i was gonna leave it that but i have way too many thoughts so cw: discussions of child abuse
my parents relied on corporal punishment to keep me in line. i was beaten, and threatened to be beat, regularly as a kid, mostly by my father. i still live with them. i know they love me. i would like to care for my mom when she grows old. this is my choice. that should not erase what happened to me, it is just my choice that i made as an informed, autonomous adult.
i remember thinking it was normal. i remember thinking this is how it is, that i deserved it. and then i read fiction where the abuser isn't wholly evil. sometimes they're kind, sometimes they're sympathetic, and very often they loved the victim. and still, they abused. i'm not stupid. when faced with this sort of portrayal, i wasn't thinking "oh they weren't the abuser because they loved the victim". i was thinking "for all their love, their care, what they did was still abusive."
and then i realised: for all their love, for all the years i've lived with them, what's done to me was still bad.
that's the thing. that's why i fundamentally disagree that sanitized fiction is defanged. engaging in exclusively perfect, black/white media is harmful. it was harmful to me because i saw these depictions of abusers full of only hate and thought "then i can't be abused, because they were kind to me." it was harmful to me because i saw these depictions of virtuous victims and thought "i can't be abused, because i turned out ugly." when we tout dichotomies as absolute, we lose the people who fall within that grey boundary.
right now. right now, there are millions of people living with their abusers. a good fraction of them cannot leave, be it for guardianship, monetary, or health reasons. they may love them, they may care for them, by virtue of necessity. it's not always clear-cut. and it exists.
and what's frustrating is that when we lose sight of this nuance, we start alienating real people. no she can't be abused, he's showered her with gifts. no he isn't the victim, he chose to stay for the sake of his kids. people with trauma who are rude, who are mean, who are on the wrong side of the political axis for various reasons, have their sympathy revoked. media teaches us that there is only a certain type of bad, and a certain type of good, and when you stray from that nebulous boundary people start looking the other way.
titsay
pixelskylines
vaporwave
izzy806
2087
stormborns
turnnoffyourmind
