one time, in high school, my best friend whom I was secretly in love with went on a walk with me late at night. and while we were walking, she took out a knife, and she showed it to me. and then she revealed that she has thoughts of hurting people, of wanting to kill them, of thinking that she might want to kill me. well. truth be told I was very scared after this. how could i not? she never did any action against me, not physically. physically she never touched me. but she had betrayed my trust in a fundamental way that made my very body afraid, and hurt, and fearful. she betrayed my trust in a way that made my brain unsure, confused, baffled, fearful. i never again was able to trust her not to harm me or other people around me. she wasn't saying any of this in an attempt to purge the information out of her and work on destroying these thought patterns. there was, implicit, this idea that these are her thoughts, and these thoughts will stay, that these thoughts are the potential for a warning, and I would simply be stupid if I didn't listen to the words that were coming out of her mouth. i was terrified, and it took me a long time to ever share a bed with someone after that, afraid that at any moment, someone so profoundly close to me might tarnish my trust and threaten my safety. there is no such thing as thought crimes. but there is such a thing as justifying your unsafe thoughts that have the potential to harm at the detriment and loss of safety in the people around you. there is no ontologically produced harm. but there is harm taken in consciousness where you prioritize your own comfort of thoughts over the safety of others.
'there is no thought crime' extends to what you horrifically and intrusively think and mull on, but do not act on. an act is not just a violation of another person's body. it can be as simple as the words you express, how you express it, how you turn those thoughts in a choice of either preserving safety or throwing it away. and when you justify the harm of your words as mere 'thoughts', you present a false reality where your interactions with other people do not count as actions. i don't know. personally im in the habit of listening to people when they tell me they're unsafe.
