1) Well, it isn’t about needing to include them so much as convenience of excluding them, which is a very, very bad reason, I know. I just want to make sure that the actual bad reasons for my choices are transparent, rather than mistaken for other, also terrible, reasons.
2) I’ve mentioned before that most of my porn stories are essentially horror stories. I murder these character here, and contort them into some other terrible form. In my worlds, and in my stories, it isn’t that these things “only happen to white people,” it’s that it feels most comfortable to inflict them on white people, because white people deserve it. Because part of these stories is destroying a person’s privileged identity and forcing them into some other form of punishment. Part of me feels like POC get enough shit without having to see themselves represented in those situations, skin color unmentioned or not. Whether that’s me pulling my punches because I’m a coward (certainly possible) or whether it’s latent white savior complex (also very possible) is debatable. Either way, not good. But one issue: all of my characters become rendered as “objects of punishment,” that’s the nature of these stories. I think what you might have meant, rather is “don’t relegate POC to roles as agents of racial punishment.” That I can totally get behind.
3) Just for clarity here, I’m not offering this as a defense of myself, I agree with pretty much everything you’re saying here. This is me publicly working through my own shit and trying to figure out a way to not be so shitty.
4) You’re essentially right–I really do need to widen the diversity of characters represented here.
Bracken's Corner 