Huh, well, the way I see it, the purpose (or one of the purposes) of creative writing is to make us feel things--manipulate our emotions, make us think, open our eyes to new ideas. When I am writing I am certainly trying--hoping--to manipulate reader's emotions.

Just to be clear, I am agreeing with you; my point isn't that manipulating the reader's emotions is bad in and of itself, it's manipulating them without a clear purpose. A perfect example: The gang rape. What purpose did it have? Did anything significant come of this? No. Not a damn thing.