You can reply in private is you are afraid of being modded, but I really want an answer to this.
I was looking over my reviews on Amazon and there is a scalding review on Finding Jenny that I write child pornography. Though I am aggravated by the accusation it isn't the first time it has come up. Perhaps people are seeing something I don't and I want people's opinion. Do some things that I write cross the line into child pornography or child erotica?
Thats all I have.
Comments
This is not kiddy porn
The world is full of people with differing views and tastes. Some people find even pg subjects offensive. You seem to have garnered one of those. Your story was not even close. In my 33 years as a criminal defence attorney I have encountered real child porn, this isn't it.
Even Potter Stewart would agree there is no merit to your negative review. For those who never studied constitutional law, Justice Stewart is famous for his quote that he may not be able to define obscenity, but he knows it when he sees it. Jacobellis v. Ohio 388 Us 184(1964)
No.
Your stories are no more child pornography than a copy of a medical report or a police report would be child pornography.
Child Pornography?
Wow, imagine what people would think if Dick and Jane were read by children today. The mind is a terrible thing to waste and apparently the person who wrote the review doesn't understand what pornography is. What you write is transgender literature, a different genre of literature written to appease those who are interested in transgender themes. A story about a child is not pornography no more than a poem about Jack and Jill going up the hill is child pornography.
Since when is it pornographic to describe a male child in a cute dress. The reader may get aroused from the writing and that is his bailiwick to deal with not the authors. Literature is an expression by a person put on paper as a thought process how the reader perceives it is quite different then the intended writing.
Jill Micayla
Be kinder than necessary,Because everyone you meet
Is fighting some kind of battle.
No how !!! No way !!!!
It is so hard to know when to just allow some one to have there own opinion especially when it is such a trip wire topic.
But as my grand father told me if it is not yours leave it alone. This is not yours sweets so leave it lay where it is. May be one of the neighbor hood cats will bury it to get rid of the stink. Remember to reward the cat for doing a civic duty.
Huggles
Michele
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
I don't know
I am uncomfortable reading fiction where children are the main characters. I don't know where the law draws the line but if i recall your history your parole officer would be all over you if they thought they could prove ANYTHING.
Dayna
Ps pls forgive me if i have you mixed up with someone else.
No
Your writing may be dark at times but it isn't kiddie porn. Your subject matter may make people feel uncomfortable, and many may wish to deny it could ever happen in "real life", but it does. Don't let them get you down.
Some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue
The answer is in your head...
Material that is written describing sexual acts involving children are produced every day. Some are factual; police and social service reports, some are classed as news, in our papers and magazines. Many are written as either a factual biographical account of a real life, or a semi-biographical account of a fictitious life, but based on real life experiences in order to highlight either the plight of abused children, or to expose some social facet that needs public airing.
I have written material of a sexual nature involving young people, not as an erotic story by itself, but to highlight the normal sexual urges that young people have and to place them in context with whatever story I am trying to tell.
Some stories are written with the sole purpose of initiating and maintaining a state of sexual arousal in certain individuals. There is no other intention and no effort made to be either factual, biographical or anything other than pornographic. They write for those who wish to get off on it, probably getting off on it at the same time.
So, Katie, answer your own question, what do you write?
My personal opinion, for what it is worth, is that you do not write pornography. There may be erotic moments, but that is not the sole purpose of your work.
There's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes!
To some?
First off before even getting in to any other subject matter or exact details of your story:
To some, of course it is, in the same way that "most"(almost all) stories here are since they involve being transgender and all "bigots" know that tans is nothing more then a sexual perversion.
No matter what you do you will never convince certain morons that the following is not true;
"Transgender = Gender Queer = Sexual Perversion & is therefore also Porn".
When you apply this stupidity any story with a "transgender child" is then "kiddy porn".
Second, and more specific to your story in this case:
Then there is also a segment of people who seem to feel any portrayal of any child abuse regardless of how it is portrayed or how serious the treatment or how negatively it is shown is some how kiddy porn and should not be allowed period, even if only mentioned as background, as if hiding the subject matter and not discussing it will some how make it go away.
Ignore them they are brain dead, they are the ones with the truly perverted minds.
Of course it is not kiddy porn. sheesh!
~Hypatia >i< ..:::
PS. In odd counterpoint I also noticed that one of the other reviews said,
"I didn't realize when ordering the book that it is more of a young person's book."
those people obviously dont
those people obviously dont know what child porn is.
No1
Full stop.
In certain peoples mind
In certain peoples mind, trans anything it all about sex. I was observed by a person in my church at the grocery store with my bust quite evident in a shirt that didn't hide the fact that I was wearing a bra very well. That person cornered me the next time they saw me at church and asked me for a private conversation in which they confronted me about it. I didn't deny that I wear women's clothes, lingerie included. We discussed whether or not it was sinful for me to do so. An argument that died when I asked them to build a theology that condemned the practice, pointing out that any theology requires at least three verses of scripture to support it. (The gentleman's father has a masters in theology and knows this from listening to his dad.) I further put it in context by pointing out that God was more interested in where our heart was than He was in what we wore.
The response to that was, "What about porn?"
From my point of view the question was a non-sequitur. I simply told him that I wouldn't say that I never fought the battle of porn, but that porn had nothing to do with this.
My point being, some people think trans anything has a porn connection.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
not Child pornography
It seems Amazon agrees and has pulled the reviews. But it still gives me pause. Considering my legal troubles in the past, I need to be careful. Accusations like the one on the review can get me in a lot of trouble.
Perhaps people don't understand that I write about kids to take sex out of the equation of being trans. When talking to some, they thing that being transsexual is all about some kind of sexual deviance. It is hard to say a 10 year old is a sexual deviance and I think most of us can agree that our gender identity came into question during our youth.
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
Horses for Courses...
There are quite a few people of all ages who don't have sex, for many reasons. I once knew a transsexual nun, for example, a perfectly charming lady, but extremely unlikely to feature as a character in any sort of sexual highjinks.
There are others, perhaps separated from their partners by circumstance – or even death – who choose to honour their vows despite being stationed abroad, widowed, or otherwise left behind. These things happen, and mature people don't necessarily hop into bed on the first date, nor even the five hundreth.
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“My mother used to tell me that when push comes to shove, you always know who to turn to. That being a family isn't a social construct but an instinct.â€
― Jodi Picoult, Keeping Faith
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Not really
Readers given two legs go where they will and think what they will. It does not mean they are right or that they are stupid. It just means you sit down and you write what you feel and if it is what you really feel you don't have to explain it. If no one reads it then you still get to write it. If a few people like it then you reached a few people with something you meant to. There isn't much to being a writer than that. I just don't see why some people don't like something gets into your head that you should write otherwise. Just how does that work? The bottom line is you do write compelling stories that people here like to read - even if it is not everyone. You alone know if you gave it your best shot when you wrote it! It isn't how hard you worked but how you see the result.
You need to decide when you write if you cross the line. You take pen to paper and carry the responsibility in your own head! The "line" isn't absolute and asking here is maybe a bit more forgiving than on Amazon. Crossing the line or not, I like what you write so by definition it never crossed the line. Its's how the game works. If people like it - it does not cross the line. If they don't like it then maybe it's just "too many notes" or it's porn. Why you don't like something is not a task anyone devotes a great effort into.