Neil Gaiman writes "Why defend freedom of icky speech?"

[politicat]

29. All humans have uncomfortable thoughts. Artists explore & unpack them. Thinking isn't criminal.

I do not believe everything I think. Most people don't. Those few who do... Sometimes we call them psychotic, sometimes sociopathic, sometimes narcissistic. Being unable to recognize that some thoughts are not to be acted upon, or not to be invested in, or just false is a sign of serious instability.

Personally, I have written some horrific scenes in the process of building my fictional worlds. I've written rapes from the perspective of both the aggressor and the victim; I've written murders from the perspective of the perpetrator and a witness; I've written extortion, coercion, con games. I've written structural racism and sexism. I've written war and rebellion. I've written characters who consider themselves to be political dissidents, and whose opponents consider them traitors if not terrorists. I've written about the intense sensual emotions of young characters and the intense, sensual emotions of the elderly who long for the ability to experience their sexuality. I've written gay, straight and bi characters, in positive and negative relationships. I've written about religious abuse, parental abuse, manipulation. I've written grievous injuries and torture.

I've also written hope, love, faith, responsibility, tenacity and bravery. I've written recovery and resilience, grief and guilt and shame. I've written of vengeance and justice, and the difference between the two. I've written about victory and peace, and what divides those, too. To get to these latter in fiction, I've had to go through the former. What some readers consider necessary to the force of nature that is story, others consider gratuitous. In fiction, the characters have to earn their victories, and they have to think, live, try, fail and work to succeed; my opinion of "earned" is not the same as my readers' definitions, and may have nothing in common with someone else's. In fiction, I, and every other artist, can explore the thoughts and motives and history that causes war and death and abuse and destruction without enacting them. We can unpack the foundations of malice and evil to understand why it happens, and maybe, figure out how to bend the arc of history and society a little more towards justice. Artists are incrementalists, but to make the incremental improvement, we have to mine into the darkness.

Do I like all of the fiction that depicts cruelty and suffering and tyranny? Nope. I don't have to. I will never again read Heart of Darkness or All Quiet on the Western Front or Johnny Got His Gun. Those books hit hard and left wounds, but I'm a better person for the experience. Nor do I have any interest in revisiting Lady Chatterley's Lover or Lolita. But both were useful for understanding the type of minds who aren't me.

I would much rather that everyone in the world who feels powerless, or needs to dominate, or cause harm could do so with marks on paper or electrons on screens. No one should fear making such marks. Thinking doesn't make it so.