Hey I mean this gently but I wish you (and everyone tbh) would clarify what you mean when you say "anti". Because the problem is it means everything from "people who get mad if you include immoral acts in your story" to "people who think, actually romanticizing pedophilia, racism, and misogyny is bad even if the story itself is fake, because you are expressing those ideas as your own true beliefs." Saying "anti" on it's own is ambiguous because it's different depending on who is talking.
(I’m answering this publicly but if you want me to take it down just let me know and I will!)
So this is going to be heavily focused on the fandom sphere and specifically the drama I’ve seen surrounding Ao3 and their refusal to ban content.
My stance is basically “I do not give a fuck what you write, you’re allowed to do whatever you want with words and I will not stop you, just properly tag it and give warnings so I can filter it out so I don’t gotta see the stuff I do not want to see.”
Obviously the stuff you listed is bad, I don’t support it, but things like that in fiction? with regards to the author’s own views? That need to be handled case-by-case. The issue with taking a stance as an “anti” is that from what I have seen, those people want to flat-out ban content like that, they want to get rid of it all. And that’s not feasible. And the line of what can stay and what can go varies from person to person.
If someone supports pedophilia, or racism, or misogyny, then that’s an issue to take up with that person. Where do we draw the line? Who gets to decide what is romanticizing those things? How do you know if that was the author’s intent or if they were trying to do something else, a poorly executed idea? It’s subjective, it’s impossible to implement one rule to deal with it all without causing collateral damage. And you can’t figure out the author’s beliefs solely on the basis of what they’ve written.
One of the fanfics I am proudest of, Event Horizon, is all about being in a dangerous relationship that makes you stop caring about yourself and makes you self destructive, and in the end, rather than confronting this and dealing with it maturely, a non-consensual memory wipe happens, leaving both characters hurt and hollow. That’s not me attempting to glorify those types of relationships, or the crossing of those boundaries, that’s me showing how messy things can be, but it could be read as support of that stuff by some, because I never have it debunked or anything. I rely on the readers’ ability to critically think, to deduce that “wow, that was fucked up and painful, and not a good relationship in any way, and it shouldn’t have gone like that.”
That’s my best personal example. I think it’s well-executed, and not glorifying, but some others would disagree. Some people don’t want anyone to ship Josh and Neku at all, because (to avoid spoilers for anyone else who reads this post, though really, if you follow me and don’t know twewy I don’t know why lol), the things that happened in the game supposedly make it inherently toxic, and Joshua’s position creates an imbalance of power.
Who gets to decide what can stay and what must go? What topics are allowed? What is the line? What is glorifying bad things, and what is asking readers to critically think? What is a vent fic dealing with trauma someone has gone through, and is that allowed? Are authors not allowed to use fiction to explore dark and otherwise taboo topics in a safe environment where people are not actually being harmed?
Antis of all types, in my experience, want the burden of answering these questions and policing content to fall on Ao3′s team. They want wide, sweeping bans. They hate that the underage and non-con warnings exist at all, or that incestous/pedophillic/abusive ships are allowed to be tagged and have a space on the archive. The thing is, that stuff would exist either way, and the warning system, the tagging system? It lets me filter that shit out. You don’t have to see it if you don’t want to. It’s only ever faulty when people don’t use it as intended. I never have to see Hanekoma/Joshua if I don’t want to, or Reigen/Mob, or Ritsu/Mob. I can sort all that shit out, and I do. People will do what they do, and I won’t stop them as long as they make sure I don’t have to see it.
Authors can be shitty, horrible people, and they can write their own views in, but that’s an issue with the person, not with the rules of what’s allowed and what’s not. If we ban misogynistic works, do we ban people from exploring the misogyny they’ve experienced? If we ban racism, do we ban PoC from exploring those topics in fiction? If we ban incest and pedophilia, do we ban survivors from using fiction as a coping method to deal with their trauma? If we ban ableism or queerphobia from being touched on, am I no longer allowed to write autistic queer characters facing real-life issues, because we wanted to stop someone else from publishing their actual views?
Bigoted people exist, and they will also write this stuff, but we cannot ban their content without hurting the rest. What we can do is think critically, and learn how to avoid what we don’t want to see, and maybe, if you can manage it, you might be able to engage in discussion with people who believe that sorta stuff, and change their minds. But that’s not your task, and you don’t have to read or engage in fiction that carries negative views or does not appeal to you.
There’s a few posts that really express this thing well:
1 - “Is the author dead? Is your baby in the bathwater?” (this is one of the best posts on this topic in my opinion)
2 - It is not the author’s fault if you read their fic that has been appropriately tagged with stuff you know will trigger you
3 - Having a black and white view of morality is not the approach that should be taken here
