A couple of things have me thinking about the Writer-Reader relationship. Some have been stewing in my head for months, like the above clip of Harlan Ellison talking about how hard it is for writers to get paid.* This article on how hard it is for dancers to get compensated for their work also has me scratching my head. Others are more recent, like this kerfuffle with Nightshade books. I didn’t know what to do with any of these thoughts until recently.
A kindly soul named Massageon left this gem of a comment on my last entry.
I used to read this site all the time, and loved stories about your life and your family.
Okay, I understand different readers want different things, and it’s natural to feel disappointment when you get something other than what you expected. Let’s see where this goes.
They were well written and usually quite funny…
I get a somewhat back-handed compliment, but hey, it’s still a compliment, right?
…but I just don’t like anything on this site anymore. I’m sorry…
I highly doubt that you’re sorry.
…but once in a while I check back here just to see if you’ve written something actually worth reading, but alas the posts are all crap.
Ah… here we are. The retarded spewing of disappointment in hopes of being noticed.
I thought long and hard about pulling this comment up and writing a post around it, even though Massageon has been a total raging bitch before, and I let it slide. After all, don’t I open myself up to this kind of criticism when I whore out my writing? When I prostitute out my life experiences, doesn’t that give my readers the right to act like raging cocks?
Then I remembered, I’m not a whore. I’m a slut. And as a slut, I am fucking outraged.
Dear Massageon,
If you’re fucking me in the face free of charge, don’t start screaming that you’d rather be fucking me in the ass.
Regards,
BC Woods
I have a very large archive filled with stories about my family. You haven’t paid for any of them. Ever. Further, you’ve never attempted to pay for anything. And before you get up in a kerfuffle about how you pay me with your readership, let me go ahead and drop this bomb: Get the Fuck Out.
I’ve intentionally structured my site so I can tell you “Get the Fuck Out” whenever I want, without losing a wink of sleep.
I don’t charge because I’m still exploring the craft. I’m still solidifying what I want to do. And because of that I want to feel free to post whatever the fuck I feel like posting. You coming here and vindictively bitching that I don’t post specifically what you want is like punching your girlfriend in the face because she doesn’t feel like letting you fuck her ass.
There’s a spectrum of slut vs whore of course. Harlan Ellison being on the prim Geisha/Whore side of the spectrum, who will turn a blind eye on you giving yourself a rub and tug through the front of your robe, but only after you’d paid him seven gold bu and listened to him play his harp for six or seven hours. Cory Doctorow occupies the other, sluttier end of the spectrum, with a wild, crazy, no-holds-barred free for all where you can throw a few cum-stained dollar bills at him -or not- so long as you’ve shown up to fuck.
I’m somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, being a self-hating emotional wreck who continually sluts himself out in hopes that maybe once, just once I might feel some glimmer of love. Yes, I will fuck you, but we will only do the positions I want, and I don’t want your money… at least not yet.
Which is why I am even more blown away by the vindictiveness of Massageon’s comment.
Regular Johns come up to me and say “BC, take this money! Let me make an honest woman out of you! I’ll take you away from this hell-hole of free internet publishing! I will turn you into an honest whore and provide for you!” but I’ll just wipe the tears out of my mascara-stained eyes and reply:
“No… you’re too good for me. But maybe one day, after I’ve gotten all of this slutty fucking out of my system, when I’ve learned to suck a dick so well a blind-folded American GI couldn’t tell the difference between my mouth and that of a War-Era Vietnamese village girl whose life depends on it… maybe then I will let you leave a few crumpled dollar bills at my feet.”
Massageon doesn’t even have the quiet, pathetic nobility of these Johns. Instead, as I sit in the dockside tavern that is the internet, batting my broken slut eyes in hopes that someone might give me some useful advice, or even a smile, Massageon kicks down the door, attempts to man-handle me over a juke-box and THEN tries to put her cock in my asshole all the while whispering in my ear, the whiskey-like smell of internet entitlement strong on her breath, that I’ll be a good little slut and fuck however she tells me to fuck.
If a whore wants to get mad at me for undercutting the market, fine. If a John wants to get upset at a whore for not delivering the goods, fine. If someone I’ve fucked says that they’ve been emotionally hurt by my fucking, fine.
But dear Massageon, the one thing you should NEVER EVER do is bitch about a free blow job.
*This is, so far as I have been able to tell (and I gave more than a lazy ass effort), something that Harlan Ellison authorized the Writers Guild to use during the strike a little over a year back, otherwise I would not have included the clip. I will take it down if anyone can provide evidence to the contrary.











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