James Webb Writes About Incest and Pedophilia

Right Wing News ^ | 10/15/2006 | John Hawkins

[ReagansRaiders]

Back in September, I did a piece on some of the N-Bombs and bizarre sexual content in three of James Webb's books, which to me, seemed to be pretty relevant.

After all, the WAPO has been trying to make the fact that George Allen said the word, "Macaca," which about 3 people had ever heard of before Allen said it, into the biggest story of the election cycle. Meanwhile, James Webb's books feature N-bombs galore and women slicing up fruit with their private parts. But that, the MSM doesn't want to go into detail about.

In any case, recently, someone alerted me to a depraved passage in another one of Webb's other books, that just blows everything away that I've posted so far. For reasons I cannot fathom, in Webb's book, Lost Soldiers, he has a scene that features incestuous pedophilia. Now here's the kicker: not only is it a completely gratuitous scene, the characters in the book, bizarrely, don't even seem to react to a sex act being performed on a child in front of them.

If that sounds surreal, it's because it is. It's like Webb was sitting around one day and said, "You know what this book needs? A father performing a sex act on his child while people act like it's an everyday occurrence. That will really throw people for a loop!"

Now, I'm going to go into detail about what happened, but it will be below the fold in case any of you want to spare yourself something even more disgusting than the Foley IMs.

Continued...

[AmishDude]

If I recall correctly, a certain LAPD detective was completely villified and discredited for having "used" the so-called N-word in the development of a fiction book.

[Rembrandt_fan]

I'm with you on pornography, and while this is purely anecdotal, I personally know of two marriages broken beyond repair by the pornography addiction of the husband. It's bizarre to me, forsaking the love of a good woman for the sake of detached, vicarious thrills obtained from still photos and film.

The French have a phrase for this (of course): "nostalgie de la boue," which means: 'longing for the muck [of the gutter].'

Some people are like pigs, and like to wallow in filth. I don't understand this attraction to the nasty and horrible, but I know a little about art and literature. The key is intent; that is, what the creator of a given work, literary or visual, intends to arouse in the viewer/experiencer of his work. If a Rodin sculpture depicts a naked man and woman locked in a passionate embrace, we can be assured that Rodin's intent was not to arouse feelings of wanton lust, even if we know nothing of Rodin and his work. If Nabokov describes a middle-aged man's pursuit of an underage girl, we can be assured the author's intent was not to give us the vicarious pleasure of the seduction of an innocent.

The judge who said of porn, 'I know it when I see it' wasn't off the mark. Pornography, written or visual, announces itself. We know it when we see it.

[Rembrandt_fan]

The lead defense attorney of that particular case no doubt had a checklist. The first item on the checklist read, 'Play the race card.' The second item read, 'Vilify and discredit police.'

Two birds, one stone.

[AmishDude]

I think this is a goose/gander issue.

The real story here is that nobody addressed this before. I think your argument is rational (although some of the language reminds me a bit of Mr/Ms Garrison's supposedly objective writing style).

However, Webb's propensity for evocative imagery should have at least been part of the campaign discussion. Certainly if Allen had such a writing history it would have been analyzed endlessly in the WaPo.

This is a previously published work that one can (presumably) purchase on Amazon. This is in no way a surprise -- October or otherwise.

And by the universal race card standard, Webb is a virulent racist for using the word in his novels.

[Rembrandt_fan]

You wrote, "And graphic descriptions of pedophile acts have zero place in literature. Some things are off limits, and that's one of them."

Who establishes those limits? You? Keeping to the Webb example, he was within the boundaries of legitimate literary expression, although I can't imagine writing something along those lines myself. I have two children, and writing anything describing harm to kids strikes too close to home, since the thought of anything happening to them cuts me off at the knees, but that's just me. In one of his novels--I forget which one--Stephen King uses a flashback sequence to describe the childhood sexual assault of one of his central characters--in graphic (although not pornographic) detail, and at the time, I didn't hear anyone proclaiming King a child molester wannabe.

[little jeremiah]

Well, since thanks to porn producers and the ACLU *and* the black robed ones (SCOTUS), there are now no limits whatsoever to any filth, degradation, vile, violent, or sexually graphic material that can printed, acted out, filmed, etcetc.

So our discussion is academic. In some of the families I know of there have been children who have been more or less ruined as well. BTW.

[Rembrandt_fan]

You wrote, "...although some of the language reminds me a bit of Mr/Ms Garrison's supposedly objective writing style)."

I confess I don't know who Mr. or Ms. Garrison is, or what his/her 'supposedly objective writing style' implies.

[AmishDude]

It's a South Park reference. A man who refuses to admit to himself that he's gay writes an erotic novel thinking he's appealing to women. The title is "The Valley of the Penises" and he's shocked to discover that the publisher views it as a "gay novel".

[JCEccles]

This article was shoddy and below-the-belt.

Webb's sick prose was shoddy and below the belt.

Literally.

[JCEccles]

You call yourself a writer. Do you have no limits, no minimum standards of decency?

[Rembrandt_fan]

Oh, that Mr. Garrison. So you're saying...what? That since I'm arguing that impugning Webb's character on the basis of his fiction constitutes a foul, and that the excerpt in question is within the realm of legitimate literary expression, then...

Geez, AmishDude. Now that I get the reference, I finally get the insult--and what an insult, too. If you're implying what I think you're implying, you just took this whole discussion down to a whole new level. And you did it so craftily, too--using wording so vague the mods would never pick up on it, even if I complained. What a guy. It's fair to say no one has ever said anything like that about me before, and I've had enemies--you know, the real kind, who say it to your face because they were, you know, real men.

[AmishDude]

For a writer, you have a real comprehension problem.

Let me spell it out for you: I think Webb's writing is a little too suspiciously detailed and gratuitous in places not to be a bit of a window into his soul.

But you are welcome to continue with your martyr act if you like.

[Rembrandt_fan]

You wrote, "Do you have no limits, no minimum standards of decency?"

Of course I do, but my personal standards aren't the point. I looked up your Freeper site, Mr. Intelligent Design, and know I don't want the likes of you setting those limits or establishing those 'minimum standards of decency'.

[JCEccles]

Standards ARE the point. Webb has fallen far short of them. He has no shame, no sense of personal decency. His character is squarely in issue.

[Rembrandt_fan]

Don't know what you mean by 'martyr act', sport, but I do know when someone is backpedaling from a gratuitous (and vicious) ad hominem attack. C'mon, while you're spelling it out for me, spell out that 'Mr Garrison' slur more fully, for the record. Martyrs are rather passive types, I understand. There's little passivity to me. Believe it.

Oh, well. About this 'bit of a window into his soul' business. Follow the logic. Poets and writers such as Milton wrote at enormous length about Lucifer, Dante about Hell, and endless others about all sorts of dark, evil, vile, disgusting things. Most of them were and are the most decent of human beings, or at least ordinary. So what does that child molestation passage say about Webb? He was, I gather, attempting to show an absolutely morally desolated environment, where evil and perversion had become humdrum and commonplace. Whatever else it might say about Webb (and writers describing similar things), it is that they understand the distinction between morally rich and morally poor settings; that is, that Webb and similar writers have essentially moral concerns. Insofar as 'suspiciously detailed and gratuitous' are concerned, Webb (as I recall from his novel 'Fields of Fire') is a highly detailed, highly realistic writer--even wordy. So essentially you're seeing style, not soul.

[Rembrandt_fan]

You wrote, "His character is squarely in issue."

I agree, but not for the same reasons. Webb has run a despicable campaign, setting up Allen on that 'Macaca' deal, going so far as to align himself with the Kos Kids and the MoveOn crowd, throwing mud without substance--and that isn't even delving into his motivations for switching parties, or his weirdly abrupt and psychologically suspect, hot-headed resignation from the Reagan Administration. Like I said previously, he can be beaten on the character issue, but invoking his fiction as ammunition is bad thinking--and worse--bad strategy.

[AmishDude]

Wow. You're not very bright, are you? There was no slur, numbskull. First, it's not always about you. Second, people with a martyr complex can be full of sound and fury, too.

It's not what Webb wrote, it's the language he used to write it. If you've seen the South Park episode in question, it wasn't Garrison's subject matter (which was heterosexual) it was the language he used (which was gay).

But I understand if South Park is too subtle for you.

[Rembrandt_fan]

You wrote, "There was no slur, numbskull."

Bold talk, coming from a guy crouched anonymously over his keyboard. Personally, I refrain from flame war name-calling and spiteful ad hominems no matter how heated the argument becomes, since it comes off as cowardly.

You didn't address the Milton, Dante, 'window to the soul' counterargument, of course, and that 'Garrison' slur had nothing to do with Webb or his writing style; it was directed at me.

Is that all you got?

[mrsmith]

"Webb's propensity for evocative imagery should have at least been part of the campaign discussion. Certainly if Allen had such a writing history it would have been analyzed endlessly in the WaPo. "

True, true. In fact today (no doubt after looking at the web last night) the WashPost came out with what sounds like an "innocculation" for Webb: Defiant Iraq War Foe Defined by Vietnam

"he is first a writer... complexities... temperament"

[Luis Gonzalez]

Kissing a son's penis is a very common tradition in Afghanistan, associated with showing love, but this book takes place in Vietnam, so I don't see the connection.