#censorship is always bad

[justapanpirate]

Whenever I have seen a fic that has something like pedophelia in it it’s explicitly clear that it’s a bad thing. The fic goes into how traumatising it is, how wrong it is, how the adult is at fault. I don’t know what kind of fics other people have found but I’ve never stumbled upon one that tries to portray it as something that is in any way okay. If your mind immediately goes “this fic has pedophelia, that means anyone who reads it jerks off to it” I’m concerned about what the fuck is going on in your head. Do you jerk off to it? Does a fic with incest make you suddenly want to fuck your sibling? No? So why do you assume it happens to everyone else? Why do you assume that you are somehow too smart to get manipulated, but others are not? Does it make you uncomfortable? Did you ever think about how that might’ve been the point?

You also don’t seem to realise that the argument that “you can’t write about xyz because it’s normalising it” also applies to things like biographies, where people tell their story, usually in a “I went through all this shit and survived, you can too” sort of way. Should they not be allowed to? And don’t use the “you can only write about it if it happened to you” bs, how do you know someone went through something and aren’t just lying? Should there be a requirement that people have to tell the world about their trauma to prove they can write about it? A trauma-license if you will? A guideline for “the correct way to write about sexual trauma”? Who will decide on what the right or wrong way is?

If you want to censor writing about pedophelia, rape, incest etc it’s not gonna stop with fanfics. It’s not gonna just apply to what you find disgusting or morally wrong, what you think is the wrong way of writing it. Censoring that would mean censoring it no matter in what context, because people won’t be able to agree on where to draw the line. If you don’t think that will have people find loopholes to silence survivors you are incredibly naive and no better than the people who tell survivors they shouldn’t talk about it because it makes things awkward and other people uncomfortable.

And if you purposefully and repeatedly seek out fics/art that makes you uncomfortable, gives you anxiety, in any way affects you negatively, you are actively self harming. Any therapist would tell you that step one is to do what you can to avoid those triggers; use the block button freely, mute every trigger you can think of. This goes for everything, not just what I’ve mentioned. The rest of the world doesn’t care about your triggers, it’s up to you to do what you can to keep yourself safe. You are the main character in your story, not mine.

Lastly: why are any of you using ao3, that was created specifically by proshippers for proshippers if you find it so vile? No, “because that’s where the most fics are” isn’t an excuse. That just means that your entertainment is more important than this morality you spout. And why do you guys, who claim to care so much about victims, never share any resources for said victims? Why do you never talk about the bible, a book that is actively used to hurt people? Why do your arguments never extend to murder, cannibalism or just about any kind of violence other than sexual? Do you genuinely think you know more about how the human mind works than people who have studied it for years? Does it ever occur to you that maybe the world isn’t either black or white but actually full of gray tones, because how we think is pretty damn complex?

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If you or someone you know needs help:

[fight-nights-at-freddys]

I think it's genuinely concerning how sex-negative we, as a society, are becoming. (This post brought to you by a few tweets I saw)

Does no one else think it's genuinely worrying how if you even find a fictional character attractive, you're called a gooner, or a degenerate, or some other pejorative to indicate that being sexual in any way is gross and nasty and yucky? Why does art suddenly lack artistic value because it's sexual in nature? Why are we so obsessed with associating a core feature of the human condition with shame and guilt?

Even more concerning is that it isn't just some niche little group of people on the internet, it's rampant. Every nook and cranny of the internet has these people, ready and raring to call you names if you dare speak anything slightly not-safe-for-work.

Like the people on twitter openly calling trans women degenerates and freaks for having an incest/rape kink (I've seen this one A LOT), because how can you claim to be an ally, or lgbt-friendly, or a feminist, but get mad at a woman expressing her sexuality? Why does sexuality gross you out to the point you feel the need to demean people over it?

And where does it end? Are we going to start calling women who dress a little too revealing 'sluts' again? Are we going to ban sex scenes in movies? Start preaching abstinence, say sex outside of marriage is bad, that lust is immoral, and being gay is a sin?

I'm sure that a large part of the problem is that these people are generally children, and still in the "sex is gross" phase, but I know that's not the case with all of them. I'm just worried for the future, because all the people saying these things are just reinventing conservatism under the guise of progressivism, and are (intentionally or unintentionally, I'm not sure) causing more harm than good.

I know we talk about puritanism and stuff all the time, but in my opinion, it's gotten to a point even the actual puritans didn't get to.

[fictionaloveward]

everyone agrees that a lesbian that simps for fictional men for example wouldn't like those men irl, cause they're fictional men, two different things, doesn't make her "less of a lesbian"

so why, to these same people, doesn't the same apply to taboo fiction?

[bloodofgrapes]

I've said it before and by god I will say it again

self censorship is doing exactly what the fascists want. do not asterisk yourself or use euphemisms (e.g. motherf*cker, unalive, etc) because you believe that you'll get slapped on the wrist by whatever platform you're on

if said platform DOES remove or otherwise penalize you for using words like fuck, kill, suicide, rape, etc, this is not a platform you want to be on. don't put power in the fascist's hands in the name of accumulating likes, upvotes, and shares

[whumpkink]

"proship dni" tags on AO3 works are so funny, dude you're in the proship incestie site, what the fuck do you mean "proship dni"?

[yupuffin]

I've gotten that post on my dashboard a few times where the person is absolutely insistent that people getting traumatized by fiction just doesn't happen

I absolutely agree with the point that censorship is bad and we shouldn't police fiction

However

I can trace my 12+ years' worth of recurring nightmares (among other symptoms not present beforehand that seem to align with trauma-based disorders) back to a specific scene from a specific work of fiction, and not to anything that happened in real life, and if being traumatized by fiction is a nonexistent phenomenon then I would love an alternate explanation for that

[fiendishartist2]

watching a youtube video ranking "analogue horror" and the comments are all correcting the guy on info he got wrong about petscop lol

[athena5898]

I think at this time, it's okay to smack someone upside the head if they are from America and they DARE to talk about censorship about another country. Like jesus fucking christ the Tiktok ban just happen and you got people going "Well don't go to Rednote! They censorship!" I swear i'm going to make you sit in the fucking corner and think about what you did until we can discuss censorship in a legitimate way and not as some mouthpiece for US propaganda.

I'm tired of this shit yall, stop being fucking boot lickers.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

also like thinking about the fates drama and shit reminded me of somethign which is that. localisations changing things isn’t necessarily censorship even if it’s made less objectionable bc like, censorship is not just a term for things changing or becoming less objectionable it’s censorship if it’s being suppressed. like, yeah, the blood stuff in mortal kombat was censorship bc the devs were outright unable to add blood and get published bc nintendo were on a big moral purity image campaign in the early days. but if it was done by the devs porting it bc they personally didn’t like blood that’d be a wild choice but it’s like. not censorship. same with localisation things being changed around is normal and doesn’t indicate censorship unless it was specifically done to suppress transgressive parts bc they would not be allowed. censorship isn’t just things changed and I don’t like it it’s when speech is actively suppressed.

[dayundying]

I woke up, realized theres "Tumblr premium" so I look it up on Tumblr to see what people are saying. . .

People are mostly upset that they didn't know they had post and like limits, which is a stupid reason to be upset.

[robertsbarbie]

:/

[aeide-thea]

thinking abt (1) that post abt how most censorship is preemptive self-censorship¹ (2) bras²

⸻ ¹ wow, tumblr search actually worked for once??? ² i do understand and respect that for many people bras serve an actual structural function wrt support/comfort! however, for many other people (hi!) they do not, at least in everyday non-sports contexts, and that's the set of concerns i'm speaking to here.

[obscenicon]

sorry to my many proship (and by extension antiship) followers ig but i think shipcourse is very very silly. lets all just have fun and stop giving a shit okay?

[valentyn-the-mad]

Shielding people from ideas will never serve them or protect them as well as preparing them to examine the ideas they encounter and determine what to do with them.

Never seeing a knife or understanding how it works will not help someone handle one safely if they end up with one. It is far far far harder to prevent ever encountering something objectionable than to learn how to deal with it responsibly.

If someone is not allowed to talk about knives but forced to juggle them anyway, there's no safe way to express that experience, nowhere to get safety tips, no one to say there are other things to juggle.

This is an obvious metaphor but apparently it's necessary because there is a distinct difference between media portrayals of literally anything and the real deal. A picture is not a mountain.

Imagination does inform reality, reality does inform imagination, but there is a marked difference between holding a thought and doing an action. The real action that impacts real people is what matters, not playing pretend. The real person made a choice - they were not forced into it by being exposed to an idea. But maybe if we stopped trying to cut off unpleasant ideas they would have had more ways to examine the concept first and then responsibly discard it. Or not, which is still on the person and their choices and not the idea they could have been exposed to in a million different ways. Censorship doesn't actually work to protect anyone. Give people the tools to examine ideas for themselves instead.

[sigurism]

And art made tongue-tied by authority.

Shakespeare, Sonnet 66

[feyarcher]

I think my new personal youtube rule is going to be that I unfollow and stop watching anyone who says 'corn' instead of 'porn' or says 'shit' and then censors the back half of the word. I understand that this comes from tiktok and has been imported into youtube not wanting to promote/ put pricey ads on videos deemed "mature", but I'm a full grown adult and I feel like I'm losing my mind from this trash. And I just have to tap out of it at this point.