Imagine thinking normalization, fetishism and romanticization of rape, abuse and incest isn’t harmful to anyone.
It doesn’t normalize, I’ve already addressed this.
Desensitization, in general, refers to decreased emotional response to aversion stimuli.
So, you may remember the first time you got behind the wheel of a car, you might have felt nervous, anxious, even terrorized you might smoosh some little old lady trying to cross the road. But after repeated practice, you become an old hat at driving, often finding it boring. Granted you may still be terrible as a driver, but now that only horrifies other people. That’s basically desensitization.
It’s a normal and even adaptive process. Indeed, we use it in treatment for anxiety disorders to decrease fear responses to the objects of phobias.
Media related discussions of desensitization imply that it is always a bad thing, but this is clearly not the case. For instance, emergency responders typically experience less emotional reaction to distressing scenes than the rest of us…and hence are “desensitized” but it’s this process that allows them to do their jobs. And few people would argue that emergency responders are uncaring or non-empathic, given they’ve dedicated their lives to helping others in need.
The problem with the concept of media violence inducing desensitization is right in the definition. Unlike real-life violence, many people don’t find media violence to be aversive. There appears to be a clear distinction in the ways our brains treat and respond to fictional violence and real-life violence in regard to our emotional reaction, as my student Raul Ramos observed in a recent experiment.
In that experiment participants felt much more empathy toward victims of real-life violence than victims of fictional movie violence.
And it didn’t matter whether they’d seen a violent or non-violent television show prior to this.
So, if media violence isn’t aversive (after all, if it were no one would watch it and we wouldn’t be having this debate), what we’re talking about isn’t really desensitization. But perhaps more critically, the very idea of media desensitization transferring to real-life violence rests on the assumption that our brains do not distinguish between real-life violence and fantasy violence.
Sounds like some group of idiots I know who spout this kind of bullshit of fiction is reality…
For instance, the authors of one recent paper asked, explicitly “What psychological theory would explain how observing violence in the home, school, community, or culture would increase the risk of violence but observing it in the mass media or in video games would not increase the risk?” There are, in fact, theories that explain exactly this, but the authors of this question appear to directly equate real-life violence with fictional violence.
The problem is that many media effects theories assume people are idiots. Ok, some people are idiots, but I mean *really* idiots, in that for brains to work the way some scholars seem to suggest really makes no sense at all.
Very few of us are building shelters to survive an alien invasion or using the wands we buy at Universal to try to cast magic spells, so clearly our brains distinguish between reality and fantasy,
a process that research now suggests begins very early in childhood and typically is completed by the latter elementary school years.
fiction does not affect reality the way you want to believe.
The statistics for rape, child abuse, assault, murder, etc. have all experienced a dramatic decline over the past few decades, in spite of our media becoming more graphically violent, and pornography being more easily accessible. Your logic just doesn’t hold up to the facts (by the way, this also applies to stories with mature themes like rape or murder, or stories with abusive or taboo relationships. IT’S JUST FICTION, PEOPLE. It’s a reflection of various aspects of our humanity, which includes the things we most fear. Writing and reading about them is one way we can strip them of that fear and power they hold over us. It doesn’t mean we stop recognizing those things as morally wrong–it’s just a way of reconciling their existence and coping with it).
Psychology of Scary Movies No correlation to murder or violence
In New Study, Video Games Not Tied to Violence in High-Risk Youth No correlation to murder or violence
Listening to ‘extreme’ music makes you calmer, not angrier, according to study no correlation to murder or violence or even becoming a satanic lesbian who sacrifices unborn babies. Shocking.
If video games do not normalize violence, then how can ships normalize child molestation?
There is a clear difference between showing violence, gore, rape, abuse and incest in the media and not justifying it, and directly shipping such things as pedophilia and abuse. here is a line between showcasing an abusive relationship between two characters in a psychological horror comic, and actively shipping these same two characters as a couple. There is a difference between seeing a man abuse his son in the media, and actively shipping them together.
There is not a clear difference. You think SAW is “not justifying” it? It’s revenge porn, it’s gore porn. Freddie Krueger, Nightmare on Elms Street? You serious? How about Hannibal? How about Tusk where it makes gore/abuse a comedy?
If you cannot understand something is bad IRL, that clearly would hurt someone if you were to do that to them– without the media explicitly telling you THIS IS BAD, then you’re the lost cause here, not us.
It’s not the job of media to teach you these things– it falls to your society, community, and family.
Why there is no real Moral Responsibility in fiction / Why Antis show an unhealthy amount of Moral Purity and Disgust Sensitivity, or Imaginative Resistance to fiction
“I believe that if your primary motivation in life is to be moral, you don’t become an artist.
You do good works. Perhaps, like Chekhov, you divide your time among healing the sick, bearing witness to appalling prison conditions, and writing masterpieces.
But if Chekhov had turned from a bleeding patient—had let up the pressure on the tourniquet—to put the finishing touches on The Cherry Orchard, this would not have been a moral act. And insofar as we would rather he let a peasant die than fail to create the play that has given us such joy, insofar as we mourn a stolen Vermeer more than a kidnapped Iraqi child, we have to understand that we are in the grip of something (and it may be something wonderful, something without which life isn’t worth living) that, whatever it is, isn’t moral. We are able to endure the idea of suffering in the flesh more easily than the destruction of the uniquely well-wrought urn. We choose beauty over goodness. That is who we are. This is not admirable. But we should try not to forget that rejecting the idea of beauty for the idea of the common good has a very bad record.” [x]
You cannot have morality when it comes to artwork and fictional content—because the world of fiction is morally grey, and while it is true not an admirable thing, it’s realistic. If you want to become an artist, you must accept the fact that morals are loose in such a craft.
And it’s true, rejecting the idea of beauty for the idea of common good has always had a bad record—always ending in censorship and absolute government control of what people can read and write and create.
“You see the problem—and its flip side. I don’t agree with Gardner that bad art creates bad morals. Some of the most heroic people I know have decorated their walls with paintings on velvet and think Louis L'Amour was a genius. If good fiction created good morals, English departments would be utopian oases. In my experience they are sometimes dreadful and sometimes wonderful. Just like the rest of the world.
…Moreover, the realities of the marketplace have ensured that the experimentalists Gardner vilifies probably can’t even get published anymore. As a feminist coming of literary age in the seventies, I spent a lot of time pointing out the ubiquity of horrible images of women perpetrated by revered male writers like Ernest Hemingway and John Updike. Nothing has changed; I still don’t want to read those guys. But feeling as I do that we are all rowing in a boat that is being swamped, I have less will to attack my fellow oarsmen. And I am leery of using the label “immoral” or “amoral” when what I really mean is people who do something different from what I do. If you take Gardner’s position, that fiction more concerned with the play of language than with human behavior is “false,” then what do you do with a book like Finnegans Wake? I would like to think that anything that gives joy because of its mastery of language must be on the side of the angels. Or at least it is not on the side of the devil—should he exist and should he be taking sides.” [x]
“I have had fiction at the center of my imagination for as long as I have had a memory of a self, and yet my models of right action—the ones who have really helped me in the struggle to be good—are not fictional characters.
I may have wanted to be as cool and witty as Elizabeth Bennet, as ferociously passionate as Jane Eyre, as endlessly maternal as Mrs. Ramsay, as ethically indefatigable as Dorothea Brooke, but in moments of moral crisis I have not said to myself, “What would Dorothea Brooke do in this situation?” Not once.” [x]
“In 2005 what would be at stake in naming some kinds of fiction as moral—with the concomitant understanding that some would then have to be named immoral? What is lost if we give up the category? What is gained if we invoke it? Why should we use these terms for black marks on a white page that perform the trick of making us believe that people who have never existed are as real as our best friends?” [x]
“I am no stranger to what I would like to call literary protectionism; in the Catholic Church of my childhood certain books were forbidden to me under pain of mortal sin. The range of the interdiction was wide; it traveled from Voltaire to Erskine Caldwell. (I would like to say this is a thing of the past in Catholicism, but recent actions taken by the Vatican lead me to believe that that is too hopeful a position.) The Church fathers would have said they were protecting me from the temptation to leave the comforting bosom of Mother Church, sparing me the blandishments of atheistic freethinking and the seductions of free love. Broadly speaking, then, impiety and unchastity were the sins they feared most, the ones feared by fundamentalists of all stripes.” [x]
I would read the entirety of this article, as it really goes into morality vs. Fiction. But this gives us a good idea and resemblance to a bunch of radical fundamentalists on this website– one group called Antis.
Now let’s see what the academic article ‘Who can resist a villain? Morality, Machiavellianism, imaginative resistance and liking for dark fictional characters’ has to say about morality and fiction:
“Raney (2004, 2011) proposed moral disengagement as a mechanism used by audiences to suspend their usual moral judgment in order to enjoy DFCs.” [x]
DFCs = Dark Fictional Characters. And what exactly is Moral Disengagement?
“Moral disengagement broadly refers to a process through which individuals can temporarily “turn off” their morality to avoid judging themselves. Bandura (2006) describes moral disengagement as the avoidance of moral agency—the proactive effort to act morally coupled with avoidance of immoral actions—via mechanisms such as selective dehumanization (e.g., of outgroups or enemies), justification or rationalization of immoral behavior, and diffusion or displacement of moral responsibility. In other words, people morally disengage when they ignore their own or societal moral precepts and behave in ways, they would normally consider immoral.” [x]
While I could understand many would have an issue with this mechanism, as it can be used to excuse real life actions like cheating, when applied to fictional worlds: “…moral disengagement allows media consumers to take sides with and like DFCs—characters whose actions they would normally deem morally unacceptable (Raney, 2004, 2011. Such moral disengagement is necessary as it facilitates engaging with the narrative even when the story includes immorality; otherwise we—the fiction consumer—might judge ourselves for liking these characters.” [x]
‘Might judge ourselves for liking these characters’… sounds like something Antis do, a lot, but not to themselves—to others.
Now, Antis love to say ‘fiction affects reality’ to support their claim that fiction can influence someone to commit horrid crimes and actions, or to be forced into thinking something is normal and healthy when it’s obviously not; while I do agree fiction can affect reality, it only seems to do so positively, and any possible negativity is heavily outweighed.
“Following Cohen (2001), we define identification with fictional characters as understanding their point of view, empathizing with their plight, and/or finding them similar to the viewer/reader. Cohen (2001) further described identification as an emotional and cognitive process that results in the viewer or reader seeing the fictional world from the character’s point of view, thus vicariously experiencing the character’s sense of self, motives, social relationships, and feelings.” [x]
This is an important way for individuals to understand and sympathize with others who have gone through different experiences and trauma. It’s been proven that fiction increases our abilities to sympathize/empathize, and to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. Not only does it increase our emotional empathy, but it also increases our creativity and critical thinking. [x] [x] [x] [x] [x]
“Because in the real world, people choose the fictions they engage with, any effect of narrative exposure is going to depend on the prior experience, attitudes, and beliefs that influence choice of fictional media. This may be especially true when it comes to fiction that portrays morally deviant worlds and/or characters (Barnes & Black, 2016; Black & Barnes, 2017; Caracciolo, 2013; Gendler, 2000, 2006).
Prior research has shown that some individuals are particularly unable or unwilling to buy into fictional worlds in which immoral actions are presented as the right thing to do, a phenomenon known as imaginative resistance that may function as a sort of “morality check” on fiction that prevents people from engaging with stories that require a suspension of their real-world morality (Black & Barnes, 2017; Eaton, 2012; Gendler, 2000, 2006). Self-reported imaginative resistance, operationalized as discomfort with immoral fictions, has been associated with moral purity, disgust sensitivity, moral identity, and empathy (Black & Barnes, 2017).“ [x]
So when Antis say that something regarding to fiction is disgusting or immorally wrong, it’s not because there is something wrong with you or the content; it’s literally the issue of the Anti, who simply cannot see past the morals of the real world and not apply them to a fictional world, where morals are rather gray or nonexistent. They have an unusually high disgust sensitivity, and moral purity—which they happily apply to fiction and thus force others to believe that they are the normal people, which is obviously incorrect. Especially when we get into the hundreds of cases of Antis harassing, doxxing, and suicide baiting shippers and victims over fictional ships—so their moral purity and disgust is entirely fucked and in the wrong place.
“Conceptualizing imaginative resistance as reluctance (rather than inability) to engage with immoral fictions, Eaton proposes that the attraction of DFCs lies in the aesthetic challenge of overcoming resistance. Audiences feel repulsion and liking at the same time, and relish the ambivalence of their reactions; the conflict with real-world morality makes a story more compelling. Although some people may avoid a book or film that promises to challenge their real world morality[coughAntiscough], others may find such media especially attractive; indeed, empirical studies provide evidence of individual differences in both self-reported and experienced imaginative resistance (Black & Barnes, 2017; Liao, Strohminger, & Sripada, 2014).” [x]
Now while I believe everyone has the right to avoid certain books or films because it disgusts you wholly, or triggers you, or it’s just not something into you—Antis take it to the extreme, and insist that since they hate the Thing that everyone else must hate it too, because they see themselves as being morally pure and normal. There’s a difference between avoiding something and having NOTPs, and then forcing everyone around you to also hate the Thing and if you don’t, you’re a bad person.
And liking dark fiction doesn’t make you a bad person! Similarly how liking video games or heavy metal/rock music doesn’t make you a violent, aggressive murderer!
““How do Americans spend their leisure time?” That question was posed by Yale psychologist Paul Bloom in his 2010 book How Pleasure Works. The answer, Bloom says, is “participating in experiences that we know are not real. When we are free to do whatever we want we retreat to the imagination.” Of course, Bloom is referring to our propensity to daydream, our default state whenever the mind is not absorbed in a mentally demanding task.
Many times, our thoughts gravitate towards the extremes. For one, we riff on the pleasures of life: winning MVP trophies, giving commencements speeches, saving the world and making love. Although we know the difference between real life and fiction, we can’t help hijacking the emotional states that such events evoke. We know that we won’t give the next commencement speech at Harvard, but it feels good thinking about what it would be like.” [x]
“Paul Bloom points out the irony at work: what we fear most in life is what we look forward too in the world of fiction. Shakespearean plots are full of tragedy and the Theban plays make most readers cringe, but the misfortunes of Hamlet and Oedipus are what make these classics, classics.
“It’s not that we enjoy zombie films because we need to prepare for the zombie uprising. We don’t have to plan for what to do if we accidentally kill our fathers or marry our mothers. But even these exotic cases serve as useful practice for bad times, exercising our psyches for when life goes to hell. From this perspective, it’s not the zombies that make film so compelling, it is that the theme of zombies is a clever way to frame stories about being attacked by strangers and betrayed by those we love. This is what attracts us; the brain eating is an optional extra.” [x]
“The vital role conflict plays in stories might help explain why death, the end of the world, torture, incest and the like is pleasurable to watch or read. If the human mind was shaped for stories, as many cognitive scientists believe, then our obsession with conflict might be natural selection’s way of influencing us to rehearse dangerous scenarios.” [x]
“Why are many moviegoers attracted to bloodshed, gore and violence? It may be because they hope it will offer meaningful insights into some aspect of the human condition, according to a new study.
Earlier studies suggest that people are not necessarily attracted to violence but seem to be drawn to violent content because they anticipate other benefits, such as thrill and suspense, the researchers noted.
The new study found that “such hedonistic pleasures are only part of the story about why we willingly expose ourselves to scenes of bloodshed and aggression,” according to the researchers.
“Some types of violent portrayals seem to attract audiences because they promise to satisfy truth-seeking motivations by offering meaningful insights into some aspect of the human condition.”
“Perhaps depictions of violence that are perceived as meaningful, moving and thought-provoking can foster empathy with victims, admiration for acts of courage and moral beauty in the face of violence, or self-reflection with regard to violent impulses,” said Bartsch.” [x]
Since this is getting quite long, I’m adding a couple links to some side reading in case anyone is interested:
Ten things wrong with the media ‘effects’ model
Boys’ Love Manga for Girls: Paedophilic, Satirical, Queer Readings and English Law.
The Anatomy and Value of Fictional Violence
That gives abusers more power more than anything, by pro-shippers like you downplaying the importance and pain, by ignoring the development characters got by overcoming the psychological consequences of said abuse.
You’re the one downplaying the pain and suffering victims and survivors have gone through [which, guess what, victims and survivors do have nasty, nasty ships too] by even COMPARING the shit they’ve gone through with shipping problematic, dark and “bad” ships.
And if you want to get deep on these characters you’re more than welcome too– but the rest of us are free to ship and just have fun because no we aren’t hurting anyone you dumb motherfucker.
Also if you wanna use the goddamn slippery slope argument–
Here’s the problem with your statement: Being inspired by something does not equate to causing something. You’re using the “Slippery Slope” logical fallacy(which, ironically, is a favorite amongst overzealous fundamentalist conservatives).
By your logic, you’re placing the blame for an incident of a child jumping off the roof in the 90′s on Wile E. Coyote. I’ve become increasingly tired of seeing the argument that “FICTION IS REALITY!”, and I think it’s time to stomp some sense into it. It was bullshit when they tried to use the same argument against video games in the 90′s, it was bullshit when they tried to use it against horror movies and heavy metal music in the 80′s, and it’s bullshit now.
Being inspired by something does not equate to causation. “Slippery Slope” is a logical fallacy that has been used for years (usually by conservatives and overzealous religious fanatics) to blame certain behaviors on the media a person consumes.
Yes, that’s right: You’re regurgitating the EXACT SAME ARGUMENTS used by conservative, Republican, religious extremists. If your argument sounds like a Jack Chick tract (like this one implying that playing Dungeons & Dragons recruits teens into the occult), you should be SERIOUSLY FUCKING EMBARRASSED. By your logic, you’re placing the blame for an incident of a child jumping off the roof in the 90′s on Wile E. Coyote (and before you even try to pull the “Jaws” argument, don’t bother: It holds less water than a thimble). Similarly, before you try and bring up the Slender Man stabbing, here.
The statistics for rape, child abuse, assault, murder, etc. have all experienced a dramatic decline over the past few decades, in spite of our media becoming more graphically violent, and pornography being more easily accessible. (we’re talking in most first-world cultures, but not all first-world cultures). If what you insist was the truth, we would be seeing the opposite result.
Meanwhile, transgressive behavior existed long before fan art (which isn’t even professionally published, and therefore not a piece of mainstream media), and has always declined as civilization progressed.
Lemme tell you something: In the 80′s, there was an entire generation of kids that grew up while the Nightmare on Elm Street films were popular. Freddy Krueger was insanely popular with children. There were things like Freddy Krueger pajamas…for children. Freddy was in music videos rapping with the Fat Boys and the “Elm Street Group”. Think about this for a moment: Freddy Krueger, as a character, was a child killer. Even worse was that–though the films only hinted at it–he was a child molester. But kids fucking loved him (myself included). Everyone knew who Freddy Krueger was. As a 4-year-old little girl, I sassed a worker at a haunted house because I knew he wasn’t the real Freddy. All those little kids–and we’re talking millions of kids here–embraced a literal fucking child killer as a character they liked, yet they did not try to emulate him. They still understood that he was a BAD GUY, and that killing the other characters was WRONG.
If fiction is the only source you’re learning about life from, you have been failed fundamentally as a child by the people who were supposed to guide you. Stop shifting blame,and accept where the fault really lies: With PARENTS.
In the end, you’re actually HURTING children more than helping them. When you misuse serious terms in this way, it actually HARMS REAL VICTIMS by making it harder for their legitimate claims to be taken seriously.
If fiction did not affect reality, we didn’t get anyone’s dick hard by releasing an erogame.
Man I don’t know how to tell you getting hard or turned on by omething isn’t the same as believing rape and abuse is okay and actively encouraging it IRL and having these things become suddenly no longer illegal!
Humans can get turned on by a flower that might look like a bloody vagina– being turned on by something doesn’t dictate how you treat people irl, Like this is common knowledge. I don’t care what gets your willie hard- I care if you hurt REAL PEOPLE. And if you aren’t, then why should I care?
If fiction did not affect reality at all, many people wouldn’t find comfort in many different kinds of media.
A positive effect, yes, I’ve addressed this. Fiction effects reality in mainly positive ways; makes us more empathetic, sympatethic, creative and open minded.
If fiction did not affect reality, the philosophical value of many books and works of fictions would be completely ignored and would never affect and/or alter anyone’s way of thinking.
Philosophy isn’t fiction. If we get into legit academic subjects then we aren’t discussing fiction anymore.
Fiction doesn’t affect reality only when you want it to, fiction affects reality all the time, even if that alteration is in the most subtle ways.
It effects us positively! Yes!
