Thanks! Sorry it took me so long to reply, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. (Apologies in advance because this got ranty)
I really feel like fandom is a double-edged sword at times. It’s pretty good about bringing people together and for shedding light on important things like consent, sexual education and health, gender and sexuality, and all manner of abuse but at the same time there are people who want to shut some of these topics down when they show up in fic. Like, we can talk about what consent means all damn day but it better not show up in fic unless it’s enthusiastic consent. We can talk about the joy of being proud of our sexualities but if a woman writes two dudes doing butt stuff she doesn’t know anything about gay sex and needs to stop. It’s like, on one hand you do get good discussions that can help you understand the world around you, but on the other now you must always apply those standards to everything or you’re terrible and contributing to the problem.
But the only things I ever see about violence in fic is how to write it more realistically – like how bruises form and fade and what kinds of gunshot/knife wounds are fatal and how much blood a person can lose before they pass out.
Now, I’m not saying I want people to start telling people who write violent fic to stop, I think that’s just as stupid as telling people not to write sex and sex related topics, but I do think it’s kind of interesting. Like, we’ve all heard the arguments that children shouldn’t play violent video games because it “makes them violent” but we know that’s a load of crap so we scoff and roll our eyes. We say things like “the parents need to keep an eye on what their kids are playing” and “as an adult, I shouldn’t have my access restricted because kids might also play them. It’s not my responsibility to parent other people’s kids”. And I think that mentality seeps over into fic, too, which I agree with. I don’t want to parent other people’s children so it’s not up to me to worry that my properly tagged and rated fics might fall into the hands of some kid. The same should apply to fics with sexual content no matter how vanilla and romantic or dark and depraved.
A lot of violence on television is glorified, but not all of it is. If an action hero throws a grenade at the bad guys we cheer. If a man slaps a child we want to see him punished. We understand the nuance here. Not all violence is the same. And there is room for violent fantasies in television, movies, and games. I can play games where I can beat people to death with a comically oversized dildo because it’s absurd and weird and fun. But I’m not going to go out and actually try it because I know the difference between real life and fantasy and I enjoy hurting pixel people but can’t stand hurting real people. I think most people get that.
But I think people worry more about sex than they do violence. It doesn’t matter what ship you’re writing or how dark you go, if it’s a violent fic we seem to get that making an argument like “but what if children see it!” will get you laughed at. If you make a fic that ships siblings in a loving way people can make the “but what about the children!” argument you will be taken seriously. Maybe it’s because we still have a lot of shame around sex. Maybe it’s because we’re uncomfortable. Maybe it’s because we don’t want to see nuance. But honestly, violence if fic is pretty common and yet we never seem to see calls for people to never write murder or death or fist fights.
But I will say this: we still need to have conversations about consent and boundaries and abuse and sexuality. We definitely still need those because I think those are great for helping people understand themselves and the world around them. But I think we need to quit trying to apply those to fanfic. I think intent and understanding should be a factor but I don’t think it should be the factor that decides whether or not we should yell at an author (the answer, of course, is never). If someone writes a fic that contains sexual assault/incest/rape/etc and it seems to skirt the line of what we are comfortable with we should think about why. Maybe the characters don’t understand consent the way we do. Maybe the author is trying to capture a specific feeling for the readers to digest. Maybe the author themselves is misinformed. Maybe the author is writing a fantasy. We don’t really have a right to ask the author those questions, but we can ask those questions of ourselves, determine our comfort level with these things, and take action from there. If that means we don’t keep reading, so be it. If it means we try to write it better, that’s okay, too But the attitude that some people seem to have that says “you can’t write this topic ever because you don’t understand it/have no experience with it/are glorifying it/will hurt other people” needs to stop.
If I can write a fic where a person deals with child abuse and domestic abuse and no one says to me “YOu can’t write this!!! what if a survivor finds this???what if a kid sees this??? aren’t you glorifying abuse because the characters still love their abuser???!! ” then the same should apply to fics that deal with taboo sexual topics.
And no, these topics aren’t the same. They’re all pretty complicated and deal with a lot of emotions and reactions. They’re nuanced and some people can do them well and others just can’t. But I don’t think that we shouldn’t write them just because they’re “glorifying” something bad. We understand there is nuance to violence in fiction so why don’t we get that there’s nuance to sexual content as well?
And I’m not here to parent anyone else’s kid. If anyone ever wants to talk to me about real issues they’re facing I’m here, but I’m not going to hold back on my writing just because someone somewhere might be potentially put off by it.
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