Taboos

Anything that can be accurately preceded by the adjective 'gratuitous.'

In a little more detail: I don't squick easily for things like sex or violence, so long as they are shown to be what they are, and not romanticized. As long as the consequences remain intact, as long as the issue is explored and not tacked on, I'm okay.

And -- warning for personal pet peeve -- I also have a bit of a problem with the too much angst at once thing, where a protagonist is tortured, and then raped, and then her country goes to war and she's on the front lines, and then she's put in jail, and then her husband cheats on her with her best friend, and then they both die, and then she's tortured again, and then she's briefly pregnant but sadly loses the child, and then her dog dies and her truck's stolen and maybe she loses an eye. There's a limit to how much is really necessary when it comes to pain, death, torture, loss, etc. This actually ties in with the above: you have to have space to explore the effects of one horrible thing on your protagonist, or two horrible things and how they balance out, and then they can lead to three, four, or five. But sometimes it just gets silly, and then I'm not sympathizing so much as snickering.

Nyna said:

Anything that can be accurately preceded by the adjective 'gratuitous.'

In a little more detail: I don't squick easily for things like sex or violence, so long as they are shown to be what they are, and not romanticized. As long as the consequences remain intact, as long as the issue is explored and not tacked on, I'm okay.

And -- warning for personal pet peeve -- I also have a bit of a problem with the too much angst at once thing, where a protagonist is tortured, and then raped, and then her country goes to war and she's on the front lines, and then she's put in jail, and then her husband cheats on her with her best friend, and then they both die, and then she's tortured again, and then she's briefly pregnant but sadly loses the child, and then her dog dies and her truck's stolen and maybe she loses an eye. There's a limit to how much is really necessary when it comes to pain, death, torture, loss, etc. This actually ties in with the above: you have to have space to explore the effects of one horrible thing on your protagonist, or two horrible things and how they balance out, and then they can lead to three, four, or five. But sometimes it just gets silly, and then I'm not sympathizing so much as snickering.

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I have a protagonist who gets tortured and raped...he didn't appreciate either event. But no one stole his pickup truck or shot his hound dog.

I don't shy away from any words, be they curse or otherwise.

Sex I tend to not put in simply because there's nothing more cringe-inducing than a bad sex scene. Where characters have to fuck, I let people know in a manner that doesn't mean I have to do all that "he held her in his manly arms" kind of crap.

Violence goes in if it advances the story. The most-complete novel at the moment is set in a warzone, and as a result features some terrible and entirely senseless violence, but I've tried to describe it as straight as possible, without overdoing any adjectives. The things which I've done to the characters, I think, are horrific enough without me having to sell them to the reader. I actually think that keeping the gratuitous gore out of it helps to make the story grounded, and in doing so enhances the disturbing nature of the violence. The effect I've gone for more than anything is the suddenness of deadly violence, the concept of someone being there one second and then gone the next, with all the appropriate emotional fallout that impacts the rest of the characters. I don't think you need to describe much physical gore and blood to get the horror of that concept across.

As for rape and torture, it's hard to do such things, I find, without coming across as prurient, at least for me. I tend to try and find ways to tell rather than show, in these instances. In any event, the psychology of the characters involved tends to be more interesting than the actual physical processes. Such things are the framework on which one hangs your critical, emotionally harrowing dialogue.