Well, this went much further than I expected it to! I am glad that so many people have found it helpful. It did also make its way into SWERF/TERF Tumblr and garnered some criticism, which I think is reasonable to address. Cut for length and for distressing content; mind the tags.
Collective Shout is not a religious group
I stand corrected! Collective Shout is not religiously motivated and I apologise for spreading that misinformation. Per their website, "Collective Shout is a grassroots campaigns movement against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls." I note that the founder is reportedly pro-life, which does not support reproductive freedom for women, objectifying them as walking wombs. I also note there have been additional controversies such as where they endorsed the film Cuties, which involved real exploitation and sexualisation of child actors, as 'ethically problematic, but powerful'. Recently, they have lobbied against the game Detroit: Become Human being available due to its portrayal of violence and abuse against women and children. This is a fictional property and no real women or children were abused (unless you count the capitalism-based abuse of women employees creating the game) in the making of this property.
Given my admittedly shallow research into their history shows that their actions do not match their objectives, I now understand Collective Shout to be a group that lobbies for political action to support their definition of safety for women and children, a definition that includes real-world harm done to those groups being acceptable in the pursuit of 'awareness' and excludes fictional narratives that portray fictional harm as done to fictional characters as 'not acceptable' due to 'cultural influence'. Feminism can and does address the exploitation and objectification of women and girls without an approach that ultimately removes choice and agency from people affected by these cultural factors. Censorship does not make exploitation and objectification stop happening, and it removes the ability of people going through exploitation or objectification to recognise and learn about these situations, making them more vulnerable to this in future.
If I were using my script above, I would amend it to say 'a lobbying group with no legal authority' rather than 'a religious organisation'.
You're telling minors to defend a rape sim
My knee-jerk reaction to this is 'when I was a minor, I knew when conversations were not about me and how to stay out of them' - but I don't think that's an entirely fair reaction. So! To be clear:
Minors: a fight for the legitimacy of adult content is not your fight. I'm sorry that the trickle-down effects of censorship may affect media that is for you, such as Detroit: Become Human, but this stage of the fight affects media that is targeted towards and created for an adult audience, in recognition that most countries have age-based laws to minimise any risk of harm to you of engaging with said content as you grow and develop your understanding of the world. I recognise that you may want to take action about the justification of this censorship or censorship in general, but on this issue in particular, it's the people who are legally able to access this content that need to defend it. My call to action is not aimed at you. I am sorry that things are looking grim for what you might inherit as you come of age.
You're telling minors to defend a rape sim
Now that I have specified that a post about adult content was not intended for minors, let's address the second part. "You're defending a rape sim."
To establish bona fides: as long-term readers will know, I am a survivor of rape. I have skin in the game here. I don't presume to speak for all rape survivors, but I know it took me a very long time to understand and contextualise what happened to me as rape. That process was informed by discussions with various mental health professionals, research, and through engaging with fictional narratives that depicted rape. When I first opened up to a psychiatrist about being raped, his response was dismissive and he recorded it in his notes as 'probably a consensual sexual encounter that she now regrets'. It took engaging with narratives about rape for me to be able to recognise echoes of my own experience and name what happened to me.
I think it's worth noting here that Collective Shout's actions have resulted in the delisting of all adult content, and they are further pursuing the delisting of any content that contains representations of violence, abuse, or objectification of women and children, regardless of 'glorification' of the content (as shown by the protests against Detroit: Become Human, which features no adult content and where the abuse is specifically portrayed as damaging and untenable). The world that they are pursuing is one in which I would not have been able to recognise and communicate about my own experience, as I would have been deprived of the toolset that gave me the emotional literacy to do so. For this reason, I do not condone a world where we protect women and children by removing access to information. I find it at best condescending and at worst actively harmful for someone else to decide how I am protected and seek to remove material that can educate me in order to protect me. Rape, abuse, and objectification violate the agency of their victims. Violating that agency further, even with good intentions, does not actually repair the damage or prevent these violations from happening again.
It's a rape sim, it's not educational
Let's leave aside that the effects of delisting adult work have spilled over into all adult work, not just the rape sim, and are now continuing to be pursued in work that is not adult but is objectionable to Collective Shout. Let's also accept that the goal of banning a rape simulator is to prevent women from being raped. I do not agree that banning something in media has any measurable impact on real-world actions and I would not support the ban based on implementing a ban being able to achieve that goal. This is an old rehash of 'video games make you violent' and it has been thoroughly debunked. In terms of childrens' access to adult media changing their actions and making them more predisposed to either carry out or be victims of abuse or violence, adult media is already age-gated. For minors who access this material regardless, support in media literacy and dealing with difficult or challenging content is more likely to be an effective intervention than banning adult content wholesale.
So what is the value of a rape simulator? Critical reblogs seem very sure that the only value is for brain-dead porn-sick men to helplessly jerk off to while they fantasise about enacting violence on real-world women. I disagree. As I was building my understanding of rape, and my model of support for victims of rape, I had the same question as Collective Shout: how can I make sure that nobody goes through this again? And that was entertwined with the question: why did it happen to me?
Understanding why this happened to me necessitates understanding the perspective of a rapist. Prevention of rape necessitates understanding what leads someone to rape. There is a collective tendency, I think, to label certain acts as inhuman - as if there is no way a real human, a decent human could ever do one of these, so doing them excludes you from humanity. However, this washes our hands of the responsibility of preventing these acts - if someone's behaviour is inhuman, nothing can be done, simply put them down to prevent further harm. Delist the games and take the books out of libraries so any of them amongst us don't get ideas. If these people are human, however? The hard, unpleasant work of empathy then has to be done to analyse the factors that led to these behaviours. What is it about these acts that appeals to them? Why do they seek precursors of these acts out? We have to understand these people and their motivations as people with motivations in order to implement effective and targeted early interventions.
Are there porn-sick men gooning to rape simulators? Probably, the world is a big place. Can we use these same uncomfortable works to understand not just ourselves, as I outlined above, but others? Yes. I want the channels to be able to understand what drives the people who hurt me. I want to be able to use that understanding to effectively help others like me. We already have evidence that censorship does not prevent harm. If gooning to rape sims is a precursor to rape, removing the rape sim does not prevent the rape - someone driven to seek out a certain experience will find that rewarding input where they can. There is a wealth of research into restorative justice that shows understanding and support to change behaviour does prevent harm.
When it comes to activism, I think that every action should be measured for effectiveness in enacting a goal - what is the point of action without impact? A ban on adult media does not serve the stated goal of Collective Shout. It instead serves the goal of 'making icky content go away'. I question what ongoing good this does.
Don't you have something better to do than justify your paedophilic wanking?
It's interesting how it always comes down to being called a paedophile. To state it categorically, because TERFs and SWERFs will use any possible twisting of your words: I am not a paedophile. I am not attracted to children, whether they are infants, pre-pubescent, in their teens, or anywhere between. Frankly, I'm not attracted to anyone under 30 these days, so I don't think even accusations of 'you're a creepy paedophile because you're attracted to a 20 year old who still lives at home and therefore isn't an independent adult!' can be levied at me. I am further personally repulsed by fictional portrayals often seen as 'paedophilia-lite', such as a character appearing young but really being 400 years old and so forth.
Why was I called a paedophile? The original post certainly didn't have any indications towards paedophilia, unless one conflates all adult content with childhood sexual abuse material. I assume it was for two reasons. One, I did something they didn't like and they accused me of the Worst Thing to try to shut me up or make me feel bad. Two, they wanted to, subconsciously or otherwise, add me to that great inhuman Other in their mind. If I am Other, engaging with me and my Inhuman, Harmful Viewpoints is not necessary. The best thing to do is remove or rail against the Other, to show that there is no quarter for That Kind Of Behaviour.
Why write this long ass post?
I don't know. I don't think it's going to change hearts and minds. If anything, it'll probably garner more accusations of being a woman-hating paedophile after they read the first paragraph and their eyes glaze over.
I think part of it is that the conversation around these issues feels very reactive. The (minority) TERF/SWERF contingent reblogging this post certainly aren't sitting down and explaining their nuanced viewpoints; they're calling adult content inherently bad and insulting anyone who defends it.
I also wanted to touch on why even objectionable or 'revolting' fictional content, content that you fundamentally Disagree With, is necessary and has merit from a viewpoint I haven't seen explored much. I haven't really touched on it above, but I also want to acknowledge that there are people with kinks and fetishes that this content caters to, and being viewed as inherently disgusting and repulsive for it can't be fun. I want to understand you, and I am glad this content exists for us to bridge that gap.
Lastly, there was one person who made a vaguepost about me asking what tangible action I've done, what work I've put in, saying they've been out there supporting women while I've clearly been sitting around jerking off and being brain dead - forgive me if the wording isn't right; I've lost the post. I don't think you have to have a resume of support before protesting against something you disagree with, but for the record, I have worked in social services for the past seven or eight years. I was frequently (double digits per week) the first point of contact for victims of domestic abuse seeking resources to get to safety. I have connected countless people with shelter, food, local resources, parenting support, budgeting support, mental health services, safety planning, and cold hard cash to help them leave situations of abuse. I have been honoured to be a safe and supportive person for people who are scared and need someone to hear their story and help them with next steps.
I have also given these resources to alleged or identified perpetrators of abuse. Many people have strong opinions that this should not be a function of our social services - why reward bad behaviour? Or, in radfem language, why are we normalising paying men to beat women? - but in providing these resources, I have also facilitated the perpetrators in leaving and discontinuing situations of abuse. The victim is safer because these resources are available. The perpetrator can use these resources to seek stability and improve management of harmful behaviours, in turn also making future potential victims safer. Do they? I don't know, but I do know if I didn't provide those resources, they'd continue to be desperate, angry, trapped, and likely to seek relief in abusive behaviours in their ongoing situation. I am glad they reached out to me for help.
At the end of the day, I don't disagree with Collective Shout's goals. I want to live in a world where women and girls are not haunted by sexual violence on a pervasive, inescapable level. I do not think that this initiative serves that goal, I believe that this censorship actively perpetrates systems of abuse, and being called a rapist abusive paedophile who is actively harming women has not actually changed my mind. I will continue to take action to support survivors of abuse with a focus on agency, empathy, and harm-minimising outcomes. I hope you do too.
