My story, “A Letter Never Sent,” is up at the Konundrum Engine Literary Review.
(I’m not posting all my work here, by the way, just that work which engages issues I think may be of interest to liberals.)
Comments on this story are tentatively open to everyone, but I’m not going to be tolerant of stuff that’s nasty toward male or female victims of sexual abuse. Be respectful of the intended audience of this blog.
the people he picks to work in his administration are supposed to support that effort as long as they don’t…
@Ron: What do you think Trump did in his first term that was unique or made a positive impact on…
During his first term Trump walked into the White House with no experience in government, so he selected a lot…
To give a specific example: When I first moved to Oregon, the state had a rule against government organizations replacing…
Eliminating unnecessary jobs to focus on the actual core functions of the Federal government is the epitome of increasing efficiency.…
The link doesn’t work for me, using firefox.
Fixed, hopefully.
The link worked. I keep wondering why they haven’t found a cure yet! For people who would be all- right people except they have their bodies want something that isn’t right–that just doesn’t match up with the rest of them even if it’s harmless, or, worse, it makes them hurt someone innocent. Your story cut deep. I belong to the first[harmless] category–and I have found I am not alone, which helps some, but as a teen I fell into the hands of a relative who belonged to the second one. I read how they’ve tried aversive conditioning and that doesn’t work and how even the operation alluded to isn’t enough sometimes. In my more cynical moments I wonder if doctors quit mutilating baby boys, quit jigsawing normal parts of grown women, and quit trying to grow hair on cue balls, they might find something that could help.
For decades I’ve wished they would already. I recall wishing I had the nerve to pick up that scalpel myself. I still would find it easy to wield it on the person who mis-touched me. But why are people with less harmful but still disturbing (to them) kinks always told there is no cure, that we are just supposed to put up with whatever bugfuck oddity that nature might happen to shit out? Sorry to get off topic, but it seems a related concern. I just read a magazine article [Time I think it was] that says the brain keeps developing thru-out life instead of being fixed in the preschool years, and it made me glad. Maybe they will use this to find a way to help people like your narrator. And then when they have made kids safe, they can help people like me, although I don’t need it so much any more; the images that aren’t rightfully me are being met and matched by images that are. But of 13 acquintances, 11 tell me they were molested when young. And that’s 11 too many.
Thanks for an illuminating story, and the opportunity to vent.
Mandolin, this is way off-topic but I want to tell you that I absolutely adore your post about legal approaches to FGS. I’m posting in the wrong thread because the FGS post is marked as feminists only and I’m generally regarded as not a feminist round here.
But I learnt so much from that post, and I really appreciate your prioritizing what is effective practically over ideological purity. It’s also great that you are balancing both respect for cultures not your own, and the courage to criticize and fight against some aspects of those cultures which are immoral. I notice that some of your feminist commentators think you haven’t got that balance right, but the fact that you’re even trying is very admirable.
Yes, it’s going to take a while to get that balance right. I am not going to get tangled up in that one.
The article I read about brain plasticity was in Newsweek, the latest one I think, and I didn’t have time to read it all but it cheered me up. I just want the power to change whatever can be changed put into *our* hands, not those of the people who want to make gays turn straight and so on. Mandolin’s story, by showing that some people afflicted with pedophilia are otherwise okay and want to get it fixed, might help with this.
Angiportus,
I’m very touched by your comments. I’m pleased that the story meant something to you.
Individ-ewe-al,
Thanks for your comments, too!
Just wanted to say it is a wonderful story. The character is believable and sympathetic and you don’t sentimentalize or preach what is often to easy to sentimentalize of preach about; quite an achievement.