Tag: sexual assault mention

On the Subject of Noncon Fanworks: Thoughts of a Reader, Writer, Survivor – Anarfea

porcupine-girl:

arkhamarchitecture:

out-there-on-the-maroon:

vmthecoyote:

rhodanum:

meeedeee:

For those who want context surrounding the debate whether women should be allowed to continue reading or writing non-con erotica. Additional context is also provided regarding fandom harassment of abuse survivors who write or read non-con fiction. 

An excellently written piece, if rather hard to swallow for the crowd which believes fannish expression that includes dark kinks / sexual fantasies should be constantly policed. 

However, it should be noted that the expression ‘debate if women should be allowed to continue writing non-con erotica’ makes my hair stand on end and typifies what I can’t abide in this entire thing. I didn’t come into fandom to be allowed or disallowed to write something or other. I came into fandom do straight up do so, there was no concept in my mind of ever giving someone the power of disallowing me to write the thing. Fandom was never about control for me, it was about solace, about joy, about pleasure, about deconnecting temporarily from the drudgery of a difficult and often unpleasant life.

I already live my life, as a woman, under a constant stream of being told what I’m not ‘allowed’ to do. I’m not allowed to be too harsh, too sharp, too abrasive. I’m not allowed to say I’m childfree and mean it. I’m not allowed to get a buzzcut (I’ve straight-up had hair-dressers who refused me!) I’m not allowed to continue being interested in video-games at nearly thirty, whereas with my brother it’s ‘eh, boys mature much more slowly.’ I’m not allowed to criticize street-harassers and gropers without being insulted for it. 

And now it’s ‘I’m not allowed to explore my darker fantasies in the safe, secure medium of writing, without potentially becoming a target for Purity Culture Wank.’ Fandom was my refuge from all the ‘not allowed’ nonsense and I’ll be damned if I ever let it become filled with it! 

I’m like, at most 30% woman, but my reaction to this was still try and stop me, motherfucker

“… I think this is true for many women and people who are sexual or gender minorities. We exist in an environment permeated by the threat of sexual violence. Some people cope with that fear by eroticizing it. Like the horror movie or roller coaster, noncon fanfic is a way of scaling down something terrifying until the fear becomes manageable, even, for some people, thrilling.”

An interesting essay. Long, but worth reading.

That was a long essay but god what a good one. Especially the part about how demonizing darkfic ultimately ends up creating spaces where people stop tagging for it because they don’t want to be demonized for it or because they’ve convinced themselves that since all noncon is bad and they’re not a bad person, the fic they wrote that is noncon must not REALLY be noncon because that would make them bad.

And of course, once people stop tagging their darkfic then everybody loses.

I know that most of my followers are not from the Sherlock fandom these days, but this is applicable to all fandoms. Especially because I see indications of OMGCP fandom going down some of the same roads that Sherlock went down two years ago (and that this essay was written as a response to). If you have seen those same indicators, read this essay.

If you read my response to a post a week or two ago, where I talked about how adults in fandom are not responsible for the experiences of minors in their fandom beyond tagging their content appropriately, I want to make something clear – I was not just talking about people who write unoffensive, vanilla explicit fic. I specifically said that I was talking about content that people decide could be dangerous to minors, and I did mean dangerous. There were some responses to me saying that “we’re not talking about people writing NSFW stuff that minors might find” and my response to that is, neither was I.

If you have ever labelled, or thought about labeling, someone who writes or reads underage fic, rapefic, or any fic that depicts an act that would be reprehensible in real life, as a “pedophile” or “rapist” or any other label that indicates that they condone those acts IRL, if you have ever thought that those people need to be “called out” or removed from the fandom, please read this essay.

Read the whole damn thing. I thought about quoting some of my favorite parts, but there are too many, and some are near the end. Even if you think there’s no way it will change your mind, you damn well better know what you’re actually arguing against.

And for those not in Sherlock fandom: Anarfea refers many times to events that happened at a con and in the months following, which inspired this essay. I think you can work out most of what happened if you read all of this, but if you’re confused, I was at the panel and had several friends (including Anarfea, whom I will not hesitate to vouch for as an awesome person) on the panel. Message me privately and I can explain it to you.

On the Subject of Noncon Fanworks: Thoughts of a Reader, Writer, Survivor – Anarfea

Your tags on that last post are right on point, about the difference in policing fanfic for violence compared to sexual content. It has always been suspicious to me that those who express deep concerns about fanfic seem to zero in on only the sexual aspect.

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.