I just can’t with the “don’t make fun of us for defending the Hays Code! How are we supposed to know what that even is?”
You. Look. It. Up. You look it up. YOU LOOK IT UP. You do what you should be doing every single time you see something you don’t understand. You fuckin look it up. You have libraries of information in your pocket. Look it up. You do not have an excuse for not opening another tab, typing in the thing, and hitting enter. Look it up.
And if you’re LGBTQIA, Bipoc, non-xtian, or a woman in the US, and you spend any time looking up your history, you will see the Hays Code. It’s not just a silly old rule that we can laugh at now. It’s the framework we’re trying to dismantle. You need to know this. You should’ve been taught by your parents and teachers, but if you weren’t, you have to pick up the slack and do the research yourself. That sucks and I’m sorry, but it’s an unavoidable part of life.
See, this is that critical thinking stuff that purity culture is so obsessed with. You cannot interpret a thing (like “sex scenes are only for horny lol” being juxtaposed with the Hays Code) if you don’t know
- the meaning of the language (the definitions of “sex,” “story,” “passion,” etc), the topics referenced (the Hays Code, what sex scenes are),
- the speakers (Lily Orchard is notoriously aggressive, bigoted, and authoritarian… the Hays Code was written by a priest, a trade paper editor, and some studio heads),
- or the context (the first statement is part of a ridiculous list of “writing tips” that also includes such gems as [paraphrased] wlw only kissing at the end is abuse, high-stakes conflict is bad, and the good guy must kill the villain, and was written in 2020… while the Hays Code was written in 1930 as a way to self-censor bc they thought the govt might step in if anyone saw their media as “lowering the moral standards” of ppl with “succeptible minds,” aka women, children, the disabled, and poor ppl who needed to be spoon-fed images of the “correct standards of life”).
You really do need that info. You do. You need to go get it. Then you look at it. And you combine it with all of the other applicable info you have. (For example, if you have had sex, or consumed any media containing sex.) Then you think through the thing, while taking everything you know into account. You identify what it was supposed to mean, and decide what it means to you. Congratulations! You have done the critical thinking.
At least if you still agree that sex’s only purpose in literature is to give you a boner, and that it’s a good idea to put down sweeping policies to prevent that from happening, you’ll have some kind of thought process behind it. And you can start trying to reconcile that view with its historical and present effects on minorities and society as a whole.
And if you don’t know what those effects are, FUCKIN LOOK IT UP
