it’s not the trope itself that militant fandom antis get mad about. it’s the ship.
imagine that you’re in a fandom where characters A, B, and C are all protagonists with friendly canon interactions – not necessarily friends, but definitely not enemies.
For a variety of reasons, you don’t really like it when people ship A & B together romantically. maybe you like B/C better. maybe you just don’t like the dynamics of A/B shipping. maybe it reminds you of a relationship you had that ended badly. Whatever the reason: A/B bothers you, and you wish nobody shipped it.
Imaginary You decides to try to stop people from shipping A/B. You start by telling people that based on canon, shipping A/B is morally and socially objectionable. with the redefining of words like ‘pedophilia’, ‘incest’, and ‘abuse’, it’s easy to turn canon molehills into mountains: A few years age difference is now ‘pedophilia’. knowing each other from childhood is ‘incest’. an argument is ‘abuse’.
But not only do people keep shipping A/B: they keep shipping it even while following your rules about what’s okay to ship! They make AUs where A&B are the same age! They age A&B up! They write slow burns where A&B start out friends and become lovers!
When you said ‘don’t ship A/B’ and gave reasons why not to, you meant for people to stop shipping A/B, not to ship A/B a different way!
So you find yourself having to teach people that A/B is always bad. it doesn’t matter how you ship it: it doesn’t matter what tropes you use. Any use of the imagination to make A/B a safe, ‘healthy’ ship is off-limits. (maybe you suggest that if one has to go to such lengths to make A/B okay to ship, they should just switch to the already healthy ship, B/C? it’s just a coincidence that you like B/C better. or maybe you like B/C because B/C isn’t gross like A/B.)
and that’s how you’ll find people objecting to tropes like friends-to-lovers.
it’s all just a means to an end – which is attacking any and all iterations of shipping the ship they don’t like.
fandom: I’m anti [this] and here’s why you should be too. Lemme lecture you and everyone about this thing it’s important we all come together to hate on it. 🙂 I just wanna be positive and this thing is nOT POSITIVE AND HERES WHY I HATE THIS THING. I JUST NEED To HAVE A CLEAN PURE BLOG. BUT PLS HATE THIS THING WITH ME. me:
If you can explain to me how I am fetishizing queerness by being queer, I will take your words into consideration.
Nonie has the sheer audacity to call you incoherent.
Yet does not use an apostrophe, space-key or question mark where it is clearly needed.
I assume- and it’s an assumption made on little evidence other than personal experience- that they’re typing poorly because they’ve got the shakes because they’re very upset that someone pointed out that their behaviour is unacceptable.
Trauma responses are Like That, and the majority of antishippers, especially those who are angry enough to send me detailed fantasies about post-mortem rape torture, tend to be dealing with trauma.
They’re dealing with it badly, but I try to cut them a little, little bit of slack in that regards.
That’s actually heartbreaking.
It’s a very common kind of reaction to the abusive manipulation that dominates antishipping “discourse.”
People with severe trauma are collected and preyed upon by a small group of aggressors, usually sex-negative radical feminists, and turned into a self destructive police force.
They are then praised for harming themselves, as long as they also harm others.
It’s actually one of the many ways that anitshipping discourse models itself, consciously or not, after cult dynamics which claim that it is noble to suffer as long as you make your enemy suffer too in the name of righteousness.
You also see this kind of thing a lot in extremist Christian sects, for example.
You make the right choice in trying to leave situations that are harmful for you. That is one of the healthiest coping mechanisms out there.
But it’s also something that has to be learned. At least in the context of abuse. If you grew up in a situation where abuse was unavoidable, you rapidly lose the “flight” stress response, and it takes conscious effort to regain it. Instead you rely very heavily on your other fear responses (fight and friend, usually, and sometimes freeze). This makes you extremely valuable as a tool for future abusers, as your “friend” response will tend to make you more accessible to them, and your “fight” response will tend to make you a useful attack dog against others.
Now, of course, I imagine the great majority of antis aren’t trying to indoctrinate themselves into an abusive cult dynamic. They’re victims here, too. They deserve an escape from the shithole they’re stuck in, and if they ever want to leave it all behind, I support them wholeheartedly.
But just because they don’t know better doesn’t make it acceptable for them to do the things they insist on doing.
An incisive, lucid and important analysis.
Now, of course, I imagine the great majority of antis aren’t trying to indoctrinate themselves into an abusive cult dynamic. They’re victims here, too. They deserve an escape from the shithole they’re stuck in, and if they ever want to leave it all behind, I support them wholeheartedly.
word. I will welcome them with arms wide open, just as I would any trauma survivor.
@
fangasmagorical, if you have time and interest, could you talk a bit about the “friend” response? I’ve never heard of it before, and I think it may be something I do. I think I and others could benefit from your thoughts.
“Friend,” also called, “fawn,” is one of the primary ways human beings react to fear. It’s like fight or flight, but there are other ways people respond to fear, especially people dealing with trauma.
Fawn types seek safety by merging with the wishes, needs and demands of others. They act as if they unconsciously believe that the price of admission to any relationship is the forfeiture of all their needs, rights, preferences and boundaries. –Pete Walker, Psychotherapist
Trying to talk your way out of a stressful situation. Rather than Fight, Run, or Freeze on the spot, we decide to reason or rationalize the situation. This can be anything from flattering the abuser, cringing in obedience, attempting to please and seek favor, offering alternatives; doing whatever we have to do to save ourselves by talking our way out. –Surviving My Past, abuse support group
It basically involves trying to turn the thing that made you afraid into an ally, or getting help from existing allies to face the threat. It’s part of why humans are so super social.
Unfortunately, in people who have been traumatized or abused, this natural response to fear can become overactive. You may have heard that people who are abused once are more likely to find themselves in abusive situations later in life?
This is because the friend/fawn reaction is very easily taken advantage of, and abusers know it (albeit often a subconscious knowledge). People who are overly likely to respond to fear by ignoring their own needs in favour of pleasing others are much more attractive to abusers, including cults.
While it’s called a fear response, friend/fawn is a response to stress of all kinds. You don’t necessarily have to be afraid of the person you’re appealing to, just experiencing stress that you’ve learned can be reduced by appealing to others, especially to authorities.
The way you see this work in the context of antishipping, since that’s the discussion at hand, tends to be a little bit like this.
Victim: I saw something that set off my PTSD, and now I am in a stress induced panic and I don’t know what to do!
Manipulator: Don’t worry, if you just listen to me, I will tell you what to do and you will be fine.
Victim: Okay! I completely believe you, because you are offering me safety from my trauma, and by subconscious mind perceives this as you literally saving my life.
Manipulator: Great, so since I saved your life taught you how to repress your fear, you should do anything you can to please and appeal to me.
“Manipulator” here refers not only to the handful of “ringleaders” in antishipping circles, but also to the social group of antishippers as a whole.
Social pressure is one of the most important reasons the friend response exists, and the larger or more aggressive a social group is, the more likely people will fall in line with it just for that feeling of safety.
This is also why major political movements that rely on fear-mongering are so effective: they create a stress response in the populace, and then say, “come with me and we will eliminate your stressor.”
This is so true though. I’ll never forget the shock and almost trauma of being bluntly told by my therapist that it isn’t wrong for people to like things I think are misogynistic and predatory. It took a longer time to understand that people who consume media I hate are not a direct threat to my well-being. It’s not at all an age thing either, I didn’t receive access to proper care and a safe environment till my late twenties and was therefore extremely volatile and reactionary. Less now but it’s a work in progress.
The fawn response makes so much sense. I’m mad confrontational but also takes a long time to call out the bad behaviour or wrong arguments of anyone who is nice to me or sides with me because it feels like ingratitude and I’m afraid of them turning on me.
I appreciate OP’s empathy towards triggered people so much. Regardless of whether you’re right or not, a hyper-aroused brain is an awful thing, like an earthquake in your head, shakes, mutism, nausea, inability to disengage. At no point are you more convinced that the ferocity of your emotional response matches reality than when you’re triggered.
Absolutely true. During the throes of a flashback, I’ve done and said some truly fucked up things to try to get away from the stimulus.
One of the more horrifying things that abusers manipulating victims in this way do, is ensure that their victims are in a state of hyperarousal as often as possible. This makes their victims more reliant on the abuser for guidance, and much more vicious to their targets if their abuser tells them to fight someone.
This cocktail is something that antishippers do to each other constantly, even without any organized leadership, because it’s what they’ve been taught. At this point they are a self policing group, and the law they enforce is “be constantly on the edge of stress overload.”
But you can’t live in a state of constant hyperarousal. If the over taxing of your adrenals and sympathetic nervous system don’t kill you, the sharp decrease in impulse control and altered concept of self preservation will.
Constantly exposing yourself to triggering material to gain the approval of a group that is abusing you is self destructive.
Unfortunately, I’m not trained to help people escape the fear conditioning of group abuse, and if I was, it would certainly be unethical for me to do so online and outside a clinical capacity.
But I know enough about the problem to know that sometimes the people who come in this blog looking for a fight will see discussions like this, and that can be the start to realizing that the “help” they’ve been getting is dangerous, and that there are alternatives.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This just keeps getting more important and relevant.
Interestingly enough, online clinical work is becoming more and more accessible for trained workers to offer to clients, and is, in fact no longer an inherently unethical practice. There’s still a lot of grey area that clinicians are working out how to make as beneficial as possible, but the combined rise of internet’s own cultural linguistic quirks and telemedicine means that more and more clinicians are able to offer some level of support to people seeking this kind of work online. I’m pretty excited about it actually, and figure I’ll probably make some arrangements for people to be able to hit me up if they like in about *checks watch* four years.
things I have seen called pedophilia on this hellsite with my own two eyes
– a relationship between two adults with the youngest being 25
– a high school senior dating a high school junior
– a college senior being sexually interested in a college freshman
– size difference fetish art featuring two adult characters
– consenting adults engaging in kink with other consenting adults
– writing about 2 teenagers of similar ages having sex
– shipping characters with vaguely defined ages who are treated as adults in canon
–
telling kids that asexuality exists
– sex education
like, I shouldn’t have to ask myself if the person being accused of pedophilia is an actual child molester or if they reblog shippy vo|tron fanart
Antis: Why do people hate us for not liking pedophilia :////
Also Antis:*call out everything under the sun that isn’t pedophilia as pedophilia and then wonder why the fuck nobody takes pedophilia claims seriously anymore*
👆👆👆👆👆
I wrote this post on September 4th, 2017. It only took a month. (From that point on.)
False callout posts get hundreds if not thousands of notes (albeit at least half of them confused or rejecting the accusations), while posts trying to draw attention to individuals that might pose actual danger go ignored.
There’s something demonstrably harmful to minors and adults alike, especially to victims/survivors – it’s how much of a rhetorical nightmare shipping discourse is, and how much it actually desensitizes people to the subjects in question. You do not want people to become callous and dismissive, but the individuals continuously fabricating accusations, watering down definitions, making completely outrageous claims, and concentrating their opportunistic activism on ‘problematic content’ do everything possible to erode the patience, understanding, sympathy and empathy of the people around them.
Please, please stop trying to sell your ship wars as literally anything else. You’re doing more damage than any piece of fiction possibly could. This is how you are affecting reality, and the effect your actions have is unquestionably bad.
You have to start taking these subjects seriously again. You absolutely have to. When you’re not using certain terms correctly, you’re not respecting their meaning, and you don’t take what they stand for seriously enough, because in your mind the definition can be changed or applied to different things.
Shipping that deals with entirely fictional characters is inconsequential and amoral in every possible instance. This applies to drawn and written works, as well. Fictional characters aren’t real people. Real people law doesn’t apply to them. You need to understand this.
Here’s an example: Shipping entirely fictional characters -> creates no discomfort for the characters involved, because they are not real; the effect it has on you as a person is your responsibility
Creating/consuming explicit/mature content of entirely fictional characters -> creates no discomfort for the characters involved, because they are not real; the effect it has on you as a person is yourresponsibility
I’m talking about entirely fictional characters. This excludes the shipping of real people – actual living and breathing human people. Not historical figures. People that are alive today. A person. (We still know what a person is, right?) The shipping of real people is a different subject entirely, and it should be approached differently. Still not a crime. Just different.
The bottom line is: Stop treating fictional characters like real people. Stop implying that shipping ‘matters’. Stop involving serious subjects to give your anti-ship arguments more weight and meaning. It’s just a ship. Calm down. Stop claiming that fiction has a direct, constant, measurable effect on reality. (It has an effect, but not like you think it does.) Stop saying “This is abuse/incest/pedophilia/etc” when you really want to say “I don’t like it”.
hey so I have to hear about actual cases of child sexual abuse pretty often in my work and it tears at my heart and accusations of paedophilia over depictions of fictional characters infuriate me, especially if people take them so far that they waste law enforcement time and resources that could have been spent investigating actual crimes in which a real live human child was harmed.
False callout posts get hundreds if not thousands of notes (albeit at least half of them confused or rejecting the accusations), while posts trying to draw attention to individuals that might pose actual danger go ignored.
I’ve seen survivors writing and being told they “write like pedophiles” and be retraumatized by antis a hell of a lot more often than I’ve seen fictional ships actually hurt people.
Blacklist exists. Block your triggers. Block your squicks. Save your pitchforks for actual abusers and people who actually hurt children. There are plenty of valid targets out there. Save your high horse for the places you can actually do some good.
There are a ton of genres I don’t read, lots of tags I just skip. It’s okay to curate your own media consumption. You don’t have to finish everything you start.
I have literally walked away from fics that hit my squick spot two chapters in within the last 24 hours.
When I was a teenager on the internet looking at adult content, the fear was that some “concerned” parent would stumble across any of the relatively small fan communities and raise hell with the ISP until it was shut down.
Now I’m a grown-ass adult, and the fear is that the teenagers themselves will threaten, doxx, bully, and harass content creators off of large social media sites who have entire legal teams dedicated to covering their asses because their parents have done such a shit job teaching them internet saftey that they operate under the delusion that the entirety of the worldwide web was created as some “safe space” for minors rather than the godamned seedy back alley it has always been.
I don’t like overgeneralizing teenagers, I mean many anti-antis are teenagers, many of my followers are teenagers. But when talking about broad generational differences I believe Roach Patrol or one of their friends once said something kinda potent about how being born after the world trade center attack could shape the beliefs of some people into thinking it’s normal for any freedoms or potential dangers to be squashed in the name of public safety.
The rational here being that they were kinda born into a world where that is widely the response to danger.
But I think many people now are aware that a lot of the extra security we’ve put in place since 9/11 is mostly for show so that people feel safe, ie; security theater.
So sometimes what antis are asking for amounts to security theater for the Internet. Where they think that if we can squash these fan fictions, fan arts and pairings the world will have less rapists, domestic abusers and child molesters.
I may have been responsible for the ur-post of the 9/11 Generational Hypothesis. Or one iteration of it, anyway; I assume it’s been suggested independently multiple times. I’ve seen some of the critiques that have emerged since, many of them sensible, others not so much, but the one that’s stuck with me is: the people who are old enough to remember 9/11 are just as susceptible to the black-and-white fear mentality; hell, we’re the ones who inflicted it on the next generation. The difference is that we have an alternate mental model available. If a bunch of the kids who are just starting to graduate college have trouble conceptualizing it as anything but Bad People Danger World, well, they’re not the ones whose choices brought that about.
I’ve grown fond of that description of the problem because I like problems that suggest their own solutions.
In any case, “security theater for the internet” is a fucking brilliant summation of this particular instance of the problem.
(x) Oh wow. Tbh I don’t think there’s a single thing I wouldn’t apply to antis? Amazing.
I wanted to c/p the text and discuss it, but springhole won’t allow me to that so, sorry.
Honestly I would recommend this entire page as a must-read for anyone. It’s entirely possible for any group to become this toxic and you could end up swallowing extremist ideologies without even realizing that it’s happening.
I know this isn’t an exact answer to the questions you’re still waiting on from me, but I think this website is definitely directly addressing some of your thoughts on how to identify your community as being abusive in the first place.
Here’s the text of the section being discussed above:
The group fosters and nurtures irrational hatred and fear of anyone or any outgroup (often by creating an atmosphere where negative generalizations are the norm).
The group fosters and nurtures the belief that it is inherently superior to any outgroups, and that members of outgroups are inferior by default.
The group justifies actions that in any other circumstances would be considered morally wrong or abusive.
The group ignores or minimizes flaws within its own members and ideology that would be harshly criticized if they came from anyone or anything else.
The group’s narrative and ideology are more important than facts, truth, and logic; and they demonize anyone, inside or outside of the group, that questions it.
The group thinks little to nothing of exploiting people to achieve its goals – eg, by defrauding them, by overworking them, or by pressuring them into giving up absurd amounts of money and assets “for the good of the cause.”
The group takes a “shoot first, ask questions later” or “guilty until proven innocent” attitude, especially toward dissenters and outsiders.
The group doesn’t consider it possible to go too far in what they do to spread their beliefs or agendas, or they have no concept of what would constitute unethical means of spreading their beliefs or agendas.
The group doesn’t consider it possible to go too far in what they do against their opponents, or they have no concept of what would constitute a crime or wrong against their opponents.
I wonder where the break happened that such wide swaths of younger fans don’t grasp fandom things that used to be unspoken understandings. That fic readers are expected to know fiction from reality, that views expressed in fic are not necessarily those of the author, that the labels, tags and warnings on various kinkfics are also the indication that they were created for titillation and not much more, please use responsibly as per all pornography. The ‘problem’ isn’t that so-called ‘problematic’ fic exists but that some of the audience is being stupid, irresponsible, at worst criminal, at best not old enough to be in the audience to begin with. And that’s on the consumer, not the author who told you via labels, tags, ratings, warnings and venues what their fic was about and what it was for.
I can’t stress enough how important this post is
This post troubles me because I feel like it misses a lot of the nuance of the situation.
No, not everyone who reads your rapefic or whatever is going to go out and rape someone, but your average joe isn’t the person to be worried about. Rapists, paedophiles, abusers, people who would coerce their family members into incest, etc etc etc use the internet. Their victims use the internet. Those who could be their victims use the internet. And they’ll see what you write. Or draw, or voice act, or whatever else. No, it’s not a guarantee, but it’s a very, very real possibility, and one you have to take into account when writing. If it wasn’t a real problem, I wouldn’t know three victims of it.
The issue is not that you should never explore dark subjects ever or you’re a nasty evil badman. The issue is how you explore them. You’re probably not a rapist for writing a rape fic – but how will a real rapist feel about how you wrote it? Will they feel like what they did is okay? Will they feel like it was sexy? How about a victim of rape? Will they feel like what happened to them didn’t matter? Will they feel like their trauma is nonsense, because they should’ve enjoyed it? Will they be able to use your fic to self harm? Do you really want people feeling this way about something you made?
The responsibility doesn’t entirely lie on you, no. But as a creator, you have a lot of influence, and you need to be careful and considerate of other people.
Fiction is not reality, but it certainly has an effect on it. Hasn’t a work of fiction ever made you feel something? Why would women and LGBT people and disabled people constantly be crying for representation in fiction if it was meaningless?
Fiction affects each individual’s reality.
I think it’s important to consider what effect yours will have.
The ‘nuance’ you think is there does not exist. Writers,
artists, creators of any sort, are NOT responsible for what other people choose
to do, period. People of a certain age and level of reason are expected to be
something other than ‘monkey see, monkey do’ about the arts and life in general.
Anybody else shouldn’t be allowed to consume certain media without supervision,
accompanying education and in some case, maybe not at all. That’s the job of
parents and guardians, not random strangers on the internet with their own row
to hoe.
You say you know three victims. The crimes are still the perp’s fault.
Writing didn’t make them do what they did any more than videogames cause school
shootings. To place blame on the media they consumed, to place blame on the
creators of that media, is a tired, old, long-disproven argument, and one that absolves
criminals of their culpability for their crimes. You’d let perps get away with
it, or get reduced sentences, because you’re claiming it’s actually the fic
that’s to blame.What do you want to do, lock the writers up too?
One of the purposes of fiction literally IS to explore all
angles of an issue safely, and that includes perspectives that are not
desirable in real life, or that can make some individuals personally
uncomfortable. It’s a societal release valve, and an acknowledgement of fears.
Sometimes those fears get processed in strange ways, there are people who get
turned on by balloons popping, for crying out loud. Creators have a
responsibility to create. As a courtesy in fandom, we tag, label and warn
almost to excess. That way your hypothetical victim can avoid things they don’t
want to see, things that by the way, may just as easily have been created by
another victim who is dealing with their issues by a different and equally
valid route.
Fan creators also don’t have anywhere near the influence of
mainstream media, where you don’t even get half the warnings fandom will give
you. Media aims to make you feel, but you are responsible for what you do, and
that includes clicking on fics that told you up front there were things inside that would make you uncomfortable. Learn yourself, know yourself, manage yourself. Writers and artists aren’t here to be your babysitter.
And finally, people are definitely not rapists for writing
rape fic, because what makes a person a rapist is actually committing rape. It’s
not rocket science.
Ah, sorry about that last statement, I must’ve been unclear. Of course you’re not a rapist just for writing rape fic. I was underexaggerating, because I have seen arguments against this on the sillier side of things that seem to assume writing things like rape is equatable to committing them.
Of course the crimes are the perpetrator’s fault, and not the author’s. Sorry if I was unclear, again, but I have to reiterate: your average person reading a dark fic will walk away unaffected. Nobody who reads about some guy murdering a bunch of people is going to go on a killing spree themself!
The problem lies in the fact that people who have already committed crimes, or dream of doing so, will read dark fics. They’ll see what they’ve done portrayed like it’s sexy. Like it’s good. And they’ll feel good about it. They’ll feel like it wasn’t a big deal, and everyone else is wrong, and they’re not a bad person. Or, if they were a victim, they might feel like it’s stupid to be so torn up about it. They’ll feel like what their sibling or parent or datemate or auncle or whatever else tries to do to them isn’t so bad. Of course that abuser is entirely to blame. It was their choice to use that writing for something so horrible. The writing is not the root cause of the problem. But it does enable it. Why would you want to risk someone like that feeling good because of something you wrote? Death of the author and all. Your intentions don’t matter. It’s how someone used what you wrote that makes people suffer.
I never asked the victims I know too much about what happened to them, but one pretty readily volunteered that their abuser, their older sister, coerced them into sex by normalising it with incest fics. They were traumatised by it. Real people are traumatised by these things. The fact remains that despite everything, these victims are far from hypothetical.
It’s not the authors’ fault that someone so evil would use their writing like that. I’d like to believe that the people who write this stuff do so with only the best of intentions. Who could guess that something they wrote would be used for something so awful? The trouble is that it happens. It happens, and people suffer, and we as writers can do something to protect them.
I don’t think writing about dark themes like these should be banned! I know plenty of victims use them to vent and process their own trauma. I just think that we should bear in mind that we as writers have an influence over people, whether they are victims or abusers. It might not be a lot. But it’s there. And there’s nothing stopping us from thinking very, very hard about how we make that influence as good as possible.
I think I’d disagree that writers of derivative fiction have less influence than the mainstream, too. How many people do you know who read pretty much nothing but fic nowadays because mainstream fiction doesn’t have what they want? We influence a different group, to be sure, but there’s still a lot of people in it.
Creators have a responsibility to create, to be sure! The trouble is in the distinction between what is reprehensible to someone personally, and what could actually hurt someone. Plenty of things gross me out. Plenty of those things I know better than to gripe about publically. “Don’t like, don’t read” has its place in fiction!
But that place is not everywhere. Fiction is a good way to explore pressing issues through different lenses. But some lenses – and I’m talking here about the glorification of these issues, nothing more! – have the capability to seriously hurt real people. Think how many cases of abusive relationships cropped up surrounding Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey!
All we need to do, I think, is carefully consider how we frame dark topics. Of course rapists and paedophiles and yada yada yada aren’t your intended audience. You don’t want to hurt anyone. But, on the off chance someone like that saw what you created, how would it make them feel? In the same way we carefully handle racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia and similar issues that could hurt people in fiction, we should be careful about how we portray things like paedophilia and all the other stuff I’ve been talking about.
Just that people are considerate is all I’m asking.
Tagging is the consideration you are asking for. Education is the preventative measure you want. We give or show people the tools to protect themselves. We are not obligated to stop creating, ever.
I don’t think tagging is gonna stop my friend’s big sister from trying to screw them. It’s just going to make incest fics easier for her to find.
Education’s not gonna reach everyone. Often it doesn’t until it’s too late. That same friend still shipped incest until recently, because the realisation that it had hurt them never reached them.
I’m still not saying that these things shouldn’t be written about ever! We are not obligated to stop creating! But we are obligated to ensure we don’t create in a way that hurts people.
The fact that I stick pins in my arms isn’t the root of my problems either. Does that mean taking the pins away will do nothing to help me? Take away one of the tools. Make the box a little safer.
All I’m saying is that we need to be careful about glorifying these issues. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.
Telling people they should only write about certain issues one way is advocating censorship. That has a long history of not ending well. Education may not reach everyone, but it should. That is the angle you should be pushing, not censorship. Start directing people to Scarleteen or Go ask Alice or the freaking cops if you think they have real world concerns.
You’re not in a box. You’re in a big wide world full of needles, pins, scissors, knives, any number of things you can hurt yourself with, or other people could try to hurt you with, and in that world are people who have learned how to handle sharp objects safely, or like you, are still learning. And they can be taught. Because we’re not going back to ripping bread apart with bare hands just because you don’t know how to handle a bread knife.
Who decides what’s “glorifying” an issue, rather than “bringing awareness of how it works?” Random strangers on the internet?
i think if you use your brain for a little bit you can figure out when you’re saying “bad things are good actually” and when you’re saying “this thing happens but it’s bad”
glorification: ooh look how sexy and kinky this bad thing is isn’t it great and titillating
respectful handling of a dark issue: get a load of this bad thing. isn’t it horrible? here’s how it traumatises people.
usually the distinction is graphic descriptions of your Bad Thing, but not always. you can still glorify something without them, and you’re probably able to handle it respectfully despite describing it in detail. not sure how you might do that though. i don’t really wanna know either eheheh, that’s for people who wanna write that to figure out.
The only reasonable reply to that patronizing if supposedly well intentioned tirade:
i’ve yet to see one of the people saying that dark fics “glorify” things produce a single actual example of a fic which “glorifies” things and not be wrong.
so, yes, put me down for “if you use your brain for a little bit” being the key missing step.
what you see happening here is an example of the contagion superstition.
a rapist might read your fic! then your fic would become Unclean! clearly you must either refrain from writing, or perform some kind of cleansing ritual.
the contagion superstition is the origin of far more terrible practices than this. the purity rules in leviticus, for instance, that are used to this day to justify bigotry. caste systems in various parts of the world that create an untouchable underclass who can never rise above their birth caste because they’ve been ‘polluted’ by interacting with the unclean. isolating women during menstruation. genital mutilation. ostracizing and abusing and murdering rape victims.
considering the worldwide, history-long death toll that has resulted from the contagion superstition, it’s ironic how its proponents are convinced they have the moral high ground because of their performative revulsion.
I wonder where the break happened that such wide swaths of younger fans don’t grasp fandom things that used to be unspoken understandings. That fic readers are expected to know fiction from reality, that views expressed in fic are not necessarily those of the author, that the labels, tags and warnings on various kinkfics are also the indication that they were created for titillation and not much more, please use responsibly as per all pornography. The ‘problem’ isn’t that so-called ‘problematic’ fic exists but that some of the audience is being stupid, irresponsible, at worst criminal, at best not old enough to be in the audience to begin with. And that’s on the consumer, not the author who told you via labels, tags, ratings, warnings and venues what their fic was about and what it was for.
I can’t stress enough how important this post is
This post troubles me because I feel like it misses a lot of the nuance of the situation.
No, not everyone who reads your rapefic or whatever is going to go out and rape someone, but your average joe isn’t the person to be worried about. Rapists, paedophiles, abusers, people who would coerce their family members into incest, etc etc etc use the internet. Their victims use the internet. Those who could be their victims use the internet. And they’ll see what you write. Or draw, or voice act, or whatever else. No, it’s not a guarantee, but it’s a very, very real possibility, and one you have to take into account when writing. If it wasn’t a real problem, I wouldn’t know three victims of it.
The issue is not that you should never explore dark subjects ever or you’re a nasty evil badman. The issue is how you explore them. You’re probably not a rapist for writing a rape fic – but how will a real rapist feel about how you wrote it? Will they feel like what they did is okay? Will they feel like it was sexy? How about a victim of rape? Will they feel like what happened to them didn’t matter? Will they feel like their trauma is nonsense, because they should’ve enjoyed it? Will they be able to use your fic to self harm? Do you really want people feeling this way about something you made?
The responsibility doesn’t entirely lie on you, no. But as a creator, you have a lot of influence, and you need to be careful and considerate of other people.
Fiction is not reality, but it certainly has an effect on it. Hasn’t a work of fiction ever made you feel something? Why would women and LGBT people and disabled people constantly be crying for representation in fiction if it was meaningless?
Fiction affects each individual’s reality.
I think it’s important to consider what effect yours will have.
The ‘nuance’ you think is there does not exist. Writers,
artists, creators of any sort, are NOT responsible for what other people choose
to do, period. People of a certain age and level of reason are expected to be
something other than ‘monkey see, monkey do’ about the arts and life in general.
Anybody else shouldn’t be allowed to consume certain media without supervision,
accompanying education and in some case, maybe not at all. That’s the job of
parents and guardians, not random strangers on the internet with their own row
to hoe.
You say you know three victims. The crimes are still the perp’s fault.
Writing didn’t make them do what they did any more than videogames cause school
shootings. To place blame on the media they consumed, to place blame on the
creators of that media, is a tired, old, long-disproven argument, and one that absolves
criminals of their culpability for their crimes. You’d let perps get away with
it, or get reduced sentences, because you’re claiming it’s actually the fic
that’s to blame.What do you want to do, lock the writers up too?
One of the purposes of fiction literally IS to explore all
angles of an issue safely, and that includes perspectives that are not
desirable in real life, or that can make some individuals personally
uncomfortable. It’s a societal release valve, and an acknowledgement of fears.
Sometimes those fears get processed in strange ways, there are people who get
turned on by balloons popping, for crying out loud. Creators have a
responsibility to create. As a courtesy in fandom, we tag, label and warn
almost to excess. That way your hypothetical victim can avoid things they don’t
want to see, things that by the way, may just as easily have been created by
another victim who is dealing with their issues by a different and equally
valid route.
Fan creators also don’t have anywhere near the influence of
mainstream media, where you don’t even get half the warnings fandom will give
you. Media aims to make you feel, but you are responsible for what you do, and
that includes clicking on fics that told you up front there were things inside that would make you uncomfortable. Learn yourself, know yourself, manage yourself. Writers and artists aren’t here to be your babysitter.
And finally, people are definitely not rapists for writing
rape fic, because what makes a person a rapist is actually committing rape. It’s
not rocket science.
Ah, sorry about that last statement, I must’ve been unclear. Of course you’re not a rapist just for writing rape fic. I was underexaggerating, because I have seen arguments against this on the sillier side of things that seem to assume writing things like rape is equatable to committing them.
Of course the crimes are the perpetrator’s fault, and not the author’s. Sorry if I was unclear, again, but I have to reiterate: your average person reading a dark fic will walk away unaffected. Nobody who reads about some guy murdering a bunch of people is going to go on a killing spree themself!
The problem lies in the fact that people who have already committed crimes, or dream of doing so, will read dark fics. They’ll see what they’ve done portrayed like it’s sexy. Like it’s good. And they’ll feel good about it. They’ll feel like it wasn’t a big deal, and everyone else is wrong, and they’re not a bad person. Or, if they were a victim, they might feel like it’s stupid to be so torn up about it. They’ll feel like what their sibling or parent or datemate or auncle or whatever else tries to do to them isn’t so bad. Of course that abuser is entirely to blame. It was their choice to use that writing for something so horrible. The writing is not the root cause of the problem. But it does enable it. Why would you want to risk someone like that feeling good because of something you wrote? Death of the author and all. Your intentions don’t matter. It’s how someone used what you wrote that makes people suffer.
I never asked the victims I know too much about what happened to them, but one pretty readily volunteered that their abuser, their older sister, coerced them into sex by normalising it with incest fics. They were traumatised by it. Real people are traumatised by these things. The fact remains that despite everything, these victims are far from hypothetical.
It’s not the authors’ fault that someone so evil would use their writing like that. I’d like to believe that the people who write this stuff do so with only the best of intentions. Who could guess that something they wrote would be used for something so awful? The trouble is that it happens. It happens, and people suffer, and we as writers can do something to protect them.
I don’t think writing about dark themes like these should be banned! I know plenty of victims use them to vent and process their own trauma. I just think that we should bear in mind that we as writers have an influence over people, whether they are victims or abusers. It might not be a lot. But it’s there. And there’s nothing stopping us from thinking very, very hard about how we make that influence as good as possible.
I think I’d disagree that writers of derivative fiction have less influence than the mainstream, too. How many people do you know who read pretty much nothing but fic nowadays because mainstream fiction doesn’t have what they want? We influence a different group, to be sure, but there’s still a lot of people in it.
Creators have a responsibility to create, to be sure! The trouble is in the distinction between what is reprehensible to someone personally, and what could actually hurt someone. Plenty of things gross me out. Plenty of those things I know better than to gripe about publically. “Don’t like, don’t read” has its place in fiction!
But that place is not everywhere. Fiction is a good way to explore pressing issues through different lenses. But some lenses – and I’m talking here about the glorification of these issues, nothing more! – have the capability to seriously hurt real people. Think how many cases of abusive relationships cropped up surrounding Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey!
All we need to do, I think, is carefully consider how we frame dark topics. Of course rapists and paedophiles and yada yada yada aren’t your intended audience. You don’t want to hurt anyone. But, on the off chance someone like that saw what you created, how would it make them feel? In the same way we carefully handle racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia and similar issues that could hurt people in fiction, we should be careful about how we portray things like paedophilia and all the other stuff I’ve been talking about.
Just that people are considerate is all I’m asking.
Tagging is the consideration you are asking for. Education is the preventative measure you want. We give or show people the tools to protect themselves. We are not obligated to stop creating, ever.
I don’t think tagging is gonna stop my friend’s big sister from trying to screw them. It’s just going to make incest fics easier for her to find.
Education’s not gonna reach everyone. Often it doesn’t until it’s too late. That same friend still shipped incest until recently, because the realisation that it had hurt them never reached them.
I’m still not saying that these things shouldn’t be written about ever! We are not obligated to stop creating! But we are obligated to ensure we don’t create in a way that hurts people.
The fact that I stick pins in my arms isn’t the root of my problems either. Does that mean taking the pins away will do nothing to help me? Take away one of the tools. Make the box a little safer.
All I’m saying is that we need to be careful about glorifying these issues. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.
Telling people they should only write about certain issues one way is advocating censorship. That has a long history of not ending well. Education may not reach everyone, but it should. That is the angle you should be pushing, not censorship. Start directing people to Scarleteen or Go ask Alice or the freaking cops if you think they have real world concerns.
You’re not in a box. You’re in a big wide world full of needles, pins, scissors, knives, any number of things you can hurt yourself with, or other people could try to hurt you with, and in that world are people who have learned how to handle sharp objects safely, or like you, are still learning. And they can be taught. Because we’re not going back to ripping bread apart with bare hands just because you don’t know how to handle a bread knife.
Who decides what’s “glorifying” an issue, rather than “bringing awareness of how it works?” Random strangers on the internet?
i think if you use your brain for a little bit you can figure out when you’re saying “bad things are good actually” and when you’re saying “this thing happens but it’s bad”
glorification: ooh look how sexy and kinky this bad thing is isn’t it great and titillating
respectful handling of a dark issue: get a load of this bad thing. isn’t it horrible? here’s how it traumatises people.
usually the distinction is graphic descriptions of your Bad Thing, but not always. you can still glorify something without them, and you’re probably able to handle it respectfully despite describing it in detail. not sure how you might do that though. i don’t really wanna know either eheheh, that’s for people who wanna write that to figure out.
The only reasonable reply to that patronizing if supposedly well intentioned tirade:
i’ve yet to see one of the people saying that dark fics “glorify” things produce a single actual example of a fic which “glorifies” things and not be wrong.
so, yes, put me down for “if you use your brain for a little bit” being the key missing step.
just moving along like everyone else 