The problem is that its rare that certain sorts of personal views don't color someone's fiction writing at some point or another. Ask one-time fans of Marion Zimmer-Bradley how they now view in retrospect some scenes and subplots in some books in light the revelation that she'd been an enabler for her husband's sexual offenses.
Certainly it can. It doesn't always pollute a work so thoroughly though that the art isn't still there. But like I said, I have lines too. For those I wouldn't look so much to an artists personal life, as what people say about the work, what reviews tell me, etc. And I might start reading something and stop if for whatever reason the content is too much for me. I am not a fan of Marion Zimmer-Bradley (tried reading one of those books and could not get past the first few pages). But looking her up, if that kind of content made it into the book itself, the content on its own would probably be enough to turn me off to reading further. If it is more subtle, and I haven't read her works so I don't know, and more a matter of shedding light that changes how you view the work, sure that is a potential thing that can happen. I don't see the Cosby Show episode about the special sauce with the same eyes I did as a child. I think when artists truly cross lines, people have to decide for themselves how they are going to engage with the art. But the line you describe here is a massive one. The examples we were going over before were much more about shady business practices and vices. I mentioned Mailer who I think was an atrocious person. His bad behavior informed his work, but I can still enjoy it.
Again I am not against someone stopping reading something because they encounter a section that bothers them. I just don't use a writers personal life as a measure for whether I like the art or not. I can still appreciate Rosemary's Baby but think Roman Polanski is a horrible human being. That doesn't change that Rosemary's Baby is a great piece of cinema.
On content itself, especially disturbing things, definitely have lines in the work. That is very personal though. I remember the first time I saw a series based on Return of Condor Heroes, which is a great work of wuxia fiction, I was enjoying it up until I got to the scene where a main character is raped. That bothered me a lot, especially because I was unfamiliar with the story at the time, so I didn't know it was going to happen, and the character was central to the story. I found it pretty shocking and had to take a break from it. After a few days away from it, I went back and finished the series, then I eventually read the books. I am very glad I did. None of this pertains to the author's personal, but I can definitely sympathize with someone trying to figure out whether they want to proceed with content they find disturbing in some way. I am just using this as an example to say I think there is a difference between not paying attention to an author's personal life, and trying to decide what sort of content you want to avoid or not (and that it isn't always easy to formulate a judgement).
