itsbuckybitch:

avoidcats:

manic-intent:

rabidchild67:

olderthannetfic:

esteefee:

itsbuckybitch:

buckyballbearing:

I see a lot of posts going around talking about the need to be critical of fanfic, and how we gotta watch out for the messages we’re sending

Well, here’s one thing I’m gonna need us to be critical about:

Every statistic I’ve ever seen says fanfic authors are heavily female (or nb)

And Tumblr, which is a fairly US-centric cross-section of fandom, is filled with this discourse about fanfic writers who create pornography

I need us to stop and think about why we’ve decided that fictional sex is the most damaging thing anyone could ever find on the internet

I need us to think about the culture we live in, which encourages us to be sexually available (to straight men) but punishes us if we (sluts) enjoy it

Because here’s the thing: fanfic is not coming from a position of power and prestige in our society

It is a niche genre primarily written by women, for women, for free

And it is a place where many of us do find power in exploring our own sexuality (or asexuality)

Even when that exploration takes us to gritty, horrifying (or cathartic) places

I’m going to need us to think long and hard about why we’re prioritizing fictional characters over the needs of real women

And I’m going to need it to stop

Fandom purity wank is absolutely about control over women and women’s sexuality. There’s nothing ambiguous about it.

Just think about the hot-button issues in the fannish community, the topics that consistently and reliably get people worked up into a lather, the themes that provoke the nastiest conflicts and inspire the most dedicated resistance movements. Think about the fights that are most likely to spill out over their cyber boundaries and start affecting people in the real world – in public harassment at cons, in doxxing and ‘outing’ to family and employers, in malicious legal allegations.

It’s about sex. It’s always about sex. 

From the constant tantrums over ‘problematic’ shipping to the righteous doxxing of ‘pedophiles’ (which in current tumblr parlance means anyone who draws or writes canonically underage characters in romantic or erotic scenarios), fandom’s big efforts at moral reform always seem to revolve around restricting and controlling the sexual expression of the majority-women community. You won’t meet many people who stay up past their bedtime to scream at strangers on the internet about unethical portrayals of non-sexual violence – unless, of course, they suspect the women involved in its creation are getting off on it. You’ll struggle to find an anti blog dedicated to the insidious social ills of torture whump fic, or goopy hurt-comfort where all manner of human suffering is put on display for the viewer’s enjoyment. The purity crew dress up their agenda as a desire for collective self-improvement and raised moral standards, but they don’t seem too worried about aspects of public morality that don’t somehow tie back into sex. What they’re upset about is the same thing conservative minds have been upset about since basically the dawn of time – there are women out there in the world doing icky sex things without the permission of their communities.

And these people, these moral guardians, they’ve gotten really good at couching their fundamentalist views in progressive language. They don’t say ‘you’re to blame if you provoke men to rape’ – they say ‘your fic normalises sexual violence and contributes to rape culture’. They don’t say ‘women ought to be chaste’ – they say ‘your fantasies are socially harmful and you owe it to the world to be more self-critical’. The messages are the same and the desired outcomes are literally identical.

The core assumption underlying all of it – an assumption that I’m sure our puritan forebears would find deeply comforting – is that women’s sexual expression is a matter of public concern, and that women are directly responsible for upholding the moral standards of their communities by restricting themselves to a narrow repertoire of publicly controlled, socially condoned sexual outlets. Anything beyond that repertoire is a grave moral breach.

To anyone who’s reading this – and there’s always a few – thinking, “this is just deflection! [X hot-button topic] is really bad and harmful!’, I’d like to encourage you to sit back for just a moment and think about why it is, exactly, that you feel the best and most important place to wage your war against moral corruption is in one of the only pockets of popular media that women unequivocally control. Of all the spaces in the world where you could be fighting for your view of a better society, you’ve chosen a place where women come together to share the fantasies that mainstream culture refuses to let them indulge. Why?

“…women come together to share the fantasies that mainstream culture refuses to let them indulge.”

I was just telling a friend of mine I attribute my (fortunate) comfort with my own sexuality to a chance encounter, at a very young age, with a paperback titled “My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies,” by Nancy Friday. Found it in a stack of mystery novels, and man, I remember blushing so hard… It was reading all these fantasies other women had that normalized what, at that young age, I considered to be pretty extreme desires, all in the context of this authority saying, “Anything you fantasize in the privacy of your own head is perfectly natural and okay.”   She asked hundreds of women to share these fantasies so that others could read them and see we aren’t alone; most everyone has these thoughts and fantasies and desires, and that’s perfectly fine.  Since then, I’ve discovered fan fiction as a whole universe of people’s fantasies writ large, and goddamn it, that is perfectly fine. Anyone who wants to argue the point and try to stuff us all back into the cramped cupboard of shame should have a talk with Ms. Friday. I believe she’s still around.

Agreed. Women are shamed for exploring dark themes everywhere else. Fandom does not need to be a safe haven for people who never want to hear about that: the entire rest of the world is a safe haven for anti-kink, anti-sex, anti-woman feelings.

Ship and let ship, don’t like don’t read, and your kink is not my kink and that’s okay: these are the maxims that make fandom a welcoming, creative space.

“Fandom does not need to be a safe haven for people who never want to hear about that: the entire rest of the world is a safe haven for anti-kink, anti-sex, anti-woman feelings.”

There are a lot of corners of fandom that need this (metaphorically) branded on their foreheads.

When I first started in fandom over a decade back the predominant attitude (at least in the fandoms I was in) was ymmv… your mileage may vary…. can we go back to that please.  

it is incredible to me that writing pornography about minors somehow fits in to this otherwise interesting and informative post about “problematic” fandom behaviour

telling pedophiles to quit it is not a bad thing btw

#like i agree about criticisms and about the need to crack down on problematic things that aren’t just shipping #(tho i see a lot of talking about racism and trans/homophobia in fandom) #but writing about children fucking is literally pedophilia 

It “literally” is not.

Molesting and abusing children is literally pedophilia. Grooming children for molestation and abuse is literally pedophilia. Viewing and disseminating actual child porn is literally pedophilia.

Teenage shippy fanfiction is not literally pedophilia. It’s not even figuratively pedophilia, and I don’t buy for one split second that any of the people trying to derail this post with ~but think of the children~ actually believe that the entire Harry Potter fandom is a malicious network of predators. It is so, so incredibly belittling of CSA survivors to equate their actual real-world suffering with the benign hobbies of fucking Katniss/Peeta shippers. It is so, so cynical and disrespectful to use real live vulnerable children as a weapon in your goddamn ship wars.

Pedophilia is not a joke. It’s not an accusation to sling at anyone who pisses you off on the internet. It’s an incredibly real, incredibly serious issue and I am so, so tired of seeing it trivialised.