YA Authors Do NOT Have Duty of Care

A.K.A Alexia: Wait, you're not serious: The YA Sisterhood Crush Tourney and Rape

akaalexia:

Hey guys, so I usually don’t make posts on this matter, but I thought this was important.

So a bunch of my friends are readers/writers and I came home to find them up in arms about a YA Crush Tourney on YA Sisterhood. I was a little confused- the idea is to let people vote for characters they…

I may be alone on this, and that’s fine, but I don’t think they should discount the votes for Sebastian. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not crush worthy and I think it’s disgusting that anyone would vote for him as such, but that doesn’t change the rules of the game. There was nothing specifying what type of character could be nominated, so for those running the contest to disqualify any character for any reason that is not listed in the rules is censorship. 

Enotes.com defines censorship as: “The suppression or proscription of speech or writing that is deemed obscene, indecent, or unduly controversial.”

I hate that people would vote for a rapist, I really do. But tampering with the voting results is not the answer. No matter how noble your intentions may be, you cannot deny people the ability to express their opinions. Ever heard of the Westboro Baptist Church? The ones who protest homosexuality near funerals of deceased gay service men? Well, as awful as that is, and as horrendous it is to even think that there are really people out there who think like that, it is their constitutional right to do what they are doing. 

And though this is very, very small picture compared to that, it does not mean the rules are any different. Take all the proactive measures you want: spread awareness about why Sebastian should not win and/or encourage people to vote for better role models so that Sebastian doesn’t get past the nomination round and/or do whatever else you can come up with. I will whole-heartedly support that, and if it’s a Tumblr campaign, I’ll reblog the everliving shit out of it. …But I won’t promote the suppression of free speech, no matter how wrong some people may find it.