#(they're certainly the reason why i stopped paying for these books lol)

[protaetia]

🐞

[onewomancitadel]

Relatedly to the point I made about character-grounded erotica, I would rather read a story without a sex scene if it's not grounded in the story (and the author's intentions). I really hate the idea of the expected mark of 'ugh, I gotta write the sex scene or people will complain because that's what they're expecting'. I get that genre conventions exist for a reason, and clearly the matter of sex isn't totally irrelevant, but I'm not interested in story beats which stick out like a sore thumb because it's where the amusement park ride is supposed to go.

Equally if you don't want to write sex scenes, don't write them. I just think you need to navigate an expression of sexuality that works with the romance and the story you're trying to tell. Where people can feel like it's a 'tease' - let's say, foreshadowing - is when there's a lot of present, heated sexuality without any pay-off. Take out the moralising and this can just feel weird.

I want to refer to a major mainstream example here because I feel it may help, and because I recall a very early feeling of disappointment, which was the fade-to-black sex scenes of the Twilight Saga. Now say what you will about the books - that's neither here nor there - but a repeated and ongoing theme in the books is that Edward's saving himself for marriage and trying not to have sex with Bella suck Bella's blood, there is a constant sense of close-but-not-close-enough with the human/vampire situation and always stopping at kissing, there's a whole big deal about getting married and their honeymoon, listen if you've read the books - you just know. Then it's fade-to-black, cut right to Edward having a nervous breakdown about hurting Bella during sex (because he's vampire-strong). Now, I find it ridiculous, and I particularly find the implications surrounding some of the inevitabilities Meyer feels about heterosexual romance/sex are damning, but it's a complete dud. Breaking Dawn is, admittedly, an overall dud (it's been some time since I've read it, but I need not refer to it again), and we know why Meyer didn't want to write a sex scene - a tween demographic of readers probably stayed her hand, no matter how disappointing that was to me at the time, and in addition to that she's a Mormon (but she skirts on the edge of freakiness quite a bit) - but it certainly wasn't a technical consideration of what was appropriate to what she'd set up. Lol.

I wonder if for the Twilight Saga a more metaphorical scene would've worked (especially with the vampire metaphors - come on! - sucking her blood! This is what vampires are for), which is not quite euphemism. When I get annoyed with euphemism is the territory of the 'member' and 'manhood' and 'inner core' and many such nuclear-related accidents during sex, including the 'rod'.

So, no, you don't need to write sex scenes and I think expecting it of an author cuz them's the genre rules is not something I really like. I like to think that this potentially ameliorates the 'sex scenes are unnecessary' opinion, for the author and reader side. Really getting to the heart of why they can be necessary - and how you can justify their presence - goes beyond sexuality being a base part of the human experience and does ground itself in the narrative. I also think that it's a little weird we've relegated human sexuality to being depicted, and largely characterised through, only p*rnography (sorry censoring for Tumblr search), because I think it's a particularly narrow approach. Clearly there's more to sex than just its base depiction, and it's compelling for a reason which isn't just perverted. It's pretty bad that it's largely characterised that way (just think of any average person's opinion of smutty literature). I'm not asking for smutty literature to be 'normalised', I suppose - I think there's a reason one can keep this sort of thing private to oneself, especially when it is fun when it's a little naughty - but rather a more positive attitude towards sex, I guess.

[aliaslua]

Ok about those "living with bodyguard turtles" hc, how would the boys react if the human they're protecting (now their best friend, mind you) had feelings for them? Like the human doesnt tell them but it's kind of obvious, theyre pretty bad at hiding it?

omg this is my first request

I received this ask at the exact moment that I submitted my last assignment, so I'd just officially started my college break ... The perfect way to start my rest *chef's kiss*. Thank you so much for the suggestion! <3 I was craving some angst. I hope you enjoy! it’s also kinda long LOL I was trully excited

you can read the first part here

Leonardo

It happened one day while he was helping you in training. The whole family was already used to your presence, you and Leo trained together every day and he loved it. He thought it was really cool to keep up with your performance and he was so proud of your increasing dedication and persistence, even on the days when the training was hard.

On that specific day he had decided to give you a break, since the training the day before had been heavy. Everything seemed absolutely normal until the moment when he needed to help you with a yoga posture and although you barely started the exercises, he realized that your heart was beating fast, very fast. Strange, he thought, but when he looked at your face and realized that you blushed, he also became overly aware of his own hands on your waist and how close your faces were. Suddenly, you broke contact with his eyes and walked away abruptly. "I'm not feeling well" you said "Maybe tomorrow."

Leonardo stood in the training room with a huge question mark in his face. Were you… nervous? During training? Why? You had been training together for months and it wasn't the first time that you needed support for a posture and…

The next few days are like a nightmare. Suddenly you decide that you prefer to train alone. Then you make up an absurd excuse for not watching the movie on wednesday. You don't talk to him, you don't train together, it's almost like you disappeared from his life. It's too much. One day during breakfast he asks you a direct question, but you simply decline the invitation while still avoiding looking at him. A horrible silence is in the air when you leave the kitchen without even finishing your breakfast.

"What did I do?" Leo asks, clearly hurt. His brothers look at him in disbelief. "Are you kidding?" Donnie asks. "What?" That's all the oldest brother can answer. "She's into you, moron." Raph responds, clearly irritated.

The realization runs through him like an electric current. Is that why you are avoiding him? What it means "you are into him"? Like… Are you in love? You? No way. You were his pupil! The first student he had, more like a life partner, a housemate. He never thought that someone like you could ... Him? It's too much for him. He needed to sit down.

"It looks like your intuition isn't that good huh, your stallion!" Mikey jokes.

The next are sleepless nights. Suddenly everything makes sense. How you smiled when he brushed your hair off your face, how you asked him to stay by your side when you couldn't sleep, how you insisted that the training should be longer, he always had interpreted all that as a sign of friendship, but now he felt completely naive. And to think that you could feel like that for someone like him ... It changed everything. What did that mean? He missed you. Missed you a lot. Seeing you so distant made him suffer in a way that only seemed logical now that he realized that perhaps his own feelings were the same. His head is spinning. Perhaps…. Maybe you could...

No. Absolutely not. The mission was clear. He had a single duty, to protect you. And he was going to complete the mission even if you spent the rest of your time together without looking at him again, no matter how much it hurt. Nothing was going to stop him from keeping you safe, not even his own feelings.

Raphael

It happened that morning while he was working out. You had just read “Emma” and it was the last book by Jane Austen that was missing for you to complete the bibliography. You sighed at the romantic ending but he hit the punching bag with an overly aggressive stance.

"We have to stop reading that shit." He said, suddenly. "Why?" You asked, surprised "I thought you liked it." "I like it. It's just ... it's kind of depressing for me." "What do you mean?" He stopped punching. Still with his back to you, you could see him adjusting his hand-bands. "Ah, come on, Shorty ... You know that none of this will ever happen to me." He threw a punch that made you jump "It hurts ... to know what it could be." "What do you mean, it's never gonna happen to you?" You asked honestly. He could hear in your voice that you were incredulous. "Cut the crap, Y / N." He turned, annoyed. "Look at me!" "I AM looking." you said, standing up "All I see is a caring, kind, gentle man and the day you fall in love with someone I know that you will be the most loving and dedicated partner and that person will be the luckiest in the world." You closed your mouth as if you had just said cursed words. Across the room, Raphael was stiff and speechless. Suddenly, the Lair' alarm went off. He went to join the brothers in silence, an emergency demanded his attention.

That night, Raph didn't come back home. He spent the night sitting on the edge of a building looking out over the city, mesmerized by your words.

It may be hard to believe, but Raphael is always very aware of his own emotions. That's why he is always so angry, that's why he cannot contain the urge to fight. He feels everything deeply. You didn't have to say anything else. It was as clear as day for him. He knew that was an unplanned declaration of love, he knew you were trying to hide it and you couldn't, and he knew it was too late now. He also knew he felt the same way. And he knew you could never be what his heart desired.

In his deepest fantasies, Raph would return home, lift you up around the waist and swear eternal love, just like in the books. And he would be yours, from then on and forever and you would never be alone, afraid or sad again. He would spend the rest of his life doing everything to make you the happiest person in the world.

But he also knew that it would never be possible with a man like him. He, who couldn't give you a decent home, the wedding you deserved, couldn't give you a family... - Fuck - He couldn't even meet your family. You would be forever unhappy, stuck with a monstrous and impetuous man and for that reason, he needed to work out the kindest way to reject your affection, knowing that it would be the most difficult thing he would have to do in life.

Donatello

Donnie wasn't prone to false modesty. He knew without a doubt that he had a deductive ability beyond average and he knew that he had enough knowledge to always reach the most likely conclusions. Why, then, could he not get it out of his head that you felt something for him that wasn't limited to a mere friendship?

He was working in the lab and couldn't stop thinking about all the obvious signs. Once again he redid the list of symptoms in his head: You had stopped reading alone in your private room they had built for you and now whenever you could, read by his side while he worked on the computer. Okay, nothing suspicious, a friendly, normal, expected gesture. But then there was that day when he stopped typing for a second and when he looked at you, you were staring at him. Clearly! He even saw it when you turned your face back to your book, in a pathetic attempt to pretend you weren't completely absorbed in watching him. That was strange. Okay, okay. Just one more event, it didn't indicate anything. So there was that night when everyone was watching a horror movie and you hugged his arm after a jumpscare, you guys stared at each other for a few seconds and he thought he saw you... blushing? Not to mention that now during your weekly debate sessions you seemed very giggly, very self-conscious, maybe even shy ... You had started to avoid direct eye contact with him and he realized with disbelief when your body language indicated attraction. Yes, yes ... He had ignored it the first few times but the way you smiled, the way you tilted your neck, how you approached him... Was he going crazy ???

Two hypotheses floated in his mind. The firs: he was going crazy, hallucinating and that was why he was seeing things and all the obvious signs that you were… interested in him were just the crazy dream of an unbalanced man. Or ... Well, or you really had developed a real and palpable romantic desire and you were so caught up in that urge that you couldn't hide it.

He narrowed his eyes again. No, no. Certainly not. You? No way. It didn't make sense from an instinctive and evolutionary point of view (why would you have that urge? You weren't even of the same species) and from a subjective, spiritual point of view, well ... Why would you like someone like him? You were beautiful, intelligent, clearly had an exceptional capacity for conversation and aside from that brief moment in your life, when you would finally have your freedom back, surely you would have no difficulty in finding a partner being such a wonderful, kind person, loving and…

He was no longer paying any attention to the viral sample he had placed under the microscope. He felt his own heart sink. If you really liked him then ... So does that mean ... That he had a chance? That he no longer needed to hide his intentions, his desires? That he could finally confess and that you would say ...

Someone knocked on the door. It was you. Sleepy and in pajamas, you still looked wonderful. "Donnie, can I sleep here?" "Of course, dear."

You smiled slightly, your eyes still half closed with sleep. He saw you lying on the couch, you fell asleep right away. He continued to look at you, so peaceful and impassive... He came to the only possible conclusion: It could never happen. You deserve affection, security, stability. A peaceful life with someone who cared for you, not someone who constantly put you at risk ... Someone who wasn't like him. Donatello looked away from your face, thinking it might lessen the pain. He knew that, in that case, the most rational option was to pretend that he had never deducted anything.

Michelangelo

"So... What are you going to do?" Leonardo asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had been established between the brothers. On the other side of the lair, you were sleeping.

"I do not know!" Mikey almost screamed before he remembered that you couldn't wake up, no way "That's why I'm asking!"

“Well… she clearly likes you. We all agree." Donnie concluded. "Yes" Leonardo shook his head. "Yeah ..." Raphael was staring at the brothers. "... And if you break her heart we'll all beat you up."

They all laughed, except Mikey. That was precisely the problem.

"It's not funny ..." The youngest of the brothers said, sitting on the kitchen table chair. Everyone understood that this was a serious situation when Michelangelo rested his head in his hands and again plunged into meditative silence.

He would never forget the day you sat with him on the couch and asked him to ...Chill a little. Never. Not because he was hurt, no ... You had been kind and caring and he had been very happy to know that you felt comfortable opening up to him that way. And if there was one thing he didn't want to be, it was overwhelming. So he did what you asked, he stopped flirting, stopped talking nonstop, stopped with intrusive questions ... And everything seemed perfect!

You were the best friend he could have. You laughed at his jokes, went out with him to tag abandoned cars, you ate pizza on the roof, played pranks on your brothers. Everything was great! You were everything to him and he knew that he felt much more than brotherly love for you. He always knew. But he had made a promise, he had promised that he would no longer crush you with his feelings ...

But things started to escalate. You started sharing intimate secrets, sharing dreams. During movie nights you laid on his shoulder and every day you cooked something new and brought it to him while he was playing video games. One day - that damn day - Raphael teased you and said “My my, what a beautiful couple” and Michelangelo almost had a heart attack when instead of emphatically replying that you weren't a couple or anything like that you just… Smiled and looked away. WHAT? WHAT KIND OF REACTION IS THAT? Mikey still remembered the unbearable heat he felt on his face that day when you just SMILED when you heard someone suggest you were his.

Since then, he only thought about one thing: "How can I reject her?"

The sadness in everyone's eyes was clear.

"Maybe you guys deserve a chance, Mikey." Leo suggested.

"But how?? Tell me, Leonardo, for God's sake, how am I going to make that woman happy? Huh! I have NOTHING to give. Nothing to add, to offer! I… I am literally a sewer monster… It will be a matter of time before she regrets, and how would I move on afterwards? ... "

"Mikey… ” Raphael started to speak, but was interrupted by his brother:

“You know what… You are right. It's time to grow up. This is a stupid dream. And it will never come true… ”

A gentle reminder that English is not my first language so if you see any grotesque grammatical errors, please let me know! <3 Thank you for reading

[blackwoolncrown]

curious to hear your thoughts bc i think they're sharp, as a person still figuring out fandom. what do you think of the moral okayness of thorki (the ship)? they're brothers, but gods.... godly incest? at what point does "ship what you want" stop applying?

It’s not so much about where it stops applying. Understand that I actually never have said what people should or shouldn’t read- only that what a person chooses to focus on in general (and therefore including what you write, watch, or read) is indicative of something and in many cases of certain taboo* or violent material my heavy suggestion is that that something is ultimately meaningful.

It’s not ‘just’ fiction.

So like, me personally? I often don’t actually care what someone is into (with some logical exceptions), I care whether or not they’re aware of why, because often people would rather not inspect the why so they can keep enjoying problematic media (and also my actual Big Thing is I don’t approve of situations where someone engages in activity they are not fully aware of, because to me if you aren’t aware of the consequences or origins of your actions, you haven’t fully consented to what you’re doing and that makes me sad. Example: Do you smoke cigarettes? Fine! It’s your body; as long as you aren’t exposing non-smokers to second hand smoke, no one should have shit to say. But if you start smoking bc you believe that cigarettes aren’t actually bad for you and there’s no downsides, you haven’t fully consented and now I wish you either a) inspected your motives and actions or b) stopped).

Overall I suspect that many of the most vociferous defenders of ‘fiction is just fiction!’ are people whose interests often veer into what we often call taboo (I think that word is so ineffective) who don’t want to ask themselves why. My other general rule is that people are most doggedly defensive about what they get off to. There’s also the issue of people having already brought to question their fictive interests and instead of wanting to find out the answer, deciding There’s Nothing To See Here, Fiction Is Just Fiction! Or, on the cusp of identifying a maladaptive interest and feeling as if that’s an action of self-judgment, they identify with their fictive interest because to them judging it means judging themselves.

Ideally neither is necessary. You can just understand that you got into something at a previous time but you’ve grown past it, learned from it, and can walk away from it without shame. After all, it’s ideally just your business. All I’m saying is that you know what the fuck your business is, pardon my french, because people who don’t know themselves are….well, it’s an issue.So to answer your question, here’s another question: If Thor and Loki were not brothers, would you care as much? Imagine a situation in which Thor and Loki are not related, but still share a lusty rivalry. Is something missing? What is it? What about them being gods absolves, in your mind, the impact of their siblinghood?Often, something like sibling incest (which to me is, honestly, not my bag but obviously way less awful than parent/child due to a whole slew of issues with imbalance there) is exciting to people simply because either a) the incest is the barrier to love and in general barriers to love make ‘good’ stories because two people overcoming the bounds of a romantic limitation is a more moving story than two people who can love freely (bc we love suffering and strife! it seasons things, I guess lol) and the incest is just an easy yet huge barrier b) because we have a hard time working through something without sexualizing it and who could write or would want to read about two brothers’ having a heartfelt love/hate brotherhood? Very few people, apparently, because that’s not a valued interaction. Thus, add some fucking into the story and Thor and Loki can work out their antagonistic feelings without getting to the bottom of them because we imagine sex is an equalizer and a balm (it’s not, but I understand the idea has a huge place in erotic fiction and absolutely use it myself when I write for fun).That speaks, to me, of an issue (and I’m going to be specific here) with not really having the language or familiarity with the social concept of brotherly love to make a story about it and its struggles interesting. We don’t have the language and thus cannot conceive of brother/brother reconciliation without sex. And this again speaks of a larger issue our society has with sex and the huge void of emotionality between strangers and lovers (friendships, loyalty. non-sexual bonding? What’s that?). We cannot conceive of a way to intensify, for the sake of adult (in age, not nature) entertainment, something like siblinghood without using sex.

It’s just cheap writing.

On the other hand, the very real ramifications of this easy-route conflict writing is that it sexualizes and normalizes sibling incest (or other things in the case of other stories) and I think it’s incredibly callous to want to ignore the voices of SA victims in this regard. People like to retort that ‘well YOU might not be able to tell fiction from reality, but I can’ but here’s the thing: Your subconscious mind can’t. If your brain wholly knew that the fiction you were reading was Not-Reality the information would be irrelevant and would fail to produce an emotional response. The reason we are excited, aroused, sad, scared, angry, tense, etc during movies and books is because while we are focused on them our mind is interpreting the happenings as actual happenings. To the extent (!) that media ‘pulls you in’, your  subconscious believes it, validates it, and signals responses accordingly. That’s why it’s entertaining.

I say this because something many fans of certain content don’t want to face is that the consumption and support of, and proximity to certain types of violent or taboo content starts to lessen your reaction to them. I’m not speaking as an outsider, here, and so I caution you and anyone else to second-guess the awareness of anyone who says ‘there’s no way that’s true!’. What you repeatedly experience becomes normal for you. This doesn’t apply as heavily with Thorki or similar ships bc of the conceptual complexity (it’s pretty far-removed) but there are certainly fetishes/ships  where repeated exposure lessens your reaction to that concept in general. As if that doesn’t seem to be problem enough, since this is an issue of entertainment, this also means that a person seeks more of the content. After all, what fic fan reads just one story about their scandalous OTP? You need more, or more extreme versions. And I’m not talking out of my ass here- people for some reason love incest- it’s one of the top-searched terms on any adult media site for general consumption. On sites that it’s not, that’s only because the term itself is blacklisted and users use some other coded term. In the absence of pearl-clutching, we must recognize that smutty fiction and tube sites’ activities are largely the same. b/b m/s and f/d incest continue to draw attention and I honestly don’t know why. 

And this is why I pay no mind to people who say that fiction has no effect on reality. Even if it didn’t, it arises from our reality. The real minds of real writers in the real world. And I’ve seen the results. I work with sex and fetishes- it’s my job. I know what people as a whole are into and I’m begging y’all: UNPACK THIS BAGGAGE. Soooo many fetishes are just maladaptive coping mechanisms, so talk of ‘fiction being just fiction’ are literally bullshit. Fetish, and the relative psychology of it, is my job, to the point that it’s also what I have to navigate to try and ensure my safety (by avoiding volatile fetishists) and income (my first job, for instance, was a porn artist, and by now I’m an adult content producer and prodomme). And again, many fetishes are the back end of intense or subconsciously formative moments in our lives. The attraction is not ‘the thing’, it is a thread us leading back to that moment, to learn from our experiences, to resolve past issues with the wiser perspective of our older selves.Again, there’s not much going on in terms of Thor/Loki here but on a wider scale there is. Often in fandom, for instance, it’s not really about the ship so much as the fetish. It’s disguised in the language of fandom, but people who have a bunch of incest ships are incest fetishists, full stop. There’s no difference in motive between them and the ~gross pervert guys~ reblogging porn gifs and adding incest prose to them. If geeks could more often find porn gifs that looked like their taboo OTP rest assured they’d do the same damn thing, most of them. Ficlovers like to act like their position is somehow more morally acceptable because there are no ‘real’ people involved like in porn, but whether or not a physical body is used to represent the characters/roles is a pedantic and nebulous distinction at best. Your interest is still your interest. And people are going to hate this, but it sounds so much like pedophiles on 4chan  who say that their ‘fetish’ is okay because the characters aren’t real. Furries into cubs (not the gay dude kind but the baby animal kind) feel justified the same way because the figures are fantasy creatures. But they’re still expressly coded as the infantile versions of adult characters, and again, the motive is the same. I’m not saying ALL of these things are one to one, I’m saying it’s a similar logic: “This is a fantasy and as such it says nothing about me. It would only matter if I physically did it.” Which is dishonest and illogical bc one’s fantasies  and interests arise out of their own minds. Porn consumption is a night map of the human social psyche. It’s not ‘nothing’.

Sure, most of those people would probably never touch a child, but that’s because the real world provides consequences the fantasy world doesn’t- not because they’re not interested. I know bc I’ve seen them say that themselves, many times. I was a 4chan teen. What was normal there would make a well-adjusted person puke. But I was maladaptive, impressionable and young at the time and it became normal for me. So many forms of incest, rape, pedophilia, bestiality etc became normal in the ‘shock makes things acceptable’ speed-posting culture of neverending offensiveness there. And that’s not just a 4chan thing. It’s a group anonymity thing. Any imageboard vet can tell you that. When you’re in the anonymous group, what the group does is what you do, and you go along with it, continuously being desensitized until you suddenly go WTF or…keep going. And having seen these arguments before, I’m wary of those who go to battle on the idea of all erotic fiction being totally beyond judgement, because often what is going on is that people whose interests should be judged, at the very least by themselves, argue against that so that there are other people who feel the same way who don’t realize they’ve been manipulated to cloak the offenders in their community.

But I digress.

Since my feelings on Killmonger fans* started this, I’ll offer an example of my own: I think AoU Ultron is hot. But I don’t actually want to fuck him. I wouldn’t be interested in any ‘reader x Ultron’ narratives. Why? Because despite my love for and identification with  many villains (usually bc of their victim’s rage and queer coding which always leaves them far cooler and better dressed than the hero) and my love for robots, I can’t ignore that Ultron is a heartless, people-hating, death-machine. He has no interest in love, doesn’t care about anyone, and if he bothered to fuck a person (I fucking doubt it) he’d gladly fuck them apart. And since I love myself, I don’t find that appealing. If I found the idea of being fucked to death by a robot arousing, that says something about how I feel about my existence. I know bc I am strangely fascinated by the idea of armageddon (another reason Ultron appealed to me). Spoilers: it’s just easier to feel like you want the whole world to end when you’re so certain there’s no other solution and you yourself are afraid of the emotional responsibility of weathering the world and social interactions. When you love yourself and other people, the idea of seeing the world burn stops being so entrancing. So sure it’s an enthralling literary concept. Is it something I dedicate my blog to or obsess over?

No.

Other things I’ve examined- my love for robots. Do I find myself attracted to robots because they are humanoids you can objectify free of moral conflict? No, and that sucks for me bc that’s why most people like them and that affects the kind of adult media made about them (can you tell im bitter), it’s because I find humanoid robots to be something I can identify with, I see them as symbolically human, and relating to them is, to me, acknowledging that a human is also a construct with both programming and a will of its own it uses to explore and often fight that programming. My attraction to the concept of an automaton stems from my early realization that my own body is but a fantastic collection of parts, electric signals, programmed genetic data, pulleys and fuel. Amazing! Now that I know that, have I stopped consuming robot fetish media? Well yes but only because I can’t find any I like…but in general, no. I’m not ashamed of my attraction, I’ve unpacked it, faced it, and go on about  my life. It actually did lessen the obsession, though.

So, to stay on point, sibling incest as a concept is IMO not ‘wrong’ to write/read about objectively but it is questionable to perpetuate, romanticize, fawn over, collect, celebrate, etc.  Most problematic to me is the issue of how these ships are identified. Generally any time there are 2 handsome brothers in a piece of media, some not-small-enough contingency of the fandom assumes they’re fucking, and sees all forms of affection or antagonism between them as evidence of their lust.

What does this say about your ability to recognize sibling love? What does it say about the social value (or lack thereof) of the same? When ‘all feelings lead to sex’ is the overarching theme of our entire society, I can’t really say I am uncritical of concepts like hatesex and incest being so intensely attractive to people over, say, romantic love between two people who are not related by blood. A bit of a tangent but similarly while I get the chemistry appeal, the fact that ‘hatesex’ as a concept (two people who often express aggression, hatred, intolerance etc of each other being interpreted as actually masking feelings of attraction) is so popular is ripe for questioning. How far removed is it from “He picks on you  because he likes you” and other maladaptive forms of “loving someone means hurting them…a lot” which are real actual problems people suffer for right now?

Plus, it begins to suggest as I said before that all forms of affection/relationship end in sex. Even if sex never happens, sex must logically be the apex of love if two characters who have any kind of affection, even if that affection is also seen in the presence of aggression (!) or a moral barrier (family bond), are easily assumed to be sexually compatible to the extent that fandom perpetuates.

So back to your point, this is again not really an issue (as far as where I’m coming from) with what’s right and wrong. It’s an issue of people needing to take responsibility for themselves and being curious about their own issues and interests. I’m not advocating for censorship- I’m advocating for people to enlighten themselves about themselves in which case a lot of ‘taboo’ media would be produced in a lessened capacity.

I find it interesting that when I ask “Why are you into ____?” people don’t answer that question, or seem unwilling to, since their first reaction is to flip out and cry censorship. No one seems to notice that that’s not what I’m actually saying lol.

I don’t care what people do, if it’s not hurting someone. I care that people know why they do what they do. I am critical of things and of myself. I think people should just dare to be critical. It’s a great tool for self-healing that doesn’t involve perpetuating damage.*I dislike the term taboo because it and the moral judgment it applies is a nebulous term that is used far too broadly. Incestuous pedophiles soften their interest by calling it ‘taboo’, but interracial relationships are also classed as ‘taboo’, thereby suggesting that the term is as loose as ‘whatever many people think is wrong’, which is clearly far too transient and easily-influenced. Often, I find, it’s used as ‘something that is morally objectionable for reasons we’re not going to explore, we’re just going to lump all this shit together indiscriminately as taboo’.

*Again, I don’t care about people who mainly think MBJ is hot as Killmonger, that’s totally logical. I question people whose fantasies specifically extend to Killmonger THE CHARACTER being seen as sexually attractive **because** of/specifically on the grounds of his general character (i.e. radicalized, violent, murderous, apathetic) and what kind of person would fantasize about being subject to a man like that.