I had a literal child comment on my ask box title "I am immune to cyberbullying" and literally boast about "you haven't met me!"

Imagine bragging about being good at cyberbullying.

-Matt Levine

wow, I wish HRT gave me beam attacks

This is, no joke, what my most recent writing project is about.

Image I found on twitter that just sums up everything perfectly

“i wish we could see adaptations where sherlock holmes hates the rich and is allowed to be kind to those around him and uses his abilities to support society’s underdogs” elementary was doing this back in 2012. this was only episode 4.

Tag yourself as this list of “bad art” features, according to a twitter fascist

@tobekindred it worked i made them mad

I'm not mad, I'm disappointed, sweetie.

I love how you didn’t even address the claim dude 💀 bc you we’re literally up in my comments saying I’m being a reactionary for explaining how mentally unhealthy being a pro shipper is due to the fact many draw child pornography… you 30 years old dude. Just because you use big fancy words doesn’t mean anyone is gonna take you seriously. 😭

“You’re reading comprehension is abysmal 🤓” okay dude 😭 whatever you say my guy. You’re not that bright yourself seeing as you liken people wanting Proshippers, who btw gladly call themselves this if you’d like take five seconds to look at them, to stfu and go away as “censoring queerness”

What does child porn, incest, and such have to do with being gay?? 💀 why don’t we answer that question first

You have literally wrote essays upon essays on this as if you’re correct. Like it’s very really simple and in your face! Child porn is bad and people drawing it are literally breaking the law. Fym “GRR Y-YOURE CENSORING QUEERNESS!!”

“Oh but you’re righting one now!” Yeah cuz you deadass are not that bright 😭 bc I know your silly self is gonna say smthn like this

Tf does child pornography have to do with being a homosexual 💀 like you’re actually a weirdo. If your friend was drawing child porn or zoophilia porn would you deadass sit in front of the cops and explain

“No officer! This isn’t a bad thing! You guys are being Nazis and trying to censor queerness by arresting my friend for drawing a kid being molested by his dad and dog!”

Like do you not every stop to think you’re actions are a lot different than you’re words bc you seem to be seeking out posts on these anti proshipper tag to try and explain how telling a pedophile to stop drawing illegal content and explaining how it’s harmful is “actually exactly what reactionaries and homophobic Christians say 🤓👆”

idk about you but if you went to a pride parade talking about all this nonsense you’d probably get jumped by a drag Queen and her twink best friend bc likening wanting pedophiles to stop posting pedophilic content to people wanting queerness to disappear is not that same thing! Did you know that? Because I have a little silly silly goofy feeling that you do not! Because you literally refused to address the fact you’re defending cp until someone forced the conversation on you and even then you don’t address it properly 💀 like you are 30 years old. Literally like six years younger than my mother. 😭 out here talking about ethos pathos and logos like this is an English I debate.

“Grrr take your high school bully tactics elsewhere with y-your self righteous outrage away from here!! Grrr”

Perhaps you need to be bullied 💀 bc me personally that’s what I do when I see someone trying to make pedophilia, incest, and zoophilia the same thing as homosexuality bc “oh oh ppl are censoring content! This is anti lgbt”

Gee I wonder why! Me personally I don’t like opening the mile morales tag and seeing a 15 year old boy making out with a 30 year old man 💀

AND YOU A PARENT TOO!! THATS EVEN MORE EMBARRASSING. Hope your kids get taken away lmao (my brother said he does as well. Felt like you should know that) 😋 and I hope your books flop too

Everything narrative when you tell them pro shippers aren’t just a made up term, that they do in fact exist and actually call themselves this, and that them defending cp by saying it’s the same as censoring queerness is in fact weirdo behavior and that they need to put on a watch list:

Lol, mald. Cope and seethe. You're a pathetic child who thinks you're cool and righeous, it is so fucking goofy.

"Actually you're required to engage with internet bullies" eat bugs.

people don't talk enough about the trauma callouts can cause and the fact people can and will use them maliciously to destroy the social life and often livelihood of people they just don't like (often out of bigotry too!) since that would require applying critical thinking to what you read and understanding that you can't just go "oh shit this person is being called out they must be Bad"

if you've been maliciously called out i love you. if you have trauma from being called out i love you

wanted these tags on my blog

For everyone to know, this is the post that everything-narrative accused this person of being a nazi;

This post is clearly about why romanticizing incest/pedophilia is bad. Key word; romanticizing. Its not saying incest/pedophilia shouldn't be in art, its not advocating for the subject to be banned in art, it isn't even implying that we should censor incest and pedophilia. What it is saying though, is that we shouldn't be romanticizing it, that we shouldn't be making art that treats incest/pedophilia as normal. The example that they put is a nine year old character being shipped with his aunt, where it is romanticizing incest/pedophilia because shipping typically treats it as a normal/romantic thing, which shouldn't be protrayed as such because not only is it messed up, but its flat out untrue. There is a reason why these things are taboo, because they are damaging to people. Pedophilia clearly harms children while incest harms families (and even include pedophilia in the mix as well), both physically and psychologically. From reading that post, you can clearly see what point their trying to make and how its fairly reasonable to any being.

Not this person though, oh no. This person, a 30 year old mind you, read that post and accused op of being a nazi. Now you may ask, What has this got to do about nazism? Their not banning the topic of incest/pedophilia being discussed, their just saying that we shouldn't portray it as normal/romantic because that's insulting to victims of incest/pedophilia, wheres the nazism in that? The answer to that question is none, because their was nothing that even implied something of nazism to that post, nor reactionary. A real example of reactionary is the anti sex advocates that want to ban all sex in media regardless of how its portrayed or used for, It lacks nuance and is simply a moral panic that dismiss actual issues in favor of creating new ones for the world. Wanting media/people to not romanticize incest/pedophilia isn't creating a black n white picture however, because it is specific in what portrayal is bad to do, still letting art explore the topics of pedophilia/incest in various ways than endorsing it. Its also not dismissing actual issues as it is part of an issue since groomers can use these artworks of romanticized pedo/incest in order to groom their victims, contributing to grooming/sa of victims by how its portrayed. It isn't 'advocating for censorship', its advocating for less victims to be groomed into pedophilia/incest.

And y'know what, here's the censorship nazis used in art, what they deemed 'degenerate'; Art that challenges our human psyche, focus predominately on issues like war, art that's abstract and generally exploring humanity (especially the dada movement). They werent pedophilia/incest and even if there's art in there that did, that's still negates the whole point of 'degenerate' artworks. They deemed that art 'degenerate' because they didnt align to their german patriotic views and nazi values. They used art as their propaganda toy by showcasing artworks that align with their values while eliminating the ones that arent and 'anti german'. How is that even anything comparable to someone not wanting art to romanticize pedophilia/incest?

And what do you mean 'disrespect the people who died for your right to party?'. The people that made 'degenerate art'? Lgbt? Because as we already established with the people that made 'degenerate' art, they don't align with pedophilia/incest, at least most of them and if you meant the lgbt....you realize what your implying, right? The reactionary crowd constantly paints us as 'predators', just with different sets of paint. That's why you see reactionaries do the whole 'oh think of the children!' whenever even the slightest bit of lgbt representation gets put on kids media and that's why theirs propaganda videos painting certain lgbt groups as predators, from then to now. They paint us as sexual deviants that prey on children so that they can brainwash people in their propaganda of discriminating us as well as other marginalized identities. What you would be implying is that lgbt people endorse pedophilia/incest, both in which are predominant in harming children, do you now see the problem? Its not only false but also incredibly insulting to those people that died for our rights and the whole queer community in general, ironically spreading the reactionary rhetoric about us that you accuse the other of doing.

You are right at one thing though; age has no excuse. You are 30 years old, you have so much more freedom and resources that I (a 16 year old) and the 14 year old couldn't have. Theirs no adult/authority figure for you to keep things secret, for you to hold back on research and for you to explore nazism and how romanticized pedophilia/incest is harmful towards victims. But you didnt, you clearly didnt. Otherwise, you'd never even write that comment of accusing that person of being a nazi or reactionary because that's not how it works. It's incredibly disappointing because you seemed like a reasonable adult but hearing this from you and how you compare fictional cp being banned to the censorship of queer folks;

I doubt it. Either learn from this or just stop accusing people of nazism/being reactionary for reasonable takes.

Preface: Popper's Paradox of Tolerance is the seemingly paradoxical observation that tolerant society must be violently intolerant of those who seek to impose intolerance upon the tolerant society. It more accurately described as a kind of social contract where to reap the benefits of tolerance, one must agree to uphold the tolerant society for all.

Let me cut to the core of the issue, it is really quite simple:

[IMAGE ID: Tumblr post by user @professor-gayass with some of the text blacked out reading: "I'm pro-art and all that ... (if it's a coping mechanism, I can understand) ... I'm very fucking concerned ... but I just find it disgusting ... (again, when it's 'healthy and romantic' and not being used as a coping mechanism or the like) ... Even if it's fiction ... I'd be eye-twitching and finger-clenching in anger ... this is 100% directed at that one ... I saw ... this is downplaying trauma and triggering" END ID]

This ^

This is pure pathos. This is pure, uncritical appeal to emotion: to disgust and outrage.

Is that bad in and of itself? No. Pathos is fine. It's one of the rhetorical strategies of all time.

Here's the problem: context.

Set the scene: I'm a very tired, very queer, very stressed, and slightly unhinged person with a tumblr account, who has inadvisedly begun following @cherrytea556 because I like seeing a diversity of opinions on my dash. They then reblog around 15 posts on the subject of "Antishipping."

I respond with my very worst Twitter habits by making some short snarky quips in the comments of those various posts.

The thing is, this vent post by @professor-gayass is weighting in on a topic of discourse that is already hotly in debate, a debate where one side calls for the ban of portrayals of topics they find aesthetically objectionable, and the other side is being very normal about things.

Anti-shippers as a movement exhibit many of the classic signs of being a reactionary movement:

This is a microcosm of reactionary thought which you will find also exists in:

The anti-shipping movement is a moral panic. It has many things to do with and in common with fascism, and it requires very little study before you see the links.

I am not condemning anti-shippers themselves for engaging in reactionary rhetoric, because that is a mind virus many unwittingly succumb to, but I will use my cringe 30-year-old ass to make it spectacularly uncool to be an anti-shipper.

I will also personally defy you, @cherrytea556, or anyone who cares, to find evidence that portrayals of paedophilia in fiction or art, no matter how positive, to be somehow directly causally linked to actual acts of paedophilic violence, in a manner that places definite culpability on the author of said work of paedophilic fiction or art.

Specifically evidence that justifies the kind of rather vicious bullying campaigns I have seen anti-shippers engage in.

Specifically evidence that justifies the kind of failed "ha ha I have receipts" failed intimidation tactic that @professor-gayass attempted in his original ask. I still don't understand half of what that kid wrote, but it was clearly an attempt at intimidation.

The thing that you fail to realize is:

Pathos is no foundation for morality. Pathos is a fragile argument. Pathos can shift.

The shift from "paedophilia and incest in art is OK so long as it doesn't romanticize it" to "paedophilia and incest in art is never OK" is really, really small. Inevitable, really, because both of them are in context rhetorically justified only by disgust and outrage, and outrage is one helluva drug.

That is the essence of the fabled slippery slope.

The Nazis in 1930's Germany destroyed and cesored art because it was 'degenerate', because it 'eroded the spirit of the German people.' Complete nonsense sentences: empty referents abound. But oh how profound and evocative those statements.

"Positive portrayals of paedophilia in fiction normalizes abuse" is a grammatically correct sentence, but once you start deconstructing it, there is no Logos. There is no way to make it concrete that doesn't immediately descend into the most hare-brained unrealistic hypotheticals wherein no blame can be reasonably assigned.

Wanna hear a position based in Ethos? Free speech.

No compromise, no censorship. People have fought for the position of free speech: of open public libraries, of the free press, because it is an unassailable, natural position. A compromise that respects people's ability to discern fact from fiction and truth from lies, and prevents bad actors from corrupting the censorship apparatus because there simply isn't a censorship apparatus.

What I often find in moral panic rhetoric is the idea that "someone in charge should do something about this!" I've seen anti-shippers call for the closure of Ao3, I've seen satanic panic pastors call for the arrest of Gary Gygax.

As an anarchist I am not very cool about people wanting to impose hierarchies of censorship enforcement. I'm not a big fan of cops, because cops are easily corruptible, and the very reasonable cops you kids want to put in place to curb artistic depictions of sexual violence, can, will, and has already been used to censor and harm queer people. THIS IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW AND HAS FOR DECADES.

Every single internet safety bill with a fancy name, SESTA, FOSTA, and all the others of the last fifteen years, have been cheerfully worded documents attempting to justify themselves by moral panic rhetoric, and have invariably been used to censor and evict queer communities online. Yes, even old PROTECT from 2003 has massive flaws in the privileges it gives investigators, and for the twenty years it has been law, it has been used as the jumping-off point for efforts to broaden its definition of sex offenses against minors to target queer people, especially trans people.

I don't think I can properly articulate this to you two.

I grew up in a word where the existence of queer people were taboo.

I grew up in a world where an entire generation of gay men had died of AIDS in what was basically a genocide-by-inaction.

There was a brief period in the early 2010's when it seemed social progress was actually being made, and now it seems we're sliding back into fascism. There's fascists in Italy, there was fascists in the white house, and the persecution of trans people in the UK is nearing the point where my sisters on TERF island can seek asylum under UN law.

I am, somewhat, one of the cool adults you can trust. And one of the reasons you can trust me is that I do not hesitate to call out your juvenile bullshit recycled purity culture moral panic rhetoric when I see it.

I also scold the little immigrant kids on my block when they yell homophobic slurs at me. It takes a village to raise a child, and in my experience as a parent, the village is not optional.

Was I overly snarky and a bit harsh? Yes. Absolutely. I've had a hard week, I get snippy. I genuinely apologize.

But allow me to introduce you to a very valuable technique when it comes to internet safety:

Curate your own internet experience.

Tumblr has a block button. Use it early. Use it often. Blacklist tags on Turmblr and Ao3, don't feed the trolls, and don't sent hate mail.

I feel like what your forgetting of what the difference between @professor-gayass and nazis/reactionaries is. When it comes to the censorship in art by nazis, it was whatever they deemed 'ungerman', a subjective viewpoint that impacted the art that wasnt 'german', but 'degenerate'. Again abstract art, commentary/political art, nude art, art made by jewish people etc...You noticed how all of this isnt objectively bad, it's just what the nazis didnt like. Same with reactionaries like the anti sex campaign, sex is inherently a subjective thing that fully depends of the individual. Its not an objectively bad thing, its fully subjective but reactionaries dont like it so they try to make it objectively bad and ban it.

But what @professor-gayass was about, which is romanticizing pedophilia/incest is objectively bad. Why? Because pedophilia/incest harms people, primarily children. It truamatises someone that they cannot go back on, it directly harms their psyche (mental/psychological truama) and physically (pregnancy, messed up genetics that deteriorates their health both physically and mentally). It's important that its not portrayed in a positive light, so adults wont take advantage of children/people. Romanticizing of pedophilia/incest is very specific too (especially when you take in to consider that the post was implying that you can use that kind of art as a coping mechanism, potentially there to not exclude/demonize victims of those that do create that type of artwork) unlike sex and the art nazis deemed 'degenerate' since those are more broad (sex obviously is with a variety of sexual activities and the art that was 'ungerman' like i stated before), making your argument as well as your accusation of @professor-gayass being a nazi completely falling flat because of not recognizing those key things that make them entirely different from each other.

What your also forgetting about is how art can cause harm of people. The biggest example of this is racial caricatures used in order to oppose that particular group and/or justify their atrocities to them. Hell, the nazis did that to jewish people, portraying them as monstrous creatures or cruel greedy people. This in term brainwashed people into antisemitic beliefs that affected jewish people (particularly in the holocaust). It's also not in drawings/painting either, those propagandist videos portraying lgbt people as predators can be considered 'art' (video/film making) yet they clearly affect us from having basic rights, even now. And again, the nazis made a film, what also can be considered 'art', whose whole purpose is to demonize jewish people. Even art that isn't meant to demonize a particular group still do contribute harm such as film/tv where stereotypes of queers and poc that fuel in internal homophobia/racism. Art isn't exempt from harming people so groomers can definitely use those artworks where adult-child or sibling-sibling are romanticized in order to groom their victim into thinking its a normal thing when it isn't. It's not censoring art that misses the whole concept, its recognizing art is a powerful tool that we should be careful with when creating in order for people to not get harmed. There's no 'juvenile bullshit recycled purity culture moral panic rhetoric' here, its basic common sense.

If your one of the adults that im suppose to trust then why did you compare the bans of fictional cp to queer folks being censored online? No seriously, I want an genuine explanation of how that's in any way comparable of people sexualising kids like me in their creations to censoring queer folks. Genuinely, what was the reason? Shows already exist out there that sexualise teenagers engaging in sex (especially teenage girls) and as a teenage girl, that shit makes me extremely uncomfortable and I'm lucky no one has preyed on me yet.

And since your call outs of 'juvenile bullshit recycled purity culture moral panic rhetoric' doesn't work, your first reply to @professor-gayass along with the post that shows the banning of fictional cp is pretty concerning. You were quick to accusing @professor-gayass of being a nazi, not even thinking that they seem to have reasonable concerns behind the 'reactionary' (because romanticizing pedophilia/incest clearly is a reasonable concern) or a regular person thats in the wrong crowd, nope just straight into nazism. You chose queer censorship to compare fictional cp bans as if their in any way similar, their not. Like even getting your poor call outs out of the way, your replies in general were concerning, not because you were harsh or snippy, but because of your comparisons from the jump (@professor-gayass to nazis and fictional cp to queer censorship). I dont consider you creepy (otherwise I would've immediately hit the block button instead of talking to you here) but I am becoming very concerned and uncomfortable with the things you have said.

All in all, don't make accusations out of the jump especially when they don't hold water.

You're not listening.

Whether something constitutes romanticizing incest and paedophilia is a value judgment.

Where does the line go? Who decides where to draw the line? What should be the repercussions for people who overstep? How can the people making the value judgments be held accountable?

Incest and paedophilia is bad and virtually always extremely harmful! It should be illegal! I hardly think anyone reasonable disagrees! But have you seen the current public debates about transgender healthcare for kids? The transphobic right would have you believe that life-saving and safe medical and social interventions constitutes child abuse. In the past, they have accused gay men of being paedophiles with abandon.

(The 2003 PROTECT act has led to a lot of bad child pornography rings being dissolved and the members prosecuted -- that's a good thing, no two ways about it -- but it also includes a clause banning the artistic depiction of minors engaging in sexual acts.

The gotcha you don't seem to know about is that this is still subject to the Miller test for artistic value vs. obscenity, and that has in times of a SCOTUS with a favorable view of free speech, been enough.

But there are reactionaries foaming at the mouth to severely weaken the Miller test clause, or broaden the definition of child pornography and abuse to include completely harmless behavior and target their political enemies and queer people in general. I have lived through several such attempts, watching with horror from across the pond.)

Value judgments are weak and corruptible and ultimately grounded in opinion and everyone has an opinion. The consistent position of value judgments that the ideals of liberal democracy is founded on, is consensus of opinion. If the majority decides to have the opinion that offering transgender healthcare to kids is paedophilia tough fucking luck, you go to jail.

And Nazism did not start in the 1930's with some people suddenly deciding to persecute everyone they viewed as inferior (opinion!) and banning 'degenerate art' (value judgment!) and whipping the populace into a frenzy (outrage! unexamined disgust! pathos!)

It didn't even start with the first world war. It is a product of a long, complex history of gradual radicalization of the individual and the society, based on a rhetoric fuelled by pathos, scapegoating, and vague value judgments.

I'm telling you that the political stance of raging against fictional depictions of incest and paedophilia, which again comes down to your personal definition of incest and paedophilia, based solely on your knee-jerk moral outrage, is a dangerous political stance to take because it leaves you vulnerable to a very rapid descent into far worse politics.

You should look around and see what other groups wants similar things to what you want -- qualitatively similar, differences of degree are secondary -- and ask yourself if you want to associate with these people.

I'm saying the logical conclusion of the kind of moral panic rhetoric peddled by antishippers in general, is highly repressive policies. The historical policies of Nazi Germany is not what this is about because the Nazis are fucking back, baybee, and they're as bad as they've always been.

Now we're both going to shut the fuck up about this because I tire of your 16-year-old reading comprehension, and I have better things to spend my typing on.

For everyone to know, this is the post that everything-narrative accused this person of being a nazi;

This post is clearly about why romanticizing incest/pedophilia is bad. Key word; romanticizing. Its not saying incest/pedophilia shouldn't be in art, its not advocating for the subject to be banned in art, it isn't even implying that we should censor incest and pedophilia. What it is saying though, is that we shouldn't be romanticizing it, that we shouldn't be making art that treats incest/pedophilia as normal. The example that they put is a nine year old character being shipped with his aunt, where it is romanticizing incest/pedophilia because shipping typically treats it as a normal/romantic thing, which shouldn't be protrayed as such because not only is it messed up, but its flat out untrue. There is a reason why these things are taboo, because they are damaging to people. Pedophilia clearly harms children while incest harms families (and even include pedophilia in the mix as well), both physically and psychologically. From reading that post, you can clearly see what point their trying to make and how its fairly reasonable to any being.

Not this person though, oh no. This person, a 30 year old mind you, read that post and accused op of being a nazi. Now you may ask, What has this got to do about nazism? Their not banning the topic of incest/pedophilia being discussed, their just saying that we shouldn't portray it as normal/romantic because that's insulting to victims of incest/pedophilia, wheres the nazism in that? The answer to that question is none, because their was nothing that even implied something of nazism to that post, nor reactionary. A real example of reactionary is the anti sex advocates that want to ban all sex in media regardless of how its portrayed or used for, It lacks nuance and is simply a moral panic that dismiss actual issues in favor of creating new ones for the world. Wanting media/people to not romanticize incest/pedophilia isn't creating a black n white picture however, because it is specific in what portrayal is bad to do, still letting art explore the topics of pedophilia/incest in various ways than endorsing it. Its also not dismissing actual issues as it is part of an issue since groomers can use these artworks of romanticized pedo/incest in order to groom their victims, contributing to grooming/sa of victims by how its portrayed. It isn't 'advocating for censorship', its advocating for less victims to be groomed into pedophilia/incest.

And y'know what, here's the censorship nazis used in art, what they deemed 'degenerate'; Art that challenges our human psyche, focus predominately on issues like war, art that's abstract and generally exploring humanity (especially the dada movement). They werent pedophilia/incest and even if there's art in there that did, that's still negates the whole point of 'degenerate' artworks. They deemed that art 'degenerate' because they didnt align to their german patriotic views and nazi values. They used art as their propaganda toy by showcasing artworks that align with their values while eliminating the ones that arent and 'anti german'. How is that even anything comparable to someone not wanting art to romanticize pedophilia/incest?

And what do you mean 'disrespect the people who died for your right to party?'. The people that made 'degenerate art'? Lgbt? Because as we already established with the people that made 'degenerate' art, they don't align with pedophilia/incest, at least most of them and if you meant the lgbt....you realize what your implying, right? The reactionary crowd constantly paints us as 'predators', just with different sets of paint. That's why you see reactionaries do the whole 'oh think of the children!' whenever even the slightest bit of lgbt representation gets put on kids media and that's why theirs propaganda videos painting certain lgbt groups as predators, from then to now. They paint us as sexual deviants that prey on children so that they can brainwash people in their propaganda of discriminating us as well as other marginalized identities. What you would be implying is that lgbt people endorse pedophilia/incest, both in which are predominant in harming children, do you now see the problem? Its not only false but also incredibly insulting to those people that died for our rights and the whole queer community in general, ironically spreading the reactionary rhetoric about us that you accuse the other of doing.

You are right at one thing though; age has no excuse. You are 30 years old, you have so much more freedom and resources that I (a 16 year old) and the 14 year old couldn't have. Theirs no adult/authority figure for you to keep things secret, for you to hold back on research and for you to explore nazism and how romanticized pedophilia/incest is harmful towards victims. But you didnt, you clearly didnt. Otherwise, you'd never even write that comment of accusing that person of being a nazi or reactionary because that's not how it works. It's incredibly disappointing because you seemed like a reasonable adult but hearing this from you and how you compare fictional cp being banned to the censorship of queer folks;

I doubt it. Either learn from this or just stop accusing people of nazism/being reactionary for reasonable takes.

Preface: Popper's Paradox of Tolerance is the seemingly paradoxical observation that tolerant society must be violently intolerant of those who seek to impose intolerance upon the tolerant society. It more accurately described as a kind of social contract where to reap the benefits of tolerance, one must agree to uphold the tolerant society for all.

Let me cut to the core of the issue, it is really quite simple:

[IMAGE ID: Tumblr post by user @professor-gayass with some of the text blacked out reading: "I'm pro-art and all that ... (if it's a coping mechanism, I can understand) ... I'm very fucking concerned ... but I just find it disgusting ... (again, when it's 'healthy and romantic' and not being used as a coping mechanism or the like) ... Even if it's fiction ... I'd be eye-twitching and finger-clenching in anger ... this is 100% directed at that one ... I saw ... this is downplaying trauma and triggering" END ID]

This ^

This is pure pathos. This is pure, uncritical appeal to emotion: to disgust and outrage.

Is that bad in and of itself? No. Pathos is fine. It's one of the rhetorical strategies of all time.

Here's the problem: context.

Set the scene: I'm a very tired, very queer, very stressed, and slightly unhinged person with a tumblr account, who has inadvisedly begun following @cherrytea556 because I like seeing a diversity of opinions on my dash. They then reblog around 15 posts on the subject of "Antishipping."

I respond with my very worst Twitter habits by making some short snarky quips in the comments of those various posts.

The thing is, this vent post by @professor-gayass is weighting in on a topic of discourse that is already hotly in debate, a debate where one side calls for the ban of portrayals of topics they find aesthetically objectionable, and the other side is being very normal about things.

Anti-shippers as a movement exhibit many of the classic signs of being a reactionary movement:

This is a microcosm of reactionary thought which you will find also exists in:

The anti-shipping movement is a moral panic. It has many things to do with and in common with fascism, and it requires very little study before you see the links.

I am not condemning anti-shippers themselves for engaging in reactionary rhetoric, because that is a mind virus many unwittingly succumb to, but I will use my cringe 30-year-old ass to make it spectacularly uncool to be an anti-shipper.

I will also personally defy you, @cherrytea556, or anyone who cares, to find evidence that portrayals of paedophilia in fiction or art, no matter how positive, to be somehow directly causally linked to actual acts of paedophilic violence, in a manner that places definite culpability on the author of said work of paedophilic fiction or art.

Specifically evidence that justifies the kind of rather vicious bullying campaigns I have seen anti-shippers engage in.

Specifically evidence that justifies the kind of failed "ha ha I have receipts" failed intimidation tactic that @professor-gayass attempted in his original ask. I still don't understand half of what that kid wrote, but it was clearly an attempt at intimidation.

The thing that you fail to realize is:

Pathos is no foundation for morality. Pathos is a fragile argument. Pathos can shift.

The shift from "paedophilia and incest in art is OK so long as it doesn't romanticize it" to "paedophilia and incest in art is never OK" is really, really small. Inevitable, really, because both of them are in context rhetorically justified only by disgust and outrage, and outrage is one helluva drug.

That is the essence of the fabled slippery slope.

The Nazis in 1930's Germany destroyed and cesored art because it was 'degenerate', because it 'eroded the spirit of the German people.' Complete nonsense sentences: empty referents abound. But oh how profound and evocative those statements.

"Positive portrayals of paedophilia in fiction normalizes abuse" is a grammatically correct sentence, but once you start deconstructing it, there is no Logos. There is no way to make it concrete that doesn't immediately descend into the most hare-brained unrealistic hypotheticals wherein no blame can be reasonably assigned.

Wanna hear a position based in Ethos? Free speech.

No compromise, no censorship. People have fought for the position of free speech: of open public libraries, of the free press, because it is an unassailable, natural position. A compromise that respects people's ability to discern fact from fiction and truth from lies, and prevents bad actors from corrupting the censorship apparatus because there simply isn't a censorship apparatus.

What I often find in moral panic rhetoric is the idea that "someone in charge should do something about this!" I've seen anti-shippers call for the closure of Ao3, I've seen satanic panic pastors call for the arrest of Gary Gygax.

As an anarchist I am not very cool about people wanting to impose hierarchies of censorship enforcement. I'm not a big fan of cops, because cops are easily corruptible, and the very reasonable cops you kids want to put in place to curb artistic depictions of sexual violence, can, will, and has already been used to censor and harm queer people. THIS IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW AND HAS FOR DECADES.

Every single internet safety bill with a fancy name, SESTA, FOSTA, and all the others of the last fifteen years, have been cheerfully worded documents attempting to justify themselves by moral panic rhetoric, and have invariably been used to censor and evict queer communities online. Yes, even old PROTECT from 2003 has massive flaws in the privileges it gives investigators, and for the twenty years it has been law, it has been used as the jumping-off point for efforts to broaden its definition of sex offenses against minors to target queer people, especially trans people.

I don't think I can properly articulate this to you two.

I grew up in a word where the existence of queer people were taboo.

I grew up in a world where an entire generation of gay men had died of AIDS in what was basically a genocide-by-inaction.

There was a brief period in the early 2010's when it seemed social progress was actually being made, and now it seems we're sliding back into fascism. There's fascists in Italy, there was fascists in the white house, and the persecution of trans people in the UK is nearing the point where my sisters on TERF island can seek asylum under UN law.

I am, somewhat, one of the cool adults you can trust. And one of the reasons you can trust me is that I do not hesitate to call out your juvenile bullshit recycled purity culture moral panic rhetoric when I see it.

I also scold the little immigrant kids on my block when they yell homophobic slurs at me. It takes a village to raise a child, and in my experience as a parent, the village is not optional.

Was I overly snarky and a bit harsh? Yes. Absolutely. I've had a hard week, I get snippy. I genuinely apologize.

But allow me to introduce you to a very valuable technique when it comes to internet safety:

Curate your own internet experience.

Tumblr has a block button. Use it early. Use it often. Blacklist tags on Turmblr and Ao3, don't feed the trolls, and don't sent hate mail.