This survey aims to collect anonymous data on how people of different demographics on tumblr define and think about consent as a concept.
Hi! I made a survey to collect data on how people on tumblr define and view ‘consent’ as a concept. If you are comfortable with the subject matter (please read description on the survey), I would appreciate if you could take a few minutes to fill it out.
This is primarily for my own interest and is fully anonymous. If you encounter any unclear questions or errors please alert me. Thank you.
Do you think you gonna make more surveys? It's fun to answer them!
I have a few ideas, yes. Quite honestly I tend to be less academically/research-minded in the summer, so I will probably wait until the semester starts back up to create something new (which won’t be super long, but I can’t guarantee anything).
I am interested in doing more research into online-centric behavior and communities as it relates to ethics, but I am a little concerned that the audience I’ve built up is mostly interested in the radqueer stuff, which would limit me in my sample size. Idk! I’ll probably just try to tag more for reach in the future, and keep it in mind when interpreting results. Either way, it’ll probably be interesting.
HI! I just took your survey for transracial and stuff (even though i’m a year late LOL)
I thought the questions were genuinely interesting. I can see why you empathize with transharmed/transharmful and such. Imho, a ton of antis are actually closed minded or don’t really take time to UNDERSTAND it throughly. Do you think that people in the future will support transIDs? (give or take a thousand couple years)
(take a shot every time I say genuinely)
Thank you for the ask! That’s a tough question. I’m tempted to say no, because I personally don’t think the language or community built up around radqueer identities seems solid enough to withstand time. That doesn’t mean that some evolution of the ideas behind transIDs will not continue to exist, though. I think it would greatly depend on the way society’s understanding and treatment of race, disability, and other axises of oppression progress.
Some less polarizing forms of transID (like aesthetic ones, I believe) could definitely gain support from more online communities—but I would be inclined to say they might be seen as a bit obsolete in the future, as changing and modifying one’s appearance becomes more acceptable in the mainstream.
I would guess that some transID stuff would also get absorbed into already existing therian and otherkin communities, which in turn would also probably change and evolve with time.
Not to mention that the radqueer community doesn’t have a great reputation online, so I can see a lot of people breaking off from it and finding community elsewhere with somewhat similar philosophies.
TDLR: The radqueer community as a whole and the language it’s produced I think will not stick around, but the ideas popular in it probably will in some capacity. I personally can’t see people becoming largely accepting of transIDs as a whole, since society is still grappling with what a lot of social identifiers and axises of oppression mean (and based on the political state of the world, will likely continue to do so for a while). In the less distant future, I could see less controversial transIDs being accepted in online spaces more—specifically among young and alternative people.
I liked your radqueer survey! I said as much in the free response sections but I appreciate your willingness to confront some *actual* social taboos that so-called queer mavericks find too icky to discuss. which isn't to say that I agree with all or even most of it, but that you really got me to think
Thank you! In general, I very much understand why people would not want to confront such topics; paraphilia and gay/queer attraction are two very different things and it makes sense that people would not want to conflate them. However, when talking about the psychology/sociology around sexual attraction, I find that ignoring some of the more taboo realities of the variety of human proclivities doesn’t make a lot of sense.
There are many things that I don’t agree with ethically that I still think are deserving of being comprehended with nuance.
If it's all about the name, why do people support cnc then? This argument fails when people remember cnc exists.
Good point! /gen; I would agree that CNC is about as contradictory a term. Though, I’d argue that while ‘consensual abuse’ and ‘consensual non-consent’ mean similar things, one of which *does* end up sounding more unpalatable due to the straight-up use of the word abuse—just thinking about how other ppl might make snap judgements.
Also, I never said it was *only* about the name. BDSM has the advantage of having an established history and community. Therefore, when you say ‘noncon’ in the context of BDSM, people will often presume you are following the ‘safe sane consensual’ model. The word conabuse, and the community around it, is very new in comparison. It exists mainly in online space, is not very big, and thus there are no established norms yet. There is more room to doubt peoples’ intentions and safety, especially considering the younger demographic of the online radqueer community, as opposed to those who partake in BDSM lifestyles.
Ultimately, to the lack of established safety methods and the demographics of those who want to be victimized is my main concern here. Conabuse certainly seems like it could be a helpful concept for some, but I do worry that the separation of it from BDSM means that typical kink-like practices like safewords, aftercare, separation of scene from reality won’t be adhered to.
Certainly, I can’t say anything about anyones’ individual relationships. I’m sure there are couples that do this safely and to the benefit of all parties. I’m just worried about the people I’ve seen want to be on the receiving end of such abuse who do not *want* safe measures in place—in that case, I’m stuck between wanting to respect peoples’ autonomy, and the concern that some people just will continue to be a danger to themselves. In that case, are those people able to consent to ‘abuse’? Extreme dynamics like these must be approached from a cautious place, in my opinion.
While I see your point about "aestheticizing" autism and have seen people do so, the desire to transition to or become autistic is an entirely separate phenomena that sometimes happens to overlap. I would encourage you to try and separate the two concepts, and that might help you understand more about them ? (Sorry if this tonally comes off as weird, this is /gen and meant to be helpful but I'm cis-autistic and words are HARD)
Your tone is totally fine here! /gen. I agree that a lot of the time they seem to be separate. I think my issue in that case would be looking at *why* some people find the idea of autism desirable. I understand the atypical dysphoria more than other reasons, and would be interesting in getting more perspectives about that.
It’s helped to not assume the worst of people. Even if I may not agree with the way people go about labeling themselves, I can acknowledge that they aren’t intentionally trying to disrespect the experiences of autistics—even if it (can) feel that way sometimes.
Part of it is also just the level of privilege involved, for me. I have only ever seen autism desired when it’s traits that do not radically alter the trajectory of someone’s life—‘level 1’ or ‘level 2’ autism, low or medium support needs, etc. In some ways, it can feed into the false narrative that autism is more of a personality marker than developmental difference (when, if it *was* simple the collection of more quirky or ‘desirable’ symptoms, it wouldn’t qualify as a disorder in the first place).
But, yeah. I understand your point and I generally don’t have anything personally against people who identify as transautistic. Depending on *why* they identify that way, though, it may rub me the wrong way as someone who is disabled by their autism (I wouldn’t change it, but, i am *still* disabled).
Also, I think people questioning whether they are transautistic should first look into whether they might be autistic in the first place. I’m firmly pro self-diagnosis and think that there shouldn’t be stigma around using what resources you need no matter your level of professional diagnostics. I was late diagnosed (teens), and for a while related a lot with the autistic community even though I believed I wasn’t “allowed” to call myself autistic, since nobody clocked me when I was much younger.
The reality is that lower support needs autism specifically can be masked and hidden from even yourself. If you find yourself relating heavily to autistics, there might be something there. And even if there isn’t! That’s okay! You do not need to be autistic to enjoy community, or to do stereotypically ‘autistic’ things, or to use coping mechanisms typically meant for autistic people.
While I see your point about "aestheticizing" autism and have seen people do so, the desire to transition to or become autistic is an entirely separate phenomena that sometimes happens to overlap. I would encourage you to try and separate the two concepts, and that might help you understand more about them ? (Sorry if this tonally comes off as weird, this is /gen and meant to be helpful but I'm cis-autistic and words are HARD)
Your tone is totally fine here! /gen. I agree that a lot of the time they seem to be separate. I think my issue in that case would be looking at *why* some people find the idea of autism desirable. I understand the atypical dysphoria more than other reasons, and would be interesting in getting more perspectives about that.
It’s helped to not assume the worst of people. Even if I may not agree with the way people go about labeling themselves, I can acknowledge that they aren’t intentionally trying to disrespect the experiences of autistics—even if it (can) feel that way sometimes.
Part of it is also just the level of privilege involved, for me. I have only ever seen autism desired when it’s traits that do not radically alter the trajectory of someone’s life—‘level 1’ or ‘level 2’ autism, low or medium support needs, etc. In some ways, it can feed into the false narrative that autism is more of a personality marker than developmental difference (when, if it *was* simple the collection of more quirky or ‘desirable’ symptoms, it wouldn’t qualify as a disorder in the first place).
But, yeah. I understand your point and I generally don’t have anything personally against people who identify as transautistic. Depending on *why* they identify that way, though, it may rub me the wrong way as someone who is disabled by their autism (I wouldn’t change it, but, i am *still* disabled).
Also, uh, based on written responses: I feel like the general opinion about conabuse is really influenced by the name of it. As several people pointed out in the survey, you can’t really have ‘consensual abuse’ in the sense that the word implies. With the term abuse, there’s the implication of manipulation, pressuring, controlling… it’s hard to put consent in front of that concept because you’re playing with a situation that fundamentally changes the way decisions are made and autonomy is respected. Perhaps people do experience consensual controlling behavior and violence from a partner, but it’d only fit what most people consider consensual if there was negotiation, check-ins, safe-words, space for the play to fall away. If it was that, it wouldn’t be abuse—yeah?
I think most of the discourse falls to either the attempt to recreate bdsm relationships in a way that makes people significantly more skeptical of whether its consensual; or the more social issue of ‘is it within a person’s right to choose to be treated badly?’ ‘at what point is it ethical to stop self-destruction if it is chosen and wanted?’ when it comes to more extreme examples of ‘conabuse’
As long as I’m yapping, I also found the range in peoples’ definitions of consent pretty interesting. I think the biggest discrepancies were between whether consent can be communicated through behavior alone; whether consent can be fully pre-negotiated or if the parties involved need the ability to be able to back out at any time; and (relatedly) whether people can consent to violent or controlling behavior in a way that is fully safe and respects the autonomy of all people involved
There seems to be a real overlap in identification with transharmed and certain transabled identities. For both, there’s a common narrative of ‘I wish I was worse so people would take my issues more seriously’. This especially lines up when thinking about how many transabled people identify with conditions that typically stem from trauma or abuse (ex. DID, personality disorders, even some of the ‘perma’ self harm or bruising stuff). These individuals have obviously experienced trauma in some sense of the word, but like many feel that they either will not get or do not deserve help unless they are visibly struggling.
Stop reading here if you don’t want my personal opinions as someone who is critical of but empathetic to the rq community lol, but it makes me feel a lot less shitty about people wanting my mental disorders/disabilities when I also consider the reasoning behind it. As an autistic person I get pretty angry when I think about people trying to ‘transition’ into that label without proper understanding of what it means/just wanting the aesthetic… like, you can admire some autistic ppl’s ability to unmask and emulate their behaviors and that’s all well and good but to take on the label itself has always just seemed very ignorant to me. But, keeping in mind the trends I’ve noticed in the survey responses +more, it seems like a lot of ‘transautistic’s are just people with some autistic traits that either are not comfortable fully self diagnosing or maybe would not diagnostically qualify as autistic but because of other experiences feel kinship with the struggles many autistic ppl have and the more recent rise of community around autistic activism. I may not like the vocabulary these people are using to express themselves, but I can’t act as if they are completely unreasonable or not worthy of experiencing community in a way that works for them.
Feel free to send me asks abt this and other stuff btw. I enjoy conversation and exploration; just keep things civil.
This is going to be pretty long. I may in the future take sections from this (+ maybe elaborate) and make them their own posts. Disclaimer that any viewpoints discussed below are not necessarily my own and that I am trying to approach this from a place of pure curiosity and am not including my own moral stances. Thank you everyone for taking the survey. We’ll get started under the read more!
Alright, so immediately we’re working with a large radqueer majority audience, so keep that in mind! There is some diversity overall, but this did end up being a very pro-radqueer heavy population. Fairly normal age distribution compared to the rest of tumblr, I’d say, though I would take note of the majority 13-18 population and significant under 16 population.
Big piece of data here!! Interestingly enough, about 76% of responders identified as plural or part of a system. Based on written responses, it appears like a lot of people cite their plurality as a reason for having certain transIDs. I got a few responders who stated they were answering as multiple alters and therefore there answers may be contradictory. There seem to be a minority of endogenic systems, with most people either answering ‘traumagenic’ or that they’re unsure/nuanced about system origin.
—TransIDs: Racial, Age, Abled—
I believe the visual charts for these look a bit busy, so I will summarize the main points I got here:
Out of being transabled, transage, and transracial—being transage is the most common according to responders. Most transage folks identify as being younger, but age sliding/experiencing several ages depending seems to also be common. Compared to the other types of transIDs listed, more people seemed to identify as transage due to trauma (others seemed more related to atypical dysphoria + wanting the label for fun).
For transabled people, identifying with both physical and mental disabilities is most common. Besides that, mental is more common than physical. More people reported being transabled ‘for fun’ compared to the others (though again, atypical dysphoria was majority reported). From what I’ve seen, identifying with life-long disorders (developmental, intellectual, chronic, etc) is more common than identifying with temporary conditions.
The majority of transracial people reported being bodily white, though not by a wide margin. Based on general tumblr demographics, I’d say there’s not really compelling data there to say whether bodily white people are more likely to identify as transrace within radqueer spaces than others; though, as one might expect, it seems that bodily race/ethnicity can have an influence in the different nuances as to *why* someone might identify as a different race/ethnicity.
I don’t have anything in particular to add to this graph, I just wanted to include it here. It’s surprisingly pretty evenly split.
—TransIDs: Harmed/Harmful—
Responses to these were actually really fascinating and helpful. I could write a whole other post on it, honestly.
I’ll do my best to summarize here.
The majority of people who identify as transharmed/harmful fit both labels. You can see this in the chart. Besides that, transharmed seems more common than harmful.
Based on written responses, it is very clear to me that identification with these labels tends to stem from trauma. Though some also claimed they take them on for fun or for sexual reasons, many *many* people specifically talked about wishing their trauma was worse. Over and over again I saw sentences like, “I feel like my trauma wasn’t valid”, “I feel like it should’ve been more severe”, “people would believe me if I was more traumatized”, “I wish people would take my issues more seriously”.
This is a very common mindset among people struggling with trauma and/or mental illness. Many responders reported having these feelings about past experiences with grooming and childhood abuse. Feeling like something bad should’ve happened to you when you were younger is also often a sign of CSA or other traumatic memories that one might’ve blocked out; in other situations, it may also come from a lack of support for already existing issues.
In some cases, seemingly more commonly in those who identified with the transharmful label, people might seek out this transID to cope with or mitigate guilt from intrusive thoughts. It can be an outlet for anger, some reporting that they find a type of relief in fantasizing about hurting the people who hurt them, or hurting people in the same way they were once hurt. For many, transharmed/harmful was also related to plurality—specifically the existence of fictives/introjects and their own memories of their source material.
Though some expressed distaste for the way the general radqueer community seems to have conflated transharmful/harmed labels for kink and the want to seek out conabusive relationships, there were several people who said that they identified with these terms for specifically erotic reasons.
There was also a common theme of gratefulness for a space to express commonly taboo desire in a way that minimizes potential for harm. Especially for people who were once abused, being able to experience these things in a controlled environment was important; the desire to return to abusers themselves is considered common, so the want to recreate some aspects staying away from actual abusive situations was noted as incredibly helpful.
As some did point out in the survey, the similarities between conabuse and (sexual or nonsexual) BDSM are very apparent. Consent was consistently reiterated as necessary to many of these people, though a few also expressed concern with the way conabusive relationships have played out specifically in online spaces.
The majority of responders were positive or nuanced towards the concept of conabusive relationships. The question of minors engaging in such relationships seemed like it really depended on the individual situation for many. Maturity especially was a big factor.
—Contact Stances for ‘Big Three’ + Incest—
(TW for… all the stuff that’s involved in discussing that)
Just to preface, the reason I including the ‘regardless of consent’ answer was mostly for the section on beastiality, necrophilia and pedophilia—online, I have rarely seen the opinion that engaging sexually with beings that do not understand or relate to our societal concepts of sex (or are… corpses) cannot be harmed by it. I am also aware that some people simply don’t care about committing harm. I included it here for consistency.
Consensual incest was definitely one of the more accepted ‘taboo’ acts in this survey, with a majority of ~59%. Although, it’s important to note that for many people the pre-existing relationship of those involved would make a difference in their opinion.
Necrophilia was overall the most supported (adding up both the red and blue sections of the pie chart there). In written responses, I also saw people claiming that conditions such as relationship to the deceased and likelihood of contracting illnesses would also be relevant to their opinions. Interestingly, there seemed to be a higher percentage of anti-contact here than for incest; some who chose such an option mostly highlighted the issue of dead bodies not being able to revoke consent during the act, and therefore not having the ability to be fully consenting at all.
Zoophilia was not supported by the majority (71%). ~25% of responders believed consensual contact with animals was possible; out of those who did, the belief that animals can consent if they initiate contact was most popular (followed by perceived enjoyment and intelligence level). Interestingly, I got several responses from people who labelled themselves as either pro or anti contact zoophilia who claimed that they believed sexual contact with animals *could* hypothetically be done ethically, but that the vast majority of people do not have the knowledge of animal behavior and biology to do so.
Pedophilia/Hebephilia was considerably more divisive. Comparing the pie chart here with the data below, I believe it would be accurate to say that we have a majority (~59%) of people who believe youth cannot consent to adult advances, and others whose opinions seem to be more situationally-defined. Keep in mind that not everyone who answered the first part answered the second.
According to written responses, those that were pro or nuanced on the issue tended to prioritize maturity level and sexual education for minors. Some people claimed that kids of almost any age should be able to express consent to (a few specified: non-penetrative) sex in a society that better educated children on their bodies and relationships. There seemed to be a group of people who agreed that, philosophically, children have the capacity to say yes or no to sex in the same way they would for anything else—most of these people, though, agreed that this would not work in our society due to the prevalence of CSA and lack of protections for children.
I found it interesting that more people identified as anti-contact for zoophilia than pedo/hebephilia. I saw two or three responses that claimed it was mostly an empathy issue (more for animals, less for children); but a more common outlook seemed to be that—while some minors have the ability to communicate what they want and understand the culture we have around sex—animals cannot meaningfully consent within the framework of our society.
As we can see here, the majority (62%) of people would feel comfortable interacting with people who had one or more of the ‘big three’ paraphilias, but have not engaged in them. For many people (~35%) there is the additional caveat of being anti-contact.
For those who *have* engaged in any of those paraphilias, comfortability interacting falls significantly. There’s still a majority of people willing to interact (adding the yellow and red sections together), but most of the people in that category (~41%) would only be comfortable if they considered the other persons’ contact consensual. ~43% of people would not feel comfortable interacting at all.
I don’t have a ton to say on this chart, but I thought I’d include it here.
—CENSORSHIP—
I have less to say in this section, but I find it notable that (admittedly, by a small margin) people found the ethics of AI child pornography featuring real children’s faces (but not bodies) more disagreeable than fully real images of children. Also notably, ~27% of responders believe children can consent to keeping sexually explicit images/videos of themselves available. Based on written responses, I believe some or most of this percentage comes from people wanting it to be acceptable for youth to keep/potentially distribute nudes of themselves without fear of legal repercussion.
Here we have a majorities for not banning sexually explicit writing or animation portraying children. As I expected, writing has a little more support than visual depiction.
—CONCLUSION, NOTES—
Again, I want to thank everyone who participated. The survey will continue to stay open if you haven’t taken it and want to add your own perspective.
I still have some questions, particularly regarding the diversity in definitions of consent I saw, as well as some of the more… ‘cosmetic’ (?) based TransIDs that I’d be interested in understanding the thought behind.
I feel like I have a much better understanding of some of the psychology behind a lot of this, at least. I won’t go into any ultimatums here, because I believe they might be influenced by my own ethics, but I’ll just say that much of this community is very understandable if you take an empathetic approach. It’s interesting that an online culture so focused on being able to identify as ‘other’ in a very individualistic way seems to have also brought many people into community that they were seeking. There’s quite an emphasis on the shared solidarity between different “deviancies” (as societally-defined), and for better or for worse this has led to the public broadcast of the many diversities of opinion these people have on some of the most taboo subjects one can think of.
This is going to be pretty long. I may in the future take sections from this (+ maybe elaborate) and make them their own posts. Disclaimer that any viewpoints discussed below are not necessarily my own and that I am trying to approach this from a place of pure curiosity and am not including my own moral stances. Thank you everyone for taking the survey. We’ll get started under the read more!
Alright, so immediately we’re working with a large radqueer majority audience, so keep that in mind! There is some diversity overall, but this did end up being a very pro-radqueer heavy population. Fairly normal age distribution compared to the rest of tumblr, I’d say, though I would take note of the majority 13-18 population and significant under 16 population.
Big piece of data here!! Interestingly enough, about 76% of responders identified as plural or part of a system. Based on written responses, it appears like a lot of people cite their plurality as a reason for having certain transIDs. I got a few responders who stated they were answering as multiple alters and therefore there answers may be contradictory. There seem to be a minority of endogenic systems, with most people either answering ‘traumagenic’ or that they’re unsure/nuanced about system origin.
—TransIDs: Racial, Age, Abled—
I believe the visual charts for these look a bit busy, so I will summarize the main points I got here:
Out of being transabled, transage, and transracial—being transage is the most common according to responders. Most transage folks identify as being younger, but age sliding/experiencing several ages depending seems to also be common. Compared to the other types of transIDs listed, more people seemed to identify as transage due to trauma (others seemed more related to atypical dysphoria + wanting the label for fun).
For transabled people, identifying with both physical and mental disabilities is most common. Besides that, mental is more common than physical. More people reported being transabled ‘for fun’ compared to the others (though again, atypical dysphoria was majority reported). From what I’ve seen, identifying with life-long disorders (developmental, intellectual, chronic, etc) is more common than identifying with temporary conditions.
The majority of transracial people reported being bodily white, though not by a wide margin. Based on general tumblr demographics, I’d say there’s not really compelling data there to say whether bodily white people are more likely to identify as transrace within radqueer spaces than others; though, as one might expect, it seems that bodily race/ethnicity can have an influence in the different nuances as to *why* someone might identify as a different race/ethnicity.
I don’t have anything in particular to add to this graph, I just wanted to include it here. It’s surprisingly pretty evenly split.
—TransIDs: Harmed/Harmful—
Responses to these were actually really fascinating and helpful. I could write a whole other post on it, honestly.
I’ll do my best to summarize here.
The majority of people who identify as transharmed/harmful fit both labels. You can see this in the chart. Besides that, transharmed seems more common than harmful.
Based on written responses, it is very clear to me that identification with these labels tends to stem from trauma. Though some also claimed they take them on for fun or for sexual reasons, many *many* people specifically talked about wishing their trauma was worse. Over and over again I saw sentences like, “I feel like my trauma wasn’t valid”, “I feel like it should’ve been more severe”, “people would believe me if I was more traumatized”, “I wish people would take my issues more seriously”.
This is a very common mindset among people struggling with trauma and/or mental illness. Many responders reported having these feelings about past experiences with grooming and childhood abuse. Feeling like something bad should’ve happened to you when you were younger is also often a sign of CSA or other traumatic memories that one might’ve blocked out; in other situations, it may also come from a lack of support for already existing issues.
In some cases, seemingly more commonly in those who identified with the transharmful label, people might seek out this transID to cope with or mitigate guilt from intrusive thoughts. It can be an outlet for anger, some reporting that they find a type of relief in fantasizing about hurting the people who hurt them, or hurting people in the same way they were once hurt. For many, transharmed/harmful was also related to plurality—specifically the existence of fictives/introjects and their own memories of their source material.
Though some expressed distaste for the way the general radqueer community seems to have conflated transharmful/harmed labels for kink and the want to seek out conabusive relationships, there were several people who said that they identified with these terms for specifically erotic reasons.
There was also a common theme of gratefulness for a space to express commonly taboo desire in a way that minimizes potential for harm. Especially for people who were once abused, being able to experience these things in a controlled environment was important; the desire to return to abusers themselves is considered common, so the want to recreate some aspects staying away from actual abusive situations was noted as incredibly helpful.
As some did point out in the survey, the similarities between conabuse and (sexual or nonsexual) BDSM are very apparent. Consent was consistently reiterated as necessary to many of these people, though a few also expressed concern with the way conabusive relationships have played out specifically in online spaces.
The majority of responders were positive or nuanced towards the concept of conabusive relationships. The question of minors engaging in such relationships seemed like it really depended on the individual situation for many. Maturity especially was a big factor.
—Contact Stances for ‘Big Three’ + Incest—
(TW for… all the stuff that’s involved in discussing that)
Just to preface, the reason I including the ‘regardless of consent’ answer was mostly for the section on beastiality, necrophilia and pedophilia—online, I have rarely seen the opinion that engaging sexually with beings that do not understand or relate to our societal concepts of sex (or are… corpses) cannot be harmed by it. I am also aware that some people simply don’t care about committing harm. I included it here for consistency.
Consensual incest was definitely one of the more accepted ‘taboo’ acts in this survey, with a majority of ~59%. Although, it’s important to note that for many people the pre-existing relationship of those involved would make a difference in their opinion.
Necrophilia was overall the most supported (adding up both the red and blue sections of the pie chart there). In written responses, I also saw people claiming that conditions such as relationship to the deceased and likelihood of contracting illnesses would also be relevant to their opinions. Interestingly, there seemed to be a higher percentage of anti-contact here than for incest; some who chose such an option mostly highlighted the issue of dead bodies not being able to revoke consent during the act, and therefore not having the ability to be fully consenting at all.
Zoophilia was not supported by the majority (71%). ~25% of responders believed consensual contact with animals was possible; out of those who did, the belief that animals can consent if they initiate contact was most popular (followed by perceived enjoyment and intelligence level). Interestingly, I got several responses from people who labelled themselves as either pro or anti contact zoophilia who claimed that they believed sexual contact with animals *could* hypothetically be done ethically, but that the vast majority of people do not have the knowledge of animal behavior and biology to do so.
Pedophilia/Hebephilia was considerably more divisive. Comparing the pie chart here with the data below, I believe it would be accurate to say that we have a majority (~59%) of people who believe youth cannot consent to adult advances, and others whose opinions seem to be more situationally-defined. Keep in mind that not everyone who answered the first part answered the second.
According to written responses, those that were pro or nuanced on the issue tended to prioritize maturity level and sexual education for minors. Some people claimed that kids of almost any age should be able to express consent to (a few specified: non-penetrative) sex in a society that better educated children on their bodies and relationships. There seemed to be a group of people who agreed that, philosophically, children have the capacity to say yes or no to sex in the same way they would for anything else—most of these people, though, agreed that this would not work in our society due to the prevalence of CSA and lack of protections for children.
I found it interesting that more people identified as anti-contact for zoophilia than pedo/hebephilia. I saw two or three responses that claimed it was mostly an empathy issue (more for animals, less for children); but a more common outlook seemed to be that—while some minors have the ability to communicate what they want and understand the culture we have around sex—animals cannot meaningfully consent within the framework of our society.
As we can see here, the majority (62%) of people would feel comfortable interacting with people who had one or more of the ‘big three’ paraphilias, but have not engaged in them. For many people (~35%) there is the additional caveat of being anti-contact.
For those who *have* engaged in any of those paraphilias, comfortability interacting falls significantly. There’s still a majority of people willing to interact (adding the yellow and red sections together), but most of the people in that category (~41%) would only be comfortable if they considered the other persons’ contact consensual. ~43% of people would not feel comfortable interacting at all.
I don’t have a ton to say on this chart, but I thought I’d include it here.
—CENSORSHIP—
I have less to say in this section, but I find it notable that (admittedly, by a small margin) people found the ethics of AI child pornography featuring real children’s faces (but not bodies) more disagreeable than fully real images of children. Also notably, ~27% of responders believe children can consent to keeping sexually explicit images/videos of themselves available. Based on written responses, I believe some or most of this percentage comes from people wanting it to be acceptable for youth to keep/potentially distribute nudes of themselves without fear of legal repercussion.
Here we have a majorities for not banning sexually explicit writing or animation portraying children. As I expected, writing has a little more support than visual depiction.
—CONCLUSION, NOTES—
Again, I want to thank everyone who participated. The survey will continue to stay open if you haven’t taken it and want to add your own perspective.
I still have some questions, particularly regarding the diversity in definitions of consent I saw, as well as some of the more… ‘cosmetic’ (?) based TransIDs that I’d be interested in understanding the thought behind.
I feel like I have a much better understanding of some of the psychology behind a lot of this, at least. I won’t go into any ultimatums here, because I believe they might be influenced by my own ethics, but I’ll just say that much of this community is very understandable if you take an empathetic approach. It’s interesting that an online culture so focused on being able to identify as ‘other’ in a very individualistic way seems to have also brought many people into community that they were seeking. There’s quite an emphasis on the shared solidarity between different “deviancies” (as societally-defined), and for better or for worse this has led to the public broadcast of the many diversities of opinion these people have on some of the most taboo subjects one can think of.
For people asking about results, i will be posting those at some point - I’m just a little busy rn with school work, and I think the information is better conveyed in a short report-format rather than just sharing the raw data (since some of it is affected by me edited questions due to feedback).
Um. Hi! I’m a fan of gathering information on social phenomenons. Radqueer stuff is interesting to me (I am not apart of the community) so, if you’re a current radqueer, or an ex-radqueer or post-radqueer or anti-radqueer! Take my survey! Literally anyone take it.
I’ve tried to design it as neutrally as possible, but if I use any incorrect terms you can let me know! There will be questions about radqueer discourse, contact stances, transIDs, and general personal political/social opinions. It’s long-ish, but I’d super appreciate people giving it a look and tagging others if you want!
This is for current radqueers, ex-radqueers, post-radqueers, or anti-radqueers! Literally anyone can take this. I am sociologically interest
I appreciate feedback I’ve gotten, and have incorporated most of it. I do have a clarification to make, though.
The reason I ask for certain bodily information (age, potentially race) is not because I’m trying to imply transIDs are not real or important to you. In any survey, I believe it’s important to know your demographic, and even if you may not identify with your chrono age, it still affects the way other people view you, your years of lived and remembered life experience, and your biological development. All of these are of interest to me. Knowing whether or not someone is chronologically a minor is also relevant given several questions on this survey revolve around minors and their ability to consent—I want to see if there’s any bias in that area.
Anything I collect in this survey is not being used to discredit your identity or opinions, I just want to have the relevant information. Thank you everyone for your participation thus far.
Um. Hi! I’m a fan of gathering information on social phenomenons. Radqueer stuff is interesting to me (I am not apart of the community) so, if you’re a current radqueer, or an ex-radqueer or post-radqueer or anti-radqueer! Take my survey! Literally anyone take it.
I’ve tried to design it as neutrally as possible, but if I use any incorrect terms you can let me know! There will be questions about radqueer discourse, contact stances, transIDs, and general personal political/social opinions. It’s long-ish, but I’d super appreciate people giving it a look and tagging others if you want!
This is for current radqueers, ex-radqueers, post-radqueers, or anti-radqueers! Literally anyone can take this. I am sociologically interest
