Taboo and Censorship

Censorship of the written word has a long history - and (unfortunately) continues even today.  It stems, I think, from our fears of the world, strangers and even ourselves.  Fears that range from the religious (such as Harry Potter's witchcraft connotations to Salman Rushdie) to sexuality (such as Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's Outrageously Alice and Michael Willhoite's Daddy’s roommate and events, both past and present (such as Barbara Coloroso's Extraordinary evil: a brief history of genocide and David Irving's Hitler’s war).

The idea of censorship - regardless of the reason and the content of the material - is abhorrent to me.  Since I work in a library, I've been confronted by patron's requesting the removal of certain titles.  One older gentleman demanded that a mystery novel be taken out of the system because it had too much sexual content.  Another lady - a mom probably in her late twenties or early thirties (I'm a horrible judge of age!) with a preschooler and a baby - wanted the Terry Pratchett book Where's my cow? as well as a children's CD removed from the children's area because she deemed them inappropriate. 

While I promised to pass on these "suggestions" to the higher powers that be (aka the management) and politely took their information, I wanted to say to them "Don't read it!"  You have a choice about whether to read a certain book or listen to a certain CD and even if you do not like it, others might - and probably will. 

Which brings me to personal taboos.

Everyone has them.  Not liking a particular genre because it doesn't interest you is not the same thing as a taboo; that's a personal preference.  A taboo is something - a personl, place, thing, situation, etc. - that you absolutely refuse to read about.  And when it crops up in a favourite genre or story, a reader is either tempted to put the book down or gives up altogether. 

I'll admit that I've done it a time or two with my biggest personal taboo: rape.  Regardless of the age or gender of the victim, the portrayal or even hint of rape in a story turns me right off.  (Even by one of my favourite authors - I love Patricia Briggs, but the first couple pages of Cry wolf turned me off by just the hint of sexual abuse the female character had endured.)

I remember picking up a very thick book (I can't even remember the name of it anymore) while on my break one day and opening to a random page near the first.  It caught my attention because of the way the author had formatted it - as if a personal manuscript had been rediscovered and the "author" had placed notes in the sides about research, publishing details, etc.  However, I happened to flip to a page where it described the main character as a child - and the victim of a rape by two men.  I immediately replaced the book back on the shelf; my interest disappeared as quickly as it had come. 

The only time I've remained with a book was with the J. D. Robb's "Eve Dallas/In death" series.  I read the first four books before losing interest (but for a completely different reason).  Did it take me a while to get the past the fact of Eve's past?  Yup.  Did I enjoy the books despite the situation of her childhood?  Yup.  Would I read them again or return to the rest of the series?  Probably not, for a variety of reasons.

Why do I have this personal taboo?  Probably because this is one of my personal fears.  I don't pretend that rape doesn't (unfortunately) exist, but I have choosen not to read about it.  It's a personal choice and I'm not going to demand that every book that deals with it be banned just because I don't like it.

This post did start out life as an examination of my own personal taboo's.  Somehow it morphed into a censorship/taboo rant.  Do you have personal reading taboos?

Freedom to Read week (Canada) - Challenged book and magazine list