The Kindness Bench for SimLit Writers - For All Games!

So one thing I really enjoy personally about not really understanding sexual attraction is that it helps me to understand sexual attraction in a different way. It's like what I wrote in the spoiler in the Art Commune thread. When I encounter those who are very sexual--who perceive themselves, others, experiences, and the world--through the lens of sexual attraction, I can understand them (perhaps in an analogous way) by seeing that this is similar to my own aesthetic, romantic (but non sexual), spiritual, or even humanistic attraction. And one neat aspect of that is that it allows me to view sexual attraction apart from the moral baggage that has been heaped on it. Of course, from my perspective, health, safety, and procreative responsibility are essential. But given that, I find that I'm open to looking at all sorts of experiences. And that makes reading Eight Cicadas very interesting and fun. With the irony and hyperbole, there's a lot of joy and play in the story...

This is where the compassion and love that I find in your story enter in, with the way you explore suffering. I was writing in the Art Commune thread about a writer's capacity for discomfort being a key to being able to write difficult things, and Eight Cicadas is an example of that. There's also so much love. Maybe love, too, and compassion come from developing a capacity for not resisting the discomfort. Your respect for your characters and their decisions is so evident. At any rate, art comes out of that, and also understanding.