivocally).

May be a cultural difference, but I never saw that as a taboo? An uncomfortable subject maybe (not necessarily), but not even close to the point of the other things you listed.

• In our country, if you say to the doctor in a state clinic that you think about committing suicide, you can be hospitalised forcibly, with low, but not-zero probability. I'm not even sure that this complies with the law (the law just says that the person, who is dangerous to themselves or to others may be hospitalised forcibly, but it is quite vague), but unfortunately I know such an occasion. So we should choose our words very carefully when talking about it, as well as being picky when choosing a therapist.
• The so-called "propaganda of suicide" is forbidden by the law. Unfortunately, too many things fall into this category, cause the law about it is vague, too. Theoretically, you can be punished for endorsing of suicide in any form, as well as for detailed discussing particular ways of how it can done without direct condemnation, especially if you do it for the wide auditory.
• Also many people in my culture mock on people who talk that they want to suicide and disdain those ones who actually have committed it (either successfully or not-successfully).

This all makes serious discussing this topic very hard and inconvenient.

[BobbyjoeX]

in my opinion, i think fiction should be limitless

[unknown_user]

@HGohwell The main drawback of incest is that children with serious health issues may be born with higher probability from it, than from the couple of non-relatives. So it is irresponsible to make children this way. I suppose that it is the main reason why people accustomed to feel disgust to everything, related to this thing.
But I agree with your post. Incest don't harm anyone, if people who do it, are both of age of consent and don't make children (or just can't do it, as in homosexual couple). I adhere to the point of view that adults may do everything which they want behind closed doors if it is willingly, not harmful for anyone and they don't impose it to others.

[Zin_Trollborn]

Actually.... I don't try to avoid problems about those taboo things in my comic, I decided I was going to embrace them instead.
Sometimes drawing them very crudely, sometimes drawing them in a subtle manner.
I think it's necessary to show the different ugly faces of life in fictions (depends on the fictions in fact and how it is made). Because it exists and sometimes I think we can offer a certain thinking of things about it, the beginning of a way to deal with it.

[unknown_user]

For example, a character in your work can be racist/sexist/otherwise bigoted, but it shouldn't feel like it's encouraged, forgiven or like it's a good thing.

The main difficulty of this approach is to sort out, what is really encouraged from author, and what is not, which was discussed in this topic:

I've read from different people here and in other places, that they don't like if author of the creative work approves particular actions of their character or particular ideology. For example, if author "romanticizes" abuse or something like that. I have a question: how do you understand which things author approves and which doesn't? From time to time I myself feel, that author of some creative work have very different ideology that my own, and even sometimes feel uncomfortable about this.…

I personally feel quite uncomfortable, if the character, which supposed to be the "good" one, does something, which I consider as something really disgusting/harmful, but no of other characters comment it, and nobody show any emotion about it. It is shown as something totally acceptable, nobody even notice that it is something bad, and they all just behave like everything is allright. I start to feel myself inadequate because of it, and also lose the sense of consistensy of the characters and their culture.
P.S. But now I've thought that probably it is ok for describing the culture of the fictional world, which is extremely different from our own? I dunno

[beta1042]

Hmmm I don't really see it as taboo subjects. I think everything should be fair game. But more like there are taboo ways to present ideas/tell stories.

For example, you wouldn't put rape in a Children's board book.

But likewise you shouldn't put something super fluff into a deep heavy and important adult scene either.

[vothnthorvaldson]

and @HGohwell

The biological explanation to ban incest is admissible, but it think it is not enough of an explanation in a modern world. Because one event of incest in a genealogy of people usually pairing with partners different enough genetically speaking, is less harmful than constant lower-level inbreeding.

Historically, both were usually happening together, so it makes sense evolutionary speaking to avoid too close parents. An incestuous generation was lowering significantly an already low genetic diversity due to generations of lower-level inbreeding, and that was a real danger. But now, the danger is way weaker, when we can increase enormously our genetic diversity with one single generation (parents of very different origins - and that doesn't have to be from different continent, it may just be two different cities of the same country. Even that was not necessarily available to our ancestors) ,so I think incest is almost solely a social ban now.

Personally, I have tendency to consider any relationship within a small community as (socially, and possible genetically) incestuous, but it's just my personal point of view, and I know it's super controversial.

Because of that, I think a relationship between 2 siblings that were separated and raised in different places is healthier that the relationship between 2 unrelated persons who know each other from birth, especially if they have the same background. But both cases would make me a bit uncomfortable anyway (the thing that makes me SUPER uncomfortable is when 2 persons know each other for a very long time but one was a child and the other an adult when they met. Arghhh, way worse to me than incest between two persons raised separately).

Interestingly, marriage between first cousins is legal in France, although not super common. Funny thing is that it's a bit frowned upon, but that a lot of French people love to make fun of North Americans for being disgusted by it I don't know if it's only by love of contradiction or if it's not the same set of people.

[LittleMissDevil]

I do not think, that any subject should be taboo for a comic, but these complicated topics need to be handled with care and research. To use the example of suicide:

Public report or depiction of suicide in mass media is known to have an effect on the public and it has been researched that an increase of follow up suicides can come from it. As a creator it is important to talk about uncomfortable subjects, if you feel equipped to do it. But it is also important to think about the potential harm and damage covering these issues can cause.

In the case of suicide there are guidelines to avoid these negative consequences, like not showing the method directly and things like that. I was super pissed when the show "13 reasons why" ignored nearly all of these guidelines in spite of having psychologists tell them, what to do.

If you include these potentially dangerous subjects in your work I would also advice to have a good reason to do so. It's nothing that should be used for just shock value, I think. You can also use your work to question these taboos (incest has been mentioned, which is an interesting topic to explore, I think).

[unknown_user]

Public report or depiction of suicide in mass media is known to have an effect on the public and it has been researched that an increase of follow up suicides can come from it. As a creator it is important to talk about uncomfortable subjects, if you feel equipped to do it. But it is also important to think about the potential harm and damage covering these issues can cause.

In the case of suicide there are guidelines to avoid these negative consequences, like not showing the method directly and things like that.

But is there any sence to forbid a books or any kind of art, which may potentially inspire people to do bad things in some of interpretations? Bear in mind that if we will do it, we will lose a lot of classic literature, religious books and other kinds of cultural heritage.
1. For example, Middle Ages catolicists interpreted Bible that way which inspired them to burn witches and do crusades. But does anyone really think that Bible should be forbidden?
2. Or, closer to the suicide topic, should "The Sorrows of Young Werther" of Goethe be erased from literature annals because it caused copycat suicides?

Moreover, I don't think that author should carry any of responsibility for making the "inspiration" to do "bad things". The deeds of reader are the responsibility of reader.

[UrMom]

TL;DR: Having dark stuff in your story can be super important, but you need to do your homework and be empathetic to those facing those issues irl! Yes, my comic does have some of those subjects. There is no way to avoid offending people, you will upset someone, just stay respectful and be open-minded to learning new things.

---

I personally really like darker topics, fiction should be able to cover any type ground, imo. I mean, what better way to explore your own emotions than within the controlled realm of a story? In the US taboo stuff runs along the lines of being (In my experience):

• Rape
• Abuse
• Certain mental illnesses
• Suicide
• Race
• Religion

Death/murder and nonsensical violence in media is more accepted, sometimes not even questioned, or even glorified. But man, if you add in one of the things I listed above, people get on your ass! I can see how some of these things can be touchy for a lot of people, as sad as it is rape and abuse hit really close to home for many folks, either being friends and family members of victims or victims themselves. My work did a survey not too long ago relating to this, out of the thousands of us 9 out of 10 was, or knows someone who was a victim of abuse and/or sexual assault. While exploring such topics in fiction can be cathartic for some, not everyone is alright with reliving the events.

Mental illness has classically been villainize, either used to make a character look stupid, insane, or evil. While we as a species are getting better, mental health still isn't given the best treatment. Anymore people like sweeping it under the rug, or using it as a cheap sympathy cash-in. (like how illnesses like cancer gets used as sympathy fodder) The subject is normally considered taboo because people just don't like talking or even thinking about it, mental health is a very personal, and most don't like making themselves that vulnerable to others. Even denying possibly seriously mental instabilities themselves.
My dad is a good example of this, he shows very obvious signs of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but refuses to acknowledge or even discuss the possibility of him having any mental problems. Not just because he's a boomer, and was raised that it's bad, but because it's extremely uncomfortable. (and, you know, the disorder)
Also mental health is still treated like a joke for a lot of people who just can't wrap their heads around it. My mom used to think you only got help if you were "crazy", as she put it. When she learned my uncle sought help for anger issues, possibly brought on by depression, she learned to take it more seriously.

Religion? Well, the US being an Theist evangelical country, there's a lot of feelings surrounding the inclusion of it in fiction. It doesn't help that works including this subject are either chick tracts or horror fictions where religious people are depicted as dumb monsters, or calculating murderers... or how people on both sides of the fence just blow this up in the worst way possible.

Race? Yeah, if you've schooled yourself on US history you can probably guess why this subject is taboo.

Suicide is similar to the mental health thing. It's an uncomfortable subject to talk about, usually leaving friends and family confused, and distressed.

Communities such as most of Tumblr, and the queer community kinda demonize the use of taboo subjects. Like, the very existence of something problematic being a work of fiction about queer characters is unspeakable! I'm kind of a douchebag contrarian, so I love tackling dark subjects not only because it's my personal preference, but because I've been told not to do so. I feel like they need to be discussed more, so I don't just have darker topics in my comic, I made them a major focal point. I don't care if people like it or not.
I will say, though. Research is soooo important if your going to use something that is so subjectively experienced, and in need to be taken seriously. My story focuses on mental health, abuse, some queerphobia, and will be touching on sexual assault later on. Before starting my comic I talked to people willing to discuss their experiences, therapists and psychologists about the medical side as well as their encounters with people suffering from the issues I'm working with (The HIPPA friendly version, of course), I watched videos, read research papers. Knowing the technical and personal side is incredible important. Getting the opposing pov, and the psychology behind that mindset is helpful too!

Even now I'm always learning new things and experiences from people. Also there is no real way to avoid causing problems, even the most respectful works covering dark topics can be taken badly or be seen as edgelord trash.