ANSWER Me! Week Starts Monday

This post originally appeared on I Read Odd Books

Hey everyone, sorry to have been so quiet since the end of the NBAS week but I’ve been busy over on Houdini’s Revenge. In fact, I knocked out an attempt to debunk of one of the more involved “it was staged” theories regarding the Boston Marathon Bombings, as well as writing about some of the backpack theories. I hope eventually to amass a clearinghouse of all the theories, debunked (or confirmed – it could happen) and in some sort of order. For those who enjoy conspiracy theory, have a look.

I made an interesting decision about discussing ANSWER Me!, issues 1-4. I have been working on these discussions for months, almost a year. And when I say I “these discussions,” I really mean Issue 4, the infamous Rape Issue. I have never hit the backspace key more in my life. I have read almost all of Andrea Dworkin’s body of work to make sure that I have my ducks in a row if the Andrea Dworkin Lie Detector types show up. I have agonized over word choice, trying to make sure I conveyed the point I wanted to make without offending the usual suspects, even as I sort of want to call out the usual suspects (:cough:melissamcewan:cough:) for trivializing rape to the point even ardent liberals are sickened by their penny ante and Penny Arcade antics, making rape seem trivial as they wage war against fictional creatures committing impossible acts against cartoon characters that in no way represent any living person, past or present. And I will have to mention Peter Sotos. Sotos is a polarizing dude, and by polarizing, I mean I get rape and death threats when I talk about him. I can cope with that sort of shit – welcome to the Internet, Baby Girl! – but it can get a wee bit demoralizing.

All that agonizing has let me to this interesting decision: I am trashing everything I have written and will begin again on Saturday morning, cranking out text quickly and from a place of reaction rather than contemplation. When I am forced to write quickly, I have to stop dithering. When I stop dithering, I can say what I want to say and not worry about who may be offended or that people I want to offend may find my POV to their liking, which is almost as bad.

I may be cranking out Friday’s entry Thursday night but, even if it is rushed, it will be better than the tentative semi-turd I have right now. Hopefully raw writing will encourage raw and interesting discussions.

I had planned to host a giveaway for this themed week but I am 86ing it for two reasons. One, all of the ANSWER Me! books are out-of-print and the last I looked on Amazon, the affordable copies were in crappy condition (acceptable on Amazon means someone’s cat shat on it), all the reputable dealers want way too much, and easily half the listings were from dropshippers, the scourge of the online book purchasing experience. I could give away Goad’s other books but that seems weird since I’m not discussing them. Two, the last two giveaways I hosted had really lukewarm reactions. I’ve seen hundreds of people freak out at the chance to win a $10 card at a coffee shop and I had 26 entries for a $50 Amazon card, and those entries represented nine people. Maybe 10. I’m too tired to go back and look. At any rate, though I really like sharing the book love, there is a fine line between Sharing the Love and becoming That Girl Who Looks Like She Is Begging For Readers. I love you guys but I feel like I’m forcing my love down your throats. Which seems an appropriate way as any to end this entry that basically bemoaned my neurotic inability to write from the hip about rape.

Funny how that works.

Tune in Monday for ANSWER Me! week. It should be interesting.

4 thoughts on “ANSWER Me! Week Starts Monday

  1. “I am trashing everything I have written and will begin again on Saturday morning.”

    I salute you!

    Also, I stayed clear of commenting on the Bizarro give-away week because I didn’t want to win it instead of a proper Bizarro fan.

    I’m looking forward to the discussion. Good luck!

    1. NOOOO! Don’t ever do that again. Giveaways are for all readers, not just genre readers. But then again, another friend told me she can barely make it through the discussions for fear of what animal is going to be harmed next so that’s why she doesn’t enter often. So, if you can’t even bear the entry, I can see why it would be hard to enter.

      Oh well, it wasn’t like I could easily give away Goad’s works for this one anyway.

  2. Oh boy, this should be fun. Can’t say I was too impressed with “Quality Time,” Sotos’ contribution to the Rape Issue. It didn’t even have shock value. It was just puerile, the sort of thing a disturbed kid might write in his notebook when he wasn’t busy jacking off with his sister’s panties or torturing the family pets. Is there something I’m missing?

    Re: McEwan, what the heck happened to Shakespeare’s Sister/Shakesville? The whole thing just got so weird during the Edwards campaign, and at some point she was demanding something like loyalty oaths from her commenters. Last time I looked virtually every single post had a trigger warning, including for stuff like fat shaming.

  3. The enormous amount of energy you’re devoting to the Rape Issue makes me incredibly curious to read it, but I don’t know if (a) I can bring myself to pay cash money to do so, or (b) if I even should read it to begin with.

    However, I will note that I found this issue for sale at Atomic Books for $5.95 + $7 flat rate shipping. That’s cheaper than the cheapest listing I found at Amazon (and considerably less sketchy), and Atomic Books is good people.

    http://www.atomicbooks.com/index.php/answer-me-4.html

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