“Problematic” Fanworks, i.e. Re: Last Reblog
A particularly prolific and highly talented artist-writer duo in the Banana Fish fandom has been getting aggressive messages that toe and occasionally cross the line to harassment, on top of actual hate messages. The common grievances are that their fanworks often feature “controversial” pairings, e.g. Max/Ash and Foxx/Ash, and are sexually explicit in nature.
@silverquillsideas wrote a lengthy response to an anon ask regarding the matter, which I would highly recommend people to read. I am mostly interested in the responses to @silverquillsideas post, which I find to echo similar sentiments (or “arguments”) found on Twitter and Tumblr.
[Fiction affects reality. These fanworks contribute to the normalisation and/or romanticisation of rape, abuse, and pedophilia. Hence, they are not allowed to exist.]
To “normalise” these things, I argue that the works have to present them in a normalised manner. However, this is simply not the case. The fanworks are conscientiously put behind age and NSFW filters (in this case, Privateer) and well-tagged with trigger warnings. At one point, the artist even made a separate, viewable upon approval account for the more NSFW pieces, so that people who are interested only in the SFW or “sanctioned to be non-problematic” artworks need not be notified of the existence of the “non-sanctioned” artworks. The experience is highly opt-in, and is by no means normalising. The multiple filters and warnings highlight the paraphilic, outside-the-norm nature of the artworks.
Personally, I think this normalisation argument is patronising: it underestimates the ability of adults (especially – let’s be honest here – female adults) to distinguish between reality and fiction, and between safe, consensual sex and fantasy materials.
[Think about the children!]
This argument is often attached to the normalisation argument. It is heavily undermined by the presence of the age filters. Age filters are put up precisely because, in general, younger consumers lack the critical thinking to properly compartmentalise fiction/fantasy from reality. When you click through an age filter, you are, in effect, declaring that you have the critical thinking and maturity to properly digest whatever awaits beyond.
[Fandom is a safe space!]
And still it remains, as long as we keep up the standards of proper age filters, NSFW filters, and trigger warnings.
[Why would you have these unhealthy fantasies when healthier fantasies exist? What is wrong with you?]
Sometimes, people ship things because they think it looks good. It appeals to an aesthetic side of them. Sexual arousal by visual cues is, unsurprisingly, greatly rooted in the aesthetics. It does not need to go deeper than that. An anecdote: I am, technically speaking, a Shingeki no Kyojin Eren/Levi shipper. Since I neither read nor watch SnK, for a long, long time, I did not realise Eren’s age and the age gap between the two. Even after finding out, I could not stop aesthetically liking the ship. When I ship them, I am not consciously and actively shipping a teenager with a middle-aged man. I ship them because they appeal to me aesthetically: I like their visuals and the fandom’s depictions of their interactions in doujinshi. I fancy that, for a lot of people, this compartmentalisation of aesthetics and age of the characters involved happens often. Some people, however, seem incapable of internalising the idea that other people are capable of this mental separation – a failure of the imagination.
(A tangent: I mean no harsh judgment on those who fail to separate character age from fantasies, but I think one does have to accept the personal limitations of one’s own tastes. Personally, I find it hard to separate biology from shipping; hence, A/B/O fanworks are simply Not My Thing. The common trope of feminising male omega characters tends to make my eye twitch. But I am not leaving comments of how disturbed I am on A/B/O fanworks for their dissemination of wildly inaccurate biological facts and/or their tendency to reinforce a masculinity-femininity binary in MLM relationships.)
Regarding depictions of rape, assault, abusive relationships, etc., ravishment fantasies are very common; this is a fact. Sexual arousal, fear, pain, and pleasure are incontrovertibly linked: they all belong to the response pathways of the “primitive brain”, having existed long before our ancestors began developing the cortex of higher thinking. The arbitrary categorisation of “healthy” and “unhealthy” fantasies means nothing to something as basal as sexual responses.
[Still, these fantasies are disturbing.]
Some of them do disturb me. However, again, the content creators have done their utmost to make sure the experience is opt-in by nature, with big warning signs attached. If you think the content will disturb you, please do not engage with it. Think of it as not buying pickle-flavoured ice cream when you know it won’t be to your taste and/or you are allergic to pickles. The presence of pickle-flavoured ice cream might weird you out, but you have no obligation to consume it. In the same way, it is unreasonable for you to demand the ice cream company to withdraw their product because the thought of pickle ice cream disturbs you, or to complain to the convenience store for allowing the pickle ice cream to be stocked on their shelves. They released the flavour because they believe there is an audience for it out there, and that the release would bring some people delight and/or money.
[I have the right to announce how disturbed I am by these fanworks.]
I agree. You do not, however, have the right to harass people over them, especially when – I reiterate – the creators have made the entire experience highly opt-in.
Also, I implore you to think of the practical consequences of your actions before you decide to send strongly worded messages to content creators:
No real person is harmed in the creation of fanworks.
On the other hand, your strong words may dampen the mood of a real live person who has decided to share their talents with the world.
In consequentialist terms, when you send messages like, “You disgust me,” to a content creator, the net result of your actions is….negative. In other words, I am asking you, “Aren’t there better things to do with your time?”
[To depict Ash, a sexual abuse survivor, in sexual situations is highly damaging/insensitive/triggerring to CSA survivors.]
I have a very personal, by-no-means objective reaction to this particular extremist view. Please just skip this entire section if rationality is what you seek. I will even give you a TL;DR; it reads, “Fuck off.”
I had an entire essay planned on this for my own benefit – think of it as bloodletting – but I might as well say it now. Banana Fish and Ash made me realise that I was the victim of a systematic pedophile, almost twenty years after the fact. Ash and I had our fateful encounters at roughly the same age, in startlingly similar scenarios.
The realisation came more as a shock than I could ever have expected. I struggle (note the present tense) with the endowment of the mantle of a victim. I don’t know why Ash became the final piece to the jigsaw puzzle – I mean, I had read Lolita cover to cover multiple times – but I hypothesise that it is because his trauma does not consume most of his identity. So many stories of abuse survivors are heavily focussed on how their experiences, well, fucked them up, but I – I was so young that I got out without any visible mental and physical scars; all that is left are grimy fingerprints on a pane of glass, visible only when you breathe on it. Specific parts of my body are weirdly off-limits in sexual situations, but I managed to ascribe those to “just how my body is” instead of “the parts he touched”. Stories about trauma are certainly needed, but what my memory needed was representation in the manner of Ash’s.
Reading about Ash exploring his sexuality, especially in a healing manner that I will never experience due to my odd lack of apparent trauma, helped me a lot with coming to terms with the realisation. I was devastated when an author abandoned an R18 fic of Ash reclaiming his sexuality with the help of Eiji, due to people messaging her with the argument above and claiming to speak for all CSA survivors. Thankfully, the author returned to finish the fic, but the experience overall had been marred, and the author was clearly uncomfortable with having posted the fic at all. It feels terrible to know that something that has helped me tremendously is regarded as disturbing by its own creator.
In other words, if you have used the above argument to harass content creators, please stop.
I have none. It is currently 02.30 a.m. in Japan. Please feel free to comment with your own opinions and experiences; I will try to reply after I get some sleep. I may edit this piece tomorrow, should my morning self violently disagree with my 02.30 a.m. self.
dailybridgerton
romaincrisis
gummygunk
origamiaround
vaporwave
