his might also explain why he think it’s cool to write BSDM scenes featuring a 16-year-old schoolgirl as part of an ostensibly respectable work of SF, so it’s a pet suspicion of mine.
It would seem he is just writing for Mature Audiences. In this case maturity means not just ‘the age at which we let people read pornographic text’ but the kind of maturity that allows people to look beyond their own cultural prejudices.
16 is old. Not old enough according to our culture but there is no reason we should expect a fictional time-distant culture to have our particular moral or legal prescriptions. It wouldn’t be all that surprising if someone from an actual future time to, when reading the work, scoff at how prudish a culture would have to be to consider sexualised portrayals of women that age to be taboo!
Mind you I do see how a hypoxic brain injury could alter someone’s moral inhibitions and sensibilities in the kind of way you suggest. I just don’t include loaded language in the speculation.
16 is old. Not old enough according to our culture but there is no reason we should expect a fictional time-distant culture to have our particular moral or legal prescriptions. It wouldn’t be all that surprising if someone from an actual future time to, when reading the work, scoff at how prudish a culture would have to be to consider sexualised portrayals of women that age to be taboo!
Interestingly, if the book in question is the one I think it is, it takes place in Britain, where the age of consent is, in fact, sixteen.
Come to think of it, 16 is the age of consent here (Australia—most states) too. I should have used ‘your’ instead of ‘our’ in the paragraph you quote! It seems I was just running with the assumption.
It would seem he is just writing for Mature Audiences. In this case maturity means not just ‘the age at which we let people read pornographic text’ but the kind of maturity that allows people to look beyond their own cultural prejudices.
16 is old. Not old enough according to our culture but there is no reason we should expect a fictional time-distant culture to have our particular moral or legal prescriptions. It wouldn’t be all that surprising if someone from an actual future time to, when reading the work, scoff at how prudish a culture would have to be to consider sexualised portrayals of women that age to be taboo!
Mind you I do see how a hypoxic brain injury could alter someone’s moral inhibitions and sensibilities in the kind of way you suggest. I just don’t include loaded language in the speculation.
Interestingly, if the book in question is the one I think it is, it takes place in Britain, where the age of consent is, in fact, sixteen.
Come to think of it, 16 is the age of consent here (Australia—most states) too. I should have used ‘your’ instead of ‘our’ in the paragraph you quote! It seems I was just running with the assumption.
Although “18 years old” does seem to be a hard-and-fast rule for when you can legally appear in porn everywhere, as far as I know...