"Alfador asked if you'd be willing to say those things to my face. Since you haven't, I thought I'd bring my face to you."
In general, I don't like doing critiques online, but prefer to do them in private. I broke that rule only because Affador brought your story up as a means of defense for his argument, and I found it lacking and felt it necessary to explain why. Still, if this is where you want to go...
"I will concede the point to you that Bartleby's Descent has no plot. But then again, neither does Alice In Wonderland."
Incorrect. The Alice stories were an allegorical 'fairy-tale' of life's changes, both the physical and the emotional. It's themes had to do with the loss of childhood innocence and dealing with the chaotic nature of life, and her exploits were plotted to reflect those aspects. (Alice spends a great deal of time trying to make sense of the various riddles and contradictions of Wonderland.)
"That was intentional. I like the genre of 'protagonist encounteres a series of interesting characters in a strange land'. But no PHILOSOPHY? Man, you must've skimmed this. I create the most intentionally blasphemous representation of the afterlife possible, turn God into a petty bully and Satan into a paper-pushing Mel Brooks, and you're actually going to say this is nothing but fap material!?"
Which is precisely what it is, since it focuses only upon scenarios that are sexually fetishist at heart, and does so in a way to dress it as a pleasant experience, like a sunny excursion in the park. I mean, if Hell is meant to be an eternal pit of punishments, why are the only ones represented sexual in nature? Where are theft, avarice, blasphemy, murder (Dante had several categories of murder represented), betrayal, etc. The slant is very obviously toward the sexual, defining it quite clearly as a fap story.
Affador tries to pass this story off as a tale about 'broadening one's horizons by trying new things'. Maybe on Bizarro World, but -- really? Srsly? One broadens one's view by being molested, cannibalized, mutilated, etc? (Of course, everything's 'okay' because the character 'reforms' or 'regenerates' afterward, but what does he really learn from the experience?) Maybe this would work if there was some contrast at play, but you seem more intent on trying to portray darkness as sunlight, and that just doesn't play. I mean, what's the philosophy supposed to be in this story, that it's okay to be fucked up!?
Journeys through Hell have been done for centuries, and usually done with a point. Dante's DIVINE COMEDY is still best, and his depictions of Hell's horrors were done with specific religious and political barbs towards the prominent people of his time. The more recent INFERNO by Niven and Pournelle (well, more recent than Dante...) tackles the same territory with more modernistic horrors and wit, examining much of your own premise of 'God as a bully' but more thoroughly, and asks the question, 'is there a point to this?'. Both stories are trying to define or at least seek a morality in life; yours discards it entirely and relegates the thematics to an indulgent sex RPG scenario.
Your story has no point, except to tittillate.
"I've got some questions for you.
"First off; Stephen King's book IT has a scene near the end where six young children all have sex in a sewer. Does that mean the book is pornography? Should it be removed from library shelves? Do you think there is any difference between King and me? If so, what difference? That he has more money? That he writes about things other than that? (Child sexual abuse has popped up in a LOT of his books, and I've written novels and stories with no pornographic content.) Maybe it's that my story has a higher porn-to-story ratio than his. So what then is the acceptable ratio?"
I can't directly respond to the example, as I've never read the book, only seen the TV mini-series (which I believe cut that episode out, since I don't recall it). I haven't read much King at all, for that matter, outside of a short story or two. But I will assume that King, like any decent established writer, will have tied the sequence and its events to some other events, major or minor, within the overall story -- an emotional connection, a love relationship, some personal repercussion, etc. Since I haven't read it, I don't know and can't say; I can only speculate based on the tenets of good writing and the belief that King's publisher would never have let the scene fly if it didn't serve a specific literary purpose.
What is the difference between King's writing and yours? Besides the years of trial-and-error experience, I'd say that your follow-up questions, and the fact that you asked them, answer sufficiently.
"Secondly: You say that child porn only feeds an obsession. You're assuming that there IS an obsession in the first place. If someone has a deep-rooted fetish to molest children, pornography isn't going to make a difference one way or another. But if someone has no desire to molest real children, then do you think pornography can create that obsession in them?"
The examples I've already cited elsewhere in this discussion have already shown that child pornography only feeds the prevailing interest; one molester is directly quoted as being unable to control his urges after viewing CP material. It's akin to poking a maddened bull with a red-hot poker: he was already incensed and ready to gore something... did you really need to poke him?
And if someone has no sexual interest in children, then they're not going to be looking at CP to begin with. CP doesn't create the obsession; it feeds into whatever's already there.
"Thirdly, If people who look at cub porn want to rape real children so much, then why do they bother with cub porn? Why wouldn't they look at loli art? Or photos of real children? Or actually go rape real children? Which makes more sense; that they're choosing to indulge in a completely diluted form of their fetish, or that cub porn IS the fetish?"
Why does the average furry look at any kind of furry porn? Or furry art in general for that matter? The furry characters are only surrogates for the real thing. The dogs and cats and horses and skunks and bears and whatever else are only shells for the personalities within, or symbols for ideals. Then too, the physical sexual attributes have a lot to do with it; most care less about whether it's a fox or a horse, so long as it's female. (Or male, depending on your preferences.)
"To use your steak idea, does it make any sense that I'd eat spam if I wanted steak and could easily get steak?"
'My' steak idea -- it wasn't mine, actually, it was an appropriated quote on the same subject from a source I can't now recall -- is more akin to the idea that you're not going to settle with just reading the menu at a restaurant and be satisfied with just looking at the pictures of a steak; your appetite is now whetted and you're going to get that steak.
"Can you conceive of the idea that a person could be attracted to furries but not humans? Can you conceive that someone could be attracted to cubs BECAUSE they don't exist, and are therefore 'safe' to fantasize about?"
I can conceive of the former but not the latter (I consider the argument that it is a 'safe fantasy' to be delusional). Both involve being attracted to some ideal within the concept, even given that neither is an actuality; as such, the former implies being attracted to an adult and the latter still involves being attracted to a child, and that is decidedly not safe to fantasize about.
"Hiya, Chucky."
Off the bat, you're winning no friends here.
"Alfador asked if you'd be willing to say those things to my face. Since you haven't, I thought I'd bring my face to you."
In general, I don't like doing critiques online, but prefer to do them in private. I broke that rule only because Affador brought your story up as a means of defense for his argument, and I found it lacking and felt it necessary to explain why. Still, if this is where you want to go...
"I will concede the point to you that Bartleby's Descent has no plot. But then again, neither does Alice In Wonderland."
Incorrect. The Alice stories were an allegorical 'fairy-tale' of life's changes, both the physical and the emotional. It's themes had to do with the loss of childhood innocence and dealing with the chaotic nature of life, and her exploits were plotted to reflect those aspects. (Alice spends a great deal of time trying to make sense of the various riddles and contradictions of Wonderland.)
"That was intentional. I like the genre of 'protagonist encounteres a series of interesting characters in a strange land'. But no PHILOSOPHY? Man, you must've skimmed this. I create the most intentionally blasphemous representation of the afterlife possible, turn God into a petty bully and Satan into a paper-pushing Mel Brooks, and you're actually going to say this is nothing but fap material!?"
Which is precisely what it is, since it focuses only upon scenarios that are sexually fetishist at heart, and does so in a way to dress it as a pleasant experience, like a sunny excursion in the park. I mean, if Hell is meant to be an eternal pit of punishments, why are the only ones represented sexual in nature? Where are theft, avarice, blasphemy, murder (Dante had several categories of murder represented), betrayal, etc. The slant is very obviously toward the sexual, defining it quite clearly as a fap story.
Affador tries to pass this story off as a tale about 'broadening one's horizons by trying new things'. Maybe on Bizarro World, but -- really? Srsly? One broadens one's view by being molested, cannibalized, mutilated, etc? (Of course, everything's 'okay' because the character 'reforms' or 'regenerates' afterward, but what does he really learn from the experience?) Maybe this would work if there was some contrast at play, but you seem more intent on trying to portray darkness as sunlight, and that just doesn't play. I mean, what's the philosophy supposed to be in this story, that it's okay to be fucked up!?
Journeys through Hell have been done for centuries, and usually done with a point. Dante's DIVINE COMEDY is still best, and his depictions of Hell's horrors were done with specific religious and political barbs towards the prominent people of his time. The more recent INFERNO by Niven and Pournelle (well, more recent than Dante...) tackles the same territory with more modernistic horrors and wit, examining much of your own premise of 'God as a bully' but more thoroughly, and asks the question, 'is there a point to this?'. Both stories are trying to define or at least seek a morality in life; yours discards it entirely and relegates the thematics to an indulgent sex RPG scenario.
Your story has no point, except to tittillate.
"I've got some questions for you.
"First off; Stephen King's book IT has a scene near the end where six young children all have sex in a sewer. Does that mean the book is pornography? Should it be removed from library shelves? Do you think there is any difference between King and me? If so, what difference? That he has more money? That he writes about things other than that? (Child sexual abuse has popped up in a LOT of his books, and I've written novels and stories with no pornographic content.) Maybe it's that my story has a higher porn-to-story ratio than his. So what then is the acceptable ratio?"
I can't directly respond to the example, as I've never read the book, only seen the TV mini-series (which I believe cut that episode out, since I don't recall it). I haven't read much King at all, for that matter, outside of a short story or two. But I will assume that King, like any decent established writer, will have tied the sequence and its events to some other events, major or minor, within the overall story -- an emotional connection, a love relationship, some personal repercussion, etc. Since I haven't read it, I don't know and can't say; I can only speculate based on the tenets of good writing and the belief that King's publisher would never have let the scene fly if it didn't serve a specific literary purpose.
What is the difference between King's writing and yours? Besides the years of trial-and-error experience, I'd say that your follow-up questions, and the fact that you asked them, answer sufficiently.
"Secondly: You say that child porn only feeds an obsession. You're assuming that there IS an obsession in the first place. If someone has a deep-rooted fetish to molest children, pornography isn't going to make a difference one way or another. But if someone has no desire to molest real children, then do you think pornography can create that obsession in them?"
The examples I've already cited elsewhere in this discussion have already shown that child pornography only feeds the prevailing interest; one molester is directly quoted as being unable to control his urges after viewing CP material. It's akin to poking a maddened bull with a red-hot poker: he was already incensed and ready to gore something... did you really need to poke him?
And if someone has no sexual interest in children, then they're not going to be looking at CP to begin with. CP doesn't create the obsession; it feeds into whatever's already there.
"Thirdly, If people who look at cub porn want to rape real children so much, then why do they bother with cub porn? Why wouldn't they look at loli art? Or photos of real children? Or actually go rape real children? Which makes more sense; that they're choosing to indulge in a completely diluted form of their fetish, or that cub porn IS the fetish?"
Why does the average furry look at any kind of furry porn? Or furry art in general for that matter? The furry characters are only surrogates for the real thing. The dogs and cats and horses and skunks and bears and whatever else are only shells for the personalities within, or symbols for ideals. Then too, the physical sexual attributes have a lot to do with it; most care less about whether it's a fox or a horse, so long as it's female. (Or male, depending on your preferences.)
"To use your steak idea, does it make any sense that I'd eat spam if I wanted steak and could easily get steak?"
'My' steak idea -- it wasn't mine, actually, it was an appropriated quote on the same subject from a source I can't now recall -- is more akin to the idea that you're not going to settle with just reading the menu at a restaurant and be satisfied with just looking at the pictures of a steak; your appetite is now whetted and you're going to get that steak.
"Can you conceive of the idea that a person could be attracted to furries but not humans? Can you conceive that someone could be attracted to cubs BECAUSE they don't exist, and are therefore 'safe' to fantasize about?"
I can conceive of the former but not the latter (I consider the argument that it is a 'safe fantasy' to be delusional). Both involve being attracted to some ideal within the concept, even given that neither is an actuality; as such, the former implies being attracted to an adult and the latter still involves being attracted to a child, and that is decidedly not safe to fantasize about.