It’s really, really interesting seeing antis and pro-censorship people argue about what should and shouldn’t be allowed in fandom, because most of the criticisms of the sort of “read what you like” crowd read exactly like formulaic criticisms of New Religious Movements (hereafter abbreviated to NRMs).
In the case of fandom, this comes down to the over-generalization of things like “abuse” and “pedophilia” which really extend to everything the individual author isn’t a fan of. Say a fic has kinky sex in it, and the critic doesn’t vibe with that–not only does accusing that kink of abuse or pedophilia or the like legitimize the criticism (in the minds of the author and, they would hope, the consumer of that criticism), it also delegitimizes the use and writing of that kink (in the minds of people inclined to these kinds of arguments).
Likewise, with NRMs, people who are inclined to the “mainstream” religions often accuse those in NRMs of violating whatever sex is supposed to be. Sometimes it’s because they practice free love. Sometimes its because the rules around sex are so extreme that those not involved in the NRM feel like it’s too constrained. Some of these criticisms of harm might be just. Many are not. Either way, sex and how people do it is a pretty common general argument against things outside the mainstream, because it’s an emotional topic and easy to get a visceral response from.
In fandom discourse, you will see this phrase, both as an ironic descriptor of arguments and, in one form or another, as a genuine sentence. Arguments under this umbrella include the “if people read about rapists they’ll think rape is acceptable” argument and similar. It’s paternalistic, and assumes no responsibility or agency on the part of the people involved (which is further discussed in point 3). But it’s also largely abstract; sure, there are children out there who have read sexually explicit texts, but the arguments extrapolated from this fact are generally disconnected to reality and unrepresentative of the actual issues.
With NRMs, the involvement of children is a hot issue. For those involved, they’re raising their children in their faith, just as Christians, Muslims, Jews, and everyone else who participates in religion. It’s often argued by those not involved that the children have no choice here (partially correct, but generally not any less true for other religions) and that this is a kind of brainwashing. However, this applies less to fandom due to the fact that no one’s really born into fandom spaces. Regardless, the arguments take very similar shapes.
Fandom antis don’t often use the word “brainwashed” to describe members of the “read what you like” crowd (so far as I’ve seen), but they are inclined to a mindset that says that:
Not-antis are either ignorant of the harms, hilariously misinformed, or malicious (or all three!)
Antis, if given total control, will be better suited to making decisions for these people, as they are clearly incapable
This looks a LOT like how people discuss people they believe to be brainwashed (brainwashing has a lot of problems, scientifically speaking, but that’s not the point). Brainwashing claims deny the agency of the “victim,” deny their ability to make decisions, and argue that an outside influence knows better and should be deferred to for decision making (for further information, the Wikipedia article on deprogramming is a good start).
Brainwashing claims regarding NRMs function similarly. NRMs are violate the orthodoxy of our social structures and conventions and challenge the necessity or validity of these structures and conventions, often leaving people who live more in the “mainstream” to feel under threat. Fanworks that are heavily criticized also tend to defy expectations and conventions, thus finding themselves under similar scrutiny, though the critics in the case of fanworks are more often masquerading as progressives when they do.
The claims here are also very interesting because they represent a very American criticism. These are the multitudinous criticism of a couple centuries of American religious explorations distilled into a single, ready-to-use formula. Like horoscopes, these criticisms are flexible and can easily apply to anything, if you stretch the definitions of words enough, and they’re designed to be like that. Seeing these arguments automatically makes me skeptical because, by their very nature, they are one-size-fits-all complaints puppeted by an initial emotional reaction, which is not logical and has little chance of being taken seriously in a debate.
I know at least a dozen people have said that a lot of anti rhetoric is really just American Puritanism in a liberal hat, but it’s also American Protestant anti-cult rhetoric in a liberal hat, which looks really similar but endorses kidnappers and torture.
2087
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