Well, as we’ve argued on past threads, I think artists have an ethical responsibility that goes a bit beyond “to your own vision be true.” Authors share in the responsibility for how our work is received and the degree to which our art makes the world a worse place.
When it comes to the ways stories can worsen the world, the closest-to-home example for me was a friend’s near rape. She was assaulted by a date who started following a script in which the proper response to “no” was putting on an aggressive persona, swearing, ripping off clothes, etc. He was mystified when it all left her in tears rather than ardor. That wasn’t the response he’d encountered in the all-too-recognizable porn fantasy he was acting out. So he broke character and stumbled away, thank God.
While the overwhelming share of moral fault in that situation rests with the near-rapist, I don’t think the writer of the porn script he was following is off the hook. Stories shape our imaginations and our actions – including dehumanizing fantasies that promise consequence-free sex/violence/dominance. Especially when writing on a topic where “a lot of people already think it’s OK” (to quote Dan’s list of reasonable questions) an author’s got to be ready to take responsibility for people acting out their script.
And an author may be ready to take that responsibility if they’re confident in the merit of their work. But I’m going to go out on a not-too-long limb and suggest that pure dehumanizing fantasies have little merit beyond selling well. (It’s all well and good to talk about “toning stuff down to reach a greater audience” if you’re writing for the Apple Store, but there’s a healthy market for all manner of untoned-down awfulness).
It would be tidy if I could conclude that this means some topics are always, inherently off-limits. But I think Nabokov was right to write Lolita, and (this time a very long limb!) I think an author of his caliber could write it as IF without trivializing pedophilia. I still disagree with Dan that the choice structure trivializes all it directly touches. Horrific choices can be earned, both by what leads up to them and what follows them.
But for 99% of us, if we tried putting sex-crime choices into an IF frame, we’d just feed into an existing pool of dehumanizing sex fantasies without adding anything of merit. For all the time I’ve put into writing consequences and humanizing victims, I know my own work still sits comfortably in the dehumanizing murder fantasy genre. (Though I think there’s enough merit in Choice of Rebels and–crucially–little enough chance of someone acting it out that I’m willing to publish it and accept responsibility anyway.)
You think a bare-bones description would constitute taking it seriously? I’d set the bar a whooooooooole lot higher than that.
Finally, @Eric_Moser, I think both your animal example and a story with actual anthropophagy passes Dan’s reasonable question test mentioned above. In a nutshell, you’re highly unlikely to inspire actual cannibals, so the questions involved are ones of taste, not morals.