And that's my tea for today.

I finally managed to articulate my thoughts on why I fucking hate the "trauma play is the same as trauma reenactment" and "YOU'RE RETRAUMATISING YOURSELF WITH YOUR SHIPS" arguments so goddamn much.

Hey anti-antis/pro-shippers, we need to chat about our terminology

So discmorse over on twitter has already made the above tweet, but it’s something I’ve also been pondering myself over the last couple of days.

While it’s true that anti-shippers coined the term “antis” for themselves (though some of them passionately deny this), I’ve noticed that the term is vague enough that people who are outside of fandom discourse can’t tell what it means. Additionally, the pro-MAP/pedo and pro-zoophilia communities over on twitter have stolen the term to refer to people who are anti-IRL-pedophilia and anti-IRL-zoophilia. I’m sure it’s safe to say most of us who call ourselves anti-antis and/or pro-shippers identify as anti-MAP/pedo and anti-zoo ourselves. 

If they haven’t already, it’s very likely that more industrious anti-shippers will probably use this muddying of terms to their advantage at some point, in order to convince others that we’re attacking anti-MAPS and anti-zoos when we criticise “antis.” This would obviously make things needlessly complicated and confusing for people just coming into contact with fandom discourse, and it would make it easier for anti-shippers to convince newcomers that anti-antis/pro-shippers truly are defending IRL pedos and zoos.

To that end, I propose we do away, for our part, with the terms “anti” and “anti-anti” and come up with terms that are more self-explanatory and specific.

While I find the term “fandom frollo” both accurate and amusing, I think this term is also a bit too opaque, since anyone who isn’t familiar with Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame won’t really understand the connotation there. Plus, well, some of us anti-antis/pro-shippers are big fans of Frollo as a character, so associating negative IRL fandom behaviour with that character could become alienating to the actual Frollo fandom.

Personally I think “fanpol” or “fancops” is the best option we have right now for “anti,” since it is much easier to figure out (lots of folks are familiar with portmanteaus and how to understand them), and the idea of “fandom police” is rather self-explanatory. While the full term “anti-shipper” or “anti-[fill in your ship name here” is also self-explanatory, “fanpol/cops” has the advantage of applying to multiple fandoms, and to those who morality-police multiple aspects of fandom, not just shipping. My suggestion would be that if you want to specifically discuss anti-shipping, or anti-[fill in your ship name here]s, you use that full term (i.e., “anti-reylos,” “anti-bakudekus,” etc). Do not simply shorten it to “antis.” Make sure your terms are clear and specific.

As for “pro-shipper”, I think it has the same strengths and weaknesses as “anti-shipper.” It’s a very specific term, used for only one aspect of fandom. Of course, if you are a pro-shipper, feel free to continue to call yourself that, but I’m not sure it covers the full spectrum of anti-antis, or those who are anti-censorship. There are also pro-shippers who use the term because they aren’t fully comfortable identifying as anti-antis, though there is frequently a great deal of overlap. This is also perfectly understandable. It’s a perfectly fine term, and feel free to continue using it (I will, too), but as I said, I think it has the disadvantage of being too closely tied to just shipping.

I personally propose that “anti-antis” should start calling ourselves “anti-fanpol/cops.” It, like “fanpol/cops” has the advantage of being fairly self-explanatory and easier to figure out. It’s right there in the name, “anti fandom police.” Furthermore, it would automatically associate us with the anti-authoritarianism within fandom that we seek to represent.

Naturally, antis are going to refuse this terminology - at least at first (though in the ATLA some fanpol have already embraced it). They are going to try and redefine terms again, or try to continue using the old terminology. Do not play along. Do not back down. Continue using explicit, specific terminology instead of using vague terms like “anti” or “anti-anti,” which all too easily allow goalposts to be moved.

I have, however, seen people, including members of our community, argue that the term “fanpol/cop” may be insensitive to those who belong to minority groups, since they often do have to worry about very real police violence. This is something worth considering, and we need to be willing to listen to feedback about that. On the other hand, one might also say that authoritarian behaviour in fandom is unacceptable no matter who it’s coming from, and that if you police your fellow fans, your spade deserves to be called a spade. So I think there still needs to be some discussion on that. 

In any case, the table is still very much open for ideas. Sticking to “fanpol” and “anti-fanpol” is my personal preference, but I would love to hear alternatives and for us to have a discussion about the possibilities here.

However, in the meantime, we need to chuck out the terms “anti” and “anti-anti” and use something different. We let them define the terms of the discussion last time. Let’s have it be our turn to define our own terms, especially in light of these new developments.

tumblr callouts are like

-six paragraphs detailing how this person horribly mischaracterized some guy in a fanfic they wrote six years ago

-an anecdote from a friend of a friend that suggests they might have asked an ex to spank them once

-a sentence about how they killed a woman in Reno once and escaped conviction due to a technicality

-another seven paragraphs about fandom

This is just a fancy way of saying ‘this person made CP’ and you freaks are all like ‘lol fandom drama

No, this is a very straightforward way of saying “don’t pad your callout posts with trivial and inconsequential shit when they’ve actually done something objectively bad”.

I can’t TELL you how many callouts I’ve seen that go on and on and on about some stupid shit that is at worst TMI or distasteful and then buries an actual fucked up illegal thing in among them. Like, if someone has been caught soliciting minors for nudes, just say so, don’t tack it on at the end of an essay about how they are kin with Pearl from Steven Universe and why this means they’re imperialist apologists. I do not give a fuck about someone’s favorite Homestuck character and why you think this makes them bad if they are actually doing things that are illegal.

If someone started a cult in 2009 and scammed people out of $300,000 in airfare, that’s it. That’s all you need to say. I don’t need to know about how they also list John Green among their favorite authors on their Facebook page and all the personal reasons you don’t like them. I will stop reading before I get to the cult part before I slog through fandom discourse.

I'm tired of this "fiction doesn't exist in vacuum" argument. No, it doesn't exist in vacuum, it exist in a world where people have agency. Fiction doesn't affect us in 1:1 way because we can make our own choices.

There is a reason why Joker movie didn't lead to mass shootings like some people believed it would but lead to people dancing on stairs instead. We can enjoy fun fictional concepts and still think critically about the ideas presented to us without blindly accepting them.

Writing does not mean condoning.

Writing does not mean romanticizing.

Writing does not mean normalizing.

Writing means writing.

Writing means exploring.

Writing means creating.

Stop conflating the mere act of writing dark content with condoning/romanticizing/normalizing that content.

Hot take, but I must add that this also applies to all f—tish stories and cartoon/anime drawings as well, unless the work is blatantly and openly designed to be to the contrary.

If you think “antis”, aka people who dont support people spreading harmful things like pedophilic content around, please for the love of everything unfollow me. OP doesn’t see a problem with that type of behavior as theyve stated on their blog many times, and as evidenced by their use of the word anti.

Oh, yay, another wave of the smear campaign.

Anyway, the problem is not that I support “spreading pedophilic content.” The problem is that I remember that a significant number of people still think, in this the year 5778, that all queer people are pedophiles, and in fact advocate for and enact laws against us under the guise of “stopping pedophilia.”

The problem is that I remember the multiple times people have tried to get enough information together to report me to the FBI and my local police station as an active, armed, child rapist, because I disagreed with them on the internet.

The problem is that I remember that comic shops and queer bookstores have been put out of business here in Big Friendly Canada by malicious application of vague obscenity laws.

The problem is that I remember four years ago, when a store in my nation’s capital was fined for selling a binder to a trans boy when his transphobic parents called the cops.

The problem is that I remember earlier tonight, when I saw an anti campaign brewing against @seananmcguire of all people.

The problem is that I don’t believe lines on a page are ever equivalent to what was done to me, and the idea that it is is offensive.

The problem is that I listen to what experts in the field of working with traumatized children and rape survivors have to say about the therapeutic value of ‘problematic’ content.

The problem is that I don’t mistake my deep and visceral revulsion to certain media for moral righteousness.

The problem is that, unlike you, I remember how every time the definition of “pedophilia” gets broader, queer people suffer.

And I’ll see your “please unfollow me” and raise you a “get the fuck off my post and never interact with my content again until you’re ready to acknowledge the historical impact of the legacy you’re claiming.”

I’m not advocating for censorship laws, fuck off. I’m pissed at people spreading nsfw underage content and other people thinking that’s okay.

I was a victim of grooming with the same kind of content that “”“”“antis”“”“” are against. Yeah, I won’t equate irl csa to fictional shit involving CSA or underaged characters, the difference in direct harm is pretty damn obvious, but it’s still fucking bad and people shouldnt be okay with spreading it around and calling it harmless.

You wanna know why people use the word pedophilia? Because people find other shit to call this nonsense–loli, shota, ephebophilia, to try and make whatever flavor of fucked up thing they’re doing seem harmless. So you call it what it is–their attraction to children–so they can’t hide behind niche words that any average person wouldn’t react to.

As a lesbian I’m frankly insulted that you’d blame other queer people for how a word is used against us. Like are you shitting me? Internet “”“antis”“” aren’t why your government is homophobic. That would be the institution-level homophobia! That one’s just fucking low lol. “Don’t express your disgust at people jacking it to fictional children, you’re hurting the community!” For real?

And like, okay great, me making this comment isn’t fucking doxxing you. I don’t like when people do/post/create/spread nasty pedo shit, and I won’t give a pass to people thinking it’s harmless. If you can’t deal with dissenting responses, then don’t make these kind of posts on a public blog.

As for “therapeutic” content–fine, make it. Just dont fucking post it in a place where everyone can see it! It’s not that fucking hard. But here we are, with nasty shit spread all over the place w the excuse of “it’s for coping!”

1. You literally lied about me “supporting pedophilia” because I dared to point out that being against censorship laws isn’t supporting CP. You might not have intended to advocate for censorship laws, but that is exactly what you’re doing.

2. I was a victim of actual CSA, using Mario and the Ninja Turtles as grooming tools. Am I allowed to claim that anyone who makes a post about Bowser is supporting pedophilia? Or is it how the media was used and the people I was trusted with, rather than its existence, that was the problem?

3. So… Why do they use the word “pedophilia” when it involves nothing but grown ass adults? Why do they call it “pedophilia” when it has absolutely nothing to do with kids in any way? Why do they call it “supporting pedophilia” when someone who has actually been charged under obscenity laws for a fair representation of a Biblical scene says “obscenity laws are bullshit, even when they’re aimed at content I don’t like?” Why do they call it pedophilia when people say “actually, harassing and abusing people is wrong?” WHY DID THEY TRY TO REPORT ME TO THE ACTUAL FUCKING COPS AS AN ACTIVE CHILD RAPIST?

And why didn’t they call it “pedophilia” when they sent actual CP to its subject?

4. Internet antis are, however harassing people en masse for daring to object to these government abuses of power. That’s exactly what this is about. People are smearing and harassing Neil Gaiman with the exact same lie you’re spreading about me, because he dared to say that laws against icky content are bad because the government, not you, decides what is icky. This is a problem. And as a trans lesbian, I’m fucking furious that you would use a bigoted lie that has been used against our community for generations against someone for disagreeing with you and then hide behind your identity.

Furthermore, once again, I’ll remind you that antis have literally filed false police reports, and sought to file more, against people they disagree with. It isn’t their fault that channels of state violence exist, but they are absolutely responsible for using them.

I’ve never said “don’t express your disgust. In fact, I literally expressed my disgust at content that sexualizes children in the post you’re replying to here, you disingenuous little shitweasel. What I’m against is harassing people, launching smear campaigns, and trying to destroy people’s lives over rumors and misrepresentations.

5. You’re not dissenting, you’re strawmanning. You’re taking issue with a bunch of shit that wasn’t being said, and using that anger to spread false and damaging lies about queer people and encourage a crowd with a history of violence. That’s the problem here.

6. Oh no, things that can help trauma survivors are accessible to trauma survivors. I’m so very glad I don’t live in anti world - I can go for years at a time without seeing a single piece of media that eroticizes children. This shit isn’t exactly in the window at your local bookstore - it’s generally in quiet little niches, behind numerous labels and warnings about exactly what you’re getting into here. And I don’t want to get into that, so I stay clear. I don’t harass creators, I don’t make galaxy-brained posts about how oppressive laws that hurt queer people are good actually, I don’t call anyone who has a different relationship with things I find gross à pedophile.

See the difference?

I’m not saying “CP is good actually, putnit everywhere!” I’m saying that, despite being heavily triggered and squicked out by anything remotely sexual interacting with anything remotely childlike, I don’t think we should throw people in jail, harass them, expose them to CP, or bake them needle cookies when they haven’t actually hurt anyone.

And, y'know, that it’s a little fucking hypocritical to do all those things to people who haven’t hurt anyone in the name of making the world safer.

For fuck’s sake, did you even read what Gaiman was saying? In one of the cases he cited, the creator was banned from making art that anyone might find offensive in any way, and subjected to random police raids to enforce that.

In what world, exactly, is being appalled at cops regularly tossing someone’s house looking for such dangerous contraband as paper and pencils, lest a racist homophobic granny somewhere see something that makes her say “well I never!” a BAD THING?

Yours, apparently.

Now get the fuck away from me until you care as much about actual violence to queer CSA survivors as you do about lines on a page.

I’d like to remind people that the country OP mentions with “I’ll know it when I see it” as the standard of obscenity is the US.

Actually, I was thinking Canada - I know that freedom of speech isn’t robust in practice in the US, but my understanding was that it was robust on paper. I didn’t even know it had obscenity laws.

(The bookstores I mentioned that got shut down? They would have basically every single shipment seized and impounded on the “I know it when I see it” standard, not because there was anything wrong, but because it would drown them in legal costs and it was impossible to prove malice.)

Interesting. I thought you were referring to Jacobellis v. Ohio, an obscenity case where a Supreme Court justice famously defined pornography as “I know it when I see it”. The US does have obscenity laws and ‘obscene speech’ is not protected under the First Amendment, along with hate speech and child pornography. The official definition for obscenity in the US is what’s known as the Miller test, which in short says that obscene art 1) goes against modern community standards, 2) depicts sexual content far outside the norm, and 3) has no redeeming artistic, literary, scientific, or political value. As you might expect, definitions of ‘community standards’ vary greatly.

There’s a difference between comparison and equivalence. In other words, saying someone is like X doesn’t mean they are X. It’s not enough to respond with “well of course I’m not X” because you weren’t accused of being X, you were accused of being like X.

“You sound like a conservative Christian” isn’t calling you a conservative Christian.

“You’re using TERF rhetoric” isn’t calling you a TERF.

If I wanted to call you either of those things, I’d say “you’re a conservative Christian” or “you’re a TERF” not make a comparison.

So, I’ve seen some antis talk about the ‘Jaws effect’ and how that proves fiction affects reality:

And I just wanna say - actually, this is a fabulous metaphor for how fiction doesn’t affect reality the way you think it does. If we’re using Jaws as a metaphor, then clearly it doesn’t affect reality the way people think it does. Jaws is a shark-attack movie about a bloodthirsty shark.

And yet. Shark attacks on people didn’t rise. (Obviously sharks aren’t exactly inspired by movies, I know. It’s supposed to be a stupid comparison. 🙄)

But you know what DID increase? The number of people falsely trying to kill off/drive away sharks based on misinformation, fear, or another highly-emotional motive.

Sounds REMARKABLY like what antis are doing to me. They see something happening in media that may/may not be surrounded by misinformation and then try to start a moral panic over that thing so it no longer exists. And they don’t bother doing legitimate scientific research.

So, yeah. Jaws effect. Good point.

The annoying thing about the “Jaws Effect” the fandom moral guardians use as proof of their arguments, is how exaggerated it is. What they claim or imply is that the 100 million sharks killed world wide every year is solely due to Jaws and people being scared of sharks.

Except that’s not true. People have been hunting, killing, and harvesting sharks for decades before Jaws came out. They killed sharks by accident during regular fishing(like dolphins getting caught in tuna nets) hunted them for meat, the most famous of which is the wasteful shark fin soup(and is actually the biggest driver of shark killing (source)  And harvesting them to feed the global cosmetic industry (source 1) (source 2)

Recreational/trophy fishing of sharks is pretty much the only reason for shark fishing that Jaw could impact as it made it cooler and sexier to catch sharks as trophies(though apparently it was happening before Jaws was released). Getting the numbers for the number of sharks killed for recreation is a bit trickier. This site gives as figure of 12 million were caught in 2004 in the US, but includes skates and rays in that number. Of the ones caught however only 359,000 sharks were actually killed, with the rest being released back to the ocean. It looks like in the US recreational fishing of sharks counts for more sharks caught than commercial fishing, but the US only accounts for like 3-4% of all sharks killed in a year (closest estimate I can find source)

Ironically the real Jaws effect was how it inspired marine biologists to actually study sharks. https://www.insidehook.com/article/science/jaws-made-movie-goers-afraid-sharks-inspired-wave-marine-biologists and https://thefisheriesblog.com/2015/06/15/thank-you-jaws-the-upside-for-sharks-40-years-later/

Quote from the second article

Jaws didn’t create something out of nothing, people were already scared of sharks before it was released, and Jaws just heightened that. It’s just that after the initial fear and panic came fascination. And with that fascination came study, and understanding. And that understanding is the main force behind current conservation efforts. I wonder if we would have that understanding, and those conservation efforts without Jaw.

So yeah, the Jaws effect isn’t as good a argument that antis think it is.

“If fiction can’t cause bad things to happen, how did Jaws cause a wave of shark killings?”

1. Jaws tapped into an extant fear of sharks. It was based on four fatal shark attacks in 1916, at a time when Americans were largely ignorant of sharks and weren’t sure whether they could even bite humans. These real-life attacks caused an irrational fear, which Jaws exploited. 

2. Stephen King’s Cujo did not tap into an extant fear of St. Bernards. It was based off real-life events (specifically, a visit King once made to a mechanic, where a St. Bernard growled at him) but Americans did not fear St. Bernards. Culturally, dogs were beloved as family pets, and people could read or watch Cujo without suddenly developing a desire to murder their pets.

Both Jaws and Cujo were bestselling novels with popular, high-grossing film adaptations. If fiction affects reality the way antis claim it does, then Cujo should have caused a wave of dog slayings – especially since Cujo itself was just one book at the tail end of a horror fiction trend for evil dogs (including masterpieces such as Hell Hound, Dog Kill, Rabid, The Pack, The Dogs, The Long Dark Night, The Haven, and Blood Snarl). Weirdly enough, US and UK readers were able to read and enjoy these books without mass slaughtering their Jack Russell terriers.

When you argue that Jaws caused shark killings (instead of acknowledging that America already feared sharks and considered killing them a non-issue), you’re aligning yourself with uneducated parents who blame first-person shooters (or Richard Bachman’s Rage, now out of print) for school shootings. Angry, depressed teens with murderous fantasies will seek out media which seems to align with their fantasies – such as Doom or Marilyn Manson’s music. If they don’t find this media, they kill anyway. If the media they find condemns their fantasies, they kill anyway. Parents blame media because they don’t understand how a teenager can kill other teenagers, so they need a boogeyman to point fingers at (there’s a lot of reading on this topic, but my personal favorite is Why Kids Kill by Dr. Peter Langman). 

So, what does fiction do? Not much, on its own. It’s a tool people can use to explore new ideas (e.g., a closeted gay kid may see Kurt on Glee and use that character to explore the concept that gay people aren’t innately bad) or to reinforce the ideals they already hold. For example, a white person with nascent racist ideals may watch Birth of a Nation (1915) and come away cheerily convinced that racism is perfectly fine; but the same person may also watch Jordan Peele’s Get Out and come away with the same exact cheerful conviction, even though Get Out rather explicitly condemns racism. No matter what the message is, people will twist it to fit their own ideals. 

Any piece of fiction can be used for any purpose. Unfortunately, the same applies to nonfiction. Dr. Amy Hammel-Zabin’s Conversations with a Pedophile is intended to educate parents so they can recognize when their parents are being groomed, but it can also be used by pedophiles as a handbook on how to groom a child. 

The solution isn’t to ban any book that could potentially reinforce a negative value, because every single book ever published has that capacity. Every fanfiction, no matter how fluffy or G-rated, could theoretically convince a pedophile that child molestation is okay – because pedophiles are seeking that confirmation everywhere they go, and when they don’t find it, they’ll twist the source material so that they do. 

Not to dump a South Park meme on you, but…

Don’t know why I still have to say this.

To piggyback off of the Jaws thing. Real events that happened in my hometown in Matawan NJ, where a BULLSHARK {one of the very sharks that can live in both saltwater and freshwater}, not a Great White like Bruce was modeled after,  happened in 1916 where a few people were, in fact, eaten by the shark. Lester Stilwell’s [the first victim] grave is in Rose Hill Cemetery, in the back area.

Jaws, the book/film, were based off the exploitation of Frank Mundus, who was an avid shark hunter but THEN became a shark conservationist because, hello, people were killing sharks because for sport and whatever reason and fucking up the ecosystem of the ocean.

I just wanted to go a bit more in-depth with that bullet point.

Antis and their gross obsession with pedophilia, rape and abuse somewhat concerns me. Such themes don’t belong into your everyday casual discussion, and they definitely don’t belong in spaces with minors, such as fandoms. I, personally, wouldn’t ever have stumbled upon these topics within fandoms without antis existing. Now I see posts casually throwing such topics around as if they meant nothing, which both terrifies and hurts me deeply. 

I literally don’t want to see your untagged rambling about child porn on my dash, for example. I’ve not consented for that. Since when it has become acceptable to shove such topics down other people’s throats just like that? 

Of course, I sometimes scroll through discourse tags on purpose, but that’s different. I know what I’m doing when I go and look up such things. It still doesn’t mean I want to see such things on my dash untagged. Because, you know, I’m not comfortable with casually discussing such topics with some online strangers, if anyone. 

Adult-oriented fanworks are a different thing. Those aren’t meant for minors in the first place. From what I’ve gathered after nearly two decades in different fandom spaces, most creators, being responsible adults themselves, understand this and tag their works properly. 

Those creators who don’t understand that, should naturally correct their ways. No one should have to see unsettling content without their consent. 

Of course, this is internet. It’s hard to completely avoid feeling uncomfortable from time to time. Such things simply can’t be completely avoided, but you can always do your best to protect yourself from harm. 

If you’re not comfortable with AO3′s TOS, for example, you can always quit using it. Literally no one is forcing you to use it, you know. There are tools for blocking tags for Tumblr. Use them. It’s not that hard. 

I’ve heard the term “Fictosexuality” thrown around, but I’m not sure that’s 100% accurate as it doesn’t specify cartoons and stylized anime.

Schediaphilia is one term that applies to cartoon attraction, but it’s not that comfortable to use.

Though as far as the terms with a lot of recognition goes, I’d consider myself asexual more than anything.