James Webb Writes About Incest and Pedophilia

Right Wing News ^ | 10/15/2006 | John Hawkins

[oblomov]

>>>Lolita goes inthe same category.

Hah. Don't make a fool of yourself. Have you read Lolita?

[wagglebee]

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It's like Webb was sitting around one day and said, "You know what this book needs? A father performing a sex act on his child while people act like it's an everyday occurrence. That will really throw people for a loop!"

This man is really, really sick!

[Hoodat]

ALLEN'S REVENGE: EXPOSES UNDERAGE SEX SCENES IN OPPONENT'S NOVELS

[Mad Dawg]

Name me one place where Webb would have read about or otherwise been introduced to the concept that a father would pick up his naked son and perform a sex act on him in public. It makes no sense, it's not something I've ever heard of, which is why it seems to be revealing of something in Webb's brain that just isn't quite "right".

God forbid I should do anything to defend Webb, but ...

almost 30 years ago, as a youngish Episcopal priest, I was suddenly confronted with a family crisis involving a long long history of father/daughter incest with both daughters AND alcohol addiction.

I needed all the information I could get before I got into this situation. I went to the local NOW office. They had the most extensive library of sexual abuse and perversion and all that in the area. I gave them a donation (all the while holding my nose, but they WERE inadvertently serving a good cause that day). I sat down and read as much as I could as fast as I could about father/daughter incest.

I learned way more than I wanted to know.

Or ask me about, of, I don't know, say how about the couple who tried to strangle their child. I have a lot of things roaming around the old cranium that I didn't really want to be there, but, well, compost occurs, y'know ....

I don't know how Webb could have come across this nonsense, but, well sometimes you learn stuff or see stuff you had no intention of learning or seeing.

[HoosierHawk]

Nothing like curling up by the fire with a really good book. /s

[Mad Dawg]

What the...??? A bear rapes an underage girl? Who even dreams up this?

Well, the bear was a Democrat and NOT a Catholic. If it had been a Catholic bear it would have been an underage boy.

[wagglebee]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1726601/posts?page=188#188

[syriacus]

The media will just say he is really a Republican.

You are so right.

[syriacus]

Can you imagine the hysteria if Allen had written that stuff?

Yes, easily.

I imagine libs will be buying copies of Webb's book and asking him to autograph it.

[syriacus]

Attacking a writer's character on the basis of such scenes, however repugnant those scenes might be to a given reader, or--for that matter-- however badly written, does a disservice to the author,

Is it necessarily a "disservice" for people to say how they feel about this?

If there's nothing wrong in what Webb has written, why should he mind an honest discussion of his work?

[HoosierHawk]

Comment #188 Removed by Moderator

[Rembrandt_fan]

You wrote, "Is it necessarily a "disservice" for people to say how they feel about this?"

You're being disingenuous. The argument I'm making is clearly stated. People can say what they like, of course, or rather, 'how they feel', but the insinuation is that Webb is morally deficient because of the fiction he writes. It would be one thing if Webb wrote pornography, another if he wrote puerile fantasies or outright penny-a-word crap, but that isn't the case, at least not on the basis of 'Fields of Fire', known as his best work. While no supporter of Webb's political views--and certainly skeptical of his motives for switching parties, which smacks of opportunism--I believe it is wrong to imply Webb--or any author anywhere--is somehow tainted on the basis of what a depraved character does in a given scene in a work of Webb's (or any author's) fiction. That implication of moral taint was the central point of the article originally posted. I thought the article's central argument poorly reasoned, and so responded to it.

I can't fully speak to your second question, "If there's nothing wrong in what Webb has written, why should he mind an honest discussion of his work?" since I don't know if Webb has addressed that particular passage (the child molestation scene) with anyone during the Allen-Webb senatorial campaign. I imagine any author would be leery of an 'honest discussion' of his or her work if the barely veiled purpose of the discussion is to cast aspersions on that author's character, rather than to address the literary merit of that work.

That this sort of attack by literary innuendo was mounted--probably by a well-meaning Allen supporter--is yet another reason Allen's presidential aspirations have been deferred to the end of time. Webb is a political novice, a newcomer to electoral politics, and Allen's people should be beating him handily, but they aren't. Allen's campaign has been marred by poor handling from the beginning. If Allen and his people are having a hard time campaigning against James Webb, how do you suppose they'd fare against a Democratic heavy hitter like, say, Hillary? From what I've seen of the Allen campaign so far, she'd beat him like a red-haired stepchild.

[little jeremiah]

No good writer needs to graphically describe disgusting and perverted sex acts to get a point across. What people read, listen to or see affects their minds. To varying degrees, of course.

What used to be called pornography (and not easy to find) is now sprinkled about in [sic] "literature".

[supremedoctrine]

Lolita is one of the finest novels of the latter half of the 20th century. It is even BETTER if you have read Nabokov's thoroughgoing contempt for this vivid character he created, Humbert Humbert. And the best testimony to his greatness as an artist that he could invent such an amoral self-deceiver as Humbert, while himself being the most loyal, meditative, butterfly-chasing husband to the same woman for many decades.

[Rembrandt_fan]

You wrote, "No good writer needs to graphically describe disgusting and perverted sex acts to get a point across..."

Read the Old Testament lately? I'm grateful Moses didn't ascribe to your viewpoint.

[little jeremiah]

Anyone who thinks that graphically describing with a view to titillate and MENTIONING are the same has an axe to grind.

There is a difference between, say, the Venus de Milo, and a blow up sex toy. Or between the play "Romeo and Juliet" and a porn movie showing teenagers fornicating.

If you don't see the difference, then nothing I can say will help.

And describing forbidden sex acts so that people know what's what is not the same as describing them in a salacious manner.

[oblomov]

I agree. I love the novels Lolita and Nabokov's other work (esp. Pale Fire and his short stories). Lolita is a complex novel that touches on many issues that are relevant even today, such as the cultural clash between Europe and America, modernism vs. postmodernism, and the seductive vulgarity of American culture.

The novel was scandalous at one time because of the ostensible subject matter of the novel. Although not the first instance of the "unreliable narrator" as a literary device, Nabokov developed HH brilliantly, much more convincingly that the "mad" narrators of "Notes from Underground" or "Diary of a Madman".

IMO

[Rembrandt_fan]

You wrote, "Anyone who thinks that graphically describing with a view to titillate and MENTIONING are the same has an axe to grind."

I know the difference. Back to the point of the thread: Fiction writers generally establish a scene by largely describing the actions of the characters rather than using explanatory narrative; i.e., 'It was a nasty, terrible place where immoral acts were the norm...' because most fiction writers know, from formal instruction and by the examples established by great writers, that the reader is more easily immersed in a fictional world when shown, not told. From what I gather, and having read the excerpt that Webb has written describing a particularly vile act (although I haven't read the whole novel), the aim of that particular passage isn't to titillate. I gleaned no salacious intent from the passage. It is graphic enough to make me cringe inwardly, but that--I suppose--is Webb's intent.

You might want to re-think your Venus de Milo example. What if the missing hands of the Venus de Milo were making an obscene gesture?

Finally, the only axe I have to grind is the general anti-art tenor of many of the comments I've encountered on this and other threads. Walking around perpetually offended by what one sees and hears and reads is no way to live a life--leave that to the intolerant types over at DU and MoveOn. Don't like it? Don't read it, or watch it, or hear it. Close the book, turn the channel, change the dial. Sure, there's plenty of tawdry, rotten, badly made stuff out there, but there's good stuff, too.

[little jeremiah]

What concerns me is how the bar has been lowered so much that kids and teenagers have easy access to porn. And adults. Pornography is not benign or harmless. I know more than three or four families offhand whose lives have been devastated by pornogprahy. And a lot of what is currently accepted as regular mainstream literature/entertainment/movies used to fall under the category of X rated.

[little jeremiah]

And graphic descriptions of pedophile acts have zero place in literature. Some things are off limits, and that's one of them.