Category: Uncategorized

Can we move beyond this race topic? Not to diminish it’s gravity in current events, but you’re an amazing fiction writer Wesley. I think that the notion of the unthinkable, the obscene, the grotesque, and down right abominable acts that you so shamelessly explore are breathtaking. The issue comes down to intent – I believe yours was erotic art. You achieved it. Keep up the great work; for those with a problem w/racial inequality – focus your efforts outside of fiction.

I’m just not going to answer any questions for the next few days, everyone. I need to get some porn written. But art and sex are political, or at least they are for me, so this probably won’t be the last of it.

Hey! I can see my new tagline now: “Wesley Bracken, come for the porn, stay for the politics.”

Gah, nevermind, what a turn off.

I’m not naive, I’m just not a racist american. “racial power structures” – if you don’t see people as people, but a racial stratification then you are about as bad as some hick from the bible belt.

This is the last bit I’m gonna say about this for now. This isn’t an either/or question. People are indeed people, individuals, with their own particular ambitions, histories, families, sexualities, genders, etc. That’s true. What is also true is that these people currently exist and live within national and international systems of racial oppression and white supremacy. That’s a fact. It’s a very, very bad fact. It’s something that shouldn’t be true, but it *is* true. 

Saying that we should just see people as people is great! But it also isn’t enough. These systems which have been put in place, systems of unequal justice, systems of abusive policing, systems of international colonialism and exploitation have to be dismantled as well. These systems manifest themselves everywhere, in all sorts of interactions, including sexual interactions, and especially in staged sexual interactions, i.e. porn. We find certain things attractive and erotic both because we’re people with personal sexual histories and proclivities, but also because various systems of oppression privilege certain kinds of eroticism over others.

When, for example, you have a porn film which focuses on four American GIs tying up and faux-raping a bunch of “muslim terrorists,” that is not just a group orgy, it is also a performance of American imperialism and colonialism. When gay tumblr blogs post pictures of white bearish men posing in police uniforms, that communicates that police aren’t just powerful and dominant, but that their power is also erotic, and ought to be submitted to. Porn has subtext, that’s simply a fact. Saying that “people are people” and arguing that we should just be colorblind is a nice thought, but in the end it can’t help dismantle these oppressive systems.

P.S. Some food for thought, slurring someone’s nationality before arguing that we should see people as people makes the latter ring a little hollow.

What I’m talking about is that when a person who isn’t racist looks at interracial porn he doesn’t see some fucked up implicit social commentary but two people fucking each other.

Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I mean, I’d go with calling you ‘naive’, but your tone suggests more ‘willful ignorance’. Also, you’re using the word “racist” wrong, just an fyi. Being cognizant of racial power structures isn’t racism, like wut?

I think that if we are discussing something subjective, I might take the appeals to the authority and the popularity over an appeal to the views of a guy who is so clueless about the social issues that he thought that writing about people of color in a setting that doesn’t revolve around their complexion is tokenism.

Well yeah, writing stories about people of color in settings that don’t revolve around their complexion isn’t tokenism, but that isn’t even close to what I was trying to say. I think I might feel a bit better about your opinions on fiction after you learn to read a little less superficially.

What are you trying to say Wes? Black people are incapable of being homophobic because they’re black? As a POC, I’ve had to hide my orientation from EVERYONE because you know what my people do to gays? They fucking shoot them and the police don’t investigate as a hate crime because its black on black crime. Yet, here you are, putting them on a pedestal. Do you know how many black bear porn videos I can find? Not a whole fucking lot, and they’re always fucking a white boy. Man the fuck up.

Well first, I’m really sorry that happens, and I hear your anger, I really do. I just want to acknowledge that.

I certainly don’t think black people are incapable of homophobia, and that was never something I wanted to imply. Nor was it my intent to put them on a pedestal. What I was doing was airing out the shitty reasons for why I have kept them out of stories in the past. Those were bad reasons–I’m fully aware of that.

Sex and politics are more intimate that we like to admit. These stories are, at the heart, a very personal depiction of how I view politics, and power relationships, and morality. That means, that every porn and piece of erotica which *does* include race is immediately brought into comparison with racial politics in general. A Black bear is never *just* fucking a white boy. That video carries with it it’s own commentary on power and race relations whether it intends to or not, because it was produced by a system which considers race in particular ways. That may not make much sense, I suppose, but a porn story is never *just* a porn story, leaving race out entirely has, in the past, seemed easier. But I don’t think it is honest, and I think it’s cowardly, and I’d like to find a way past it for myself.

I guess I’m confused as to what you want people to take away from the whole race debacle. Were you baiting people? Reasonable people aren’t going to take away anything positive from it.

I mean, when am I not baiting people, really?

All this is really more self-centered than anything else. I don’t think anyone is going to have much to take away from it other than me. I like antagonism. It forces me to think around my beliefs, and see where the weakest ones are, and see new solutions. I mean, that excerpt I posted was racist, point taken. I do need to find more ways to include PoC characters in my stories, and I’d like to do it in a way which doesn’t feel like I’m simply stuffing them in for diversity’s sake, because that’s terrible. 

I’m hardly perfect, I can admit that. But I’d like to be a better writer, and a better person at the end of the day.

I think people are getting upset because you’re calling everyone including the black guy racist because it turns out we’re more likely to have our racial preference for sexual intercourse decided by race. Then you told white people they should be punished for being white. We’re gay Wes. We’re attracted to fat people. Regardless of our race, we don’t need to hear this incredibly far left bullshit. Now we’re getting persecuted for being gay, being white, and having a penis. Thanks man.

I’ve tried formulating a few different responses to all this mess, but I realized that it all just boils down to more “far left bullshit” that you obviously don’t want to hear, so why bother? As for your persecution complex…well, try a therapist.