Fiction doesn’t manifest brand new experiences out of thin air, fiction doesn’t infect people with never before thought about evil ideas. When we say ‘fiction affects reality’ we’re coming at it like those things never existed before that we interacted with ficiton. Assault, murder, death, queer romance, kink, whatever, and all other commonly censored topics existed before fiction had the audacity to immortalize them.
Fiction amplifies reality. Jaws didn’t manifest a never before seen fear of sharks, it played on existing misconceptions and existing fears, and amplified them. The fear of sharks already existed. With or without Jaws we feared sharks, then a scary movie came out and those fears became amplified.
But amplification isn’t exclusively bad.
Nabokov’s Lolita, aka the most famous pedophilic story of all time and heavily censored for being “pornographic”, amplified our understanding of pedophilia, the kinds of people who commit it (charming, well educated, attractive people), and brought that conversation from hushed rooms to national attention.
Fifty Shades of Gray should have caused an uptick of relationship abuse and misuse of BDSM (and maybe it did), but it also caused a nationwide conversation on abuse, stalking, cult behavior, controlling relationships, and healthy BDSM.
A lot of young girls first encountered female masturbation through Judy Blume’s Deenie (one of the ALA’s top 100 banned books of all time and a 40 year old woman writing about teen masturbation, a big tumblr no-no). Deenie’s impact was so important that it’s often cited as an invaluable validation for women and queer women who felt that their exploration was somehow immoral. There’s an entire book full of letters from readers to Blume about how important that book was to them.
Take a scroll through some ‘top banned books’ lists and count to yourself how many of them were banned for specifically exploring sexual content in a liberating way. Or how many were banned for questioning the system.
Every single censorship movement and every single banned book has an army of people insisting that “fiction [only negatively] affects reality”. Books like Perks of Being a Wallflower for daring to talk about child sexual assault by a woman and depiction of a gay teenager. Or Speak for exploring the sexual assault and suicide attempts of a teenage girl.
In reality, these books amplified reality and gave voices to the voiceless–those who felt purposefully stifled by society. Visually represented by this comic.
Tl;dr: Fiction doesn’t change reality, fiction takes what’s already there and has the possibility of amplifying it–and of course you can pretend “bad fiction” only has “bad results”, but you have to be willing to silence the silenced while you support the people who aim to make fiction 1950s idyllic, oppressive silence.
I remember being a young teen and watching The Famous Jett Jackson. There was an episode about Farenheit 451 being banned and the fight to be allowed to read it.
I also remember my church talking about how “that’s why it’s banned! It teaches rebellion! It teaches you to question authority!” I nodded along and assumed that those were bad things.
And then I read the book. I read it and I realised something.
The thing that that book taught me the most? Was to wonder WHY a book had been banned. Because once I read it I realized it wasn’t JUST about questioning authority, it was about questioning a system that enforces ignorance and conformity. Something that requires censorship to begin, control, and spread.
I’ve had moments in my life where I saw a piece of media and cringed. Where I was sick just knowing it exists. There are books and shows that I feel strongly against and have had passing thoughts about how they should be banned.
And then I remember reading Farenheit 451. And I remember to ask, “why do I want to ban it?” and “Who does banning this benefit and who does it harm?” as well as “If this is banned, what comes next? What else can be classified this way but is vital to society and the vulnerable people in it?”
Because fiction? Is an important exploration of humanity, good and bad. And it might amplify what’s already there in a bad way sometimes, but it also shines a light on the dark places that we can actually do something about. And if you take away that light, it doesn’t make the bad things go away, it just makes bad people able to hide in the dark.
There are any number of “objectionable” works that have changed society for the better. And we always need to ask ourselves, “is it banning this book I don’t like worth risking preventing someone else taking future generations to a better place because of it?” We don’t get to decide which piece of fiction does that because that isn’t how it works.
Here’s the original source for the comic OP linked, btw
The problem is when fiction that glorifies bad things is put into the wrong hands. And frankly, if your fiction glorifies abuse or pedophilia, it’s going to attract those types. It’s done it time and time again. There’s victims out there who no one listens to.
Fiction reflects reality, and reality reflects fiction. Glorifying things isn’t a good idea because that will absolutely attract the people who also glorify those things. It happens with popular things, it happens with published fiction. It happens with online stories. And if you keep saying “well it’s just fiction” you’re protecting those types of people.
Fiction that glorifies the worst of the world attracts the worst of the world. They will always search it out. To justify themselves and to brainwash others into believing their “side”.
Just because it may not be the cause doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a hand in the crime.
Okay but what is glorification? Because Speak by Halse-Anderson was and is explicitly banned because it “glorifies” underage sex, swearing, suicide, and alcohol–It’s a book about a girl who gets sexually assaulted at a high school party. The “glorification of sex” is her being sexually assaulted.
If you define glorification as “I’ll know it when I see it” you’ve just opened a very convenient door for anyone to rip fiction spaces apart in the name of “glorification of problematic ideas”.
Do you know who suffers the most when we tear down “bad” fiction because it “makes bad people”? Survivors. Always. Far out and away, survivors are always the first to be ripped apart.
It’s why Speak is banned, it’s why Perks of Being a Wallflower is banned, it’s why Looking for Alaska is banned, it’s why during strikeout that the far and away biggest group affected was sexual assault survivors, CSA survivors, and queer spaces. Always. That’s why I told you to look through the banned book list. All of it is “bad” fiction. But all of it empowers vulnerable groups.
Listen, I’m with you, underage fic gives me the skeevies, but I also know the answer isn’t “no depictions of minors in sexual situations” because you cross out teens exploring sex healthily through fantasy, you cross out adults looking back on their teen experiences, you cross out most of YA lets be real.
Then maybe instead we say “no depictions of minors in sexual situations WITH ADULTS” for one, a good deal of CS abusers are teens themselves, but whatever, let’s pretend that doesn’t exist, you’ve just really effectively silenced survivors (teens and adults) from looking at their experiences through text.
Okay okay, let’s say “no depictions of minors in sexual situations with adults EXCEPT FOR SURVIVORS” kay now in order to not be harassed, a survivor has to tell a stranger who wants to harass them (or worse lbr) that they are indeed a survivor. AND you’ve just made a scenario where you are HAPPY and RELIEVED to hear that someone was sexually assaulted. I cannot begin to describe to you the level of gross that is.
I could go on and on, but you see how your “bad fiction is bad” it “glorifies”–like what do those words mean? What are you REALLY doing? There’s a reason that the ALA exists and why you aren’t going to tear them down with your paltry arguments. Please sit down and study some Library Science before you try to bible thump fandom into perfection.
*deep breath*
Okay… @saltherpgnerd, as a survivor myself? Who was groomed using various pieces of media? Shut up.
Fuck this noise. Fuck all of it. You. Don’t. Get. To. Choose. What. Changes. The. World. Your personal opinion on whether something is good or bad means NOTHING about whether or not it has a place in the world.
I was groomed using media that, today, I would definitely consider skeevy (which I’m not naming because I’m not having that argument today). I would absolutely not give it to a kid to watch or read these days, but I also would NEVER demand it be banned. 1. Because there are about a billion harmless pieces of media that could fall under the same umbrella that would end up gone as well. 2. The stuff itself wasn’t the issue, it was my abusers. The shows didn’t abuse me, they did. And 3. I HAVE SEEN WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TRY BANNING THINGS. It’s guaranteed to get out of hand.
I do not care what some evil asshole thinks about a piece of media or that they can pervert it to their purposes. The very idea that the entire world has to suffer the loss of information because of a group of sick fucks offends me more than any piece of problematic media ever could.
Banning and destroying things that “glorify” gross things will ALWAYS be subjective and thus will always lead to vital things being thrown away and hidden. This is just how it works and as long as people are people, it’s how it will always be. We’ve seen it over and over again and it has never once ended up actually doing anything good for anyone. Abusers still abuse, they just find other methods. Like was said above, works that teach people how to identify and avoid abuse will also get defined as glorifying that shit and will end up banned. I may hate some shows with everything in me, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to let them disappear forever, if only so that people don’t come up with the same idea later and call it new and then we have to do this all over again.
You know how I finally realized I was abused and started to heal? Seeing my own abuse depicted in fiction. In a story that many, many people would consider glorifying abuse. I might be in a much different place if I hadn’t had access to it. I may have never found my way out of that place if I hadn’t had a chance to rewatch the shit from when I was younger after having my realization.
Media teaches us about what we are and aren’t willing to tolerate in our lives. It exposes us to new ideas and gives us a safe space to evaluate them. It let’s people explore the best and worst parts of themselves without making it anyone else’s problem. Even the very worst media out there serves a purpose.
You don’t protect someone by never letting them know what can hurt them. You teach them to protect themselves by exposing them to what exists in a controlled environment so they’re prepared. If no one tells me that arsenic is poisonous that doesn’t mean that it can never harm me. It just means that I might end up in a situation where I consume it just because I don’t recognize it.
And you know what? If nothing else? Gross media gives us an easy way to identify gross people. If a male has an unironic love of Fight Club on a surface level, I stay the fuck away. A guy tells me he relates to Rick Sanchez? I run all the way away. Problematic media drawing in shitty people is a feature, not a bug.
I’ll never say, “it’s just fiction,” becaise I feel all media should be consumed critically. But it shouldn’t be destroyed or banned. That way lies thought control and authoritarianism every time.
Hey buddy!! Fun fact: you don’t speak for all survivors. I’ve spoken to god damn TONS of survivors, including personal friends, who share my thoughts. Fuck off, stop trying to guilt trip me into being a fuckin weirdass proshipper.
Your experiences don’t change the experiences of others. I can personally say that due to my own trauma people making abuse look cute and good hurts me. It sickens me. I physically can’t stand it. Don’t you DARE fucking invalidate me. Fuck off.
It’s almost like it’s a very complex situation and we can’t bandaid solution anything. Survivors are on both sides and no side at all. That’s the point. That things are complex and there’s no easy answer, but the fiction has its place and very rarely is the hurt the fault of the fiction, but the culture surrounding the fiction and the silence surrounding the abuse in said culture.
The point is talking about it helps survivors, silence helps abusers.
Also, why does this salt person think that they speak anymore for all survivors than the person they replied to.
If you want to shut down anti-censorship arguments because, “other survivors disagree with you though!!!” then you’ve shut your own argument down as well.
It’s perfectly valid to be triggered by depictions of abuse and trauma in media. You don’t have to like watching it, and you have no obligation to engage with it if you don’t want to. What’s important is that you recognize that for many survivors, depictions like that can help them process their trauma in a controlled environment.
Along with being validated in the media they consume, survivors can also write about characters going through trauma, and getting the comfort and recognition that yes, what they went through was horrible– that they can’t/don’t get from people in real life.
Writing therapy isn’t just limited to journaling, it can be projecting your trauma onto OCs, writing poetry about it, headcanoning it happening to your favorite character, along with many other things.
All of these are therapist approved ways of dealing with trauma. It’s extremely accessible, because you don’t necessarily have to have a therapist to do it.
What’s triggering for you may be cathartic for another. These things are subjective. Don’t keep people from creating/seeking out the things that help them just because they’re painful to you personally
As someone who was sexually assaulted as a minor by an adult I think these works are important. All of them. They give me an avenue to process the trauma I went through. And I’m not the only one. No one should be allowed to take that away from us just because it makes them uncomfortable. If you don’t like it don’t look but, for me personally it is a coping mechanism and it’d be really shitty of you to say I’m not allowed to cope anymore because it makes you uncomfortable. Fuck off.
anti-censorship, fandom, discourse, just in case
Lots and lots of people all over the world are deathly allergic to peanut butter. Peanut butter has genuinely hurt and even killed people before. Does that mean peanuts should be illegal?
Censorship is never the solution.
