“I don’t want to read this” is totally valid.
“This is disgusting to me” is totally valid.
“I don’t want to read this because it is disgusting to me” is totally valid.
“I don’t think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me” is authoritarian.
“I don’t think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me” is authoritarian.
Bro, blocking someone and then using their tag like this is, all offence, weak as fuck. Like all you had to say was, na bro I don’t promote pedo protags on this here blog, because I wholly agree with the premise of your argument given contexts (i.e., writing abusive relationships to show the evils, great; writing abusive relationships to show the romance, yikes).
This response is so, so comically shitty within the context of that tag, oh my god.
“I don’t think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me” is authoritarian.
Why is it wrong to be authoritarian to stop the spread and creation of CSA material? If anyone can explain to me why a line cannot be drawn there for moderation purposes, and why underaged erotic fiction should be allowed to exist, it would be helpful
Do you hear yourself? You just said “why is it wrong to be authoritarian” with your real, actual words.
okay, whoops, good point. Should have thought that through a little more. Let me try again:
“I don’t think anyone should read or write this because it is harmful to the people who read and write it.” Is that authoritarian? That’s more where I’m loosely coming from. It’s practically a cognitohazard. Fiction can impact how people think - that’s one of the ways propoganda works.
(I am entering this conversation to learn, full respect)
Hey friend, thanks for being willing to talk about this.
Some of what I’m about to say is probably going to sound like the “slippery slope” fallacy, but what I need you to understand when I say it, is that it’s not a theoretical possibility, it’s something that has happened historically and is happening in the USA right now.
First of all, let’s set the stage and agree that no piece of fiction can cause literal, physical harm to a person. Therefor, any harm that could be caused is going to be emotional or psychological.
So already we’re on shaky grounds here. Who is deciding what fiction causes psychological or emotional harm?
In the USA right now, the people who are deciding what fiction is causing psychological and emotional harm are conservatives who are using the idea to censor and restrict queer literature, as well fiction and history talking about racism.
These people are saying that reading queer stories and learning about history harms their children by “brainwashing” them with “propaganda”
This is the problem.
Any time you declare that “fiction causes harm” you’re going to have malefactors using that idea to push THEIR version of what causes harm.
Fiction isn’t something that causes physical harm to people. It can absolutely cause subjective harm, but that varies from person to person.
Also, it’s fiction. Unlike the harm a physical attack causes, you, as the writer or the reader, are always in control of fiction. If you feel like a book is harming you, it’s always within your power to stop reading it.
Any time we mandate what fiction causes harm, we open ourselves up to tyranny.
Does that make sense?
You mention “CSA material” specifically– CSA material is material which exists because a child has been really, measurably harmed. Fiction about imaginary characters can never actually hurt any physical children. And because of that, and because any kind of censorship of fiction inevitably leads to tyranny, and because reading fiction doesn’t cause measurable harm– we need to protect that freedom of fiction, even if we find it disgusting.
If nothing else, if you completely restrict fiction about the sexual assault of children, you restrict victims of childhood assault from discussing and expressing their experiences.
Edited to add:
And just to be clear, when conservatives are censoring and banning queer material, they are doing it by claiming that it’s “pornography”.
Mads Mikkelsen once said “imagine censorship in the hands of your worst enemy.”
Once censorship of fiction becomes a fixed thing that continues to happen, someone can find any excuse to label something as worthy of censoring.
And it’s always queer and marginalized people who get hit with it the hardest.
Censorship is not a scalpel, it’s a steamroller.
There is fiction out there that is fucking disgusting and awful, and I can keep my back to it while I defend its right to exist alongside the stuff I enjoy because losing the nasty stuff will take away what I enjoy too.
Sometimes stuff that is really awful can be held up as an example of “hey, don’t do this”.
[The initial screenshot is of tumblr tags reading, “#pls tell me this isnt an excuse for people to write p*do fics again”
The later screenshot reads, “If you accept – and I do – that freedom of speech is important, then you are going to have to defend the indefensible. That means you are going to be defending the rights of people to read, or write, or to say, what you dono’t say or like or want said. The Law is a huge blunt weapon that does not and will not make distinctions between what you find acceptable and what you don’t. This is how the Law is made.”]
