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28 Public Reviews Given
61 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
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Review by Audubon Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
A very interesting article, you've raised a lot of important points and addressed them in a logical manner. But you seem to have missed one possible conclusion.

You've brought up the idea that the current model of upbringing is very desexualised. Especially when you've brought god into the equation. I like how you've portrayed the victim as wanting to refrain from sex with her boyfriend until marriage as her way of fighting back against the previous abuse.

You've also raised the very unpleasant fact of child molestation. The sexualisation without restraint of children, even young children, is without doubt one of the worst examples of the human psyche.

I don't know if you meant to portray sex before marriage as a bad descision, you've raised the subject of god several times in your piece. If so, and your exhortation to the father to have taught the victim about 'Tell me of the depravity of man' lead me to assume that you're aiming for a more liberal, yet still orthodox, christian view on sex.

The one thing I thinked you've missed is that children are in fact sexual objects to begin with, as well as all their other atributes. All objects are sexual to some degree, but in contemporary society we are taught not to see certain objects, children, lamp posts, baloons etc as sexual objects a priori.

As you've raised the point of sexual education at a much younger age, you seem to be more progressive than the current society, but you still seem to regard some objects as being unsexual a priori. You tell the father to 'Tell me of the depravity of man', this is, if I might say, rather sexist to begin with. As well as ignoring the fact that it is society itself that denotes what is 'depraved' or approved. I must protest against the use of 'depraved' in this light. You seem to imagine that 'man' as you put it, is somehow the root cause of the pain that your character has felt.

Now I agree with you that the pain your victim had to endure was a direct result of the monstrous events at the hands of her relativeshad after her father had died.

However, to simply blame this on the fact that her father hadn't taught her about 'Tell me of the depravity of man' and the crimes of the molesters is to ignore the larger point.

As I said, children are sexual objects, the role of society, and especially the parents or in this case the father, is to educate the children in such a way that they are not just passive objects. You've already started down this path by telling tha father to 'Tell me of the depravity of man', but this is just another path to passivity.

To portray children as objects to be instructed is to leave the child out of the equation altogether. Sex education must start on a basis of equality. Yes there are serious problems on the part of some females, and especially children, from the strength/size differnces between them and adult males, but to desbribe sex as a function of the difference between physical atributes is just another way of putting females/children into the passive mode again.

For real equality and safety, as you want to have, you have to educate everyone, from the earliest age, to be totally active participants in the world around them.

As you've stated in your conclusion, children have to 'report an incident once in a safe environment'. This again is a passive act. You seem to want to only educate on the premise that 'sex is wrong when you are a child' rather than the more active 'don't let someone do something to you that you don't want them to'.

I doubt you'd have any objections to a child reporting that another child stole a toy form them. This is an active reaction, the child wants their toy back, and they make the conscious descision to act in the way that will most likely get that toy back, by reporting the theft to a responsible adult.

To simply hand a small child a list of places they shouln't be touched and acts they shouldn't perform you make any action the child makes totally passive. Instead, if you educate the child on the entireity of sex from a young age, then the child will understand exactly what the molester wants from them and can make the active decision to report the offence. This of course is entirely dependant on the child being taught that any sexual act before at least puberty is in the same category as touching hot objects or standing in the road. An act that is physically dangerous, which of course it is.

The conclusion I'm aiming for is that to educate children to be completely active observers in the sexual world around them instead of passive victims will give them the several years of experience and force of will to actively choose whe and how to have sex when they reach a proper legal age.

A person that has been kept ignorant of the facts, as your victim was, and takes any sexual advances in a passive manner will be unable to react in an effective and safe way when the really intensive, to a normal child not your victim of course, sexual tensions in the life of a teenager and young person.

I think simply to dismiss sexual molestation of a child as 'the depravity of man' misses the point entirely. The point is that your victim, at every point in the story is a completely passive victim of the horrors that are happening to her. Only when she finally 'snaps' and makes an active, really a proactive, act and stabs her rapist is she in control. Yet as we she from her position, waiting for a sentence from a jury, the act she performed was excessive to society as a whole.

How much better that she'd have been in active control all the way through? She'd have learned all the skills in a safe environment with her father watching over her, and could have immediately taken the proper action againt her molesters when her father died. For 5 years she was a completely passive victim of the molestation, this is of course not her fault but the fault of the molester, with enough prior education about the realities of life she could have made an active descision to end the problem as soon as the first of her molesters touched her.

A very well written moral lesson, but I feel that you've missed the essential point about sex education. That 'sex' per se isn't bad or evil, it just 'is', but you need to be given the right tools to be able to make active decisions on our own when new situations occur.

Thank you for such a well themed piece. I have a distinct annoyance with the concept that the victims of sexual assault of any kind should be regared as passive, when they should have been taught how to make active choices before the crime occured.
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Review of What is God?  Open in new Window.
Review by Audubon Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
I'm a militant atheist with pretentions of science so I'll have a go at showing you some things you could look at to add to your essay. Which is rather good by the way, it's straightforward, well written, and non-confrontational. Now I'm militant, so I don't agree with you on non-confrontation, but i can appreciate the viewpoint.

1st Paragraph. Science vs. Religion. You really missed a lot out here that you would have given more information on the debate. The fact is that science's function is to test the universe around us and find out what rules govern it through a process of hypothesis testing. Now supernatural entities such a gods cannot be tested as they 'exist' outside the natural. So there can be no test to prove or disprove their existence as far as orthodox science is concerned. Now this isn't to say that because science cannot disprove the existence of a god(s) this means there is one. On the balance of the evidence so far, science has shown that there is no need for a god to explain existence, the only place for 'god(s)' is before the start of the universe in our current model, with complete non intervention afterwards. So if god, if one exists, has done nothing since the beginning of time, and quite possibly nothing at all ever, why should organised worship, which is divisive and pejudiced/intolerant, with such division and intolerance leading to 'evils' such as jihadism, witchburning, homophobia etc etc, be allowed to have such an important role in society?

2nd Paragraph. Nice, you've covered Pantheism very well. This kind of abstract 'deus ex machina' god that was once descibed by Thomas Jefferson as 'Nature's God' is a nice bridge between science and religion, as science can fully describe this god in terms of laws and theories, and what's better can test and imrove their understanding. Religion still has a figurehead to point to when describing morality and ethics, as those morals/ethics would be derived totally from the laws of the universe, and in particular sociology and biology. You could explain how Pantheists are always striving to understand 'god' better, and that no one person's idea of god would be exactly the same as anyone else's as we each observe and interact with the universe in different ways. Melville's 'Moby Dick' is probably the best example of this individualistic, pantheistic approach to the universe. With each of the characters finding different approaches to understand reality, and different value systems.

3rd Paragraph. Not a clue, I'm afraid you know more about this than me.

4th Paragraph. Returning to Religion via Science, it's a nice idea, looking to understand religious ideas via the society and time that they were invented. You've got one problem though, the 'Red Sea' example has a better explanation. The original text has 'Reed Sea' and has been mistranslated, so it appears to be much more impressive than it really was. But! you actually went on to cover this idea later on, with your 'game of telephone' analogy. You can get a much better idea of what is going on in this area by reading up on some 'Higher Criticism' texts. Which outline what the actual historical truth to many of the holy books are.

5th Paragraph. Very tricky subject area to get into. You raise lots of different questions by looking at miracles this way. A nice example of it is if an airplane carrying 200 people crashes and there is one survivor. Now if that's counted as a 'miracle' then the fact that 199 people died must also be counted as miraculous. This leads into the whole area of whether god is perfectly good as Christians believe. That's a huge area of debate, with lots of theological reasoning on both sides.

6th Paragraph. You wrap your essay up very nicely, drawing all the threads of your essay into a nice conclusion. I disagree with it *Wink* but of course I would, but as a fellow traveller that's looked at some of the same ideas as you have, I can appreciate good thinking when I see it.

I hope you carry on thinking just as hard about these very serious questions, and look at all the information from all the sources out there. Good luck with your research in the future *Smile*
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Review by Audubon Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.5)
Nice idea, you lend the idea of season's wishes a bit more integrity.

You don't just aim at the normal expressions of sharing/togetherness. Which to be honest is terribly romantisised and has lost any semblance of reality. The 'Hallmark Holiday' philosophy has stripped all meaning away from investigation of the actual emotions and meaning which originally underpined the celebration. The emotion was in fact the cause of the celebration, now the celebration causes the emotion.

To be critical, you do rather tend to slap the face of your reader with it. Words like "gift" and "present" in quotation marks are an example of patronising your readership. If you don't think they'll understand what you're trying to say without pointing it out in big capital letters, or in your case quotation marks, find another way of saying it.

I don't think you need to use them to be honest. The use of the word present as time and gift could be understood without the quotation marks. You've used a very unusual verse structure with lots of breaks and pauses, so why not just extend the style slightly further and split words too.

Pres'ent as opposed to pre'sent.

I thought it was very good, not something that would appeal to me to be honest as I'm a cynical b'**** at the best of times, downright misanthropic most of the time *Wink*

But as experimental work goes, I can appreciate good stuff, even though I think it could do with backing off a little bit. You do seem to be patronising rather than communicating.
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Review by Audubon Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
Nice read, reminds me of Shelley's Ozymandias. All the futile posturing of might for something that was destined to be useless in the end.

Interesting end, that kind of twist usually spices up a story no end. It worked well. Very moralistic in that sinse.
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Review of Station 7  Open in new Window.
Review by Audubon Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Great story. Lovely characterisation. I especially liked the old woman, so calm and content.

I had thought you'd made the ending a bit too obvious. I was wrong. I knew something was strange, and had worked out it was some kind of death ride from the plotline. So the surprise of him being dead, wasn't a surprise. The fact that he wasn't dead, but it was his girlfirend. That was a nice touch.

Thanks for a nice read.

Audubon
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Review of Buffalo Spirits  Open in new Window.
Review by Audubon Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | N/A (Review only item.)
A nice poem. Really brings out what we've lost.

I'm not sure about the second line though. What claim are you talking about?

It just didn't seem to fit in to me. Were the Buffalo claiming something? The people at the fire?

The last stanza is very good, the odd indentation break it up very well. Giving it a staccato running feel.
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Review of Unsung Hero  Open in new Window.
Review by Audubon Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
I didn't enjoy your story at all. Which is why I think it's brilliant. You have an extremely unlikeable protagonist, cliche after cliche, and paper thin characterisations.

I think it was perfect. I have the feeling you set out to write the best bad story you could. Everything fits together so well. The cliche's support each other, and the protagonist carries the whole thing.

It started out like just a plain bad story. But you made it work. I've never seen something like this before. A plot designed to annoy with characters that are impossible to like.

Yet it works.

Very well done. I hope you can bring this level of immagination to any future work you do. I honestly think this shows real promise as an experimental story.
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Review by Audubon Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.5)
Very amusing.

I like the idea of finding proof of God and Intelligent design in the finding of a fossilised Campbell's soup tin. That god create's Campbell's soup is a great twist. The juxtaposition of divine perfectness and the soup is wonderful.

A great spoof of current propaganda. Making the protagonist unliked is an especially nice touch. When he can prove his claim it makes the audience very unsympathetic. A double negative, the unsympathetic in a spoof would be the sympathetic in reality.

A great quick read. Making it's point directly and entertainingly.
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Review of THE LEGACY  Open in new Window.
Review by Audubon Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
The story starts slow, leading you into the fantasy world easily. No doubt this is just a day dreaming romantic with their sights set high.

Then comes the meat. A nice segue into what appears to be just another fantasy on the surface. A suicide, grand larceny and a tragic case of a fall from grace.

Then the hook that really gets into you, leaving you with a smile. The fall was a great one, but in falling from through fantasy land and a tragedy, she lifts herself to a new height. The fantasy becomes reality.

A great story
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