korrasera:

neko-mancy:

lines-and-edges:

PSA to teenagers and young adults

I have just seen something I have been predicting would happen for a while and I am ENRAGED.

An over-25 adult just convinced a high school student that dating someone in their own age range was pedophilia. (Implication: they should be dating older adults instead.)

The predatory adult has convinced the teenager that they’re right and the teen should cut off contact with other teens.

I’m utterly livid.

I don’t make callout posts here. I would make an exception for this kind of situation, except the teen has now been gaslighted into supporting the older adult, which suggests they expect retaliation if the older adult faces any consequences.

So I will instead ask that people please circulate this post that warns about behavior without naming names, as a warning to other teens.

If you’re a teenager or young adult, and someone gets in your face and tries to tell you that you’re too mature to be dating other people within a few years of your age,especially if they try to suggest that this makes you predatory, block and report them and talk to a trusted adult about it. Please.

ok but. are ppl my age really that dumb.

like no that does not adhere to the definition of pedophilia

Dumb isn’t a very good word in this case because it implies something that isn’t true and it’s a word that’s often been used to harm people who have developmental disabilities.

Instead, I’d suggest using a more accurate and less harmful work, like ignorant, unethical, or predatory.

It also gets closer to describing the problem. What @lines-and-edges​ is talking about is the way that these predators harm children in order to support their own ideology, because they don’t actually care about protecting children, they care about building the social structure they want. And in this case, that social structure is one where they get to dictate who is acceptable, while teaching children some deeply unethical ideas.

Personally, I’d also add that the kind of people spreading these harmful messages are often people who police fandom, usually doing so under the guise that they’re trying to *protect* children from pedophilia, while in reality they just aggressively push their particular brand of authoritarianism.

Whenever I talk about how antis/fandom police don’t actually protect children and in fact make it easier for actual predators to harm kids? This is what I’m talking about.

star-anise:

[TW: Sexual assault, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, PTSD, military violence]

Okay, here’s my problem with the fandom police, the antis who hunt down authors of “problematic” fic and try to chase them off the internet:

Antis act like they’re “normal people”, like their harassment campaigns are what any ordinary person would do in response to something objectively evil, like abuse, or creating videorecordings of abuse.

But they’re not. They’re trying to police artistic representations of evil things. They’re the people trying to get libraries to ban To Kill a Mockingbird and The Colour Purple andTwo Boys Kissing andThe Hate U Give for discussing “objectionable” topics. 

And the problem with that is, you’re way more likely to hit the victims than the perpetrators, the same way people who want to ban books usually ban books from marginalized perspectives (POC, LGBTQ+, etc). Like it should be really obvious by now that if you’ve been through shit, talking about it to other people, making art about it, finding other people who’ve been through that you’ve been through, and having conversations about it, are really important ways of processing trauma. 

Yeah, antis say they’ll only attack people “romanticizing” bad things–but guess what! Many people do not perceive their trauma as 100% bad, even when it definitely did fuck them up! And victims need to be able to talk and make art about those experiences and know they’re not alone.

Traumatized military veterans often feel their military service was a just, good, positive thing, and that the wars they fought were exciting and worthwhile–until or even though, they still got traumatized.

It takes many sexually abused children years to understand that their abuser was not a special friend or a beneficial adult, but in fact, an abuser who damaged them deeply.

Many adults in abusive relationships love their abuser deeply, to the point that this is a major barrier to getting them to safety.

People! Need to be able to talk about those experiences! To make art about those experiences! To find out they’re not alone! And many people in these situations don’t understand they’re what we’d call victims, until they’ve laid out their stories beginning to end and can see their entirety, or until other people listen to their stories and go, “Wow, it sounds like you were not the one in the wrong there.”

Thelast thing those people need is a ton of people screaming, “You sick fuck, do you get off on this? How can you make art about this? You must want people to be abused!” and driving them away from the process that leads them to community, healing and insight.

No anti I’ve seen has ever described a convincing plan for making sure that their intended methods of censorship will only affect art genuinely made to encourage violence and abuse towards vulnerable people, and will not affect art made by victims to talk about their experiences being victimized.

People who do produce problematic work often do have plans to help keep kids safe, whether that’s hiding that work in 18+ walled gardens, or educating about digital consent. But I haven’t seen that same awareness among antis that what they’re doing can have extreme negative consequences for vulnerable people, or discussions about how to mitigate the negative effects of their actions.

Which is why, so far as I’m concerned, antis are deeply dangerous people who shouldn’t be allowed to be around other survivors–because even if they’re antis to deal with their own trauma, their method of coping is definitely going to hurt others. And meanwhile, the scientific evidence showing that problematic art leads to violence or victimization is extremely weak–in fact, depictions of abuse tend to lead to higher abuse reporting and holding abusers more accountable, the same way that earlier sex ed leads to a reduction in child sexual abuse.

likeabxrdinflight:

I’d take these shipping “activists” more seriously if any of them did any actual work in the real world to help victims but nah, all the most aggressive “activists” seem to do is yell into the void about fiction.

I look at their blogs sometimes. I want to know who they are, whether they can put their money where their mouth is, if they actually have an argument. But I rarely see it. I rarely see any resources posted for abuse victims. They never spread information about any actual, confirmed predators. I never see them post information about how to detect online grooming or how to recognize abusive relationships. They never seem to post mental health information or talk about the impacts of trauma. They never post online safety tips for minors. Nothing to suggest that their intentions are good.

It’s just constant rant after meaningless rant on their fandom oriented blogs. And never a nuanced discussion of how media impacts us and how our culture impacts the way media is created, never any kind of good faith discourse or rational discussion. No, its always the same shit, the same conservative rhetoric, the same “pedophiles can choke” posts.

This isn’t to say that everyone who’s against a certain ship is like this. I mean something specific when I consider someone an “anti”. It’s a very specific type of aggressive anti shipper.

But man do they annoy me. If you care so much about pedophilia or abuse go do something actually productive to help kids and victims. Get involved in social work or psychology, get involved with local criminal justice organizations. Volunteer at a shelter, or a hotline. Go do something, anything, instead of whining about shipping fictional teenagers on the internet.

antis: stop s€xually objectifying gay men!

antis: anyway the only reason anyone could want to read stories about gay men is to get off, obviously,