Hey guys, I'm writing a story about two women who are in prison together and one is a dominant female who has borderline personality disorder with both anger and fear of abandonment issues and the other one has both a weak and strong personality in which most of the abuse is emotional yet I did some research and I found that sexual abuse is rampant in female prisions and am considering putting it into my story. My questions are- would it be too diffucult for the reader to read the sexual abuse parts and also would that be allowed to be able to post on here. I think I should just write it cause I know my reseach but was just needing some clarification from other more experienced writers here about what should I do about the sexual abuse parts. Anyways, any feedback on this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thank you and have a nice day!
I don't think you'd be able to post anything about sexual abuse here or anywhere on a message board (unless it's a really weird message board). But I'll leave it to a moderator to say. As for would it be too difficult for readers—that depends on how it's written. You could pull way back into a very distant POV and give nothing internal (none of the person's thoughts or feelings). This is the way Cormac McCarthy does it, and his work is filled with intense violence and murder. It still isn't easy to read, but it's easier than if he wrote people's feelings and experiences in an up-close personal way. I suppose it's like it's seen through the eyes of a completely numbed person who's already seen too much and has shut down, or something along those lines. It's reported in a strictly factual way. In fact he mostly seems to use the objective POV, which never enters anyone's thoughts or feelings. Still though, most people don't make it through one of his books (at least the really intense ones). If you write that kind of material you're writing for a pretty select readership that can handle it, not at all for a general audience.
Just write the story and allow readers to deal with their own issues. More to the point: is sexual violence integral to the story or are you including it as part of a "here's what I learned about prisons" information dump? Trust me, I understand the allure of information dumps, and have cleared out my share of them.
We have a no rape rule everywhere on the site do graphic content about sexual abuse is going to be a hard pass
