Do you guys remember how kidnap fantasies were popular on wattpad because young girls and queer teens were both made to feel shame at the thought of their own sexualities, so the fantasy of being kidnapped totally against their will was a way for them to engage with a romantic or sexual fantasy without feeling morally in the wrong for doing so? Added bonus that the fantasy involved being whisked away from repressive environments like home or school, right?

Finding out that Bram Stoker was in a sexless marriage and that scholars believe that he very likely was closeted gay puts the entire book into perspective as to WHY it reads EXACTLY like a self insert wattpad Dracula kidnap fic:

“I TOTALLY love my wife and would never do anything that an upstanding Good Straight Working Man wouldn’t do but oh nooo, big strong man with broad back and strong enough arms to carry me back to bed like a princess trapped me and claimed me as his, completely against my will 👉👈 But he protects me against the bad evil sexual women (who I assure you, I am TOTALLY sexually attracted to, as any straight man with a choice would be) but trust me, I do NOT want ANY of this. What’s that? The Count is not capable of feeling love? Would be a shame if I had the special ability to change tha-”

This is also the fantasy behind all those old bodice-ripper romances that people today like to mock or call problematic, by the way.

“Oh, my next forty years are going to consist of nothing but washing dishes and keeping house and bearing children for the disdainful man I married right out of high school because my parents said college was for men and I had no other obvious life path open to me? What if a pirate captain thought I was worth stealing away from it all? [what if I ran away but no-one could blame me for leaving]?”

#I read an article a long time ago about a woman who was raised in an incredibly repressive conservative christian community#where all that mattered was purity and virginity etc #She talked about how for a long time rape fantasies were the only way she could derive any pleasure from sex #because she couldn’t feel safe exploring the idea of wanting sex #it wasn’t really ABOUT rape or eroticizing assault or whatever #it was about creating a scenario where she was free from the shame associated with wanting #i think this is true of a lot of icky-seeming stuff in romance and erotica #it’s an imaginary scenario where nothing you don’t really want actually happens #but you can’t be blamed or feel guilty for it #you didn’t do anything wrong#anyway that article changed my perspective a lot #i think there’s also something to be said for people who have felt ugly and undesirable their whole lives #enjoying fictional scenarios where a hot alpha werewolf or whatever is so attracted to them he ‘cant help himself’ or whatever #because it can also be really shameful to want to be desired #when you feel like youre ugly and gross ( @headspace-hotel )

#i had recently similar realization when stumbling into pit of y/n x character stories about “your dad’s handsome best friend”#it immediately introduces age gap where the man (usually) is middle aged and generally experienced#and y/n is a young adult at best but always exploring their sexuality for the first time#of course part of why this trope is popular is that teens tend to have crushes on adults#but I kept wondering why it has to be dad’s best friend until it hit me: it’s about safety#person who is your parents friend is a person who isn’t scum bc otherwise your parents would be friends with them#they’re safe and not a predator preying on young and impressionable like a groomer might#they’re your parents friend so they care about you too#which makes the fantasy at the same time spicy (age difference) and safe (dad’s bestie can’t hurt you)#idk it’s just interested how sometimes our brains try to justify things to us

@thirstyforred i hope you don’t mind me pulling up your tags because you’ve made a GREAT point which I think is also echoed in the following tropes:

While irl age gap relationships very much have the potential to be predatory, it is worth recognising why some people consider them attractive in fiction and what these fantasies help them explore.

I’m sorry to bring up HP, but let’s take Snape, for example, since I remember him being a massive hot commodity back on 2012 Deviantart. I heavily doubt that most tweens girls who had a crush on Snape would actually want to get on with their teacher - it was just a fictional crush which allowed them to explore their likes and dislikes in a safe environment (and also let this man move on from his high school crush, which is also fair because let’s be honest he NEEDS to let go of it.)

So yeah, this post does put a lot of tropes and kinks into perspective, which I think is important because one’s squick is another’s fantasy, and neither of these people are inherently more/less virtuous/problematic for liking or disliking it. Fiction is fiction. Real life is real life. What is cool in a book isn’t necessarily what you’d like to experience irl and vice versa, and it’s good to bear in mind that people’s experiences are different than yours and their takeaway from a piece of media might be different from yours.

This reminds me of that deep dive post about the Labyrinth and how it came out in a time when girls weren’t supposed to like anything to do with sex. Yet here is an attractive older gent offering to give you everything and be your slave if you say yes and run away from your crappy family

For the Solstice: “Invictus”

In the dimness he woke and knew it was too late. Morning never came so late unless the world was ending.

Fortunately, he knew what to do about that.

Keep reading

you know what I want? a post-apocalypse farm game.

you’re a wanderer who happens upon a farm. it’s overgrown and decayed, looks like it’s been abandoned for some time. but as you investigate you meet the old man who lives there. he’s been living on this farm for years but as his health has decayed he’s been increasingly unable to take care of it. he sees you are interested and asks if you would like to take it over. you, of course, say yes.

the old man gives you the tutorials, shows you around, introduces you to the traveling trader who sometimes comes by. not long after you have settled in he passes away, at peace now that he knows his beloved farm is being looked after. 

you do your normal farm game things: clean up the land bit by bit, grow some crops from the last of the old man’s seeds, repair the buildings. you scavenge the land around for old world artifacts that can be broken down for supplies and resources to upgrade your farm. the trader comes by, and as you trade with him more and more, he spreads word and other traders come too, offering greater variety. 

other people come too, slowly, attracted by news of your farm or just passing by. they bring valuable skills, but they have requirements to meet if you want them to stay. slowly the nearby town, long since deserted, fills up again. you help the new residents clean it up, repair the abandoned homes, plant flowers along the cracked old streets. 

there’s no fighting, no violence save maybe a bit of subsistence hunting. just a quiet game about life and community regrowing from the ashes. 

No, reading/creating dark fiction to deal with ptsd or other mental illness is not just re-traumatising selfharm

Apparently not typing this is costing me sleep because I can’t stand people being this aggressively wrong on the internet and actively harming other people’s treatment because they’re a fuck wit who thinks their feelings are more true than medical research and other people’s personal experiences.

1. I’m going to upfront state if someone’s re-traumatising themselves using dark fiction they are DOING IT WRONG.

This is why the variety of warnings exist. This is why tags exist. We’ve created a space in which the viewing experience can be more informed than that of the average book or tv show explicitly to protect people and allow them to inform their viewing experience. Hell we even broke down rape and sexual assault tags to cover multiple varieties of these things to make sure people were as safe as they could get.

While objectively rape, non-con and dub-con  are all rape tags, it’s not about softening that it’s rape, it’s about classifying the type of rape or grade of content so someone can inform their viewing experience. Can you senseless fucks please stop insisting it’s claiming these things aren’t rape. Two seconds of googling the tags would tell you up front they’re all rape, they’re just differentiating the variety of rape so people can inform their viewing experience and not be triggered.

For people who claim to be fighting for victims you sure fucking love actively removing things victims have to protect themselves.

2. Shipping to cope isn’t just exposure therapy. God there’s a million fucking ways people can use fiction in recovery and only like two of those are forms of exposure therapy.

The more common usages are:

3. Not everyone is coping with victimisation. Specifically generalised anxiety disorders and OCD which is also an anxiety disorder are two obvious examples of mental illness that can be treated through fiction.

The biggest thing with an anxiety disorder is that they love to jam random intrusive thoughts into your brain, and it really isn’t as simple as just ignoring them or pretending a douche bag is telling you to do something.

In an anxiety disorder, trying to ignore it will make it worse. Worrying about it will make it worse. Trying not to worry about it, guess what? makes it worse.

Sometimes the only way to ditch a thought is to address it directly.

People who’ve experienced intrusive thoughts about how if they don’t perform the rituals they’ll murder their family, therapists have them write out plans about killing their family to prove that despite what the brain is telling them, they aren’t going to do it. Therapists have handed people knives to prove they can be trusted not to murder people.

With the use of fiction an intrusive thought can be assigned to a characters actions. Fiction can be used as a way to think about an intrusive thought without becoming anxious you might turn the thought into action and by having directly addressed the intrusive thought you can get rid of it.

If you’re anxious about an event, you can write about a character experriencing the worst case scenario to reassure yourself that the thing your scared of is fictional. Or you could write about what you’re worried about going well as supporting evidence you’ll be fine.

Again these are just examples, there are many many more ways people manage mental and physical illness with fiction just as fiction can be used and mental health upkeep after a traumatic event.

And hell, even if you’re not mentally ill and haven’t experienced a traumatic event, if you want to write about a dark scenario, you should. Because not everyone going through these things can write or draw and rely on others to provide content to manage these things.

Additional positive attributes of darkfic:

A few weeks ago, I saw so many posts saying #MeToo.

I didn’t make one. All I could think was that I’m #NotYet.

Not. Yet.

We live in a world where half the population is told, implicitly or explicitly, by threat or warning or statistic, that we will one day be sexually harassed. Or assaulted. Or raped. Or worse. It’s waiting for us. It just hasn’t happened yet.

When I was 12, I was conscious of the fact that I read Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small, in part, to prepare for my own battles. I consciously emulated Kel for her strength and determination and composure and grim ferocity. I knew, at 12, that I could apply it to getting through gym class… or getting mugged. If I ever was mugged. What would it feel like? What could I do? How would I react? What would happen after? I knew the possibility lay ahead, and I was rehearsing the trauma before it happened.

It was only last year, at 24, that I realized I’ve also spent a decade rehearsing the trauma of sexual assault through darkfic. And also through published fiction, true crime books, Forensic Files, CSI, psychology textbooks, and personal accounts. Different perspectives on the same topic, which gave me different necessary insights and outlets. (Yet only the darkfic is a problem. Hm.)

All of that mental and emotional rehearsal won’t protect me if– when?– my #NotYet becomes #MeToo. But I won’t be starting recovery from scratch.

You don’t have to have victim/survivor creds to be allowed to read darkfic, or to benefit from it.

"why do fangirls always make them gay?"

euclase2:

Imagine being in a relationship in which you are treated like an equal, consciously and unconsciously, sexually, emotionally, socially, romantically, without being bound by gender expectations, without risk of pregnancy (or having your reproductive rights taken away from you), without feelings of inferiority, without being mistreated or neglected because men don’t understand your body and can’t be bothered to learn how to give you pleasure (or that you even deserve pleasure). Imagine having a reciprocating relationship with someone who knows how to touch you and how to talk to you, who will never abuse you or take away your consent. Imaging feeling powerful, safe, like the default rather than the specific or second-class. Imagine not requiring special handling by awkward, inconsiderate men who were never taught any better. Imagine being allowed to touch and enjoy and indulge without apprehension. Imagine being able to trust your partner. Imagine knowledge and understanding, someone who sees your depths and treats you the way you’d treat yourself if you hadn’t been told from birth that you weren’t worth it.

Girls aren’t “making them gay.”

Girls are fantasizing about being equal.

euclase2:

Imagine being in a relationship in which you are treated like an equal, consciously and unconsciously, sexually, emotionally, socially, romantically, without being bound by gender expectations, without risk of pregnancy (or having your reproductive rights taken away from you), without feelings of inferiority, without being mistreated or neglected because men don’t understand your body and can’t be bothered to learn how to give you pleasure (or that you even deserve pleasure). Imagine having a reciprocating relationship with someone who knows how to touch you and how to talk to you, who will never abuse you or take away your consent. Imaging feeling powerful, safe, like the default rather than the specific or second-class. Imagine not requiring special handling by awkward, inconsiderate men who were never taught any better. Imagine being allowed to touch and enjoy and indulge without apprehension. Imagine being able to trust your partner. Imagine knowledge and understanding, someone who sees your depths and treats you the way you’d treat yourself if you hadn’t been told from birth that you weren’t worth it.

Girls aren’t “making them gay.”

Girls are fantasizing about being equal.

Yeah, oh man. This is. Yeah, this is a lot. I especially feel the taboo surrounding female sexuality to the point that even though I’m Pretty Gay myself, I’m uncomfortable with my own sexuality (not as in orientation) and also dealing with the sexuality of other women. Like in some ways, I am always hesitant to appreciate sexiness in women because we are almost never shown female sexuality in a safe, respectful, and equal way and it still freaks me out. 

I will never forget — and I wish so *badly* I still had a copy — the essay one of my exes wrote before she gafiated, in which she talked about how the act of writing slash and being part of the slash community in general had allowed her to “write herself back into her body”.

To, essentially, take off some of the blinders and filters western culture had put on her, all the things that had convinced her that, as an “overtall, fat, awkward, anxious, and altogether unattractive” person (she did have some anxiety issues, but none of the rest was true by any measure but all the lies we’ve ALL been told), she deserved neither happiness, nor romance, nor anything resembling sexual parity or satisfaction.

We met through fandom — she later told me she’d been quietly lurking on my mailing lists and around my websites for two years before she ever actually spoke to me — and we had four good years together before our relationship started to fall apart.

And, while not all of our happiness — together and separately — can be laid at the feet of the various slash goddesses, quite a lot of it can be.

Slash wrote *me* back into my body, too — several times, in several ways. Slash connected me to genders I never could’ve imagined, or could’ve imagined being *worth* connecting to in the days before I really understood the possibilities inherent to taking the media I had been given and *transforming* it. We are *here*, and our pleasure is worth it — our pleasures, plural, are part and parcel of our identities. And, you know, some of us, after we’ve been writing slash for a good, long while? Find new ways to express those pleasures when women are there, new ways to understand those aspects of our sexualities — our *identities* — which include *hetero*sexuality. It’s a journey. A process. A continuum. A spectrum. A *multiverse*. Of *pleasure*. And it’s all allowed. Because we made it that way. Because we *make* it that way. Every day.

Oh, hey, Te, is that this essay, by any chance? http://jessica-ruth.diaryland.com/020301_62.html

Because I have been hanging on to that link for eleven years and still find cause to share it with people on a pretty regular basis.

Holy god, rEAD THE LINK

I have wondering about this in fandom for many years and reading this just made me tear up. I figured this was a big reason, but breaking it down to this extent made me so extremely sad. I realized a long time ago that even if I met the nicest guy in the world, I still have to battle all those things mentioned above. Just being friends is hard. I don’t have a happy history in this area like a lot of women and I have major trust issues with men and I wish somehow that wall could be broken down and we could all truly be seen as equal…as people with value. If you have all of the above with someone of the opposite sex then you are really lucky. See women are expected to give all those things listed above and settle for not getting them in return. I believe it’s a rare thing if you have it returned. Like I said, if I was with the nicest guy in the world I will always doubt myself, think he see’s me as different, talk to me different… Why? Because that’s our experience. This world raises us to believe we are worth absolutely nothing. The idea of being equal is one of our greatest fantasies.

It’s sad that it has to be a fantasy.

___

I don’t know why tumblr keeps cutting the first several comments off but I want this on my blog so… whatever.