Politics

left

[pokeballvictimized]

i'm still mad about that article. i think there's genuinely something that needs to be said about trans women who end up in the role of a caretaker. Who ends up in that situation, what it does to them, and how it impacts their self-worth and what happens when she burns out. But this article is just angry and bitter and about ragging on disabled girls. The partner is just smiling and happy and everything is better and has no bad patterns now that the awful evil girl is out of her life. it's so unhelpful.

[pokeballvictimized]

what happens to the girl who is valued for her ability to give when she no longer can? What happens when she's used up? She doesn't just transition into the disabled puppygirl because she's "a worker." And like we need to talk about how care is structured and how this girl is trained out of asking for help and has been paying into a fund that is never going to benefit her! But if your take is "just let the disabled girl die" then you are at absolute best completely unhelpful and much more likely to be actively harmful to everyone involved

[rabbitkinglune777]

ppl will parade around disability rights for disabled folks but treat individuals who actually need help and care, patience, and might not contribute much (which is not a moral failing) as an absolute emotional and physical burden and honestly it's just full blown ableism that's hidden under therapy speech and performativity.

[rabbitkinglune777]

from my own experiences as a disabled individual both mentally (mild intellectual disability) and probably physical, it's hard for me to do certain things, I need help. I can't work a job so I mostly draw pictures and get tipped for it. I feel like a burden for it because my mother would treat me that way while trying to be "encouraging" Abt my disabilities.

the world is already cruel towards us so it's even harder dealing with ppl who understand disability but refuse to extend any patience or kindness.

[rabbitkinglune777]

anyway it's ok if ur disabled and don't contribute to capitalism. you are not a burden for needing extra help you matter and deserve the absolutely best.

[reluctantlybouncingonit]

My favourite aspect of the current topic. Lambasting girls for apologising too much and labeling it as a manipulation tactic is fucking wild. I’ve met so so so many girls who overapologise easier than breathing. Almost like that’s a state a lot of trans women get forced into. Never once has this been the way they wanted to live, this has been how they survive, the only way they can fulfil needs or how they were taught to function.

And even well meaning friends often can’t do more than say “hey don’t apologise”. But every time I meet a person like this, I teach them like two tricks about how to be aware of their own emotions and that day I see effort, every time.

I don’t think any disabled girls aren’t trying. I think they’re all trying their best. And making up a girl who is all flaws won’t change that. The world around these girls benefits from them having no tools to explain or understand themselves, and the idea that they will never reach for help when you try to give it sickens me.

[reluctantlybouncingonit]

The number of times I’ve met a girl so beaten down that she’ll apologise for being alive at all, and taught her about the way “sorry” and “thank you” can be interchanged. I’ve seen the saddest eyes ever start to smile again, fuck you.

This is just one specific complaint among many, but that wasn’t an article. It was a story with characters. Characters who don’t exist because people don’t work like that. It makes me sick.

[bundleofstx]

I’m sure the reaction to this one will be fun.

Dump your puppygirl

Weaponized incompetence wears a collar

[yay-bunnies-zone]

hold up im gonna enter a relationship with an emotionally unstable transfem and not set any boundaries at all. probably everything is going to be okay and if its not its cus shes basically a man. and shes the embodiment of capitalism.

[yay-bunnies-zone]

i dont know if the intended reading is "are women bourgeoisie?" or "emotionally immature tgirls are the lebensunwertes" but either way its really fucked up

[yay-bunnies-zone]

you had the entire story to look like a defensible person. what you look like is someone who allowed a girl to become growingly reliant on you, never confronted her about how this was hurting you, then vanished and took her entire support system with you. we don't get the perspective from the puppygirl who has no apartment to stay in, no money, emotional problems, and no steady work. you decided to become her means of getting by, of your own volition, with every chance to prevent it, and then tore it all down from under her.

the puppygirl was being toxic. she was becoming too complicit in the relationship. but you were complicit to her reliance on you, and held her responsible for what you never said was hurting you. you have to tell her, even if she cries about it.

[uhuh100]

>open up with visceral description of how this girl is clearly struggling emotionally, leading to her failure to contribute to the relationship, while she expresses directly to you that she depends entirely on you to help her >immediately compare her to men who are entirely content in their lives directly controlling what they do and do not contribute to their relationships

this is already incredibly fucked up and transphobic. I don't even need to read any further. the very first thing you have done is compare a struggling trans girl with smug cis men. I will read on anyways.

the traumatized girl who's afraid of taking up space apologises a lot. you do not like this. you think it is annoying and counter to the point of apologising. have you ever told her this? helped her learn that she doesn't need to apologise for everything? or are you just comparing this trauma response many girls need help to unlearn to the previously described men?

>clearly traumatized girl is diagnosed with anxiety >"obviously she's using this as an excuse to not do things!"

hi again op! that's ableist. I shouldn't need to say this, but anxiety can be genuinely debilitating. of course it can, it's a disability. that she's been diagnosed with. have you ever considered helping her get things done through the anxiety, instead of comforting her and taking care of it yourself or dismissing it outright as an excuse? (I doubt it.)

this, while still harsh, I can at least understand the perspective of. one who does not carry much burden of their own can indeed be burdening to others. but did you ever talk to her about this? did you talk with anyone else in the polycule about this? did you realise that these issues are ones that can be improved with effort, and often with help? did you think to provide that help, when she made it so clear she depends on you? or are you just complaining that she's not pulling her weight again, like those men you brought up earlier? (it reads much like the latter.)

do I even need to say anything about this one? no? I will anyway.

you're. allowed to say no to sex you don't want. there's a whole thing about that. it's called "consent", it applies to a lot of things outside of sex too. you should try looking it up some time. oh, but she might have felt bad if you denied her, right? (gee, I wonder why a girl in that kind of mental state would feel bad if the one person in the world she relied on rejected her.) even then, there are other options. you can still say no, and deal with the consequences. and if the entire polycule would somehow reject you for enforcing your own consent, that speaks to larger problems than making someone cry.

this is once again blatant transphobia and comparing this girl to the deadbeat men you described at the beginning. you're literally describing her here as someone who pretends to be a woman to dodge a woman's responsibility. I shouldn't need to go into more detail about how fucked that viewpoint is about a traumatized, struggling trans girl who's specifically looking up to you for guidance.

have you tried making the conversation not the spiral? or perhaps guiding her out the other side of said spiral and showing her it's still okay? yes, that's difficult, but so is having sex you don't want, and out of these two options the sex clearly isn't leading to long-term emotional growth or healing. it really seems like op either doesn't know or doesn't care that caring for someone doesn't mean catering to their every request, or about how to handle someone in a slump like this (in which case, why the hell did you start a romance with this obviously traumatized girl in the first place?)

the horribly traumatized anxiety-ridden transgender woman has memory issues. shocker! you don't provide any solutions. no lists, no calendars, no reminders, not even fucking sticky notes or phone alarms. you remember everything for her. then you complain about this as if she forced it on you. tip: this is also ableism.

are you seriously comparing breaking up with an emotionally unstable girl to fucking communism??? even if your description of her is accurate, in which case I would say she probably needed more stable friendships rather than any sort of romance (and you can turn down romance from girls like this, I've done it twice over), this is still such a wild comparison to me.

I don't have a proper conclusion to this. it just sounds like you entered a relationship with a girl too emotionally immature for one and then blamed her for entering the relationship, then you saw fit to rip into every flaw she has as if it were intentional and malicious, in the process being exceedingly transphobic and notably ableist.

I'm not saying this girl could do no harm ever. even if we take her presentation in this story fully at your word, however (which I'm not inclined to do), you clearly play a part in just how bad she becomes. it was your choice to continue coddling her for as long as you could stand and then some, instead of helping her actually confront the world as it is.

all that, then you just drop her like a burning stone. then on top of that, you compare this girl to obnoxious men, and dismiss her disabilities as nothing but excuses. and just to top it all off, let's not forget this, possibly the most important part:

YOU WROTE THIS ENTIRE STORY UP AND POSTED IT PUBLICLY.

yes, you posted it on your own little blogging corner of the internet, but that is in fact still public, and can get carried quite far. far enough to reach me, and farther still.

this is just... exceedingly cruel. it's cruel of you. I don't have any better word to describe it. you posted this whole goddamn thing for the world to see. think or say what you will of anyone, within your own private life and circles, but you've shared this cruelty in a public space. you feel enough disgust, or hatred, or whatever else, for this one particular trans woman, that you felt the need to all but outright call her a man on the public internet where everyone can see. it being a "vent post" no longer matters - you did not need to take this step. you did not need to shout this to the rooftops. you decided to be cruel.

[goo-goo-babies]

to any of my followers who aren't on the pervert transbian side of tumblr: please, if you do anything, kill the protestant puritan inside of you. you need to accept that people will have kinks you do not like and that your disgust is not moral righteousness.

you must accept that people will have kinks that disgust you and you must come to this same understanding.

most of all, you must come to the understanding that the attraction a person experiences is not proof of some "original sin" that lies inside of them and makes them an irredeemable human. not only because accusations like this have been used as thinly-veiled excuses to lynch brown people/queer people/name a minority group here since literal antiquity, but because you as a leftist should not look at someone who likes lolisho or r*pe kink and suddenly decide that certain people DO NOT deserve human rights

and if you get nothing out of this, at least internalize that fiction is not reality

[donnerpartyofone]

It's hard to say this without sounding like a right wing dickhead, but the thing about progressive spaces is that they may naturally attract people who are always on the lookout for excuses to start a fight. Like you can find yourself faced with someone whose political outrage is totally justified, and whose humanitarian ideals are right on the money, but simultaneously they are carrying a ton of psychological baggage about being wronged and getting revenge, and they will exploit literally any opportunity to live out this psychodrama with anyone in their line of vision. I have thought of several related anecdotes since I started typing this post, but I'll limit myself to the thing that inspired it, which is that I just visited this ultra-lefty cafe/bike shop/community gathering space where I've heard that the proprietor is constantly in a fight with everyone around her. When I paid for my stuff I noticed that there was no tip option, but I thought I had heard something about this, so I snuck away to look at the website and it made me really glad I didn't ask! I think there should have been a really enticing and exciting way for her to say "I've decided to be the change I want to see in the world, so I'm paying my baristas a full living wage, I'm making sure EVERYONE feels welcome and comfortable here, and I'm selling products I believe in!" -- but instead all the web copy sounded more like "You're either with me or against me, you're a fucking piece of shit asshole if you can't handle the inclusive atmosphere here, and by the way tipping is for fascist cavemen and if you ever try to tip someone you are refusing to relate to them authentically and you are enforcing a dangerous and evil power dynamic that should be purged from human society (so therefore I pay my staff well)." Like everything she stood for was totally agreeable, but why did she have to put it like it was directed at her worst enemy, rather than at the kinds of people she wants to attract? If the word on the street is to be believed, the reason for this posturing is that she spends quite a lot of energy making as many enemies as possible, and she probably likes it that way. I guess I'm just reminding myself, and perhaps others, that while one might think of "politics" as being broadly social and theoretical, no individual can fully separate the political from the intimately personal. Even somebody who seems to want to uplift and protect their fellow humans may be getting some perverse inner satisfaction out of that valiant crusade, and you may never realize it until you find yourself in a confusing fight with them.

[author-by-night]

I ran a LARP for a few years explicitly aimed at being queer friendly and accessible, and eventually cut it short mainly for this exact reason. You wouldn’t believe the amount of abuse my staff and I took for reasons that felt genuinely insane. I got called ableist for telling someone they couldn’t be invincible in my game of make believe, more than once. Defended myself, multiple Jewish players, and a conversion student from accusations of antisemitism based on alleged lore we’d never written / suggested / that simply and plainly did not exist in game. Had a staffer try to talk to someone about how a joke she made was uncomfortable only for this person to retaliate in epic proportions full white woman crocodile tears style, trying to get this staffer removed and eventually escalating into a full public hate campaign when she didn’t get her way. All that’s still just the tip of the iceberg.

Progressive spaces are naturally populated by traumatized people, and unfortunately trauma makes people more difficult. (I’m not excluded in that. No one is.) Running a progressive space is doubly difficult because a lot of left-facing trauma was inflicted by authority, so you’re setting yourself up to be the windmill that someone tilts their displaced rage at. I don’t really know what the solution is, but I do know that this is one of the huge reasons it’s so hard to find community: the people with a bone to pick can’t reach the ones who actually hurt them, but they’ll sure find you along the way, and the safer they feel around you the safer they’ll feel coming after you.

[ariaste]

Once again I am begging everyone to read Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss.

Voss spent 25 years as a hostage negotiator, meaning that his job was to talk to guys on the phone who had literal guns to innocent people's heads. He KNOWS how to compassionately de-escalate a conflict and have productive, constructive conversations with people who are highly activated and reactive.

Especially if you are neurodivergent, read this book. The communication tools are specific, concrete, easy to implement, and will dramatically reduce the psychic damage you're taking just from trying to navigate the conversation.

[elodieunderglass]

My mother was like this! Traumatised by childhood, and convinced that everyone was withholding justice from her, she spent her whole leftist life tilting at windmills, and fell into conspiracy thinking (“it’s not paranoia if they’re all out to get you.”) she will beef with anyone, rapidly making and losing friendships based on their perceived inability to appreciate quite how much Justice she needs. They’re either with her or against her, and even the faintest detectable eye-glazing during a trauma-dump, or an attempt to talk about themselves, is evidence that they’re not sufficiently dedicated to condemning her abusers. She’s really quite tiresome! She was genuinely abused! She has antibodies against the kind of support that would help!

she eventually became quite right-wing through conspiracy theory indoctrination, and while she doesn’t recognise this at all and still identifies as progressive, parrots the most toxic conservative talking points. I believe she’s super TERF-y at the moment for some reason. We don’t talk. A lonely way to live, but at some point the pattern has repeated to much that it must truly be the preferred way to live.

[tlirsgender]

Some of you think of Cops as kind of a symbolic figure representing "telling you what to do" & you're Posting things like "acab includes fandom discourse" and I thuink the 80% white website needs to remember the reason why we hate cops is because they kill people

[tlirsgender]

We hate cops because they're a weapon for enforcing the state's interests through violence. Like, they kill & imprison people. The antis don't have a Quite Literal boot on your neck please god log off or talk to a Black person or something

[tlirsgender]

To be SO fair like really generous there is something to be said for unlearning the habit of figuratively "policing" other people especially in the context of, like, not being a fucking snitch, "kill the cop in your head" etc etc, but can we not completely lose the plot re: what cops Are

[severeannoyance]

Hey uh… POC here, I’ve had people use doxxing me and my partner to CALL THE LITERAL COPS ON US BECAUSE OF A SHIP WAR. It’s still the white fucking supremacy, man. This shit takes place in that context, and those systems overlap and intersect, with the result that “fandom drama” can have devastating, potentially deadly, splashover into everyday life that hits marginalized people hardest.

Just because it’s fandom doesn’t mean it’s harmless.

[severeannoyance]

You know what, I'm not over the stunning ignorance and privilege on display here. Are we conveniently forgetting how often antis cry pedophilia, how we actually had to make PSAs about NOT calling the FBI with accusations of CSAM on fics they didn't like? And now, when the US government has gone off its nut trying to accuse the queer community of abusing children, those accusations become a hell of a lot more dangerous, because they ACTIVELY play into the genocidal narrative this administration is trying to set up to LITERALLY KILL US.

Maybe they're not actual cops, but they're happy enough to call the actual cops in, with all the harms that entails.

[severeannoyance]

Actually, I'm not fucking done.

Weaponizing state violence against people who annoy you, disproportionately minoritized groups, is by definition cop behavior, and antis do exactly fucking that.

And if your response is "well those are only the extremes" maybe you should take one second to reflect on whose talking point re: cops that reaction is. Antis push a pro-censorship, authoritarian agenda, and are willing to target people with state violence in order to get what they want. At a moment when a fascist regime is in power in the US, this behavior has never been more dangerous to queer, POC, and disability communities. State violence is a constant risk, especially as the FBI explicitly targets our communities for our online activities and disseminating information. "Fancop" etc is not watering down the description of cop, it's fucking accurate.

Antis may not be literal badge toting fascist goons, but they're damn happy doing their work for them.

[smute]

i think the most upsetting thing about american-flavor puritanism is how fucking patronizing it is. it's 2026 but the whole world still has to deal with a cultural hegemony grown from the gnarled vestiges of victorian-era paternalism. tax-paying adults with passports and the right to vote are treated like wayward children because of the antiquated idea that authorities must protect the weak minds of the unwashed masses from depravity and corruption. the average american can send a fellow citizen to the chair, but they can't piss in a ditch without being declared an outlaw. american entertainment media is saturated with sex, but you can't talk about it online without getting your account suspended. it's such blatant censorship at a universal scale, but because sexual content is framed as inherently dangerous, this restriction on basic adult autonomy, this blanket denial of moral and intellectual adulthood, can be reframed as protection, an expression of care, a moral duty. "won't someone think of the children!" I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN!

[smute]

thank god that the video game that features slow motion animations of graphic gunshot wounds and is rated 18+ has a profanity filter in single player offline mode. thank you for protecting this 33 year old mind from the corrupting influence that is a horse named apple slut

[nyancrimew]

u should read this

OPINION: stop studying cybersecurity because of me

im trying to get u into activism, not college

[nyancrimew]

and then also this

[nyancrimew]

and then head out into the world

[penroseparticle]

Fascinating watching this website contort around the idea of reaching out to and converting far right leaning individuals as if the same 3-4 stances aren't having a do-si-do while all being able to coexist

[penroseparticle]

It's like

Outreach to radicalized individuals needs to happen, because without it their numbers just grow

But also

Outreach is time consuming and difficult, not guaranteed to work, and put you or people around you in danger by putting you on a radicalized persons radar

But also

We know that compassionate, prolonged outreach is remarkably effective. We also know emotional appeals are astronomically more likely to change someone's mind than factual ones when it comes to core beliefs

But also

most deradicalization works when someone who is close to the individual puts in the work to shift their perspective.

But also

You do not need to do this yourself/no one is obligated to do this thing that is difficult and dangerous and there is a ton of organizing work and also outreach work in our own political circle that needs doing and you should utilize your resources how you see fit

But also

You do not need to be nice to or coddle people who have done material harm

But also

Outright hostility only serves to reinforce the us vs. them mentality and makes it harder to deprogram people

But also

focusing on trying to win over radicalized individuals can't come at the expense of work to help victims/our community/those marginalized/etc.

But also

People who are deradicalized need a community to reintegrate to or what's the point.

But also

You don't have to welcome someone who's done harm into your community.

But also

Sometimes your desire to not allow someone who has reformed reintegrate into a community has less to do with harm reduction and more to do with punishing them for previous wrongdoing

But also

You never owe forgiveness to anyone who has harmed you.

But also

Outreach to radicalized individuals needs to happen, because without it their numbers just grow.

Just ad infinitum. Just a never ending ouroboros of "You're an idiot for how you engage with this famously thorny issue".

Just pick one of the bullet points above and work at it, and if someone else wants to work at one of the other ones, we're all trying to make things better. Maybe be less snarky and self righteous.

[allshipsareok]

[zykamiliah-temporal]

i think we should bring this back (with some amendments ofc) if we ever needed an "internet etiquette" for the younger generations, now is the moment to remind them. purity culture kills fandom

as well as the three laws of fandom:

Don't Like, Don't Read (DL;DR), Your Kink is not My Kink And That's OK (YKINMKATO) and Ship and Let Ship

[sorcererofsolitude]

📣 Purity culture kills fandom! 📣

[atlinmerrick]

NO ONE LIVING hasn't been squicked out by something. There's over 7 billion of us, my delights and disgusts aren't universal. So I move on. Don't like the ship? Move on. Don't like____? Move on.

I am not an exception. Neither are you. I don't like it I move on and shut my gob about it because everyone everywhere is squicked out by something and they need to put the thing down and just…motor.

[rewordthis]

This but also:

Frames this entire post and hangs it over the fireplace.

[pocket-deer-belly]

Like, put two and two together. The justice system and law enforcement exist to protect private property, they fundamentally serve capitalist interests. Copyright (and any IP laws by extension) are legal systems that turn creative ideas into private property. Who in the goddamn do you think copyright as a system is meant to serve

[pocket-deer-belly]

i think to understand my position you have to understand that i fundamentally disagree with this statement and statements like it:

[wis-arts-evil-corner-deactivate]

Y'all be like "be a freaky queer" and then have a problem with polyamory, premarital Sex and being attracted to gnc Trans people 😭

[wis-arts-evil-corner-deactivate]

Oh really the freaky queers are into weird shit? Really theyre into piss kink and roleplaying as siblings? Really they like to suck on a binky? Are you gonna make a post about how disgusted you are now? Are you gonna spend actual years obsessing over every move this real person is doing as to find the pedophilia particles? But youre not transphobic right? You aren't using social disgust at fetishes to drive a hate and harassment campaign and try to ruin a problematic queer's life for no reason? You'd never do that right? You'd never use american puritan culture rooted in white supremacy and fascism? You'd never...

[olderthannetfic]

May I ask who is Winterfox? /gen

--

A psychopath.

She's a blogger who decided to break into English-language SFF publishing and set about destroying her competition, starting with other WOC and other queer women (her own two claims to minority status). She presented herself as an ethnic minority, which is technically true as far as it goes. She's ethnically Thai-Chinese rather than purely Thai... She's also an heiress of a hotel empire. Her most impressive close relative is worth over a billion. The rest are merely millionaires. She does have US citizenship, but this is a person raised in Thailand who has primarily lived in Thailand and then Hong Kong. I leave it to readers to decide how much of an oppressed minority that makes her.

No one knew just how wealthy she was when this all started, but they did know she was a Thai woman living in Thailand, not diaspora in the West. They also should have been able to see she was a bully. Should.

That whole Worldcon-y SFF crowd is so dumb at all things race-related that this toxic parasite was able to manipulate them for years. Not everyone, but more than enough. Even now, many people still think the callouts were racists cruelly going after an innocent minority.

Before all that, she used to be a book blogger who hated everything and ripped books apart in her reviews. She managed to tank 50bookspoc, which was a com for the self evident reading challenge.

Her pro writing name is Benjanun Sriduangkaew. Her writing... well... you're not missing out.

She was and is a cancerous tumor on the side of SFF fandom who gets away with it because credulous fools can't tell the difference between a disadvantaged minority and a Thai kajillionaire or between genuine critique of racist media and targeted strikes on professional rivals.

Here's a quote:

"She stalked authors she disliked online, talked about subjecting others to violence (acid attack, beheading and rape, for example), and apparently enticed earnest social justice allies into private correspondences which then gave her blackmail material. Her "performative rage" methods even contributed to one author attempting suicide via overdose."

It's normal to be angry about racism and even to have the occasional scathing book review, but requireshate (yes, really) aka winterfox hated everything. Her style was nothing but hate, and that should have been a red flag for people. At some point, rage becomes either an out of control coping mechanism that has turned into self harm or a deliberate tactic.

Beware when you see one of these people.

But more than that, beware being the patsy they use against their enemies. No bully like this is effective alone. They weaponize all the dumbasses who want to elevate a voice, any voice, to assuage their own guilt and helplessness in the face of societal racism.

Another quote about the destruction of 50bookspoc, also from hesychasm's post:

But I was surprised -- and frankly, very angry -- at how many of the honest, earnest advocates in that particular community bent themselves into all kinds of contortions to give someone like Sriduangkaew legitimacy. At how some of us had to patiently explain that calling an author a "stupid fuck," for example, was kind of messed up and served no social justice purpose whatsoever. And that trumpeting the idea that this was actually a laudable action was also messed up...because why? Honestly, why? The prize at the end of all of this is supposed to be equality, and that kind of bullshit not only takes our eyes off the prize, it has us staring daggers at each other.

Here's her Fanlore.

And again, her first targets were other people she perceived as the competition: genuinely disadvantaged WOC and/or queer women. That is nearly always how this type of bully operates. We see them in every fake-authentic fuckface in our part of fandom too. It's a distinctive pattern once you've encountered one of these.

Don't be the sucker who gives them power.

[sierrapolis]

Got a friend who’s angry to an unhealthy degree about even seeing someone else might like a certain kind of porn (fer/al in this case) because of their experience sliding into paraphilia because of it- besides obviously therapy, I’m hoping for some writing I could forward to help them internalize a better response

[batboyblog]

it's true and you should say it.

[roycohn]

coming out of the tags to say that some of us have been saying this for years and have been called all manner of degenerates, perverts, and pedophiles over it, and we really deserve an apology we will never receive

[wolfmelon]

We DO deserve a fucking apology we'll never get, and not to soapbox, but lemme just throw out another fucking explanation of exactly why this shit keeps happening in the slim chance that it helps at least one person not fall for it: Fascism in ANY form will ALWAYS present itself as reasonable to YOUR sensibilities. It preys on a lot of things, your disgust reaction, your fear reaction, your own shame, your need for a tribe, your need to feel like you're part of something bigger than yourself, your need to protect your resources, your need to boost your own ego, your need to feel better than others, and in my opinion, the worst thing of all that it can prey on is your WANT TO DO GOOD. It turns that Want To Do Good against you, gives you "acceptable targets" and sets you loose, thinking that you're being a fucking super hero. Fascism will ALWAYS feel okay when you're doing it because you understand why you're doing it because you've been told why you should be doing it by someone who's fucked the narrative to make you feel good about hurting other people because they've convinced you that you are protecting people by doing it!! Fascism tells you: "The sort of people who value a sex scene in a movie are perverts, and perverts are dangerous, right? Oh god... What if they're a rapist and that's why they like that sort of stuff? Yeah, that trans girl that made that post about movies needing sex scenes... She pisses in a diaper, that's fucking disgusting right? And she likes weird fiction... And diapers are meant for kids... So... Yeah... Exactly, you got it! See you figured out what she was too! So you should trust your gut with these people, you're really good at spotting them! You know when someone is evil! And you DEFINITELY should not listen to a pervert explain themselves, because... Right, exactly, what's the point? They're just going to lie about it and probably say gross shit to you." Did you catch how that worked? It let YOU make the conclusion. It let YOU answer the questions and start setting shit in stone in your own mind. And the next thing you know, you're using fiction as proof, anything outside of your own comfort levels as evidence, you've become an emotionally reactionary fascist who genuinely believes you are making the world better, and safer, for the people you love, and who love you in return. Fascism doesn't begin with violence, it begins with a kind hand held out in your direction from someone else who believes they're helping. You might not even realize you've fucked up. Ever. That's how it works. That's how it thrives.

[antis-delete-your-blogs-pls-thx]

Oh, wow, holy cow, I had no idea my post made it cross-platform. Just boosting it here because this is a wonderful analysis. Absolutely on point.

[mouthwooedher]

im just sayin

[mouthwooedher]

just to make things clear: this comic is about csa victims who develop kinks or fetishes due to their trauma. csa victims are often expected to be soft and quiet and, most of all, sex-repulsed, and when they have kinks relating to their trauma even so much as just hypersexual theyre expected to hate themselves for it and to try and make that part of them go away. csa victims who embrace their sexual side are often shunned and harassed for doing so in the name of "protecting victims from predators."

i am saying this, because i already had a person say that they thought this comic was "defending child abusers." and by child abusers, they meant people with paraphilias that fall under the big 3. but like...developing a paraphilia like that can also be a trauma response. like i try not to talk about this part of myself because its such a raw and vulnerable part of me, but i am that way. i developed a paraphilia due to my trauma. it was completely out of my control and not something i was willing to develop, it was simply something that happened because id been taught at a young age that intimacy like that is okay and acceptable. i would never dare to abuse someone or make any contact that cannot be consented to, i vent this part of myself out through fiction and kink and the idea of hurting a real person in the way in which i was hurt makes me feel ill.

attraction is not equivalent to action. full stop. stop ostracizing people over thought crimes.