Why I'll never include SV in my works.

The R**e of Proserpina, by Gianlorenzo Bernini, c. 1618–25

This piece includes references to SV. Readers who may find the below content triggering are advised not to read further.

The depiction of SV is a discussion which comes up from time to time in the realm of media and specifically SFF books, which is the realm in which I exist creatively. Advocates for depictions of SV say that it grounds stories, it adds historical realism, or that it is part of character development necessary for the works. Critics of SV in fiction argue it is a crutch for writers trying to show strength of character, it is poorly depicted and therefor damaging, or that if they wanted historical realism, they would read histories and that fantasy is meant to be an escape from the real world.

There are better discourses on the merit or lack thereof when it comes to SV in literature than I am able to provide here. It is something that while I have many thoughts on the matter, we don’t need another guy who looks like me telling people what to read, write, think, or consume. This isn’t meant to be prescriptive, nor am I trying to judge people whose views differ from my own merely for the fact of that difference. This is just about why, a few years ago, I decided I would not include SV, or threats of SV in my stories.

A dear friend of mine who I work with was the first person not related to me who read any of my prose fiction. The first novel I finished was a derivative mess which didn’t go anywhere and would have forced readers to wallow through the ineptitude of my writing for far too long to be appreciated or even medically advisable. The next thing I wrote was orders of magnitude better and after several drafts and a lot of work, I felt there was a story of some level of worth in what I had created. I gave the book to my friend, an English teacher actually, and she read it. 

Runes of Iron and Blood had many issues, it was the second novel I wrote and while I am extremely proud of what I achieved so early in my journey, there was a specific bit of feedback I received which got me thinking (other than how often and incorrectly I was using commas).

Late in the novel, a character who has betrayed the others, trapped one of the protagonists in a building filled with hostile types and the bad dude makes a threat of SV. My friend’s feedback on this chapter included something along the lines of “I hate all references to SV and this isn’t an exception”. She pointed out that it wasn’t necessary for character, it wasn’t necessary for plot, and it wasn’t necessary for the vibe of the thing.

Some people would get that feedback and say “nothing is right for everyone” but what really bothered me was that I hadn’t even thought about the line when I wrote it in the first place. A character, misguided though he was, had threatened to do one of the more horrible things which can be done to another human, and it had just seemed like the sort of thing which would be said by this sort of character. There was no reason for him to say it, it wasn’t in character necessarily, and it was not a threat which would be acted upon within the story.

The tone of what I write is what I would consider diet grimdark, plenty of the dark vibes, half the calories… or at least, there is action and gore, but not all of the “grittiness” often associated with grimdark. For reference, I love grimdark, and I do not have any blanket rules on what other people “can write”. So, with the tone of my writing somewhere between Sando and Abercrombie (I am not claiming to be a combo of them, or claiming to be writing at a level similar to theirs) I needed to think about what that meant, what I wanted it to mean, and what I wanted my stories to be.

I was horrified that the media I have consumed has normalised SV to the point I hadn’t even been aware of writing in a threat of SV in one of my own stories. If I had written it deliberately, or had built up to it, or handled it in a more cognizant manner, I don’t think it would have bothered me so much.

To the crux of this piece, my writing won’t ever include SV or threats thereof. I thought long and hard about what I wanted my writing to be, what I wanted it to mean, and all manner of other factors. I want my books to be a bit of call-back to sword and sorcery classics. I want readers to be taken on adventures they could never experience in this, our real world. I want adventure. I realised what I wanted, was a darkness of tone, moderated with contrast. Not the “everything is awful all the time” which is what some people desire. I want to escape to another world, and I want it to be a place where other people want to come to escape as well.

SV is handled incredibly poorly in a lot of media. Which character’s eyes it is shown through, how the aftermath is dealt with, and “why” it happened, are all issues which can arise.

If SV is included just to show how strong a woman is, that’s a shit reason. Women can be and are incredibly strong in so many ways, and whether or not another person has been a monster does not factor in.

If it is just to show how bad a bad dude is, that’s a shit reason. It is lazy writing if your thought process is just “well I’ve had them kick a dog, this is the logical next step toward evil.”

The last argument I hate for it is “well it used to happen back then”. If you are writing fictional prose, in a fictional world, there is no “back then”. You’ve created a world whole cloth, and the historicity of that world is what you make it. If the only step toward verisimilitude you make is, “well women were treated horribly in our dark ages, why not the dark ages of other worlds?” I ask, why is it just SV toward women which you want to be realistic? If the dark of your tale is just violence, physical and sexual, but there is no other effort for gritty realism, why? Where is the dysentery people should be dying of en masse? Where is the SV toward men? Apart from Khal Drogo, where are the minor infections killing people off at ghastly rates? If all you’ve got is, woman get’s r***d, ask yourself why?

I have decided, not just because I could depict SV poorly, that I will never include it in my books. I want there to be an option for people who want a bit of grit but for whom reading about SV is a step too far. I want action and adventure without people needing to worry about something far too many women and LGBTQIA+ people deal with on a regular basis in the real world. I want escapism for those people, and I don’t think there is a risk of people deciding not to read my work because of a lack of SV depiction. If there are people for whom that would be a deal breaker, I don’t want their readership anyway. At the end of all this, I suppose all I want for the literature we consume, is that we ask why things are included? If the reasons are shallow, if easy tension is all that is sought, perhaps there should be more push for creatives to think again, and for consumers to demand better.