The Anti-Sensitivity Reader
Because someone has to do it
There has been some controversy earlier this year about sensitivity readers mutilating Roald Dahl books by taking out words like ‘fat’, ‘ugly’, or any other descriptions people do not like. After that, they started on Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, and on Agatha Christie.
Part of the controversy is that these authors are dead and are no longer in a position to object (rolling over in their graves being a mostly aspirational metaphor).
This type of correction takes the way some people look at these words today and applies these views to books that were written many decades before.
But what if sensitivities would have shifted in another way?
Enter the anti-sensitivity reader
The anti-sensitivity reader takes a balanced, friendly book and adds that extra bit of gritty realism, pulls you up short and tells you to sort yourself out, you and your namby-pamby ways. This may in itself prove controversial, but may also produce some much needed balance.
Example 1 – Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Original: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.”
Anti-sensitive version: It is all over Facebook that an alpha bro with loads of money, must be looking for young females. Never mind you cannot see his snarling face through the tinted windows of his Ferrari as he cruises though the backstreets, this truth is so obvious to all the other players as well as in the minds of girls wanting to be bikini models that he is considered the fastest way out of this godforsaken slum.
Example 2 – The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien
Original: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbithole, and that means comfort.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tubeshaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats – the hobbit was fond of visitors.”
Anti-sensitive version: The hobbit lived in a fucking hole in the ground. Imagine a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, recently converted by a couple of local lads to a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat. Either way, it was a hobbithole, and that means a shithole.
The shithole was obviously round, regularly bleached, with a shiny yellow buttplug in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tubeshaped hall like a garbage chute: an inhospitable tunnel in which you were not allowed to smoke, with mouldy walls, and floors tiled and carpeted by Polish handymen, and lots and lots of pegs, as you would expect, for the hobbit’s unfortunate visitors.
You get the point
Sensitivity or the lack of it is a matter for the author alone. It cannot be fixed after their death, unless there is a proviso in their will. Some authors use sensitivity readers to make sure they have understood a certain culture well enough to incorporate it into their writing. That is an entirely different matter. These sensitivity readers are there in an advisory capacity and the final decision remains with the author.
I could use an anti-sensitivity reader myself. I could not bring myself to write the H word or the B word so I squeamishly went with ‘young females’, which is anti-sensitivity ‘namby-pamby’ style. Still, the point is: sensitivities change over time and not always in the same direction