discourse – Can You Bring Me The Gun of Rambo?

Y’know like. Something I think about a lot re: the purity politics in fandom spaces is how a main rationalization people have for them behaving the way they do is that it’s just an age thing; they’re young and they haven’t developed enough emotionally to really understand empathy or perspective or morals beyond black and white. But honestly? I really don’t think age is an appropriate excuse because I just think back to 15 year old me, who had been reading the Vampire Chronicles for a couple years and was super drawn to the racy elements of the material so I wanted to explore more pornographic content in a literary environment, because it was the only way I felt comfortable exploring sex because I wasn’t ready to actually do it irl yet?

So I figured I’d read the Sleeping Beauty trilogy because it was already a familiar author and everyone was talking about how erotic the content was and how it was revolutionary in terms of literature because there wasn’t a whole lot of stuff like it on the market, all there really was at the time was just your garden variety shopping cart romances and those didn’t interest me in the least because they were all really derivative and less about kink and more about emotionally codependent swooning damsels. And that was not at all what I was in the market for.

So I got the entire trilogy with my birthday money and read them. Actual paper books from a bookstore. No tag warnings, no “I’m an adult and consent to proceeding” button. I was curious and wanted to know what all the fuss was. And yes, there was a bit of an actual plot in those books outside of just kink, and the story hooked me. And yeah, admittedly, it was a bit of a mistake for me to read those books at that age. I was not prepared. I was still a virgin then, I hadn’t experienced attraction to any real life person, and while I was interested in sexual pleasure, I wasn’t particularly interested in actual sex with actual people (which is honestly still the case as an adult, but I digress). Anyway. The point is, I hadn’t had any exposure whatsoever to BDSM and probably should have eased myself into it more gradually instead of just diving right into it. Consequently, it kind of messed with me a little, emotionally. I felt a little disturbed reading them, but I kept reading them anyway, until I finished the entire trilogy. Then I didn’t touch them again for a few years, because I wasn’t really fond of the emotions I felt tied to those books.

THAT BEING SAID. At no point did I presume to blame Anne Rice for the choice I made to read her books. At no point did I think “this made me a little uncomfortable, therefore this should not exist.” That notion never even occurred to me, not once. What did occur to me? “Damn, why did I do this to myself. I shouldn’t have read these books. Maybe I should have waited until I had some semblance of sexual experience.” I THOUGHT THIS AT FIFTEEN. I didn’t think less of Anne Rice for writing them, I didn’t try to blame someone else for luring me into the content. I took full responsibility for choosing to read them when I knew exactly what kind of content I was getting into based on the initial exposure I had to it within the fandom at that time (or at least the closest approximation to a fandom that existed).

I mean, this was a good…some years ago. When I was 15, the internet wasn’t really an accessible thing that was in every home. Some schools had it, but these were the days of dial-up and geocities. There was no tumblr, no AO3, Brad had just created livejournal as a niche thing for his friends that no one knew about. So it’s not like there were these ~predatory adults~ in fandom communities who lured me into it. I was exposed to the material the old fashioned way, via actual professional literary reviews in magazines and interviews. I was choosing to be in these adult spaces, which were essentially just sections in the bookstore and library, browsing at my own leisure. At any point, I could have disengaged. I chose not to. I took responsibility for the small amount of discomfort that resulted. It didn’t scar me for life, it didn’t change or influence my perception or association with sex, it had no effect on me other than “ahh! fuck, I’m too young for this right now, from now on I’ll just avoid content of it until I’m ready.” Blacklists didn’t exist then. Tag warnings didn’t exist then. And I certainly didn’t perceive this content as, like, purely didactic material and use it as a rubric for future real life sexual activity because who the fuck does that? I understood it was fiction. Erotic fanfiction of a children’s fairy tale, even.

Which is why it’s so hard for me to rationalize this trend of young people who presume to equate personal discomfort to status of law, or that because something in fiction disturbed them a little that it shouldn’t exist outright. Like, yeah, I know what it’s like to be supremely unsettled by a work of fiction. It’s happened to me plenty of times. It still happens to me even now. But if anything, I’ve been appreciative of its existence so I could always come back to it if I chose to and engage with it at my own pace to see if my feelings have changed over time.

So like. I really think it’s less of an age thing and more of a generational thing. I mean. I don’t really have any viable solutions to offer to this problem, I just think it’s really unfair all the way around, because on the one hand it’s dismissing culpability for personal choices and shitty behavior at the same time as it’s insulting and infantilizing young people who are perfectly capable of making informed decisions. LIKE YEAH I KNOW IT WAS A LONG FUCKING TIME AGO but I was 15 once too and I perfectly remember what it was like because I was a writer even then and used to chronicle my thoughts and shit so I know what I’m on about here, don’t play me with silly excuses jesus chrits

jeanjauthor:

mindfulwrath:

Here’s a hot take: villains should be relatable.

Not every villain, not every time, and certainly not to everyone at once, but there should be moments. We should, occasionally, be able to see ourselves in the bad guys, be able to understand how they got there.

Because it reminds us not to fucking go there.

Antis who get upset about villains having relatable qualities (often couched as being “romanticized” or “woobified”) are people who cannot bear to ever think of themselves as having the capability of being wrong.

Every human alive is capable of being a horrible person. Relatable villains remind us to keep an eye on that shit.

THIS.

monstersinthecosmos:

While digging through my drafts just now to clear some posts out I was reminded of my habit of seeing something stupid on Tumblr and writing a vicious text post in response to roast all the idiots and douchebags and then drafting it instead of publishing it because ultimately my blog is my own space and I have the control of the tone I set, and it’s my general goal to keep it relaxed and breezy in here. (Despite what my penchant for angst might say LOL).

Common themes include:

That I am a Grown Ass Adult and I hate all forms of censorship.

I don’t have children and don’t give a fuck about other people’s children. And when I say that I am generally speaking about the purity police on tunglr dot com who are worried about all the 14 year olds lurking around. And, whoops, they’re definitely not my problem.

Making me responsible for other people’s children is a step above telling me that my only use as a biological female is to make babies.

I especially dislike being censored and restricted for the sake of the children who do not occupy my house. (Including lists where this manifests in the Real World, outside of Tumblr, ie: rules about pot edibles, cable television, childproof drug bottles.)

Ranting about the cognitive dissonance of people who would typically be on the SJW side of things and don’t realize how their bullshit plays exactly into real world conservatism and how that’s uhhhhhh not good lmao. (See previous point about censorships and safeguards in the Real World, often put into place by the religious right.)

If one more person tries to re-victimize me by telling me which of my childhood experiences traumatized me and forbidding me to interact with them I s2g I’m gonna start breaking some jaws. (Which is funny considering that one of said experiences involved getting punched in the face so hard that it damaged the ligaments in my face and my jaw still clicks but that’s beside the point.)

Not to be a dick (well, only a little) but honestly like 99% of the bullshit on this site is so ideological and nonsensical and hypothetical and doesn’t fucking happen outside in the real world and a lot of your anguish would be solved if you’d just go outside and interact with real human beings who do not live in your dashboard echochamber.

Anyway. I SAY ALL THAT TO SAY. Just imagine a day I rant and rave about any of these topics and just go fuckin wild. Just imagine. Pretend it happened.

dsfjskldjf “

I don’t have children and don’t give a fuck about other people’s children. […] And, whoops, they’re definitely not my problem.”

I MEAN. Yeah. I’m not sure the fandom activists on this website are old enough to be aware, but the whole “won’t everyone just think of the chillllldrennnnn” is so last decade, not to mention socially irrelevant and…entirely ineffective at approaching some kind of social order, if that’s even what they’re attempting to do with the purity politics. I’m not getting paid to be on here and babysit someone else’s kids. Like. I’m not the one who made the decision to bring them into this world, so I don’t know why it would be my responsibility to create content that caters to this nebulous hypothetical group of corruptible innocents floating around in the very clearly nsfw-marked corner of the internet.

Then there’s this creepy new trend I’ve been seeing lately where kids…I guess…assume that their status as a marginalized/oppressed identity = social capital? And attempt to use that as a weapon to harass other people? Which is so similar to the old “I participate in church activities X amount more than you do, so I’m allowed to preach at you about what you do with your life” and “the way I perceive things is the only correct way and if you disagree or have irrefutable evidence that states otherwise, then you should be eradicated from the community because my personal discomfort should be elevated to the status of law” and it’s…supremely disturbing. Because it reeks so blatantly of evangelical conservatism.

Like, on some minute empathetic level, I’m aware that a lot of the purity politics that happens within fandom is largely perpetuated by 1) extremely young/inexperienced people who are also 2) American, and that’s such a dangerous combination right now because their aggression is coming from a place of social impotence and desperation, where harassing other marginalized identities within their own orbit is less likely to result in any form of serious consequences while giving them the only source of power or control they feel they might ever experience because shit is hopeless right now. But. That doesn’t really excuse that kind of behavior, especially when they end up championing the very cult-like conservatism they claim to oppose and will only end up making things significantly worse for themselves in the long run. It’s even worse that they have no idea they’re doing it, because they’re too young to really recognize the manipulative social patterns that really started gaining traction during the Bush administration, and as such, they don’t understand why my generation responds so, so negatively toward it.

And ultimately it’s just supremely insulting to escape to a place that’s supposed to be fun, only to be met with a bunch of kids who have mistaken fandom for activism and who are trying to yell at me, a woman who has 1) literally marched on her state’s capitol multiple times in the name of civil rights (arguably this is pretty easy for me because I live in my state’s capitol and most of my gigs are downtown but STILL) 2) have worked extensively in the lgbt community (tending bar in gay clubs fucking counts) 3) sent actual faxes (yes, FAXES!! because they clutter up representative’s offices more than emails and force reps to pay more attention to them) in order to rally for women’s rights/net neutrality/lgbt rights – all the while living in a pretty goddamn precarious situation myself and arguably have more immediate things to worry about – but I’m the problematic person because I like, ship a 48 year old with a 25 year old and am personally doing irreversible harm to some rando on the internet who is squicked by my preference in fictional pairings. Like. Miss me with that JV shit lmao. Leave the social justice to the grownups, ffs.