How blatantly offensive is your novel?

Mine is very, but it's all for comedy. None of it's really intended as offensive, just played for laughs. Like any episode of Tosh.0.

I use a lot of religion in my books, particularly Christianity. Plus I have God as a character in my world. So, I'm sure it's going to raise some eyebrows, but I'm not intending to be hurtful or disrespectful or anything like that.

Offense, like humour is all a matter of perspective.

Mine might be slightly offensive, considering there's a lot of political references planned (one of the minor character is an evil alien dictator) but other than that, nothing. I definitely don't want to offend anyone, anyway - I just want to make people laugh, to be honest. :)

Well, last year involved the President being taken apart, juggled, put back together, and later turned into chocolate and used as a puppet by an evil alien overlord.
He got better, of course. Not sure if that makes it OK, though...

I'm hoping mine isn't blatently offensive. I'm trying to go for 'poking-fun-at' rather than 'laughing-openly-at', but that's a fairly fine line. But at the same time I recognise I'm poking fun at religion, which might be blatently offensive to a lot of people.

My partner and I both had separate ideas at making books about how dating sucks with fictionalized accounts of our own bad dates. Individually, it seems as if one particular gender simply SUCKS and it has almost a sexist twist because of our characters' dissillusionment. We realized if we combined them, it becomes approachable, unbiased, and rather fun and turns the "suck at this" factor onto the MCs as individuals.

One of the characters pokes fun at my MC for being a Reform Jew, but it's to highlight his ignorance and butthead traits.

Some say that my novel is ridiculously hilarious. Some say it's extremely offensive. I'd like to think that it's won't really that offensive after it's actually written but that the concepts in it may be offensive if not handled properly.

In my novel, a crazy fangirl kidnaps the male celebrity who is the object of her affections, rapes him, and becomes pregnant with his child on purpose. She gets caught and sent to jail, but she soon escapes. She ends up having a long-lost twin sister who was abducted at birth by a doctor whose wife had had a miscarriage the day before. The celebrity crosses paths with her long-lost twin, thinks that she is his rapist who is now on the loose, and he calls the police. The wrong twin gets throw in jail. The guilty twin hears about the arrest of her twin and uses this to her advantage. She finds out everything she can about her twin from the media coverage of the arrest and by hiring a private investigator. She then sets out to meet the celebrity again. He calls the cops, but she's supposedly already in jail. They arrest her anyway until they can figure out which of them is really the guilty one. She successfully impersonates her twin and gets released. She continues impersonating her twin and forms a romantic relationship with the celebrity while using this identity. At the end, he finds out she's really his rapist, and it's like pouring salt in his wounds.

The objections I've heard include that it's 'offensive and insulting to rape and sexual assault victims' because it minimizes their suffering. An actual rape survivor or sexual assault victim 'would never fall in love with anyone who looked in any way similar to his or her rapist let alone is completely identical'. I've found psychological information that would allow me to work around this, such as exposure therapy and cognitive restructuring therapy. Also, I'm supposedly making light of rape by making jokes about it - which I'm not. People heard the word 'satire' and 'rape' in the same plot and their minds automatically jumped to 'she's making fun of rape'. Satire doesn't have to be funny. So... yeah... I don't think my novel is nor should it be offensive, as the rape will be devastating to my character. He will develop PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder. He will even attempt suicide. The satire isn't in the rape incident nor in its effects but in the exaggerated version of a crazy fangirl. I'm criticizing the lengths they will go to to get close to celebrities and how it completely takes over their lives.

Any thoughts?

Let's see, I'm planning on having:

Racism
Ceaseless profanity
Countless penis jokes
Countless slightly veiled masturbation references
Sexual fetishes (the disturbing ones)
Violence
Mocking of children
White collar crimes
Organized crime

Oh dear.

laundrylint- I think you are my second favorite person on this website as of now. That sounds a lot like my book, lol.

My novel is about death. As a person. And he's been around so long that he doesn't believe in religion, which makes my novel offensive, as it pokes fun at virtually everyone.

I think mine's going to come across as offensive to women, if only because I'm taking the archetype evil female overlord bitch and hamming her up even more. And she's going to seduce my MMC. And fall in love with the hero and have her heart broken. And die horribly.

Yeah, the feminists are going to hate me.

But then, all but two of my characters are going to die anyway, so I suppose every minority represented is going to hate me for being 'ist' when I kill them off.

This thread reminded me of the favorite of my novels that I wrote, I often sum it up by saying, "It's a book where I insult every race, religion, and creed." It makes me happy! And I do not fear it being offensive, because offense forces people to open there eyes and recognize something. Cheers for being offensive!

Offense is a matter of perspective and can't always be forced or avoided, and you can't go horribly far out of your way to make sure that no one finds anything offensive -- but as far as I'm concerned, purposeful offense is lazy comedy. And no, there won't be any of it in my novel.

The plot I'm going with is rather tame by comparison to the one I put on a back burner:

"A Boy and His Mop" The tale of one young man and his lifelong struggle to stop his orgasm.

Mine might be offensive to anyone that liked the Twilight series, but I hope most of them will accept it as funny.

Yeah, same here. Mine will most likely include offense to:
vampires
werewolves
gays
transsexuals
anyone who likes twilight
black people
asian people
anyone who isn't white, basically
little people
women
men
et cetera...

Mine is about the psych ward so it will probably offend people with issues they haven't looked at yet... or people who haven't been in a psych ward who thinks it's offensive. :D

The question's not really whether a novel's offensive though. The Marquis de Sadde, Allen Ginsberg and Larry The Cable Guy have all been deemed offensive. That doesn't make them equal in any way, negatively or positively. The question is whether it provokes through interesting ideas or just for the hell of it. There's no style in just being offensive. I could think of a thousand horrible things off the top of my head, that doesn't make me an edgy or interesting artist. A good novel is about the collision of the visceral and the intellectual. And that should ALWAYS be shocking. Because it's honest.

Fuck.

Mine is definitely going to be offensive to evangelical christianists, pro-lifers, people against assisted suicide and hipsters. I can't wait!

Minor aged drinking
Laughing at every single religion
Drog use
Violence everywhere
Cursing
Zombie-Jesus.

I think that sums it up pretty nicely.