写作方法2022europeanreviewofbooks.com
美国人如何删去我作品中的性内容
How Americans edit sex out of my writing
导读
一位欧洲作者讲述自己的文章被美国编辑删去涉及性的细节，他感到被审查、被误解；评论则从两边拆解：编辑未必是清教徒式的洁癖，而是在替美国读者补上作者没打算加的联想。这篇值得写作者读，因为它逼你思考「细节会替读者说话」这件事：你写下的每个具体物件，都带着读者自带的道德与文化语境。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
编辑删你的句子，未必是在审查内容，也可能是在告诉你：这句话在读者那里读不通，或者读出了你没想表达的意思。
- 02
每个细节都携带读者自带的语境：成年人白天当着孩子抽烟喝酒，会被一部分读者直接读成「坏父母」，除非那正是你想表达的，否则别放进去。
- 03
用「内裤和T恤」这类具体细节传达脆弱感时，它同时在传递亲密、羞耻与共谋；删掉它，整段的温度和人物关系也会跟着变。
- 04
动笔前先想清楚目标读者会替你补上什么——同一段文字在不同文化里的默认解读可以完全相反。
- 05
遇到删改先分清两件事：是句子本身含混（如「marriage blackout nights」这类读者无法解析的表达），还是价值观冲突，两者的改法不同。
HN 评论精选
被删的未必是性，可能只是含混或冗余的表达，作者可能误读了编辑意图。
这篇有点像作者过度解读了。文中被删的两处，一处是「marriage blackout nights」这种读者根本解析不了的表达，另一处是「the usual briefs and t-shirt」——这本身并不是性描写。在我看来，编辑做的是让段落更顺畅的改动，作者却不知为何把它们理解成「删掉性」。
treis查看英文原文
This is kind of a weird article. There were two cuts: >There were mornings following marriage blackout nights Maybe it's just me but I don't understand what this sentence means. I've never heard of a "marriage blackout night" and can't parse what it means. The second cut was taking "the usual briefs and t-shirt" out of this sentence: >The other day I was sitting on my bed, the usual briefs and t-shirt, camera on the lines of my face and the new grey of my beard, when my wife came in the room as she was taking off the t-shirt she’d slept in "the usual briefs and t-shirt" is not a sexual statement. From what I can tell they've taken edits meant to improve the flow of the paragraph and, for reasons I can't see, taken them as editing sex out.
细节会被读者按自己的文化语境补全含义，编辑是在提示这种「 unintended 联想」。
编辑并不是在搞清教徒式的审查，他们是在告诉他：他的文字被美国人读到时会附带作者本人未必想加的语境。比如文末那个「坏父母」的例子——作者只是在描摹想象中的场景，但现代读者看到成年人白天当着孩子抽烟喝酒，就会解读成坏父母。如果他确实想表达这个，没人会反对保留这些细节；如果他不想让人物被看成坏父母，就该删掉这些细节，因为它们对场景没有帮助。
a2tech查看英文原文
The editors are not being puritanical. They're trying to illustrate to him that his writing (when read by an American) is adding context that he may not be trying to add. For example, the bad parenting example at the bottom. He clearly illustrates that the author is simply capturing a scene as he imagines it, but the modern interpretation of an adult smoking and drinking in front of their child in the middle of the day is going to be interpreted as them being bad parents. If thats what he means to express, no one is going to complain about the inclusion of those details. If he doesn't WANT them to be cast as bad parents, don't include those details because they're not helping with the scene.
删一个细节会连带改变叙述者的位置、人物关系与整段的道德观感，删改从来不是中性的。
作者那段自述很戳人：他说在自己的版本里，他只穿着内裤，那种羞耻是人物自带的、存在性的而非政治性的；把内裤写进页面是展示脆弱的方式，又不必把处境说得太明白，能添一点温度、一点粗粝、一点同袍感与混乱。可编辑这么一改，味道全变了：一个衣着整齐的人去调侃赤裸的妻子，就显得不公平甚至不正义；而删掉醉酒断片的暗示后，两人之间共有的疲惫与悲伤、亲密与默契也一起消失了。这让我想到2015年之后人们常说的表达上的「寒蝉效应」，这位美国编辑几乎像个隐喻。
kodah查看英文原文
> Yet when the editor showed me their notes, I felt bad, I felt I was wrong. I felt that mentioning my briefs was wrong. It was as if I were being called out for a misdemeanor. The editing was so subtle and penetrating, it sent me on a tailspin. How can I explain? In my version, I was in my underpants, and that specific shame was inherent to the portrayal. That shame was existential yet not political. Putting my underwear on the page was a way to show vulnerability, but without making it too clear a predicament, a way of adding the warmth, the sleaze, the camaraderie, the confusion. In their edit, though, it became something altogether different: my making ironic fun of my naked wife was now unfair—even unjust—as it was now coming from a presumably fully-clad person. And without the hint of our drunken blackouts, we now had no shared sadness and exhaustion, and also no affection and complicity. This paragraph really hits home for me with respect to what people refer to as a "chilling effect" on expression post 2015. This American editor almost feels like a metaphor. When juxtaposed with our values, it's clear how things got this way. Social media lets us casually evoke, and even moralize, these judgements. When cast en masse with hash tags, threads, and replies it looks like a very unsafe world for us to be ourselves. Suddenly, things look less free than they used to be. A man must be poking idle, unpleasant fun at his barely dressed wife. A parent must be bad if there's beer or cigarettes observed, but not when hidden - that's a different kind of ill, right? All these little cliches add up to a larger story, and that's what I'm reading. Our tendency for clear villains and heroes leaks into everything we do - even to how we shape our literature.
同一文化对外呈现的形象与内部实际的禁忌并不一致，写作时要分清受众处在哪一层。
从外部看，美国对性的文化态度很古怪：它对外通过媒体投射的形象是「性、毒品与摇滚乐」的享乐国度，但对内却像个远比欧洲和亚洲更拘谨保守的社会。
gbasp查看英文原文
Tangentially related to the topic but I find American cultural attitudes towards sex very bizarre from the outside looking in. The view America projects of itself to the world through media is that it's the land of "Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll" and Americans love having fun, but internally America feels culturally like a deeply prudish country, much more than in Europe and Asia.
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