This is complicated...

Cause I wanted a blog for discourse and pro-fiction, separate from my mental health blog. A psych major talking on how and why fiction and reality have an extremely complex relationship. Be warned, the blog could contain triggering content! Mod's name is Acco. Late 20s. He/They pronouns. Mixed decent. Queer and proud. Panromantic greysexual nonbinary. This blog is 18+ content often. Follow at your own risk.

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

My name is Acco and this is my DNI post.

Okay so my DNI includes (will be edited as we go):

-If you hate pansexual/think pansexual is biphobic

-Refuse to accept all parts of the LGBTQ+ community (gatekeeping, exclusionist, transphobia, biphobia, panphobia, aphobia)

-Are a terf/swerf/radfem

-Are against people reclaiming the word queer

-Can not interact with proshippers with respect/are procensorship

-Are someone who thinks genitals define gender

-Transmed

-Anti Mogai

-Anti neo-pronouns

(NOTE: I do realize this does not stop these people from interacting, this is more of a belief system and what I do not support/what I support list more than anything. I do not have any triggers of mine or my system listed here. If you wish to talk mental health (my own or just discussions, not for diagnoses or plans because that's not a good idea) please @ me or feel free to send a message.

(Last edited on 01/02/2022)

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

I tried to post something and can't tell if I accidentally posted it to the wrong blog or if tumblr ate it. Cool.

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

When are people going to learn that being nice and grooming are two different things.

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

To clarify, people think being nice to children is the same thing as grooming, which means you can accidentally groom children. This is impossible, as grooming is purposeful and has reason/intent behind it.

Stop making people feel bad for being nice to kids in any circumstance.

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

When are people going to learn that being nice and grooming are two different things.

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

Also, the current state of politics has me in an absolute mess. Lmao. It'segit absolutely maddening with every bit of news that comes out.

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

Damn. I know this blog is basically abandoned but I feel terrible about the asks I've left behind unanswered. Life has just been a hot mess (guess who learned they have several chronic illnesses of all sorts) and kept me away from this blog, mainly because I don't have the mental energy to continue sharing my views or arguing with people who fail to see nuance.

Just thought about y'all today and thought maybe I should let you know things are well, just tough! Sending some good vibes into the universe for all of you.

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

I think people need to relearn what grooming is and what it means. Grooming is a specific type of abuse in trying to get close to someone, you can't do that by accident.

People also need to realize that just because someone is kind, doesn't mean they're grooming you. Being kind and getting nothing in return except friendship is not grooming.

Grooming someone to either extort sex out of them, get them to commit crimes, or to make them join a cult, is grooming.

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

Imagine blaming a store owner for selling cigarettes to a child when the child has a very official looking Fake ID. I'm sorry, but children lying and getting fake IDs and doing everything to get into adults spaces is not the fault of the adults when the adults try to put safety measures in place.

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

I love watching someone in a community get dragged for a mistake they made and have been trying to make up for but people refuse to acknowledge people can change and get better.

People also fail to realize that just because someone makes you uncomfortable, doesn't make them a fucking predator. Get over yourselves.

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

You know, I really do wish that people would learn that just because you are nice and try to help someone who is a teen, doesn't mean you're a groomer. Stop throwing words around. Stop throwing accusations at people who *didn't do it*. Especially if it's not true and you just want attention/trying to hide behind "trauma" to get away with bad behavior.

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

i’m not sure if it was you or someone else that recommended this article…but “Performative Rage Over Pedophilia Doesn't Protect Kids” is a good read

I have read that article, but I am not the one who recommended it. It's an interesting one and a proper read.

[plague-of-insomnia]

Performative Rage Over Pedophilia Doesn't Protect Kids

Most sexual abuse of children is by non-pedophiles.

Some great quotes from this article:

Most children who experience sexual abuse are abused by people they know [in real life]. Over 90% of sexual assaults against children, are committed by relatives, siblings, parents, teachers, pastors, ministers, or neighbors.

Less than half (around 40%) of sexual assaults against children are committed by pedophiles. The majority of sexual crimes against children are perpetrated by people who do not have a history of disordered sexual arousal to children.

Blaming pedophiles is a way of saying these problems are external to us. But they're not.

Prevention of sexual abuse of children shouldn't be a political tool, raised only to score points against our opponents. It shouldn't be based on myths and conspiracies. And outcry against child sexual abuse shouldn't be merely another way to morally grandstand, or to signal virtue and purity, while ignoring the deeper, more complex issues at play. If we want to protect children, as I do, we must deal with facts, not panic.

[rallykart]

Uhhh I'd hazard a claim that if you're sexually abusing a kid at all you're a pedophile

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

Some people sexually abuse children out of accessibility and power. It's not always about attraction that people sexually assault others. If you want more info, you can look into statistics about it because it's highly talked about.

[lurkmorenewf4g]

So the person who is abusing a child is not aroused during the abuse? Or are they experiencing arousal brought on by abusing a child sexually? This seems like a contradictory statement OP, or at the very least playing semantics games to arbitrarily separate people who get sexual release from the abuse of children (pedophiles) from other people who also get sexual release from the abuse of children (somehow not pedophiles?). Perhaps the distinction is being made between exclusive pedophiles and non exclusive pedophiles but if you are capable of arousal during a child's sexual abuse as a result of that abuse, rather than disgust at that prospect... that's sexual arousal from a child.

I'm simply confused by not only the How of this statement, but the Why.

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

Because there is something called opportunity. If someone who is a SEXUAL PREDATOR has no other victims nearby except a child, you see they will make do. They use the child because... they are there. A child is still a person. Some sexual predators will abuse whoever is nearby. There are straight sexual predators who abuse men simply because that is all that is close to them.

This is what I'm getting at. Just because someone is a sexual predator does not mean they have an attraction to children. I've seen it in a case where a man abused his sister's daughter because he had no access to other women. He chose to abuse his niece instead of finding a girlfriend.

But when he was finally able to get a girlfriend he never touched her again. So because he was a sexual predator and only abused a child once makes him an ABUSER but because he never touched another child nor did he express interest in children sexually means he isn't a pedophile.

Is he disgusting and an abuser? Yes. Is he a pedophile? No.

[lurkmorenewf4g]

I think where you are losing me is that sexually abusing a child, in my mind, by definition is expressing sexual interest in a child. This is probably a difference in our understanding of "pedophile" as necessarily exclusive or not, and who this sort of information is helping. I'm definitely going to read up on this (as the original article makes very poor arguement.) Thank you for a respectful response, but based on the nature of your blog I do think I'll have to get the rest of my information from a less concerning source.

[color--theorist-deactivated2025]

I think the important takeaway from this distinction is that there is no 'kind of person' that one can screen for, identify and imprison as a workable and useful way to prevent child abuse. Trying to fight CSA by identifying behaviors of attraction (writing fiction and even consuming pornography) is an inherently incomplete way to fight child abuse, even more than that, it will only target a small subset of abusers.

The point is that if your protection of children and prevention strategies don't PRIORITIZE fighting structures of power that oppress children and empower abusers in ALL their forms, not just sexual deviance, you are doing a disservice to most victims.

EDIT: the semantic distinction rallykart makes is missing the point. We want to prevent child abuse before it happens. How do we do it? What is the best way to invest that anger and outrage into something that will protect victims? That is what the article is about for me.

NOTE: I don't want you to take away from what I said that fighting and resisting pedophiles is totally useless. I'm saying that culturally, we prioritize The Pedophile as the protagonist and sole concern of child abuse and its prevention and I think that's bad. We are constantly thinking about The Pedophile, his inner state of mind, his deviancy, his perversion, not the perversions in society that allow children to be easily accessible to abusers.

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

Man I wish people could learn there is a difference between a person being snooty and a jerk versus someone being an abuser.

[cruiserweight]

can i be real? i think ao3 should die for doing a donation pool for themselves with everything going on

[cruiserweight]

and let me say this if it isn't obvious. if youre donating, i think youre a bad person

[futureevilscientist]

#i was literally thinking about this today#they have a MASSIVE amount of users and... they decide they need donations. ignore the palestine thing happening theyre more important#apparently#reblog

I understand that you're 22 and corporate internet is all you've ever known, but you need to know that users COST sites money.

The sole case when users do not cost sites money is when 1) users are constantly shown ads, 2) users' private data is being harvested and sold to advertisers.

AO3 does not do either of those things. It was its mission upon being founded to not do either of those things. And thus, we have twice-yearly donation drives. Every year. Yes, every year. Even that year. Even the April and October of the pandemic, even the Aprils and the Octobers of mass BLM movements, even the April after Ukraine was invaded, and yes, even this October. It's not "failing to read the room". It's called maintenance costs and being an ad-free NGO that doesn't monetise its users.

I genuinely hops this helps.

[penrosesun]

I need young people to realize that when you say "AO3 should just make money like social media sites do rather than running donation drives" what you are actually suggesting is "AO3 should sell detailed and privacy-violating data on the porn consumption habits of its users to ad companies in order to make a quick and easy buck." That's what you're suggesting when you push for that.

This is like if you looked at Wikipedia and said "Why are they asking for donations? They could just charge people and companies money to be able to rewrite their Wikipedia pages to say whatever they want about their brands!"

I mean, yeah? They could sell out their fundamental mission and all of their core userbase in order to squeeze some money out of advertising and general enshittification. They could do that. Do you really want them to? Really? Is the little donation banner (which I assume you never bother to click on anyway) really so annoying to you that you'd rather the site just sucks forever (but without needing donations, I guess)? Call me out of touch, but somehow I doubt that any of you advocating for that sort of thing would actually want the inevitable results.

[lierdumoa]

Posts like this are so blatantly hypocritical. How much money does @stagegore give to Netflix every year? How much does the OP, or anyone agreeing with the OP, spend on movie tickets? On video games? On concert tickets? On books? On music?

Entertainment costs money.

AO3 is a non-profit service that provides entertainment.

Donating money to AO3 will always be 10000x more "ethical" than buying entertainment from any of the evil capitalist billionaire oligarchs that run literally every other popular entertainment service, but you don't see OP aiming their vitriol at people with Hulu subscriptions, do you?

OP's so-called "ethics" amount to nothing more than a hot mess of hypocricy, double standards, and reactionary brainrot.

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

It always baffles me a bit when people claim that you wrote abuse wrong when you've based the abuse in a fic or story on your own abuse and people think there is only one "right way" to be abused. Just because one person's abuse doesn't match how YOU were abused doesn't mean that it isn't valid or didn't happen.

Abuse comes in so many shapes and forms, you can't base all abuse just off your experience of it.

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

No, keep talking actually 💜✨🥰

I have so many thoughts in my head to talk about so 🥺

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

shut up

[blackheartbiohazards]

"I don't want to read this" is totally valid.

"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.