After witnessing a debate on another blog, I personally believe the entire âproâ vs âantiâ divide is a result of an imbalance of the perceived limits of consent, intent, and what counts as action.
So many âantisâ and unfortunate victims argue like they have the ability to consent or revoke consent for somebody else. Yourself, objects you own, and concepts that you own all fall under your jurisdiction of consent. I think everybody should be given ample opportunity to consent to what content they see through everybody using proper warnings and tags, but beyond that- nobodyâs rights end where yours begin. The overlap needs to be better managed to allow more adequate opportunity to consent on either side but beyond that thereâs nothing that will/can be done, especially on such a small scale as an anonymous blog. Why debate: observe and react accordingly to what you see.
Intention behind what is created is also incredibly important, though it seems âantisâ always assume the worst out of some sort of precaution. Art created with the intent to break consent or depict something connected to somebody else without consent shouldnât be protected by âproâ labeled people. If I draw my two OCs that are related fucking and somebodyâs assault experience happened to look similar, their response to interacting with it is not on me. If I knew thatâs what that personâs assault looked like and I made that explicitly, or even secondarily, to disturb that person the intent is completely different and I shouldnât deserve to live amongst humanity.
Same thing with perceived caricatures- did I draw this person as a monkey because theyâre black? Or did I do it because Iâm an uneducated idiot who really likes monkeys? If I was drawing only black people, yeah fuck me. If I was drawing a showâs entire cast as super monkey ball characters for fun then⊠well Iâd say itâs probably not supposed to imply anything beyond âI like super monkey ball and am unaware of racial stereotypes in artâ. Insensitive vs deliberately and intentionally harmful.
Then, of course. Thereâs the classic âif you draw, act, imagine, or depict an act itâs just as bad as doing it to somebodyâ which is heavily debated. In most cases besides what I covered already this is a victimless crime- if nobody is breaking consent or intentionally harming somebody there is likely no victim. I attended a philosophy professor I hadâs lecture about his novel on video game ethics. He debated about the morality of the inclusion of pedophilia in video games and how it was harmful⊠not to some imagined minor but to the playerâs own psyche. I personally didnât agree with his conclusion but found the clarity of how he explained his reasoning in a professional writing intriguing. This aspect, Iâd say, has a much wider allowance for nuanced discussion in a professional field- the similarity of reality to fiction with VR and realistic graphics is growing day by day. THAT I care to see an ethical debate about, not drawing different porn.
Anyways I just needed to let this out. Thanks and sorry.
