The following quotations are from Anne Rice [born Howard Allen O'Brien; (1941 - )], American author perhaps best known for her books dealing with vampires. They were taken from the transcript for her March 3, 1977 appearance on ABC's broadcast of
Politically Incorrect with Bill Mahar. I present them without comment or recommendation simply because they present food for thought, although they could be considered pertinent to a recent thread started by an author here who complained that his book was pulled from Amazon for having the word "Rape" in the title. While the subject matter makes me uncomfortable, the "cathartic" nature of writing on uncomfortable subjects spoken of by Rice brings to mind Aristotle's doctrine that the deplorable events depicted in tragic plays serve the function of purging such negative emotions from the audience. For the record, Plato disagreed, feeling that tragic plays actually
encouraged the growth of the negative side of our natures.
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.....I write for both sides; I write for the rapist’s side and the rapee's side. 'Cause there's a great desire in me to rape and well as to be raped. I mean, there is in all of us. So I like to explore it. You know, in a book.
.....We’re talking about the mind, literature and fantasy. There has to be a safety zone in every culture where you can talk about the really transgressive. And women in particular need to read about rape and they need to write about it 'cause they’re scared to death of it. We grow up scared to death from the time we’re little bitty kids of the dirty old man that’s going to come out of the doorway. And so we need to get that out in our writing. Writing is cathartic. You know, I don’t write to recommend.
.....I'm really proud of being a pornographer. I just love it.
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