#that's not a puritanism thing that's just being normal

[galacticnova3]

You need to learn to let people enjoy things /nm

Oh I don’t have a problem with people enjoying things nor do I want to get in the way of it. It’s just a situation of Unfortunately The Things Collectively In General Are A Big Squick Topic For Me

[cosmicsproutcake]

I don't know what anti needs to hear this, but a ship having the occasional argument, sometimes insulting each other, and having *gasp* sex every now and again is not "toxic", that's called an average, human relationship.

Sorry, but I see antis who brag about how "problematic and toxic" their blog is, while having a several miles-long DNI full of anything and everything that could even be remotely "problematic" way too often, and it's like what, exactly, are you defining as "toxic and problematic" here, when all the actual "toxic and problematic" themes are in your DNI????

[ohnoitstbskyen]

asking sincerely. do you see a romance between jayce and viktor? do you think they ended up being something romantic at the end?

With apologies I am going to only half talk about the thing you are asking me, since I have something else on my mind and you happened to hit the button that makes me vomit it into words.

Coming at this from an aromantic perspective, I obviously don't experience the state of absurd obsessive delusion that you bizarre romantic freaks fetishize so feverishly*, but I am often annoyed by the idea that friendship and romance are either opposites or mutually exclusive. From my perspective, the boundary between the two is at best thin, and more realistically not actually a boundary at all except by cultural construction.

*i am taking an excessively hostile, crass tone for my own amusement i do not mean this seriously please be normal at me, weird allo freaks

I won't get into my full feelings about the end of Arcane, but it seems perfectly plain to me that the script, the imagery and the animation presents Jayce and Viktor as two halves of a whole, not opposing forces but alike to yin and yang: opposites which each contain the other. And at the climax of the show, the greatest peril to life and peace in the narrative is resolved by these two men literally joining their bodies and souls together, and going into eternity holding one another for comfort and strength. They are quite literally soulmates, quite literally the most important people in one another's lives.

I don't think that that kind of intimate emotional connection between men must necessarily be either romantic or sexual - I am aromantic, and plenty of ace people exist, and there is nothing in our natures excluding us from intense connections of love with other people of any gender.

I also think it is willfully ignorant (and genuinely homophobic) to act as though these deep connections are mutually exclusive with sex and romance. As though if Viktor and Jayce fucked nasty and made out sloppy style, suddenly their intimacy is less pure or valid, or tainted somehow.

"If these two men who are emotionally close to one another also fuck or get romantically involved, then friendship is dead, murdered on the floor by a dick-shaped knife; vile sexuality corrupts and debases the true, pure and virtuous love of ✨friendship✨" <- This shit is homophobic at a baseline, queerphobic in general, and frankly as an aromantic man I find it pretty fucking insulting as well.

What, are my friendships with other men just inherently more pure and divine, more meaningful and true than a gay man's can ever be, because I will never suffer the vile temptation of adding romance to my affection? Is that how I should think of myself? And is an aroace man more pure than me still, the only source of TRUE male friendship that a man can ever experience, free from the pustulant corruption of sexuality and romantic desire?

You get this pathetic defensiveness (especially from men, but other genders aren't immune) wherein sex and sexuality and romance between men is perceived as a threat to men's right and ability to experience deep connection to each other. But the emotional castration of men comes not from people imagining sex and romance as a component of our relationships - it comes from people who insist that our emotional lives must be ruled by strict binaries. Sex and romance, OR ELSE friendship. Deep romantic connection OR ELSE deep platonic connection. Pick one and do not dare to imagine both, nor act as though the boundary between them is something that we built by cultural fiat, and which can be dismantled just the same.

And yes, yes, yes, I know there are cultural forces literally illuminati-style conspiring to systemically erase the entire existence of explicitly romantic, sexual male love from media, and I know that homophobic puritanism is on the rise and there are material concerns and a real necessity for explicit representation in fiction, yes I know. Everything is more complicated than a tumblr post can cover, I am not trying to Solve Rainbow Capitalism™ over here, I am trying to express frustration as an aromantic man that this stupid fucking binary keeps getting culturally reinforced by both my enemies and my well-meaning allies, when I think the binary is what's fucking killing us in the first place.

So anyway. My position is that Viktor and Jayce can be entirely aromantic no-homo friends, and they can fuck nasty in the throes of mutual need and obsession, and I refuse to entertain the idea that there is an irresolvable contradiction between those things. Each of those can contain the other, or become the other given time and circumstance.

What the imagery, storytelling and script of Arcane makes clear is that Viktor and Jayce love each other more than life itself. To say that that love must be shoved into the box of either "platonic" or "romantic" is to miss out on almost everything that is beautiful about love. It can be both and neither! It can be a secret third, ninth or fifteenth thing that they haven't invented a tag for on Ao3 yet.

They are giving each other whatever the spiritual mind-ghost equivalent of sloppy backshots are on the ethereal plain forever, they are the most romantic lovers in the cosmos, and they are also the most chaste and platonic life-partner friends you have ever seen, effortlessly intimate and unashamedly tender. They are men who love one another, in every way that love matters.

You can pick whichever interpretation brings you joy, and resonates with what your heart needs, the text of the show is eminently and explicity open to it, and anyone who says otherwise either failed to pay attention, or refused to pay attention on purpose.

[kiefbowl]

wait ok genuinely kind of interested in your opinion on porn now......... if only because those big 3 you mentioned are always the reasons i see people throwing out so id love to hear a deeper take than that

I'm genuinely surprised anyone could follow me and not know my stance on porn, but that's okay. simplified and in no particular order and in no means exhaustive:

porn creates perverse incentives

porn normalizes the purchase of women as sexual objects for men to use

porn is often called "rape on tape" by feminists, which I mostly agree with in the sense that if a woman would otherwise not have had sex except that she is being paid, then she is not consenting. you cannot purchase consent, the consent is not meaningful then.

additionally, you can not verify if you are watching people be raped in any other way. porn sites are filled with stolen videos, coerced videos, actual minors, aggressive rape that was filmed with or without the victim's knowledge, and other videos of this nature. there is no way to verify this at all from videos that are somehow not these things. things like "amateur" are often just marketing by the porn company or pimp, or they're stolen videos.

porn creates a social script for sex. this social script is least of all - boring and predictable. it also reinforces the long standing conservative gender understanding (see 2). porn also reinforces ideas of homophobia and racism under the guise of "taboo." porn is literally so conservative, but because it's considered "shocking" to "puritans" (religious men watch porn all the time), people talk like it's this liberal fantasy. porn is constantly reestablishing the status quo in the most perverse ways.

it's been demonstrated that people who are porn addicts very quickly escalate to more violent porn, and that this plays out in their sex lives with their (often vulnerable) sex partners.

the violence that happens in porn is real. the idea that it's a "fantasy" is marketing by porn website and pimps. if a man slaps a woman across the face, that really happened. why does it matter if she says "yes" to it - that's her "job" so how can she say no? (see 3 and also 4).

there is so much evidence and testimony by porn stars of the absolutely awful and terrifying conditions in which they work, even in the quote unquote "real" industry. drugs, alcohol, violence, coercion, exposure to STIs, homelessness, pimping, prostitution, mental illness, suicide, lack of benefits. It's bananas that anyone would be surprised by this when it's pointed out, we're talking about an industry that films sex on video. The majority of people in the sex industry want out. It ruins their lives, and once in it's very hard to leave and lead a normal life. The idea that the industry needs regulation to be "fixed" is bizarre and just seems like pimp and porn industry marketing to get people to look the other way.

Poverty creates porn. Social welfare for the poorest of our women would prevent them from entering the industry in the first place. Women go into porn out of need, not desire. social media pushes that porn stars loooove their jobs is 1. porn site and pimp propaganda 2. literally marketing because men want to believe this.

I am not religious, I don't believe in god. I love sex and masturbation. it's the most natural thing in the world and people don't actually need to "learn" how to do it - it's innate within us. Porn is just one more way to humiliate women in a misogynist society that requires women to be fearful of sex and rape constantly, and uneducated in their own sexual desires and boundaries.

[aliceoseman]

s3 dealt with some more mature themes than s1&2 did, did you struggle with that in any way or did it feel like a natural development for the characters? especially since heartstopper has been praised specifically for being a "wholesome" show basically from the start, did you find it in any way daunting to write (more) sex and alcohol into the show?

(Upon reading this back, I have only talked about sex, not alcohol, very sorry!! Also this gets really off topic but this was the only question I received about sex in the show and I have a lot to say that I just didn't get asked about at all in any promo interviews, so... Here I shall word vomit!!)

Short answer: Yes, I struggled, but not with the writing of the story - just with the general discourse about sex/no sex in Heartstopper, since the beginning of the show.

Long answer:

It wasn't something I struggled with when writing the comic. I always knew that Heartstopper would get to that point - that it would grow up alongside the characters - but the general cultural view of the show as 'wholesome' vs. the criticism of it for being 'puritanical' and 'sexless' has definitely made me feel quite anxious about how these maturer elements would be interpreted by people in the show.

I never saw Heartstopper as 'wholesome' when I started creating the comic. The first chapter of the comic leads to a scene featuring assault, and the story deals heavily with mental health and bullying. The comic has swearing throughout. Whether the story was 'wholesome' was simply not a topic of discourse before the TV show released - I knew it was uplifting and optimistic, of course, but only in the same way that most YA romance stories are. So the public declaration of the Heartstopper show as 'wholesome' - as its defining characteristic and unique selling point - did take me by surprise. I'd had to remove the swearing from the story, but aside from that, I couldn't really understand what was different with the show compared to the comic, and why this was its defining feature. And then of course some of the conversation shifted to the fact that in S1 and S2, there's no sex.

This too confused me. I always felt the sexual attraction between N&C was obvious from the start, and sex itself was introduced into the story at the time I felt was right for the characters, with no real thought as to whether the audience would agree with me. People hardly ever pointed out the lack of sex in the comic - it's very, very normal for YA fiction romances to not feature sex, and in fact, it's actually pretty common for teen movies and shows to not feature sex, certainly when they skew towards younger teens as Heartstopper did in S1 and S2. But for some reason, when the Heartstopper show came around, people really, really noticed the lack of sex, and I was very surprised by that reaction. I wonder if it was because people weren't accustomed to that in queer TV, or if it was because people liked N&C so much as a couple and desperately wanted to see them take that step, or just because people felt it was broadly unrealistic for a teen couple to wait a little while before feeling ready to have sex. Perhaps it was all. But whatever it was, it caused some... outcry!

(I could go into arguments as to whether it is morally correct or generally realistic for N&C to wait before having sex in the story, but ultimately I think people's opinion on that varies heavily depending on their worldview and personal experience, and there's no right answer - people can like it or not like it and that's completely fine, not every tv show is for everyone - but the one thing I would say is that I think it shows young readers/viewers that it's OKAY to not be ready, and how to have that conversation with your partner, and I think that's a really, really good and helpful thing for young people)

Fortunately for those who were distressed by the lack of sex in the show, and for me who was anxious about all of that criticism, I'd been planning for the story to reach that stage pretty soon anyway. It honestly made me relieved that it was going to be introduced, if only to reassure people that I wasn't pretending sex doesn't exist or that I, as an asexual, was spreading some sort of anti-sex agenda (seemed to be a common refrain among those who find it particularly annoying that I'm ace). But mainly - I'd always known this would be a really important step in N&C's journey, and I wanted to do it justice, and I felt I had done so in the comic, but with the TV show came all of those opinions and discourse, so I was much more nervous about it and spent a lot of time during the writing process trying to figure out how people would feel about it. An impossible task, and before S3 released, I had no idea what the reaction would be.

In the end it was pretty anti-climactic - it got hyped up a bit too much in the early promo for S3, and then the general consensus was that the sex in the show was shown with a very light touch, and some people thought that was a good thing and others did not. And people still call the show sexless and puritanical, so it didn't really solve that issue. (I'm just not sure what those people really expected to happen - obviously they are not going to suddenly start fucking on screen in a show that's been previously marketed for the 12-16 age bracket, guys, let's use our brains here) Personally, I'm really proud of how that element of the story turned out. I think the scenes are really beautiful and feel totally right for the tone of the story, and have let the show mature without suddenly becoming an entirely different show.

This has been a long answer but I think what I'm trying to say is this: the 'mature' vs 'wholesome' scale of Heartstopper is something that has never been a topic of discourse for the comic. But it has been front and centre for the show, and certainly is something that has caught me off guard and caused me some anxiety, because I do see the criticism and it does hurt, and at times feels incredibly personal. But at the end of the day, I'm just telling a story, and the things that happen will happen at the time I feel is right for the characters. I just want to tell the story that I've set out to tell, and I intend to keep doing so until it is done.

If we get a S4, and indeed now that I am working on Vol 6, I am thinking much less about how the audience might react to the sex in the story, and am simply just writing/drawing what feels emotionally and dramatically right for the story and characters. And that feels much more creatively freeing!

[leikeliscomet]

A lot of people including asexuals really don't understand that asexuality is really the only form, or at least one of the very few forms of nonsexuality that exists outside of puritanism. It's one of the few forms of nonsexuality that isn't enforced or mandatory in a religious, spiritual, physical or mental sense. Its one of the few forms of nonsexuality that doesn't involve an active restriction or repression of desire or attraction but instead simply not having certain desires or attractions in the first place for people who never had them or no longer have them. It's one of the few forms of nonsexuality that is naturally occurring instead of being mandatory and enacted by a larger system. I know there's some feminist reworkings of celibacy and abstinence but those usually have an expiry date in the sense that after sexual conditions improve for women then sex can start again (with men). Asexuality does not. Whilst ethical celibacy or abstinence is usually in the context of women not participating in sex until certain conditions are met and improved, asexuality offers the ability to not participate ever. With no pressure to rejoin or join, no moral stigma. And I think that's pretty neat.

So when the forefront of liberal ace activism is to distance itself from nonsexuality completely, to constantly assert that asexuals aren't frigid prudes, asexuals aren't virgins, asexuals aren't vanilla, asexuals aren't ugly and unfuckable, asexuals have libidos like normal people, asexuals are never scared or uncomfortable with sex at all or have any not 100% enthusiastic opinions about it, that there's 0 trace of any sexual trauma or negative sexual experiences or anxieties because we're not damaged goods, essentially focusing on our hypothetical sexual potential more than the nonsexual realities a lot of us have, to say I'm confused and disappointed would be a massive understatement.

Yes asexuality is a spectrum and everyone's valid blah blah blah but not all of these experiences are the same and the community hasn't and doesn't want to prepare for that. We've advocated for how aces can still take part in (hetero)sexuality but what are those of us who don't supposed to do? There's no guide for what childless aces are gonna do in the next few decades when they have no biological descendants. There's no guide on how to have an asexual romance without sex apart from 'just cuddle' or basically just saying do 'normal' romance without the sex bit. There were no guide to QPRs until we made them. There's no guide on how to build an ace community in real life and how to deal with any loneliness or isolation that comes from not having a local community. There's no guide on how to be a nonsexual being apart from 'just don't have sex/do sexual things' which apart from being backhanded as hell for those of us who didn't get a choice, it doesn't go beyond that. We have this unique form of nonsexuality and nothing is being done with it, apart from ignoring, erasing or blatantly attacking it. Where are all those "harmful stereotype" asexuals supposed to go? There's no one around to help but us.

I care more about supporting asexual people's nonsexual needs than proving asexuals fit into some type of sexual normalcy.

[the-real-rain-world-confessions]

is this a safe space

almost all of the "controversy" I've seen in this fandom has been the dumbest shit ever, and people are being HARASSED OUT OF THE FANDOM over it. seriously, I've seen all these "exposing ___ for being a predator" posts and then it's just a 17 year old making sex jokes with a 19 year old or situations where the "older person" genuinely isn't at total fault. not to mention the amount of times people have been accused of being "zoophiles" over drawing normal ass furry porn (especially of anthro slugcats). this is the Internet. porn is and always has been a thing, and it's not evil. it's not "ruining your fandom".

I don't even know where to start with the weird puritanical "all sex is evil and bad" thing going on in this fandom, or the straight up infantilisation of teenagers. Yes, 16 year olds know what porn is. yes, they look for it. no, they will not explode and die if they see it. NOBODY is hornier than the average high schooler, stop treating them like little kids who shouldn't even be allowed to acknowledge the existence of sex until they're 18 it's fucking weird (and for the love of god stop throwing "zoophile" and "groomer" around so loosely. those words have lost almost all of their meaning at this point, a groomer is NOT a legal adult who happened to mention the concept of sex around a 17 year old)

speaking from a place of genuine care and concern, so many people in this fandom need to grow the fuck up. not every friend group drama needs a Google doc and a public call-out post. teenagers/"minors" are not these angelic babies who can do no wrong and are free of consequences and are always the victims. you are old enough to think for yourself and make good decisions, and you are, in fact, capable of being in the wrong -- just as much as the young adults you claim are also old enough to know better. this mob hate mentality is destroying the fandom more than any amount of furry porn or teenagers making sex jokes

I tried very hard to shorten this as much as possible

.

[olderthannetfic]

Not gonna lie, sometimes being a writer in my native language feels... isolated and alienating. However not in the 'AO3 stats be low and less than English ones' that maybe one could thought of it at first, no, I know what I am doing writing and posting my non-English fanfics on AO3. I have really good friends and a minor readership that I love.

The isolation and alienation comes from people hating their own native languages and being so vocal (almost proud with others encouraging them) about it. Bet I am not the only who has see this. And I am sorry, but that just feel like hot bullshit. Why do you hate your own language that much? Why do you praise/treat like a better language English and English alone? Why do you say 'ew, a fanfic in my native language!" like that is a completely normal thing to say? I try to come with responses and their logic that aren't plain linguistic colonialism, but I can't. It feels alienating because I see it so. freaking. much. In Tumblr, in Discords, in Reddit, in Twitter, everywhere! Sometimes I have my lows and think 'man am I the wrong here? should I despise my own language, my own (literature) culture? everyone does it'. I respond with a 'no' obviously, since I keep writing in my native language and encourage everyone who approachs me to do it. That still doesn't erase the fact that seeing 'ew fics in my native language sucks!' comments in the wild are pretty demotivating and, to be quite honest, shitty, even if the people doing them aren't from my country.

This kind of feels like a consequence of how... imperialist (for a lack of a better word, sorry) the Internet has become in the past few years. Rather, the whole world, yes; and the Internet is just a part of it so of course fandom got affected by it. If it got affected by this puritanical, bigoted and radfem-y viewpoints, it was just a matter of time for this issue ('fics in English are superior/better in general/better to write/better to got numbers') to chime in. Damned 'globalization'. It was so fast.

--

I hate it. I hate it so much. It's been constant for decades (with the exception of a few languages like Mandarin). English isn't special! Whatever century's trade language can reach more people, but that's it: it isn't more beautiful, historic, nuanced, interesting, worthy, whatever.

And god is English not less cringey and terrible when it comes to words for dicks or squelchy sex noises or whatever else people find terminally embarrassing to write about. We native speakers had to get over it in order to write. Native speakers of anything can do the same!

Though, yes, Arabic-speaking anon from last time, I grant you that some languages' speakers are going to have to invent a whole new era of writing in the vernacular. Go forth. Write your Canterbury tales if that's what it takes.

[drdemonprince]

I’m part of a large kink group on Facebook. Like 40k+ people. I love it because people ask for help about anything and everything and members of the group are supportive and positive and it’s like “trading cookie recipe” level normal regardless of what is asked. Except like when there is obvious dubious shit going down with bad boundaries, lack of clear consent etc. people are honest and give good advice about that.

However I saw a post a few days ago that kinda stumped me. It was in response to another post that got taken down and I didn’t see it so not sure of context but basically post was about feeding fetishes. And how that OP who removed their post should not be encouraging something that is so inherently bad for someone’s health. It talked a Lot about being fat and the toll on the healthcare system and how this person should be asking why they’re attracted to that and doing some inner work. Then went on to say it is basically the Most harmful form of kink or fetish because it makes people unhealthy and then a burden on the healthcare system. It tried to come off like out of concern for people’s health and wellbeing but really just stank of fat phobia and shaming people for being into kinks that involve fat people, therefore shaming the fat people themselves.

What kinda got to me was that no one was challenging them. So I didn’t feel comfortable jumping in like maybe I’m in the wrong and this is the general consensus out there? I am fat, enjoy kink although not into the whole feeding thing personally.

The idea that someone should sit down with someone else and ask a bunch of questions about their fat kinks and why they feel this way when it’s generally accepted that even things like cnc and rapeplay etc are not questioned (because it would be weird for people to act like your therapist before wanting to fuck you) is so strange to me.

I guess their point was that feeding kinks are encouraging over eating and obesity which is bad, but other kinks could arguably be also inflicting physical pain and also reinforcing emotional distress and yet we’re not all out there trying to be doctors for each other…

I don’t know it was just weird. Wondered what your thoughts are on it.

Nah, they're full of shit and fatphobic and you can tell that by the fact they're spreading the usual concern-trolling unscientific nonsense about *besity and health. They're disgusted by fat and by the idea a person might actively want to become fat and couching it in the language of concern, replicating the exact disgust-as-morality cueing that the sex negative Puritans would against them. It's bullshit but it's incredibly commonplace. Even some fat people wring their hands against feedism/gaining/fat fetish stuff because of their own internalized respectability politics, but it's bunk, because if there's nothing wrong with loving fat people or finding them desirable, or with enjoying being fat, then there's no shame in wanting to become fat or wanting the world to have more fat people.

Feedism, gaining, fat fetishism are all great. It's great to derive sexual pleasure from being fat or being with fat partners, and it's lovely to want to become more fat. More people should do it.

[breelandwalker]

Why is Wicca not a preferred way of practice? I’ve read a couple of posts, and Wicca isn’t favored.

Moral puritanism and performative outrage, plain and simple. There's nothing inherently wrong with Wicca or Wiccans. Some people in the community just aren't doing the work and seem to think that decolonizing our thinking begins and ends with screaming BOYCOTT at anything they deem even remotely reprehensible.

Let's do some of the work and dig a little deeper, shall we?

The main complaint is that Wicca started with people who had problematic worldviews and has had some growing pains and issues with racism, sexism, cultural appropriation, and bad actors in the community as it has evolved, reaching into the present day.

But here's the thing - SHOW ME A RELIGION THAT DOESN'T HAVE THESE PROBLEMS SOMEWHERE IN ITS' HISTORY OR CURRENT CULTURE. GO AHEAD, I'LL WAIT.

It's neither fair nor reasonable to judge a religion based on its' beginnings, or to dismiss the ability of a community to grow and evolve over time, or to pretend that the modern witchcraft movement doesn't owe a large part of its' existence to Wicca. Like it or not, if it weren't for Wiccans, we wouldn't have the kind of organization or recognition that we do, nor would we have had certain landmark legal cases that led to pagans being able to claim the protection of law against religious discrimination in the States.

(And because someone somewhere is going to demand the encyclopedia answer - This is not to discount the contributions of other groups, but the historical fact remains that the people responsible for the foundations of Wicca kickstarted the movement in the UK and subsequent practitioners brought it into public view in a positive light during the counterculture movements of the 1950s and 1960s. And it was Wicca that was first pagan religion in the US to be recognized and therefore included under the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. This does not change the CULTURAL AND SOCIETAL response to witchcraft or paganism, or the problems that witches and pagans still face in other places, only the presence of civil rights that were not there before. And that has, in fact, contributed to an increase in wider normalization and acceptance. We may not owe EVERYTHING to Wicca and Wiccans, but we would not be where we are as a movement or a community without them.)

Not to mention, Wicca hasn't even been around for a whole century yet and already it's being judged like it has the same kind of cultural and political clout that, oh say, Christianity does in much of the Western world. And it's no coincidence that a good number of the criticisms leveled at Wiccans are the same ones flung at Christians.

Wicca DOES have a strong influence on modern witchcraft, because Wicca and Wiccans were such a big part of the foundation of the movement. Furthermore, many of the published works viewed as standard beginner texts were written by Wiccans or heavily influenced by Wiccan ideas and concepts. Admittedly, there was a tendency for quite some time to think of Wicca and Wiccan tenets as the default for modern witchcraft, and now that we're moving away from that and discovering just how much of our thinking relies on that framework and the ideas present within it, there's backlash happening.

It's important to try and decolonize your thinking as much as possible when it comes to witchcraft. But that involves more work and more effort than just pointing fingers and broadly condemning anything remotely problematic or anything that's ever been touched or influenced by people whose moral and ethical codes don't pass muster under a modern lens. We cannot and should not expect people from 50+ years ago to toe the line when people living today can't even do so reliably.

So to wrap it all up - there's nothing wrong with Wicca and there's nothing wrong with being Wiccan. We are none of us completely unproblematic and until we address the fact that issues with racism, sexism, manipulation, cultural appropriation, and so forth exist in MANY parts of the modern witchcraft and pagan community, we don't get to tar and feather any one group. A bit of critical thinking and self-reflection, and a great deal of Knowing Our Own History, is the key to moving forward here.

Because until the people voicing these complaints most loudly can realize the head-splitting irony of condemning Wicca in one breath and celebrating the Wheel of the Year or venerating a Maiden-Mother-Crone-model goddess in the next, we're not actually getting anywhere.

Anyway, I hope this helps to answer some of your questions. For more information, I highly recommend reading Margot Adler's "Drawing Down The Moon" and Ronald Hutton's "Triumph of the Moon" for a more comprehensive overview of the history of the modern witchcraft movement. Both are written from an outside scholar's perspective and are presented as research rather than rhetoric. Part of knowing where we are and deciding where to go next is knowing where we started and where we've been, after all.

[lisholoz]

So you’re a proshipper?

I've been in fandom spaces over 10 years now and all this discourse nonsense has only cropped up in the past few years. I'm a regular person who doesn't harass other people online So I guess I fall under the proship umbrella, that's definitely the fandom space I stick to anyway cuz that's where all the normal people are haha. I'm not American so the hyper puritan culture of antis sending death threats to people over cartoons kissing weirds me out NGL.

I also get lots of messages telling me to kill myself because I draw two grown men who aren't related that have had like 4 very positive comic interactions together so you can see why I have very little patience for this whole new wave anti culture.

One thing to add as well! Not to sound like an old fart but we used to have terms like

"squick"

which meant the discomfort at seeing content or a ship that you personally did not like. So like e.g if you hated characters hooking up while drunk you might call it a squick so if you were seeing content with that you'd block it and move on.

"NOTP"

so like OTP meant "one true pairing" back in the day so it means it's your favourite ship. E.g Sladejay is my OTP.

NOTP means a ship that you haaaaaaaate but like you don't even have to have a reason for it you just might not vibe with it.

E.g Batjokes and Sladick are NOTPs for me, the first because I just don't like the joker, but the second because I don't like how Dick gets drawn/written by most people 🤷🏻‍♀️

Modern online culture I feel like people think they have to have some grand moral reasoning as to why they hate something rather than just being like

"I think that's icky" or "I think that's dumb"

[terfintheweb]

i'm bitter and autistic but i think the internet actually has exacerbated the mental health crisis way more than we give it credit for. like we almost exclusively blame capitalism and the way society is set up and that's fair, but i think the unlimited access to other people is all that's needed in order to become the kind of person who hates people.

before every single person decided they needed to compulsively broadcast every little thing about them whenever we met a particularly shitty or fucked up person we could go, "hey, it's one person. they're just weird." now everywhere you look there's another sicko doing the same thing and/or worse

when i was a kid and struggling with my autism i'd think i was just an alien and everyone else had been born with this inherent knowledge of the world that was completely inaccessible to me and i would never be able to catch up. and that's definitely true. but now i think neuotrypicals are the fucked up ones.

i fundamentally do not understand other people and the things they think are okay and normal. i guess i'm a prude but i just think all of it is so fucking weird.

like how everyone is so obsessed with drugs and alcohol to the point where you're not even allowed to have your wedding not have booze there or you're called selfish?? and people get weird if you don't drink??? "even kids drink!" they say, as if that's normal??

and the normalization of being stoned ALL the time is just crazy. you need to be able to exist without marijuana SOMETIMES.

not to mention party/sex drugs being treated like a baseline experience for everyone young.

bdsm, "sex work", porn, kink/fetish, it's all fetishized domestic violence and it's everywhere.

"if your kids are online they've seen it all already" being treated like it's ok. it's not.

polyamory threesomes sex parties orgies yada yada and like when you're not on the internet you get to pretend most people are normal and doing normal shit. there's nowhere on the internet you get to pretend that.

the TRA nonsense??? misogyny is in its prime right now and nothings being done.

then there's people treating everyone they know like a potential notch on their bedpost. i saw someone talk about how their polyamorous friend came to them propositioning their husband. like that is supposed to be normal now?? you call yourself polyamorous so now you get to treat other people's relationships like pawns in your sex life. people shouldn't have to beat you over the head with the fact they're monogamous for you to think, "maybe i shouldn't try to have sex with my friend's spouse." that is CRAZY behaviour.

but i'm a prude for thinking sex should be private, non-violent, safe, consensual, and between two adults. even though you'd think that would be the standard. but now you get called a friggin puritan if you say not everything is ethically ok just because it turns you on.

cuz apparently you can either be okay with people walking their half-naked boyfriends on leashes in public where anyone can see or you're basically a caricature of an old timey woman, fainting at the prospect of showing her ankle.

it's all just so bad right now. tiktok is fun but it's also a dopamine pit fucking with our attention spans. the internet is being taken over by AI and somehow, despite decades warning about that exact thing, everyone's ok with it. the internet delivers vices right to your home. you can become a gambling addict on accident by downloading apps now. great! wonderful! so glad this is how we're spending our lives!

it's absolutely bizarre feeling suicidal at 26 for the exact same reason you felt suicidal at 7. i have just honestly given up on ever finding anyone who feels the way i feel atp. i used to get frustrated that i don't like (or relate to) my own ""community"" but i just don't like anyone, apparently.

ive been in therapy for e ver and they always insist i should try to socialize but honestly the more i try to mask and socialize the less i feel like a person at all. it just feels worse. i don't relate to anyone and no one relates to me. except my sister, but i basically raised her. so like, whatever. i give up. it would've been nice to be able to have friends or date or whatever but i'm so tireddddddddddd. hermits aint gotta do all this shit theyre onto smthn.

sometimes i miss being a part of the TRA cult like yes i was brainwashed and stupid but at least i was able to make friends and i felt like i wasn't the only person feeling the way i feel. i wasn't okay with all of it but i was able to convince myself i was. now i just... cannot seem to get around how i actually feel, which happens to be the opposite way that everyone else feels. classic

[ieetbeez]

Small Rant About RE

Hello gang... This has been on my mind for awhile. Today we're talking about Resident Evil and particularly Leon stans. Now I'm gonna come out and say I am one of them! I love that silly little blonde man and he's like number 1 on my favorite capcom white boy tier list next to Cody from Final Fight/SF.

tw: mentions of rape, pedophilia, incest, abuse, and my opinion

Let me make it clear, I'm not kink shaming, I'm not advocating for censorship. Art and literature shouldn't be censored. Sex is cool. Kink is cool (when safe and consensual).

I'm gonna be one of those fans real quick and say, I've been an RE fan since I was like 7. That doesn't really mean much since I can't drink legally but I've been in love with Leon since elementary school. I watched my Dad and brother play RE6 co-op and man... Aka I've been in the fandom for a fat minute. Before the RE2 remake came out I'd see the occasional Dead Dove fic but that's whatever. But I have never seen this much dark romance about Leon of all people!

Like. Call it the T-Virus the way it's everywhere I swear I can't scroll down the damn tag without getting hit with a sexual crime. And let me say, I'm not new to fandom culture. I take don't like don't read to heart (I'm super picky LMAO). And I understand that, that's just how big fandoms are, more people, more bad eggs. I'm sure the majority of y'all are sweet people.

BUT I feel like I shouldn't have to say that romanticizing things like pedophilia, rape, abuse, and incest is disgusting in the big year 2025 but here we are. Honestly, I feel this way about a lot of the fics of other fandoms I'm in. I feel crazy seeing it everywhere and it makes me feel like some sort of sexual puritan. Am I insane for wanting freaky smut and not ...freaky smut??

There for sure is a bigger conversation here about how easily accessible porn is and how quick people to fall into these pipelines. Or how booktok caused a rise in the normalization of dark romance troupes and just pure porn writing (I still hate icebreaker). Or how quick form constant content is slowly leaking it's way into everything. But we’d be here for forever…

And like, it's just completely out of character?? Like if you're gonna write about that can it at least be in character? Wesker fits the dark romance thing LEAGUES better. But LEON?? THE POLICE OFFICER?? Did you even watch a walkthrough? Leon is a sweet upstanding guy with lots of trauma, that is the last thing he'd do to ANYONE! Not saying fics have to be completely accurate all the time but there's literally nothing fun about "Omg what if Leon RAPED you!?" HES NOT THE EVIL RESIDENT HERE GUYS! At some point it's not even about Leon (or whoever the fic is about) anymore, it's just someone wanting to share their sexual fantasies online.

These topics are almost never written with any care and are insanely insensitive to the survivors of these acts. I don't know, sexual crimes are literally some of the most deplorable acts of hatred and depravity someone can do onto another person. I can't imagine getting off to the suffering of others (in a heinous crime way not BDSM way) (BDSM is cool). Have some fucking empathy and stop thinking with your goon wad guys <3

Like at least take it to AO3 so that I can filter it out or smth...

Edit: I just woke up and remembered what else I was gonna say.

You can tell a lot about a person by how they treat their fictional characters. Another thing I don’t like are the Gooner mods for the games. Like they’re fun every once in a while and like if it’s a capcom game you have to expect it. At some point though, it just stops being sexy and feels gross or uncomfortable.

Idk maybe I’m in the minority here but there has never been a single time where I was playing any RE game and thought to myself, “man… I wish I could see Leon’s end rod whipping in the wind rn…” Obviously, I wanna see that man oiled up butt booty naked doing jumping jacks like as most normal people do but… zawg…

That’s also like an actual person?? At least for the remakes. Maybe this just isn’t my dove to eat but the treat Leon like some sort doll. I know it’s kinda weak to be like this for a fictional person but yeah </3

[kiefbowl]

What about amateur porn or drawn erotica?

"amateur porn" is mostly a marketing term. it's meant to convey an idea that the porn is "homemade." but what stops people from just producing and marketing content that looks like that? especially since the idea has been pushed successfully that this is "more ethical porn." That is capitalism 101 - find a market you aren't capturing, make them a product they'll buy.

Even in the event it's not actually a production by a studio, you cannot verify that the porn you're watching is not a woman in an abusive relationship with a pimp. Boyfriends become pimps all the time. I think people have this idea that pimps are caricatures that pop out of the ground organically and fully formed, like some sort of mythological "bad guy." They don't stop to think that any opportunistic man (or woman) can become a pimp easily by just having access to a vulnerable woman. If someone enjoys porn, I think it's easy and worthwhile for them to have a disconnect between what "real abusers" do and what happens in a mythical porn setting that's more convenient to imagine. Yet do you need to look far to find examples of couples either A) joking how much money they could make if the wife would get on OF B) fighting because the husband wants the wife to get on OF to increase their revenue and she doesn't or C) just flat out admitting the wife is on OF and how much money it brings to the table? Besides the fact that in any one of these situations, this could be a covert marketing tactic by OF working with a couple, but even if it's not...why believe in scenario C that the husband is just some good guy and this is just some normal situation they fell into? The difference between scenario C and a pimp is what? They're being public about it by framing it a certain way? Well if that makes the public normalize it, why wouldn't "real" pimps just take that lead and do the same? My point is that there is no distinction: a man (whether it's a stranger, a friend, a dad, a husband, a boyfriend) exerting control over a woman by making her perform sexual acts for his own profit is a pimp, and I don't see why we should trust the way he frames it publicly, even if he says "I'm just a progressive husband who isn't jealous and loves that my wife shakes ass online for our family" or whatever gets people to go "cool! I will not questions this."

I'm sure you're asking in good faith anon, so this isn't directed specifically at you, but often when porn watchers are engaging in debate about porn, they'll start bringing up things like 'drawn erotica' as if it's some sort of gotcha. To me, it's so revealing how little they care about the arguments presented about the harms of the porn industry because yes, obviously drawn erotica is different than filming real humans having sex. It also reveals some sort of assumed bias that the person presenting objections to porn without appealing to religious morality or puritanical ideas about sex are somehow being deceitful. As if once "victimless porn" is brought up, they'll be unable to lie and their true nature will be revealed because they'll have some thinly veiled excuses about how drawn porn is obviously just as bad, because it's so sexy!

Drawings of people having sex or being naked and sexual are not above criticism in how they replicate harmful ideas about sex, sexuality, and gender - but they also aren't literal forms of violence against real people. So, it's irrelevant to the discussion of vulnerable people being pushed into porn to perform sexual acts against their will to a point of ruination. If someone feels comfortable continuing to watch and masturbate to porn after this has been explained to them, I don't see why any thoughts I have on erotica written or drawn or otherwise really matters. They can't be convinced through that avenue, clearly. They're probably willing to take whatever thread they can pull on to justify their consumption and to assuage their conscience over watching porn. That to me signifies a porn addiction, because even a casual viewer of porn who's never come across any anti-porn arguments knows they can live without porn, knows they don't need to defend it tooth and nail, and will not play stupid about comparisons to real people having sex on film/enacting violence on each other to erotic drawings.

At the end of the day, re: erotica, I would need to take each thing of media in it's own right and judge it for itself (like all film, books, and art). If it replicates pornographic images (i.e. the film language of porn that I take issue with vis-a-vis misogyny and violence against women), then yeah I'm going to have a problem with it. Not because it's sexual, but because it's content is disagreeable to me in that it's misogynistic. The scale for that is going to be sliding - the difference between a causal representation of unexamined gender dynamics and extremely violent CSAM is huge. I don't take issues with people finding, say, mild 18th century drawings titillating as much as I take issues with people acting entitled to violent images as if their masturbation depends on it and they're entitled to masturbate to whatever they want. Why? I masturbate to my imagination all the time. It's literally the easiest and most natural thing to do. If someone can't, it's probably because they're addicted to porn. If desperate poor women being pushed into drugs to continue making porn that becomes increasingly violent doesn't stop someone from watching porn, then maybe I should ask them to get angry at porn for altering their brain so badly. That's how desperate people sound when they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel in the face of facts about violence, poverty, suicide, and abuse.

[leikeliscomet]

Ik one of you is gonna yell 'oppression olympics' but idgaf the feeling of being left out of the ace community is completely unbalanced because we're not all talking about the same thing. There's a difference between the lesbian, gay, bi and pan aces who are on the receiving end of homophobia and its dogwhistles in the community vs the alloaces who hate being associated with aroaces and aromanticism in general, and how 'aroaces have all the representation' because they look down on romantic lovelessness. There's a difference between the aroaces who are alienated by the constant assertions of how 'aces can still fall in love because they're normal' and amatormativity in mainstream ace activism vs the aroaces who use anti-romance frameworks as a cover for their homophobia. There's a difference between demis and greys who are alienated by puritan rhetoric and the glorification of asexuality as a 'sexually pure' identity vs demis and greys who engage in compulsory sexuality by centering sexual attraction at the expense of aces who have none. There's a difference between sex repulsed aces who are alienated by compulsory sexuality and the pressure to be sexual being vs the sex repulsed aces who weaponise puritanism to stigmatise marginalised forms of sex and sexual attraction. There's a difference between sex favourable aces who are alienated because of puritan rhetoric that lumps all sexual things as sexual attraction with no context and the sex favourables aces who perpetrate compulsory sexuality by centering sex at the expense of aces who haven't had it, don't want to have or had negative experiences. And there is a massive difference between Black asexuals trying to talk about antiblackness in the community with how white and some non-Black aces of colour claiming we're 'attacking' them for calling out their antiblackness. Some of you aren't being pushed out of anywhere, you just can't handle your reactionary nonsense being called out. You're not being excluded you're upset you can be homophobic, antiblack, puritan, engage in compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity without getting dragged.

[rotting-ink]

Also I've gotta say. It's so fucking refreshing to see "taboo" media being made in ifs. I've noticed a huge rise in people being hypocritical about things like incest and stuff despite the fact that murder and gore is objectively either worse or just as bad as it. So it's a relief that you are writing stuff like it.

Thing is I just don't care. I was raised catholic, there's incest and rape and murder and and and in the bible and my parents were fine with showing me it in media and now im... really normal. Kinkplay is great, roleplay is great, getting to experience fantasies is wonderful. The best of gothic horror has incest, lots of fairy tales with randomly have dark subjects thrown in (I WROTE MY UNDERGRAD CREATIVE PROJECT THAT WAS 20K WORDS ABOUT IT ITS STILL MY FAVOURITE EVER THING).

I hate purity culture, AND it's insane. Like, imagine being mad at an actor for kissing an on screen co worker. Imagine being mad that somebody is happier than you with their kinks and sex life.

Also, I'm sorry. Everytime I see a puritan, I get reminded that the old age puritans were too insane for... Let's check. Huh. E N G L A N D. They sent them off on a boat. Imagine being too insane for that island. Sadly they landed in america. I feel like the world would be better if that ship went down.

I love slapping dark content in IFs, and it's because I think its great to have content that goes ham instead of every piece of media being a copy of those shit ass tiktok books with the hockey player and someone who looks like his sister but isn't on the cover. Like imagine being that boring.

Also those tiktokers that complain about ao3 and kinks are stupid and should get cyberbullied into leaving the internet and just going back to watch... Idk. I wanna say kids cartoons but they show some serious topics in some episodes and doubt they can handle it. Sorry for the rant, I'm filled with annoyance at stupid people with smooth brains.