I once was an artist. My art teacher once said I had real promise. But then I read the Horse's Mouth and realized I hated this notion that the cause of art supercedes all aspects of human society: the institutions of family, friendship, govt, and all emotional bonds, morality and descency. In fact even Joyce Cary agreed with me. And my art teacher is now dead.

After reading the script for the Kite Runner rape scene, I am absolutely disgusted and outraged. It is a kind of 'art' which utterly violates all standards of society: family, morality. Worse yet, this screenplay reads like porn.

As a father of 3, including a 14 yr old boy struggling with puberty, I am infuriated by this child rape porn which thinly masquerades as 'art' and which Slate publishes as 'journalism'.

It is absolutely wrong and disgusting. To publish. To include in the movie. To even think. It is offensive to every sensibility.

Maybe Americans should consider why their fellow citizens patronize sex tourism for child rape in Thailand, Mexico and elsewhere. Maybe a gangrenous intellectual rot exists in America which hides vile pedophilia in the bowels of intellectual curiosity for 'artistic' and journalistic motivations. This rotting intellectual class in America is increasingly despised around the world for their decadence and imperial amorality.

I hate The Kite Runner and Slate for publishing this....

Dear Usama-- I deplore child abuse and violence as much as you. Hot Document is about exposing and explaining primary sources. As a simulated act in a dramatic film adapted from a bestselling novel has become an international issue affecting two very opposite cultures, I felt examining the screenplay pages was appropriate. Sorry you disagree. Bonnie Goldstein

I agree, what can one describe as obscenity if not works such as this?

my apologies, I hadn't realized this was from a book. I thought it was from the diary of a republican congressman. My personal take? Life is a mixture of the pleasant and unpleasant and art is a way of viewing or representing aspects of life. What is more horrific? to read about a rape of a child or to deny that it happens? To view this constructively, one should focus less on the unpleasantness of the act or its assault on our senses and more on what we are doing to stop it from happening. All to often, people seem to look at art as something which offends them rather than something that makes them think. These are the people that listen to talk radio. They listen, not to be educated, but to be made angry about something. To get that visceral thrill of hate for something but knowing, deep down, that you won't get your ass out of the chair to help solve the problem, if it is, in fact, actually a problem as rape is a problem.

Ms Goldstein, thank you for responding. I understand your ethical position as a journalist and your attempt to balance this with your moral stand as a conscientous person.

jalaroc, your mythical manichean rhetorical question appears like a defense of the immoral masquerading as activism.

I am no Dittohead. Nor am I an uncultured brute from the backwoods, or deserts as it may be. Perhaps YOU should read the Horse's Mouth.

At some point, morality and the defense of the IDEA of the innocent child must force the activities of adults to be subverted, subdued, or otherwise subjugated. I live in Florida which has regularly experienced incidents of adult men kidnapping, raping, and murdering children in broad daylight. Anything which might encourage men to ponder the possibility of performing such an act: child porn, erotica, literary fiction, movies, internet blogs, should be censored and beatened into the deepest darkest shadows of human psyche. There is no life for such. Not a breath of fresh air, no light. It should be rendered a pariah of all human societies, not treated condescendingly as a happenstance of some wartorn provincial land of illiterate or "lesser" people. Such societal condescension is why American men are found wandering undeveloped lands as sex tourists, hoping to fulfill some festering lech. Perhaps you should read the Immoralist too.