#it's like. very. targeted. a mention doesn't necessitate a response

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/756612247208558592/the-thing-about-horny-blogs-demanding-their?source=share

The responses on this one are bugging me, because just because someone's fear or trauma is genuine and understandable doesn't mean that they aren't hurting other people with it.

Demanding that other people reveal personal information on their own blogs is NOT a harmless request. There are good reasons for not posting your age up front, even aside from it being none of your business. Some abuses use ages to target vulnerable demographics. Some people have stalkers and the less info they post about themselves, even something as commonplace as an age, the harder it will be for their abuser to track them down.

Not to mention that demanding that other people's blogs conform to your moral scruples perpetuates the very same panopticon bullshit that screwed you up in the first place. It is inherently harmful. You can block people for not listing a fake age in their header if that makes you comfortable, but your trauma and paranoia doesn't give you a right to go around spreading trauma like a contagion.

--

I think the best thing we can do here, if we're both older and in a relatively stable position where we can deal with shit (which I would not assume from age alone) is to help The Youth™ by modeling some god damn standards and boundaries.

I think it's trivially obvious that a certain amount of posting by Olds tends to end up in the "offa my lawn!" old man yelling at cloud place.

But compassion doesn't necessitate giving in to bad cultural norms. That's often the missing piece when people remind us to be a little more charitable towards people who've been plagued by the panopticon their whole lives.

[bdoubleowo]

ok I'm turning off submissions because they Make Me Feel Weird. I didn't really get them enough before to figure out why but no I've figured it out. I don't like posting things that are by someone else but looks like it was me. it says "submitted by x" at the bottom but that's. very hidden.

And the fact that I can just. edit the posts???? That's. deeply unsettling that I can just fuck with people's words like that and it'll still say "submitted by x". I know this because I add replies to them and also I edited out the "word count" from nap's fic bc. they told me to lol

So. I'm turning them off. Sorry to anyone who planned to use it!

And like. You can just tag me in posts. You don't have to send them directly to me. I check my mentions.