I’ve never had occasion to deal with a sensitivity reader. As I worked on The Magic Battery, I asked for input from Jewish friends on my treatment of Jewish characters, but my concern was whether I’d gotten it right, not whether I was being “sensitive.” They were helpful, but I couldn’t find a single person who lived in the 16th century to give a Reformation period perspective.

A recent Reason article, “Sensitivity Readers Are the New Gatekeepers” (or “Rise of the Sensitivity Reader”) takes a very skeptical view of sensitivity readers. I don’t know if things in the publishing industry are actually as bad as the article represents, but the concept sounds dubious to me. I don’t write to be “sensitive.” I write to address “What if” questions, to tell a good story, and to give the reader something to think about. That sometimes means hurting people’s feelings. If you want something completely safe and bland, read Winnie the Pooh. (Provided you aren’t acrophobic or melissophobic.)

The story which leads the article is perversely amusing. Author Alberto Gullaba Jr. submitted a novel which the agent liked a lot. But before submitting it, “the agent suggested Gullaba update his bio to emphasize his racial identity.” It’s unfortunately true that some readers judge a book by its author’s skin color. Gullaba is Filipino, which surprised the agent. He was asked to add an Asian character, and then to change his lead character from black to Filipino. Why all these changes? Because “this needs to be your story.” Should I laugh or groan?

Having independent readers check over a manuscript for problems is a good thing in general. It can prevent embarrassing errors from seeing print. For example, writing dialogue with misspellings to indicate an accent is usually a bad idea. But what do authors actually get? The author, Kat Rosenfield, writes about her own experience as a one-time sensitivity reader:

My job was not to offer my take on the book, as a woman. It was to scrutinize the text from the perspective of a woman who was not me, someone far more sensitive and prone to taking offense than myself—a person whose perspective, thought, and feelings I could only imagine. But per the rules of sensitivity reading, I was allowed to do this, while the author, due to lacking the proper chromosomal and/or genital configuration, was not.

Pre-publication readers with skill and expertise are great, but Rosenfield says of the typical sensitivity reader: “They’re cheap. The average cost of a sensitivity read is a few hundred dollars per manuscript, and it’s a freelance job.” When she says “cost,” that makes me think she’s talking about what the agency gets, not what the reader gets.

Running your writing past a reader who’ll catch your blunders before reaching editors and the public is an essential part of creating a decent novel. But if your goal is to make your work so bland that no one will take offense, why bother writing? Sensitivity is overrated. Writing should challenge, disturb, provoke, alarm, and occasionally outrage its readers. There’s a place for feel-good stories, but readers need a kick in their sensitivities if they’re ever going to expand their horizons.