An early farewell to TOME
After due consideration, I have decided to explain publicly why I will not participate in the TOME awards and why I will encourage others to boycott them as well.
My first point of contention is the decision to allow any story of any imaginable content to compete. I think this is a short-sighted and very ill-advised decision that, while made with a certain objective in mind (namely the inclusion of adult-rated stories as favoured by a particular section of fandom), did not take into account the full implications. Yes, there will be stories running that many people will consider offensive and pornographic, but that isn't nearly all. Because everything does mean EVERYTHING, not only the stories of this particular clientèle. In other words, TOME will allow the nomination of stories that would be highly immoral and even illegal in some countries, for example stories containing incitement to racial hatred or fascist propaganda. TOME will have to admit stories that glorify genocide, promote child abuse or advertise illegal drugs.
It is a fallacy to think that just because the people who support the all-inclusive policy do not write such stories, nobody will. Likewise it is a fallacy to claim that such stories would not be nominated - we have no idea what is out there and might turn up one day. It would not even be a given that such stories would not win - an awards scheme devoted to all-inclusiveness cannot turn down anyone who applies for membership, and it is therefore possible, however unlikely, that the awards would be high-jacked by, say, a fascist group. After all, TOME has vowed to welcome everybody. This is not a question of what people expect to get nominated, this is a question of what is de facto allowed.
With regard to the question of pornographic material, I will say this to all the people who made indignant comments: I have not pointed the finger at any writer and said, “Your work is porn.” However, pornography does exist. Notwithstanding the fact that there are borderline cases when the literary merit might be arguable, there is such a thing as outright porn, which is defined by dictionaries as a representations of sexual behaviour intended to cause sexual arousal.
I have heard the argument brought forward that the evaluation of porn is merely a matter of personal taste and that disliking porn is no different from disliking, say, hobbit fluff. I will argue that this is incorrect. Hobbit fluff or any other gen-rated story, no matter how tedious, does not harm anybody. Pornography, on the other hand, has been shown to lead to addiction, break up marriages, cause people to lose their jobs, lead to sex offences etc. More importantly, though, pornography is a form of sexuality that is fundamentally exploitative, that treats people as objects and as means to an end, i.e. sexual arousal. This, not the sexual content, is what makes it profoundly immoral. I refer anyone not familiar with this argument to Immanuel Kant.
In the context of fanfiction, pornography is also exploitative of the source material; is exploits Tolkien's world for the purpose of the writer's and the readers' masturbation fantasies.
My second point of contention is the way in which what I shall call the erotica lobby have pushed their agenda. Not contented with having their stories eligible at the awards, they have made a strong move to abolish first the distinction between mature and adult rating and eventually all ratings. The reasoning is that ratings would stigmatise adult stories. In pursuit of their self-interest, they have argued that most stories are already rated at the archives where they are hosted. But why should the burden be on the readers to hunt for ratings? Why should the readers suffer inconvenience in order to suit the wishes of the erotica lobby? May I also point out that when Marta suggested that archive-rated stories would not need to go to the ratings panel, this was rejected with the argument that ratings are not consistent across archives? Why was that a convenient argument then but does not count now? One person argued that readers should be able to guess from summaries whether or not a story contains adult material. Again, why should the burden be on the readers? And the example she gave, something like “A young Aragorn is captured by a tribe of Rhun” - well, this would only be obvious to someone who is already attuned to a certain mindset. I can imagine various stories with such a summary that would be entirely innocent. Likewise the suggestion that people can hit the back button - why are readers expected to invest time in stories they would never look at if they were accurately rated?
Moreover, I was incensed to see that in order to achieve their goal of no ratings, people were willing to exclude teenagers from the awards. The suggestion of having click-screens for teenage readers is objectionable in several respects. For one thing, it requires all readers to register and give their age. While at MEFA only members and participating authors could vote, anyone could read. Here, the erotica lobby suggest to exclude the general public from reading, once again to serve their self-interest. Secondly, once again the burden is put on others, in this case teenagers, who are expected to put up with the inconvenience. Someone cynically commented that they won't be teenagers forever. What happened to the inclusiveness? This is a sure way to make younger people feel unwelcome in fandom. Thirdly, how is this click-screen thing even supposed to work? If all screens are alike, saying something like, “The following story may or may not contain adult material,” then it offers no guidance to teenagers and effectively excludes them from participation. If there are different screens for adult and non-adult stories - well, how is that different from having ratings?
To summarise: The erotica lobby is dominating the awards planning website and they have so far got everything their own way. They are willing to put up barriers for potential readers and to place all sorts of burdens and inconveniences on other people to the extent of excluding teenagers altogether. This is all done under the banner of “inclusiveness” where inclusiveness merely means “including us.” Whether other people continue to feel included or welcome is of no importance to them. They are driven entirely by self-interest to such an extent that they would rather allow illegal and depraved material to compete than put any sort of restriction on eligibility. Any opposition to their agenda is rejected with the blanket accusation of “censorship.” For these reasons I will not participate at TOME and I urge anyone with a regard for fairness, legality and moral standards to boycott it likewise.
ETA: This thread is now locked to avoid further comments from a person who is either unable or unwilling to distinguish between things I did say and things I didn't say and who holds me responsible for the posts of other people who merely happen to post on the same forum as I.