I'm wondering if using the terms "NC-17" and "R" to rate fic according to sexual explicitness and other spectra is cooperating with a moral evil.
I think it is, and I've decided I really hate them--they're bad (and sloppy enough) for film, but the sliding of film to text leaves us all saying things that we wouldn't, I think, "really" say if we meant it, i.e. that people under 17, or 14, shouldn't be allowed to READ certain stuff. As a marker for commercial film, yes, fine, maybe; it's also harder to just walk out of a film than it is to put a book down, i.e. if you're in over your head in a movie theatre, it's not the same as getting in over your head in a book, because reading is a participatory act to a greater extent than watching a film is. But I'm really against this metaphor we've decided on that says this is appropriate for text.
no subject
I think it is, and I've decided I really hate them--they're bad (and sloppy enough) for film, but the sliding of film to text leaves us all saying things that we wouldn't, I think, "really" say if we meant it, i.e. that people under 17, or 14, shouldn't be allowed to READ certain stuff. As a marker for commercial film, yes, fine, maybe; it's also harder to just walk out of a film than it is to put a book down, i.e. if you're in over your head in a movie theatre, it's not the same as getting in over your head in a book, because reading is a participatory act to a greater extent than watching a film is. But I'm really against this metaphor we've decided on that says this is appropriate for text.