#and the solution isn’t ‘ban!! ban all the trans sex videos!!!!’

[literallyaflame]

i would also be interested in a post on the whole anti/proship topic, bc im also firmly in camp >can we buy some nuance here? no?< (tho i do have a "side" i lean more towards ig) so im defs interested in other ppl having opinions that fall outside the black/white view n talkin about it...bc i feel like lots of us either dont talk abt it both bc of the worry u mentioned abt getting backlash, or bc it just feels like talking to a wall bc nuance is ignored a lot...

my argument is just that “fiction affects reality” and “fiction doesn’t affect reality” both fail to address the issue. fiction is the product of reality, not the other way around. it represents pre-existing notions about the world, and must be evaluated for tonality and intent, not the mere presence of Bad Things

is this depiction of sexual abuse an endorsement of the behavior, or is it a dark erotic fantasy, written by a self-aware author? i don’t know, i would have to read it to find out. does this horror movie fetishize violence against minorities? perhaps, depending on who wrote it and who the intended audience was. is this loli/shota drawing the product of someone who seeks to abuse children, or does the artist just really like frilly dresses?

more importantly, how the fuck do we tell the difference?

well, we’ve gotta start applying media literacy skills to adult content. it’s not any different from anything else, aside from the guilt and shame factor. if we accept that depictions of murder and violence may or may not be problematic, then we have to accept the same truth about sex. not all stories function as self-insert wish-fulfillment, erotica included—but erotica can tell us something about an author’s relationship with sex in the same way that horror can tell us something about an author’s relationship with gore and violence

how and why people consume this content varies, and may or may not be healthy. regardless, we don’t evaluate fiction based on how it may “affect reality.” not even propaganda, the mind-changer of fiction, is that simple; it appeals to pre-existing biases and pre-existing notions because, again, fiction is a product of reality. not the other way around.

you can’t really defend the idea that “everyone who depicts [x] is endorsing [x] and attempting to normalize [x] and is therefore evil” because it’s neither universally true nor productive. you also can’t defend the idea that fiction is utterly divorced from reality, because artists and writers live in reality, and reality influences their art

i hate to say this, but when it comes down to it, i personally don’t give a shit if someone ships wincest or has a ddlg fetish or whatever. maybe they’re a horrible monster or maybe they just have a run-of-the-mill erotic fascination, i don’t know. i don’t feel the need to pass final judgement on individual strangers, even if they make me uncomfortable. i’m more interested in advocating for 1.) ethical, enforceable rules about tagging and filtering sensitive and/or adult content 2.) systems that prevent real-life abuse without reducing it to an evil subtype of person and 3.) the case-by-case application of media literacy skills to the aforementioned adult content, which can absolutely perpetuate all sorts of alarming ideas about sex & abuse

#tw pedophila mention #tw abuse #kind of #listen i mentioned lolishota i feel the need to tag for something fhsjfhdj #dear god i hope this makes sense #I was gonna make this a longer thing and cite sources but tbh #when you break it down it’s not that complex #like #the difference between fetishizing a trans person and eroticizing a trans person #isn’t magical an unknowable #and the solution isn’t ‘ban!! ban all the trans sex videos!!!!’ #it’s just a matter of… you know…. the relationship between the audience and the creator #how and why that relationship is facilitated who benefits from it etc #*and unknowable #man i hate typing tags on mobile lmao