regarding antis becoming devilm4n fans, a lot of them still scream hate against other cringe content. it means they are even more hypocritical and that's the problem. they separate themselves from the others. it's the superiority card.
You're not obligated to accept the superiority card. In fact, reject it. It only has power over you if you give it power, if you acknowledge the supposed superiority of the person.This is easier said than done, but there's really not much else you can do.You can't do the growing for someone. Antis will have to do their own growing. You can tell them the truth until you turn blue in the mouth, they won't hear you when their ears are stuffed shut with lies. This is always going to be true for people who don't want to believe you even though you're undeniably right. Most of the time, they think they have something to lose. Most of the time, they don't. They only have more to gain, but you can't force it.There is no way, absolutely no way to force Antis to do anything at all. Unless you want to use their own tactics against them, and most decent people just don't have it in them to do so. Naturally.I have all but abandoned this blog. Not because I feel defeated or lost, but because I'm healing. Posting on here was also a way to reassure myself and to test my opinions. I swallowed so much poison, trying to build up a tolerance, studying it, hoping to get stronger. I had to sweat it all out eventually. I can stomach the poison, I just don't want to suffer its effects anymore. I'm done with toxicity. I'm done with Antis.I know some people enjoyed my contributions, but I think I've said all I wanted to say. Presently I can't think of anything that's not already known, or obvious. So, there's that.
there’s more to it than this, but I think people treat fictional characters like they matter more than real people in fandom because the fictional characters ARE more real to them than other people in fandom, especially if their echo chambers treat other people like monsters from the Shadow Realm
I’ve debated for a while about sharing this, but I think it’s important, and, to be fair, plenty of antis have shared the stories of their abuse.
So:
I support people creating romantic content similar to my abuse, even though that content contributed to my abuse.
Let me explain. I was very, very into Twilight when I was around 14. A couple years later a girl called me her lamb, and used the romanticization of jealousy and danger from that novel to excuse things like cutting me, stealing my phone, and demanding my passwords. Among other things. This continued until the end of high school, and it ripped apart every significant relationship in my life without anyone really realizing what was happening.
It’s definitely true that I didn’t recognize jealousy as abuse instead of romance. It’s true that I didn’t recognize “I love you” and “you can’t love anyone but me” as contradictions, and a part of that mentality came from the media I consumed. And she sure as fuck sent me fic - even forced me to write fic - which echoed those values. On a very base level, it is easy to blame my abuse on that fiction, on the unhealthy ideas of romance it gave me. For several years after getting out, I did blame romance like Twilight. I got angry when people I loved enjoyed it, and I thought I was protecting them by demanding that they stop.
But I was wrong.
Let me go out another level.
First of all, I grew up in a deeply homophobic town. There were exactly no adults in my life that I could have even told that I was in a relationship with a girl, let alone that I thought something was wrong. Abuse thrives in silence.
Second of all, I’d been homeschooled most of my life, which meant I had zero education on healthy relationships. I had no context outside of romance novels and fan fiction, which no adults knew I was reading. My view of romance was shaped by media because there were no other sources even trying to compete.
Third of all - and maybe this is most important - writing that fanfic, while in that situation, gave me a voice to things that I couldn’t even admit I was feeling. I wrote fic where a human loved a vampire, but they were scared, they were so scared, it felt like having a gun to their head all the time. They were so scared even as they loved the vampire, and they wanted them, and they wanted to help, and they wanted to be better. (She didn’t like that fic.) It took years before I would call what I experienced abuse, or seek out resources for victims. But fiction gave me a voice right then, when I needed one most.
Media didn’t get me abused. A society which failed utterly at telling me what a healthy relationship looked like got me abused. Parents and teachers and authority figures who were wildly homophobic got me abused. Fiction contributed, but if it wasn’t Twilight, it would have been something else - hell, apparently she repeated the same pattern after me with 50 Shades, and then with Captain America (somehow). Because above all, my abuser got me abused. She used fiction as a tool, but it could have been anything. If I hadn’t read Twilight, it would have been Johnlock, or Drarry, or Russia/America. All those things had more than enough content which portrayed danger and jealousy as sexy.
Do I still read Twilight? Fuck no, it’s a huge trigger. But I’ve stopped blaming it for what happened, because it was never Twilight’s job to teach me about romance. Nor was it fandom’s job to tell me, “if someone actually terrifies you, that’s dangerous, even if it’s sexy. If you love someone but they’re hurting you, you need help, not to try to fix them.” What hurt me most wasn’t fiction; it was the silence from every other quarter.
Media isn’t education on healthy relationships. It can’t be, and it never will be. “Fan fiction made me think that this was ok” means that there were no voices in our lives that we trusted more than fanfiction telling us that it wasn’t okay.
There will always be media that abusers can twist to make it look like what they’re doing is romantic and okay. Always. The abuse is still their fault, and the inability to counter harmful messages is the silence of society’s fault.
I’ll leave you with this: after I got out, I continued reading fic that featured jealousy and possessiveness as something hot. Because I did think it was hot; I now just knew firsthand that it was a kink to only be indulged in controlled situations. Firsthand experience is the harshest teacher, but it does work.
I just tag my own fic that features jealousy and possessiveness as “#abusive behavior.” Because if there is another girl like me out there, being sent these fics by her abuser, stuck in a situation she doesn’t understand - well, if it wasn’t my fic, it’d be someone else’s. The kink’s going to keep on existing. But maybe she’ll see the tag and figure something out.
Fiction is a tool, and taking one tool away won’t stop an abuser, because fiction isn’t causing abuse. If it wasn’t fiction, it’d be something else.
Stop blaming fiction for the actions of a cruel person, and the silence of the people who should have been protecting you.
It hurts to lay the blame at the feet of those you love, but if we deny the problems we will never fix them.
I understand that it’s not the fault of a fiction that others get abused BUT I can’t be the only person who feels that aiming a fiction at young girls/boys who are at a very susceptible age, marketing it as hot romance, as a beautiful romance, as exciting. Then doing the same with the films is totally unacceptable.
If we give our young people very bad veiws of what a healthy romance is in fiction and then fail to educate them via home or school what chance do they have.
My daughter read Twilight and 50 shares of grey (at 15), and because I have been talking to her and answering her questions (and there were lots) since she could talk. She could see them for what they were.( She gave me a lecture on why they were bad) Many males and females do not have this at home or at school, so how are they supposed to sort it out in their heads.
Personally, and I know it isn’t fashionable to have these thoughts, I think fiction does have a responsibility not it aim stuff like this at kids and to NSFW tag ect to let people know it’s not for under 18. Iam as I said old fashioned.
Hi! So, first of all: I totally agree that adult content should be tagged NSFW. I think that, overall, a clear distinction between content for adults and minors is a good thing in media and something that helps with a lot of issues.
I also agree, to a degree, that media marketed specifically at people under at a fairly young age needs to be held to more stringent standards than media marketed to people who are older. Based on the ratings systems that most countries have adopted, this is a pretty universal position.
However!
I wanted to use this as a bit of a launching off point, because
If we give our young people very bad veiws of what a healthy romance is in fiction and then fail to educate them via home or school what chance do they have
is a very good point. I stand by the idea that censoring media does relatively little, but does that mean we just abandon kids who don’t have the support in their home or school to learn about these things? Well, no. I don’t think it’s anybody else’s responsibility, per se, but I think a lot of us can relate to that situation and want to help, so I wanted to talk a little about some things that I do that I think can be actually helpful to kids in this position.
Get politically involved to support better sex education. A lot of these decision are made at a local level - some as small as at the school-board level - which means any participation has a big impact. Even if you’re a student - especially if you’re a student - this is something you can do right now. Here’s a real basic breakdown of how to do some district-level activism. While this doesn’t instantly help kids in the situation, comprehensive and accurate sex and relationship education in schools is the only long-term solution to this problem.
Support resources aiming to help kids that aren’t getting this information elsewhere. Planned Parenthood’s a common one; Scarleteen and Sex Etc. are two other sites specifically directed at teens that are lgbtq+ friendly and aimed at education. If you know of an organization that’s working to educate teens about these things, support them.
Write meta. At the fandom & community level, I think that meta is one of the things that is the most underrated in this discussion. Meta is part of what helped me realize that what was depicted in Twilight - and therefore what had happened to me - was abuse. If you see abuse, or other problematic things, in fandom, I think putting together a well-structured argument for why you think that is one of the best tools available for education. (In the current fandom climate it might be necessary to put a disclaimer of “This isn’t meant as a condemnation of people who enjoy this media, but just a discussion of it” might be necessary. I don’t think that takes away from its power at all.)
Pay attention to how work is getting tagged. If you’re a consumer of “problematic” content, keep a close eye on the tagging being used in your community. Lots of people get sloppy after a while, if they’re posting a lot and used to only interacting within the community (myself included). Gentle reminders of “hey, this really should be tagged with [X]” from within the community are going to be way, way, way more effective than attacks from outside the community.
There’s a lot that can be done to help teens that aren’t getting the kind of education they need and deserve while at home; I just don’t really agree that restriction the kind of fictional content allowed to exist on public sites that allow adult content on the basis of “but what if young people get the wrong idea?” is an effective method of combatting this problem.
recognize and talk about fiction in the context of the society it’s from. for instance, Twilight and 50 SoG both romanticize abusive relationships. However, they didn’t spring out of a vacuum. They were written, marketed, and praised as great romance stories because in America - the country where both stories were written - abusive relationships are treated as romantic in real life, and the possessive, overbearing, controlling behavior is proof of a man’s love, not warning signs of an abuser.
as visible, slightly removed depictions of what women/afab people are often told to want irl by all signs around them, Twilight and 50SoG were easy vehicles to abuse for abusers in fandom spaces. but they can also be a great vehicle for showing how disturbing and abusive these relationships actually are in reality. recognizing how stories like this are part of a whole can help young fandom members more clearly see how the real world pushes dangerous ideas, and how to avoid being hurt by them.
anti-fujoshi: ummmm how is being anti-fujoshi misogynistic???? idgi!!
pro-fujoshi: *give long and detailed explanations of the cultural and historical context of the term ‘fujoshi’, the history of women’s interaction with and creation of BL manga, the reasons even hetero women often feel drawn to BL instead of m/f porn, and the problematic issues surrounding men - including gay men - trying to dictate the limitations of women’s sexual exploration*
anti-fujoshi: *plugging ears* LALALALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU
filteredrays
bl would’ve fucking existed without fujoshi because gay men (hi) fucking exist
nobody’s trying to limit women from exploring their sexualities by calling them out for enjoying homophobic shit like killing stalking and explaining to them why they should be introspective of why exactly it is they are enjoying m/m content
there are plenty of straight women who aren’t fujoshi, it’s just the simple fact that fujoshi take it to a whole new level when it comes to their enjoyment of bl and that’s what people are fucking pissed about
don’t bother replying to this I’m just pissed the fuck off that people are trying to misconstrue legitimate anger about something that legitimately harms portrayals of MLM in fiction and brush it off as “lol misogyny”
nobody’s trying to limit women from exploring their sexualities
people are fucking pissed
When aren’t they.
people are trying to misconstrue legitimate anger about something that legitimately harms portrayals of MLM in fiction and brush it off as “lol misogyny”
I don’t think you know how storytelling works. Also, I’m pretty sure you know just as little about the history of the word ‘fujoshi’.
Don’t bother replying to this, I’m just pissed this flavor of discourse refuses to go away.
i cant believe this. holy shit. im seeing antis left and right watch and become fans of devilm4n cryb4by. yes the anime with the explicit rape, sex between teenagers, gay men, gore, animal and child death. like, really vocal antis, even KS antis are watching it and saying they like it even though there are problematic aspects to it... what the actual fuck. how. HOW. im ????? so fucking tired i cant do this anymore.
Why are you upset? I commend that they give it a try. Maybe it’ll broaden their horizon a little bit. If you get worked up about bigotry or hypocrisy, you may never stop being angry, ever. I’m guilty of trying to naively hold people to their own principles, too. It’s not worth it. The ignorant will resist learning.
Just enjoy your new thing, and maybe ... enjoy it with friends rather than fandom.
Where do you fall re: cringe culture? I find I'm kind of torn about it--on one hand, I enjoy seeing something so bad it's good get critiqued, but on the other, a lot of times it's just mean-spirited, like with the whole Shen bike cuck thing. I think it should be protected as free speech, but it seems like the very people who complain and denounce it are perfectly fine engaging in it when it suits them. Thoughts?
Protected Speech =/= Free Speech.
Other than that, you summed it up just fine.
Personally, I think cringe culture is just an expression of insecurity and deeply internalized shame. Why do we cringe? Because we project. We’d loathe to be ‘that guy’, and yet we are. We’re always going to be ‘that guy’ to someone.
tbh most people view tumblr as a bad site, but like, its decent to me compared to others. what pisses me off though is the fact that there unnecessary discourse all over the place. the worst being the ones about genders/sexuality. ya know pansexuality blah blah all that shit. it seems useless to me because, no offense, but in the years coming, stuff like your race, sexuality, gender won't really matter. like just be a normal human being who doesn't give a fuck about the stuff mentioned above.
Not really, though. Identity is always going to matter (for better or worse, to elevate or disenfranchise) until people start embracing their identity while disconnecting it from the principles of the human ego.
The journey to find out who I am doesn’t have a goal. I don’t want to know so I can tell others about it. It’s something personal. My identity is only relevant to me. It doesn’t connect me to anyone. Not automatically. I don’t want it to, either. I’m no better or worse by sheer association. Such notion is entirely useless to me, as it doesn’t bring me any closer to the truth.
I want to connect to people over shared interests and shared values (to some degree), not just because they’re like me in terms of identity alone. And so on.
I think Tumblr is a ‘bad’ site because moderation is at best lackluster, it’s failing more than it’s not to adapt to the demands of its evolution as a site, and so on. I don’t think it’s ‘bad’ because of the people that frequent it, because people - at their core - are the same everywhere.
Claiming that fiction has the same impact as something real is like stating that artificial meat is real meat.
Claiming that having an interest in problematic fiction has the same impact as endorsing it in real life is like stating that tofu sausages (or similar) as part of a vegetarian/vegan diet are a slippery slope toward eating real meat.
You’re misunderstanding what the problem is, or where it comes from.
You’re misrepresenting the impact of the real thing, and contributing toward making it appear more palatable.
You’re activelyopposing attempts to find methods to deal with high-impact issues in a victimless manner.
It’s completely irrelevant how you present your argument - it sucks. It sucks for a staggering amount of reasons, but it sucks the hardest because you’re part of the problem, and not part of the solution. As far as that specific issue is concerned.
If you threaten harm to people who consume tofu sausages just because you’re allergic to soy and in your mind those same people might as well be eating real meat in secret or what the fuck ever - then I don’t know what to tell you, other than you’re endorsing violent crimes against people and the victimization of people over victimless crimes. That’s pretty high up there on the hypocrite scale.
I know this is tumblr and this is bound to happen, but why some people seem to find ew icky that the majority of fans/creators demographic is cis and straight? I mean even if it is, so?
Because people think that if you’re not them, you’re against them.
This is 5-7 million year old news.
There are some things that are just fundamentally fucked up about the human species, and that’s one of the big ones.
Hi! I've asked this to a couple of people I admire and I just wanted to now get your thoughts: I roleplay a r!63/genderbend version of a very popular character. Back in the day no one cared about r!63, but now it's an uproar of 'transphobic'. Despite my asking trans people who said they have no problem with it, I still get a lot of grief. How do I reply to it? How do I defend myself? Or better yet, how would you personally defend yourself (logically)?
I’ll make this one brief, because I haven’t been feeling like spending a lot of time on here.
The problem with claims such as those that you’re struggling with is that they are being engaged with. If you so much as give someone an inch of wiggle room when they’re out to make you seem like a terrible person, they already won.
The existence of cis people isn’t transphobic.The existence of cis characters isn’t transphobic.Cisswaps/genderbends/whatever you call it aren’t transphobic for any reason. It doesn’t erase transitioning, because it’s a fictional character, and their identity is up for interpretation and re-imagination. Usually. There’s something to be said about characters who are meant to represent marginalized identities, but that’s a different subject entirely.There’s nothing inherent about a fictional character. A fictional character can be literally whatever. A fictional character isn’t born, they’re created.
The development process of our biological sex is prenatal. There is no such stage for a fictional character. Unless you’re speaking in metaphoric terms. They don’t struggle with their identity, they don’t experience low impact or high impact dysphoria, and so on. Unless you make it so. If you want to. It’s certainly not mandatory, and it shouldn’t be treated as such.
I really hope people will stop conflating real issues with imagined ones, soon.
"A right to free expression is more important that the personal feelings that expression might hurt" is literally word for word right wing rhetoric used to excuse bigoted and oppressive behavior. Fuck, Nazis actively cite this to excuse their treatment of poc. Imagine having this same discussion, but with poc instead of gay people. Does white women's expression then matter more than moc feelings? Straight women have social power over gay men and using this argument is abuse of that power.
Sorry, that wasn’t at you, just venting in general over that post.
Well, no. You said it to the exact right person, because that’s definitely aimed at me, too. You’re free to vent, and I appreciate you voicing your disagreement.
Here is what the person I initially replied to stated:
I disagree that a woman’s freedom to explore her sexuality somehow overrides any discomfort mlm might feel at the way they’re doing so when it involves consuming content specifically about mlm.
Here’s the question that I asked:
Why is that? Why do you think someone’s right to bodily integrity and freedom of expression doesn’t ‘override’ someone else’s want to not feel uncomfortable?
I think you misunderstood what I’m saying here, or I’m misunderstanding what you’re frustrated with.
“A right to free expression is more important that the personal feelings that expression might hurt”
… yeah? I mean, how many people are uncomfortable with LGBTQ+ kids getting the education they deserve? How often is discomfort used to excuse awful behavior in general? I can give you hundreds of examples where ‘but I’m uncomfortable’ is used to limit other people’s rights.
is literally word for word right wing rhetoric used to excuse bigoted and oppressive behavior.
Well, that’s unfortunate. I know what you’re talking about, but in those specific instances, they’re not using their freedom of expression, they’re abusing it, while in turn compromising someone else’s freedom of expression (and likely threatening their bodily integrity). This isn’t quite as clear cut as you make it out to be.
Fuck, Nazis actively cite this to excuse their treatment of poc. Imagine having this same discussion, but with poc instead of gay people.
Yeah, but marginalized identities aren’t exchangeable, and the issues they experience are often specific to them. If a man of color were to want to debate me on how ‘yaoi is inherently fetishistic’, yes - we would be having the same discussion exactly. If a gay man of color were to want to debate me on the same subject, we still would be having the same discussion. If a gay man of color would express a desire to talk to me about racism and prejudice within the gay community, we’d be having a completely different discussion, because the subject is completely different, and it needs to be handled differently.
If that’s now what you’re saying, and you’re instead saying ‘imagine discussing issues of racism in fiction with a person of color and how it makes them uncomfortable’ then, uh … yeah, we would be having a different conversation, but it also depends on what specifically we’re talking about?
If, for example, they say that ‘whitewashing’ makes them uncomfortable, then yeah - agreed. The idea of erasure is very uncomfortable. Same as how if a gay man (or really anyone respectively) were to say that ‘the character was gay in the book, but he’s straight in the movie and that makes me uncomfortable’, I’d agree. Easily. Whether I agree in that instance doesn’t strictly matter, even.
Does white women’s expression then matter more than moc feelings?
I … don’t know? That depends?
Straight women have social power over gay men and using this argument is abuse of that power.
I don’t even know whether that statement is correct or incorrect, because I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about. That’s okay, you came in a little hot there, and I’m open to debating the subject if you feel like clarifying.
But, perhaps it’s worth investigating the reasons why there’s prejudice against gay men. The issues gay men and most women face have a certain overlap. I frankly don’t much enjoy the notion of digging a chasm between the two groups.
Sorry to butt in, but - this argument is so frustrating to me. Nazi and nationalist speech isn’t bad because it makes marginalized people uncomfortable. It’s bad because it threatens the safety, bodily integrity, and measurable freedoms of the people it targets. Doubly so if that speech moves onto actions and behaviors.
People have a right to free expression, including sexual expression, so long as it doesn’t infringe on others freedom of safety, bodily autonomy, and their own expression. Feelings of discomfort, as restoringsanity points out, aren’t a good moral yardstick. The person feeling discomfort being marginalized doesn’t make it any better of a moral yardstick.
Activism isn’t based on finding the more marginalized person in a debate, finding out what makes them uncomfortable, and then banning that thing. People don’t have a right to not feel uncomfortable. They have a right to expression, and safety, and bodily autonomy, and plenty of other things, but they don’t have a right to harass anybody who makes them uncomfortable.
sedonie
There’s a reason why I coined the term Precious Personal Discomfort, when talking about what activism on Tumblr has degenerated into. And by Precious Personal Discomfort I don’t mean being uncomfortable with something, but rather weaponizing that discomfort and turning it into a stick with which to police what content other people are and aren’t allowed to enjoy and how they’re allowed to enjoy it.
I’ve said this before, but this whole ‘women need to have their sexual tastes dictated to by gay men!’ thing falls completely flat for me, as a bisexual woman who never howled at men enjoying F/F porn. I don’t give and haven never given a single flying crap what a man likes in his porn, so long as that man is respectful or queer women in real-life and doesn’t come up with entitled demands (’can I watch?’) or assumptions that we exist as real individuals (outside the fantasy of porn) solely for his gratification. He can otherwise beat it to ten thousand F/F videos, I don’t care. I didn’t become an activist in order to police people’s sexual proclivities on the basis of what makes me uncomfortable – that’s not activism and it’s repulsive to me as a practice.
I think you made a really important point (that I hadn't consciously considered before) that people without any understanding of the socio-cultural aspects of yaoi fail to realize that the "uke" is less a reflection of a bottoming gay man as it is of the mangaka's own (submissive, passive, EXPECTED to be reluctant) experience of her sexuality. If someone has issues with the portrayal, perhaps they should consider why that's how a Japanese woman thinks she's supposed to express her own sexuality.
This is going to sound arrogant, but yes, I made an important point. I don’t know if it’s really important, but that’s beside the point I’ve made, and that I’ll continue to try making.
The way sex, sexuality, gender and gender identity is presented in yaoi manga specifically is problematic. Wow. Yes, it is. - But, not exactly for the reasons anti-yaoi/anti-fujoshi individuals claim it is. Their understanding of what is actually a highly complex, multi-layered societal and cultural issue is so completely flawed that they miss the point entirely. Their rhetoric is so pervasive is because most people are inclined to take most things at face value. It’s puzzling to me how people who are often very young have already forgotten one of the most important questions: why?It’s very unfortunate that platforms such as Tumblr (or social media in general) prioritize collectivist assimilation over natural curiosity.
Speaking of collectivist assimilation: Japan has a collectivist society. That’s important to keep in mind. It is to some degree Utilitarian as well. As a whole, Japanese society rates individualism as low-priority, or even something that shouldn’t be desired - which is why subculture and counterculture are such hot topics. The notion that Japan is ‘quirky’ is one that is exported rather than inherent. In actuality, the average Japanese person is the opposite of ‘quirky’. (I could go on about this for a while, but I’d have to freshen up my knowledge beforehand, so this’ll have to suffice as background information.)
If a Japanese woman states that she has a lot of sex, she’s labelled a slut. If a Japanese man states that he has a lot of sex, he’s being told that the women he sleeps with are sluts. Sound familiar? Of course it does.
Purity and innocence are traits held in high regard in Japanese society as well. Women are expected to be demure, pure, submissive, diligent and passive. As part of society, and as a sexual partner. Certainly, these generalizations aren’t universally applicable, but it is absolutely a common trend.
I don’t have any personal experience with how Japanese women actually act during moments of sexual intimacy, and I rather doubt it’s a reflection of what’s commonly portrayed in Japanese pornography (the specific circumstances of which are already a headache), but Japanese pornography portrays a reflection of what’s expected of Japanese women. I’m guessing (!) most Japanese pornography is produced by men. I’m not hatin’ on the fellas, but being aware of certain dynamics is important. Why?
Disclaimer: This might be potentially triggering to some, especially survivors.
The way Japanese women act specifically in pornography shows what is (supposedly) desirable to men, or what is expected of those same women. It’s portrayed as if the woman in that very moment is losing her innocence (virginity) - in a way that is reflective of the struggle and pain such a loss seems to be connected with. [Note: This is uncomfortable to me on a personal level, because I find the concept of idolizing and worshiping innocence/purity to be unsettling, or even revolting.] She cries, pleads, resists and somehow eventually experiences an orgasm. Despite how the experience isn’t meant to be pleasurable, and she can’t admit to it being pleasurable (because that would be depraved), her orgasm is a tribute to the well-endowed man who - I guess - is just so proficient at love-making that she can’t not come. That’s the narrative that’s often present in Japanese pornography. (If that narrative seems familiar to you, I’m not surprised.)
Now why does the ‘uke’ act the way he does? Because to denote how pure and good the character is, the character has to resist temptation - which is something perhaps deeply ingrained in the perspective of the respective author - oftentimes a woman. The general narrative is often the same as described above. Furthermore, because women are expected to be pure, pornography isn’t something they’re expected to, or supposed to explore. They’re not supposed to explore their sexuality at all. The genre of yaoi manga then presents itself as a low-impact opportunity to explore their sexuality despite collective discouragement. They have an opportunity to project, while the vessel they project onto is still removed from their own physicality. It’s safe. It’s not representative of their own sexuality, and at the same time it is.
Here’s where judgemental assholes introduce themselves, hell-bent on robbing women of their escape. We haven’t reached Antis yet, but we’re getting there. The first instance of mind-numbing dickery comes from (mostly) Japanese men, who ridicule and discredit those women. They call them fujoshi - rotten women. They declare those women as spoiled, rotten, and lost - because their value as women is compromised by their impure, depraved interests. Those same women then take the vitriol spit at them and wear it as a badge.
Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? Like, on a historical level?
Moving on to the current state of things on Tumblr.
Even Western women find yaoi more accessible than straight porn. Of course they do. It doesn’t even matter if those women are heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual. Straight porn is (more often than not) made by men, for men. Lesbian porn is also made by men, for men. Almost all porn is made by men, for men. Because women are eternally disregarded, dismissed, and even rejected as an audience when it comes to pornography. I mean … why would women ever want to explore their sexuality? What are you - a bunch of whores? Keep your fingers off the pleasure button and knit a sweater or something.
Women’s ‘lacking’ perspective on sex is so ingrained in most people that it shows even in our humor. Like, a woman watches some porn flick - bet she’s about to ask when they get married, or if they’re in love. Hurr hurr. Women.So, women shan’t enjoy sex, but they’re also actively mocked for it, if they do - and if their approach is more empathetic, and they want some mental stimulation with their physical stimulation, it’s also not okay. Somehow. (Speaking of which - is there any genre of pornography that comes in a less hectic format, say - a comic or something, which also provides extensive dialogue and a story? Hmmm.)
Anyway. I don’t know who the OG anti-fujoshi/anti-yaoi person was, but they saw content featuring gay men, saw that said content was lacking in terms of sense, sensuality and sensibility, identified the ‘target audience’ and those who most often create it, and went - huh. It seems that the target audience and those who create said content are super invested in content that displays what looks like the abuse of gay men. It’s also super heteronormative. HUH. … … That’s fucking gross. Those women are fucking gross. They’re spoiled, rotten, without value. They even embrace the terminology that describes how rotten they truly are.
Then we’ve got a bunch of geniuses going on about how it’s not inherently wrong when your approach isn’t ‘fetishistic’, and you don’t get off on it ‘just because it’s gay’.
How about it’s not inherently wrong. At all. Ever.How about you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, this isn’t about what you think it’s about, and you back the fuck off next time you feel the urge to police a woman’s consumption of pornography, because even though you’re not wrong when you say that yaoi is problematic, it exists only because women’s consumption of pornography is strictly policed and because them exploring their sexuality is strictly policed and you’re doing the very thing that created a market for yaoi in the first place.
Or, I don’t know - fuck women, I guess. But not literally. That’s bad. PIV is oppressive. Or something. Let’s just agree women get nothing. Cool? Cool.
It’s so funny to me when I see Homestuck ants, like?? Homestuck should be considered super problematic by their standards? like you have-
A 13 year old alien kid who wants to commit genocide
One character paralyzed another by mind controlling him off a cliff
All the characters die AT LEAST once
All of the alien characters are technically related, so any pairing between them could be considered incest
On the note of alien characters, these aliens are forced to pair up and reproduce or they’ll be killed, I think even when they’re 13
Oh lets not forget Gamzee, the murderclown drug addict
Like I could go on and on, Homestuck is a problematic work of fiction, and I don’t know how ants could even form in the fandom?? Homestuck is also like kinda dead, i don’t know HOW they have a ant community.
theassholeantiarchive
I remember when homestuck first became popular I looked down the tag and I found a lot of gross bug porn…like do you guys but if your a homestuck anti your probably a hypocrite with REALLY weird kinks.
Speaking of inappropriate fandoms for antis, let’s take a look at JoJo…
The series opens with a child kicking a dog.
One character repeatedly checks out his mom (he didn’t know they were related at the time).
One of the parts is all about how cool and good gangsters are, unless they deal drugs to kids. Then they’re bad.
An orangutan creeps on a 10-12 year old girl while she showers.
Remember the time Dio made a woman eat her own baby? That happened.
The guy who de-ages people and then chases them while being really creepy.
A serial killer with a hand fetish.
This picture:
The 14-year-old who is married to a man in his 40s and who multiple characters express attraction to.
A male love interest who has murdered a previous ex-girlfriend and is not quiet about his desire to marry the female lead.
The non-explicit flashback to a threesome involving at least one character under 18 at the time.
An ambiguously aged sentient colony of plankton inhabiting a corpse hides a disk by expanding her breasts.
A love story that involves kidnapping and attempted murder by magic hair.
People melting. Like a lot.
And that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head. It’s wild that there’s antis in the JoJo fandom. I don’t know how they made it through reading the manga.
devilinhighheels
That looks like a gangbang… thanks I’ll never be able to sleep again
anti-pedophile-enablers
and as much as i love sailor moon, sailor moon antis are a little confusing, too.
mamoru kissed usagi when she was drunk and it was portrayed romantically (ofc luna interfered because she has common sense)
chibiusa crushed on and kissed her own father (granted, she didn’t actually know he was her father at the time, and the kiss was when they were both brainwashed by the bad guys, i don’t think antis would care abt that)
there are nude scenes of the majority-underage cast (what’s artistic nudity????)
children whose appearances could be interpreted as being sexualized (portrayed somewhat critically imo; more of a “children shouldn’t wear clothes like that because it’s weird” kind of thing but antis and their mental gymnastics)
joking about mamoru being a pervert, especially in the side stories
blood, gore, decomposing corpses, gratuitous violence, a lot of death and killing (a character is literally violently dismembered in the manga)
the series has a romance between a 14yo and a 16yo, and as much as antis hate that already, the anime even aged mamoru up to 21 instead of 16 for some weird-ass reason (and that’s actually really creepy)
panty shots
the main couple dealing with jealousy, and this being a major part of character introduction (albeit in a healthy manner, and they sort it out, but all relationships must be 100% sunshine and rainbows otherwise it’s “abusive” right)
mamoru doing questionable things to test his past self’s love of usagi in the anime
mamoru gets brainwashed, a lot, has a lot of kisses forced on him by grown-ass women who brainwash him to make him love them against his will, he is literally under 18 for most of the series, did anyone else notice this it’s a recurring thing throughout the series
usagi forgives bad people and being nice and the better person is kind of a thing in that series
most of the villains are redeemable and three-dimensional in some adaptation of the series
a lot of the friendships start out rocky and even with being attacked
jokes about artemis, an alien cat who’s thousands of years old watching a 16yo girl shower
bath and shower scenes existing
the character designs of villains and the main cast can be interpreted as sexual
one of the villainsliterally committed genocide but is still portrayed as a person with feelings and as redeemable (and antis hate that)
anyway, as much as i love the series, i don’t really understand the antis who use sailor moon as a face-claim. it just makes so little sense. why
It’s almost as if literature as part of the arts, as well as visual arts, has always been one of the very few ways people have been able to process the implications of what it means to be human.
"A right to free expression is more important that the personal feelings that expression might hurt" is literally word for word right wing rhetoric used to excuse bigoted and oppressive behavior. Fuck, Nazis actively cite this to excuse their treatment of poc. Imagine having this same discussion, but with poc instead of gay people. Does white women's expression then matter more than moc feelings? Straight women have social power over gay men and using this argument is abuse of that power.
Sorry, that wasn't at you, just venting in general over that post.
Well, no. You said it to the exact right person, because that’s definitely aimed at me, too. You’re free to vent, and I appreciate you voicing your disagreement.
Here is what the person I initially replied to stated:
I disagree that a woman’s freedom to explore her sexuality somehow overrides any discomfort mlm might feel at the way they’re doing so when it involves consuming content specifically about mlm.
Here’s the question that I asked:
Why is that? Why do you think someone’s right to bodily integrity and freedom of expression doesn’t ‘override’ someone else’s want to not feel uncomfortable?
I think you misunderstood what I’m saying here, or I’m misunderstanding what you’re frustrated with.
"A right to free expression is more important that the personal feelings that expression might hurt"
... yeah? I mean, how many people are uncomfortable with LGBTQ+ kids getting the education they deserve? How often is discomfort used to excuse awful behavior in general? I can give you hundreds of examples where ‘but I’m uncomfortable’ is used to limit other people’s rights.
is literally word for word right wing rhetoric used to excuse bigoted and oppressive behavior.
Well, that’s unfortunate. I know what you’re talking about, but in those specific instances, they’re not using their freedom of expression, they’re abusing it, while in turn compromising someone else’s freedom of expression (and likely threatening their bodily integrity). This isn’t quite as clear cut as you make it out to be.
Fuck, Nazis actively cite this to excuse their treatment of poc. Imagine having this same discussion, but with poc instead of gay people.
Yeah, but marginalized identities aren’t exchangeable, and the issues they experience are often specific to them. If a man of color were to want to debate me on how ‘yaoi is inherently fetishistic’, yes - we would be having the same discussion exactly. If a gay man of color were to want to debate me on the same subject, we still would be having the same discussion. If a gay man of color would express a desire to talk to me about racism and prejudice within the gay community, we’d be having a completely different discussion, because the subject is completely different, and it needs to be handled differently.
If that’s now what you’re saying, and you’re instead saying ‘imagine discussing issues of racism in fiction with a person of color and how it makes them uncomfortable’ then, uh ... yeah, we would be having a different conversation, but it also depends on what specifically we’re talking about?
If, for example, they say that ‘whitewashing’ makes them uncomfortable, then yeah - agreed. The idea of erasure is very uncomfortable. Same as how if a gay man (or really anyone respectively) were to say that ‘the character was gay in the book, but he’s straight in the movie and that makes me uncomfortable’, I’d agree. Easily. Whether I agree in that instance doesn’t strictly matter, even.
Does white women's expression then matter more than moc feelings?
I ... don’t know? That depends?
Straight women have social power over gay men and using this argument is abuse of that power.
I don’t even know whether that statement is correct or incorrect, because I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about. That’s okay, you came in a little hot there, and I’m open to debating the subject if you feel like clarifying.
But, perhaps it’s worth investigating the reasons why there’s prejudice against gay men. The issues gay men and most women face have a certain overlap. I frankly don’t much enjoy the notion of digging a chasm between the two groups.
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