i want to make it perfectly clear, by the way, that i don’t support johnny depp and i don’t support the media circus around this.
all of this has manifested itself in an absolutely disgusting way. for instance, i just saw a post circulate around with screenshots of people making funney tiktok videos to a woman describing herself being raped and adding comments like ‘lol i wish that was me’, for instance.
EVEN if you do not believe she was legitimately sexually assaulted, what the fuck would compel you to make something like that, let alone be one of the hundreds of thousands of people watching, liking, and sharing those ‘jokes’. this is horrific. this is disgusting. this is shit people are going to look back on ten years from now and wonder how this was ever considered permissible in society. when people now are wondering how an entire culture of people was willing to hound celebrities like britney spears and mock their mental breakdowns, take a look at how widely normalized shit like this is.
i’ve been afraid to say anything at all because of the insane levels of vitriol and abuse that get hurled toward anyone speaking out against it, and i don’t doubt people are going to give me shit for this, but i refuse to be one of those people who, ten years from now, bemoans how disgusting a culture that makes jokey tiktok audios to a woman graphically describing her rape was but didn’t say anything about it at the time. i’m not uninformed; i’ve read up significantly about this case and read previous court decisions and i know what i’m talking about. this is absolutely disgusting and the fact that all of this is emboldening a culture of wildly normalized public misogyny is vastly intentional. fuck this, and fuck people who are participating in it.
17.2k likes… like i just. people realize this is the fear of so many survivors, right? to hear “oh, well, he was attractive, you should’ve enjoyed it”. this person isn’t even simply doubting the rape happened, but rather claiming it was somehow desirable, like because it was perpetuated by someone she considers attractive, that anyone should have enjoyed it. like…. 17.2k likes!!! am i… like are we in a parallel dimension here?? what the fuck is happening?? do people really think this shit is going to be constrained solely to these two people? like reinforcing the norm of “if you say you were raped and your rapist is attractive, you should’ve enjoyed it” isn’t going to transcend beyond just this one case? do people not realize how repeating that line over and over again and treating it as funny is going to affect so many survivors??? how many survivors are already reading that shit and thinking ‘this is what people are going to say about me if i speak out’???? how many other survivors who were assaulted by charismatic or “attractive” people are going to be told the exact same thing, because we’ve now normalized making these kinds of comments? i can’t form better words right now and i’m sorry about that but i’m fucking fuming right now.
no but how much audacity and sheer entitlementdo you have to have to tell people they need to stop posting their darkfic and porn fic and any other fic you don’t like to ao3 so you can have a safe space when ao3 was literally created as a safe space for writers to post their content without fear of it being randomly wiped out by pro-censorship assholes with an agenda like what has happened to plenty of other fic archives before?
“but a lot of us see ao3 as a safe space to get away from that kind of nasty content” - lol you can see the middle of a busy interstate as a safe space all you want too but that doesn’t mean that you get to walk into the road and scream at all the cars going by that they’re the ones infringing on your safe space either
ao3 is not, has never been, and will never be a site meant for nothing but children’s stories. you can “see it” like that as much as you want but there’s a difference between fiction and reality and that view of what ao3 is like is as fictional as the stories posted on it.
The only thing I will ever ask be removed or reported is anything involving pedophilia or incest, end of story.
Write what you want. Just don’t romanticize of sexualize fuckingpedophilia and incest.
I take that shit seriously. Minors shouldn’t be writing pedophilia/incest, adults shouldn’t be writing pedophilia/incest, y’all need to stop using those as a harmless uwu kink trope. because that’s fucking disgusting. and go get fucking help.
Soooo… let’s say a young abuse survivor posts a story that’s a fictional reflection of their own abuse.
What might happen if that story is left up? Well, people can have a conversation about it. Someone might comment, “That’s disturbing.” Or, “I love reading about fucked-up dynamics like this.”
If the author didn’t realize it was a fucked-up dynamic before, now they have. And they might reach out to the person who commented about it and ask questions.
What might happen if the story is taken down?
None of those conversations start, the young abuse survivor is left feeling like there’s something wrong with them for wanting to talk or write about what has happened to them, and you have harmed the people you want to protect.
Fortunately, AO3 does not take down stories for addressing difficult and dark topics. That is not against their rules.
So people like the young abuse survivor in my example - theoretical, but based on real people - can post their work there without fear of removal, although the dead-end scenario can still happen if others harass them into silence.
If you report stories that don’t break the rules, though, you do create a backlog and make it more difficult for the abuse team volunteers to respond to things that actually are against the rules, like racist/homophobic/transphobic harassment. It benefits vulnerable people if no one clogs the queue.
Speaking as an abuse survivor, I do vent. Frequently.
BUT, AND I’M WRITING THIS IN ALL CAPS SO MAYBE IT’S READ IT THIS TIME, THE CONCEPT OF WRITING THESE THINGS AND POSTING THEM IS FUCKING DISGUSTING. BECAUSE IF YOU GENUINELY THINK YOU’RE THAT FUCKED UP, YOU DON’T NEED TO VENT THROUGH A FUCKING FANFICTION SITE.
YOU NEED TO GO GET HELP.
AND LET’S NOT MENTION THE DOZENS OF PEDOPHILES AND BRAINWASHED KIDS HAPPILY READING THAT SHIT AND THINKING IT’S NORMAL, RIGHT? LET’S JUST BRUSH ASIDE THE SHEER AMOUNT OF CHILDREN EXPOSED TO THIS SHIT THINKING IT’S NORMAL.
WRITING IN THIS WAY SHOULD NOT BE NORMALIZED. IF YOU NEED HELP YOU NEED TO GO FUCKING GET IT. YOU NEED TO TAKE THE FUCKING STEP AND FIND A DAMN THERAPIST. WRITING ABOUT DISGUSTING TOPICS AND EXPOSING OTHERS TO THEM WILL DO ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD IF YOU AREN’T ACTIVELY SEEKING HELP.
Holy fucking shit. I can’t believe this. Has it occured to you that writing about breaking up with an abusive ex isn’t on the same level as creating disgusting works-that are illegal- that you’re basically handing to terrible people on a silver platter.
At this point, I’m detecting that this conversation has seemingly left “the reality-based community” behind and maybe you would be better off seeking whatever activity is therapeutic for you personally, rather than continuing. But if you do choose to engage further, some questions:
Illegal where? It is legal in most places to read Nabokov, and he isn’t the only writer who’s ever addressed these topics, he’s just famous because of being a dead white guy with a flowery writing style.
Why do you assume that writing about a topic you consider “disgusting” will automatically make people think it’s normal?
Do you think that people in therapy don’t do other things in their lives besides going to therapy?
Do you think that therapy, in the real world, is intended to increase feelings of shame and disgust or reduce them?
And again, how do you think that people who are traumatized and need therapy get access to it? How do you think that they figure out they need therapy?
Not a single genuine professional therapist working would tell you that people in therapy don’t *also* need social support, because they do, according to every psychological model we have. Why tell people to go to therapists, if you are also going to tell them to ignore their therapists’ advice?
Can I add one tiny thing:
Many therapists recommend such fiction.
The idea of cope-shipping has been around for a long while, @nonbinaryhadeskid. There are many professionally trained and qualified therapists - both from personal experience and from various articles, and also both from what therapists have told me and what others have publicly said - that recommend to their patients to write and/or read such works.
Now, let’s start with writing.
It can enable the patient to regain control of their trauma - they can write from an objective perspective, stop when they need to stop, control what is happening on page, and see events in a new light. It can help to reassess events and process events. It can help to organise one’s thoughts, which can be disjointed and disorganised.
It can be cathartic - you can relive in a safe manner events, so long as you are not re-traumatising yourself (in which case your therapist would likely not recommend this). You can say and do anything, while finally expressing yourself and getting out everything you need to get out, and you can just write without judgement or pauses or interference. It’s a way of getting out everything on page without concern of response.
It can be a way to escape - you can rewrite your trauma into a happy ending, or maybe a revenge fiction where harm befalls the abuser, or maybe a story in which you were in love with the abuser and the character falls for him and changes him … none of that undoes the fact the abuse is horrific, but it does allow you to ‘change’ what happened into something positive to you and something like a fantasy in a way
It can be a way to explore ‘what if’ scenarios - most survivors always have questions and concerns … ‘what if I fought back -?’, ‘what if I went along with it -?’, ‘what if I told so-and-so -?’ … these stories can help people explore those questions and gain closure from them, finally thinking up answers and possibilities to otherwise lingering uncertainty
The thing is that not everyone can write. It may be that they have a physical disability that prevents typing/writing, or maybe a disability like dyslexia where they are unable to properly communicate via written word, or maybe they just lack the confidence or self-esteem to write down their thoughts in such a manner. In this case, reading can be an alternative. If I were to read x’s work, I can still compare to my circumstances (in the hypothetical). I can still use that for escape/fantasy, or to regain control, or to find a sense of catharsis.
It is a way to explore one’s trauma in a safe manner - if you are triggered or upset, you can close the window or back-space, which means you can explore trauma in a safe manner and walk away when you need, and this isn’t always possible in conversation or therapy or other areas
You can explore the same ‘what if’ scenarios above mentioned - if I were attacked in x place, maybe I can find a story in which someone was attacked in y place, and answer questions I had about what would have happened and how I would have coped and what I may have done differently, and gain some closure from that
I think the most important factor in publishing … aside from providing material to people unable to produce that material themselves, allowing them a means to cope and experience release … is actually a very simple reason:
It builds a community of like-minded people - it might not just be survivors, no, but people with kinks or curiosity or other reasons, but … do you know what means the world to me? Any time someone says to me: “I thought I was alone and now I feel less alone”. In some cases it’s survivors who struggled to cope, but now have gone on to get therapy or join support groups or feel they have closure, and in other cases it can be people with specific interests who were demonised and ostracised and finally feel they can be accepted and understood. I have seen friends made. I have seen groups formed. I have seen others inspired, so that they have written stories and made groups in turn.
Writing and posting is ‘getting help’.
It is recommended by professionals. It enables you to meet other survivors. It lets you feel less alone … it cannot “normalise” abuse to children, as they should not be on such sites in the first place, and as such cannot see such material to be affected. It cannot harm other survivors, as there will be tags and warnings for them to avoid such works.
YOU CANNOT DENY OTHERS A SAFE SPACE SIMPLY AS YOU DO NOT WANT TO TAKE CONTROL OVER YOUR MEDIA CONSUMPTION. You can avoid such works with an ‘exclude’ feature or switch over to a site like fanfiction.net that bans such works from being produced.
Just because it’s bad for YOU, doesn’t make it bad.
It just means it’s made for someone else.
Good additions.
One small quibble: I wouldn’t say that children “cannot” see such material, as it’s quite apparent that some number of them do gain access (and some do so and regret it, perhaps because they haven’t been taught to control their own environment.)
Rather let’s say that structures which mark adult material as such are good to have and use, and (like the rope fence around the amusement park ride, or a warning on a bottle of alcohol, or any kind of road sign) they need to be reinforced by good parenting to work properly.
The problem of bad parental gatekeeping is a perennial one (including parents keeping kids locked in a bubble until 18 or, say, allowing them to smoke cigarettes at an early age - these are both ultimately neglectful acts that harm children) and it’s primarily caused by the toxic structure of the nuclear family, which has fewer checks and balances than community-based family structures.
But prohibitionist approaches (e.g. not letting adults have a thing ever because of the fear that children might access that thing; and, in parenting itself, the “pretend it doesn’t exist rather than explaining the risks and answering questions” approach to these things) don’t keep drugs or smut or dangerous activities away from people who aren’t ready for them. They just make it so that those people are more likely to stumble in unawares, or have their ignorance exploited by someone unsavory.
i have said this before and i will say it again, BTS and Bighit are a company that focuses on addressing challenges young people say and talk about youth violence. if one of their lyricists/producers writes and explicit song about rape and they keep employing him thats a reflection on where BH stands as a company.
on a less eloquent note: it really does suck ass that we victims of violent sex crimes are then forced to carry the burden of healing, dealing, and “being the bigger person” in learning to live with life-long trauma in a society that actively looks down on us for showing any sign / symptom of our trauma when all i actually want to do is hit my assaulters / rapists with an 18-wheeler at 75 mph
for those who might not know, april here is sexual assault awareness month. as a survivor of repeated counts of it, i wanted to pass that along to everyone else who’s been traumatized by people who just didn’t want to hear the word “no”. you’re not broken. you’re not dirty. you’re not at fault for anything that happened to you. anyone who says you are deserves a swift kick to the shins and a drop off a pier. i’m sorry for what happened to you. i hope you’re given the space and time you need to heal. i hope those that did it to you face justice, or at least, some serious karmic retribution. you’re brilliant. you’re gorgeous. you’re deserving of so much love. i’m proud of you for coming this far, for fighting through the aftermath.
in my own journey, i’ve finally opened up to people about what happened to me. i’ve shared the most basic details with my therapist, my husband…. and with my mom, as she knows one of the people who hurt me. this is something i couldn’t have done a year, even 6 months, ago. but, i’ve done it, now. healing takes time. working up the courage to talk about it takes time. don’t be hard on yourself if you aren’t at that point, yet. i’m truly wishing the best for you. i’m sending you all the love and hugs ( provided consent is given ), and showering you in all the best vibes i can that you’re able to find people who’ll listen, someone you can rely on when the trauma hits hard, and that you’ll be able to talk to someone and work through this.
Fuck it, I’m mad. Who wants to see receipts on a fucking abuse/rape apologist in my local queer community, who recently got a write-up in a Vancouver paper?
i’m dying at this reply to the US supreme court ruling on employer discrimination of lgbt people because, like, what the actual fuck would you get fired for
hi dumbass, anyone could ask why someone would be fired for being lgbtqa+ because none of it is harmful but the point is they hate someone for not being straight, and yes there have been times ace people have received discrimination for shit like housing and jobs why are we still acting like ace people’s sexualities need to be private and are never an issue for them lmfao what fucking year is it
tired of this bullshit please read some shit in your life, here’s a post specifically about this with sources and hereareafewmore
love the implication that you think ace people arent discriminated against, which is actually part of the discrimination they deal with.
how are asexual people discriminated against?
just one of the many things they deal with: “corrective” r*pe.
i’d love to hear about a single instance of ‘corrective r*pe’ on asexual ppl that wasn’t only r*pe (not ‘corrective’), or rooted in misogyny/lesbophobia.
i rly dont like the mindset that all lgbt people want is to be “accepted” and that all out community is about it “inclusion”. no. we want access to trans health care. we want anti discrimination laws for housing and employment. we want marriage equality. we want to stop trans kids from being forced to go by their dead name at school. we want to abolish the gay/trans panic defense. we want to stop corrective rape. we want black trans women to stop being murdered.
being “accepted” by cishets isnt the goal, and neither is being an all-inclusive club. i want to be able to live my life freely as an lgbt person. our community was created out of the need to survive. that has nothing to do with being “valid”.
