lokeanrampant (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lokeanrampant) wrote2019-04-13 10:55 pm
lokeanrampant) wrote2019-04-13 10:55 pm
Entry tags:
Truth in Fiction...and Society's Role
I was informed of some hatred in another site and decided to pull this out on its own. Humanity is constantly barraged by media. It informs and molds us. It shows us things we like and dislike. Society creates the cultural norms. And morality? Well, that is a combination of how society trained you and who you are as a person. But we have a choice to make about what type of things we want to see in that media.
The key to this topic is this: CONSENT.
If the issue involves active consent between parties doing whatever it is, legally, then if you don’t like it - don’t read it, don’t watch it, don’t listen to it, don’t consume it. But if there is consent? What business is it of ours? We don’t have to spend our time, our emotions, our money on it. It’s not made for us. And that’s okay.
If the issue involves NO consent between parties, then there is a problem. Because without consent, it is abuse, it is taking without permission, it is doing something/anything without permission. And that is wrong. This also allows us to see things that ARE openly abusive and see that there is no consent between parties and yes, we may step in and say this is wrong. We may have the opportunity to help someone unable to help themselves.
This is why some of us in varying fandoms keep responding negatively to oppression, subjugation, abuse, torture, and more, even in fictional media, because IT HAS AN IMPACT. It shows, clearly, that there is no consent between parties. It is even more true when it is in a media where the reader has the active ability to decide the outcome - say, choices in a video game - and these participants are no longer on the sidelines, but can side with those seeking to oppress or those seeking freedom from oppression.
But we also read, we watch, we listen. We can decide what we want in that media. There is a great deal of personal responsibility there, however. If you don’t like it, don’t consume it. Don’t go into something you hate just to stir controversy if it harms none. If you hate what a movie, book, or song is about, don’t consume it. The greatest ability you have to change a medium is not to buy into that medium.
It can be tricky. If it is something you like or love, but it is showing something or doing something which is considered globally wrong, that? Causes issues. In my case, I adore the Dragon Age Universe - games, books, art, lore, the works. However, the plight of mages and several races? It’s full-on religious and militaristic oppression, subjugation, abuse, torture, murder, and more. Because it is a game with choices, we can choose to oppose that regime of hated or support it.
Obviously, I oppose it because it goes against basic human rights. I don’t care that it’s in a video game… That doesn’t make it less wrong. And because I oppose it, openly, I get shit thrown my way, and some of my favorite characters are assassinated in more ways than one. But lack of consent is lack of consent. And this media and many others shows very clearly what that lack of consent can be, what types of outcomes it can have.
I realized this may seem to negate dubcon and similar genre. Talking about the effects of dubcon, talking about impact of rape and rape survival, survivors of any abuse - GOOD, therapeutic, relating your stories to others, not feeling alone, healing. Those things as plot devices start to wander into grey territories, but they can be kinks and I won’t kink-shame. Again, if you read/consume it, you are consenting to do so. So if you go in and read something you don’t like, KNOWING full well it was something you don’t like, STFU, cause you implicitly GAVE CONSENT. If it wasn’t tagged, stop reading it. If dubcon is a personal kink in your personal life and you want to RP that with CONSENTING parties with a safe-word? Go own your merry kinks and go for it. But even then, there is consent, there is trust.
But it is more than that. To hand-wave away a topic because it displeases you is wrong. It is the WORST form of willful ignorance. I dislike rape on every aspect of the idea, but to say we should never discuss it at all in any medium places it firmly behind closed doors and creates this hushed society around it. That is how things become hidden. We CANNOT hide topics away from the populace because they are uncomfortable. That is exactly how darkness spreads. That is how people become shunned and hurt and disregarded because their LIVES become shunned and disregarded, their truths become hidden because the pain of those truths made someone feel uncomfortable.
GOOD. You should feel uncomfortable by some things. Denying those things exist is childish. It's closing your eyes to the dark and screaming out that if you can't see the bad things, they can't see you. To understand something, to make it better, you MUST see it, you MUST talk about it. Closing your eyes to some of these topics, these topics that address what lack of consent at its most basic form does to others, creates that closed-door mentality and zealotry on both sides of the spectrum. It creates division. It creates hatred. If we had closed our eyes, we would never have learned how to treat illness, disease, mental afflictions, almost anything - because those things were terrifying and different and someone in society said they were bad. But others decided there was more to the mystery and they LEARNED. I have studied multiple accounts of mass murder, serial killings, and man's overriding need to be inhuman to fellow man, and though I have yet to account for this mindset beyond being the worst aspect of humanity that has persisted through the ages, it doesn't mean we shouldn't study it to see what makes this work in some people, what makes it abhorrent to others. It tells a tale of how society and how our psyche works.
You cannot hide away from what society IS. You cannot close your eyes and wish it away. You have to know it, you have to understand it. If someone wants to delve into a genre that fascinates them for whatever reason - maybe it's just curiosity on how it works, maybe it's a kink, maybe it's doctorate-level research, who knows - to bully them into not doing so, when they plainly stated they were doing so and if you weren't okay with this, not to read this, then that just makes you an ignorant bully, one of the mobs of old, pointing fingers and screaming at those people you didn't understand because they made you feel something you didn't like, and rather than addressing it like an adult capable of understanding complex subjects, you chose to cast them out, demonize them, and ostracize them. That's not on them. That's on you.
If we had closed our eyes to things that made us feel uncomfortable, we would never have moved into the enlightened age, the technological age, and we certainly wouldn't be discussing it on a global multi-media platform that transmits data in mere instants.
The key to this topic is this: CONSENT.
If the issue involves active consent between parties doing whatever it is, legally, then if you don’t like it - don’t read it, don’t watch it, don’t listen to it, don’t consume it. But if there is consent? What business is it of ours? We don’t have to spend our time, our emotions, our money on it. It’s not made for us. And that’s okay.
If the issue involves NO consent between parties, then there is a problem. Because without consent, it is abuse, it is taking without permission, it is doing something/anything without permission. And that is wrong. This also allows us to see things that ARE openly abusive and see that there is no consent between parties and yes, we may step in and say this is wrong. We may have the opportunity to help someone unable to help themselves.
This is why some of us in varying fandoms keep responding negatively to oppression, subjugation, abuse, torture, and more, even in fictional media, because IT HAS AN IMPACT. It shows, clearly, that there is no consent between parties. It is even more true when it is in a media where the reader has the active ability to decide the outcome - say, choices in a video game - and these participants are no longer on the sidelines, but can side with those seeking to oppress or those seeking freedom from oppression.
But we also read, we watch, we listen. We can decide what we want in that media. There is a great deal of personal responsibility there, however. If you don’t like it, don’t consume it. Don’t go into something you hate just to stir controversy if it harms none. If you hate what a movie, book, or song is about, don’t consume it. The greatest ability you have to change a medium is not to buy into that medium.
It can be tricky. If it is something you like or love, but it is showing something or doing something which is considered globally wrong, that? Causes issues. In my case, I adore the Dragon Age Universe - games, books, art, lore, the works. However, the plight of mages and several races? It’s full-on religious and militaristic oppression, subjugation, abuse, torture, murder, and more. Because it is a game with choices, we can choose to oppose that regime of hated or support it.
Obviously, I oppose it because it goes against basic human rights. I don’t care that it’s in a video game… That doesn’t make it less wrong. And because I oppose it, openly, I get shit thrown my way, and some of my favorite characters are assassinated in more ways than one. But lack of consent is lack of consent. And this media and many others shows very clearly what that lack of consent can be, what types of outcomes it can have.
I realized this may seem to negate dubcon and similar genre. Talking about the effects of dubcon, talking about impact of rape and rape survival, survivors of any abuse - GOOD, therapeutic, relating your stories to others, not feeling alone, healing. Those things as plot devices start to wander into grey territories, but they can be kinks and I won’t kink-shame. Again, if you read/consume it, you are consenting to do so. So if you go in and read something you don’t like, KNOWING full well it was something you don’t like, STFU, cause you implicitly GAVE CONSENT. If it wasn’t tagged, stop reading it. If dubcon is a personal kink in your personal life and you want to RP that with CONSENTING parties with a safe-word? Go own your merry kinks and go for it. But even then, there is consent, there is trust.
But it is more than that. To hand-wave away a topic because it displeases you is wrong. It is the WORST form of willful ignorance. I dislike rape on every aspect of the idea, but to say we should never discuss it at all in any medium places it firmly behind closed doors and creates this hushed society around it. That is how things become hidden. We CANNOT hide topics away from the populace because they are uncomfortable. That is exactly how darkness spreads. That is how people become shunned and hurt and disregarded because their LIVES become shunned and disregarded, their truths become hidden because the pain of those truths made someone feel uncomfortable.
GOOD. You should feel uncomfortable by some things. Denying those things exist is childish. It's closing your eyes to the dark and screaming out that if you can't see the bad things, they can't see you. To understand something, to make it better, you MUST see it, you MUST talk about it. Closing your eyes to some of these topics, these topics that address what lack of consent at its most basic form does to others, creates that closed-door mentality and zealotry on both sides of the spectrum. It creates division. It creates hatred. If we had closed our eyes, we would never have learned how to treat illness, disease, mental afflictions, almost anything - because those things were terrifying and different and someone in society said they were bad. But others decided there was more to the mystery and they LEARNED. I have studied multiple accounts of mass murder, serial killings, and man's overriding need to be inhuman to fellow man, and though I have yet to account for this mindset beyond being the worst aspect of humanity that has persisted through the ages, it doesn't mean we shouldn't study it to see what makes this work in some people, what makes it abhorrent to others. It tells a tale of how society and how our psyche works.
You cannot hide away from what society IS. You cannot close your eyes and wish it away. You have to know it, you have to understand it. If someone wants to delve into a genre that fascinates them for whatever reason - maybe it's just curiosity on how it works, maybe it's a kink, maybe it's doctorate-level research, who knows - to bully them into not doing so, when they plainly stated they were doing so and if you weren't okay with this, not to read this, then that just makes you an ignorant bully, one of the mobs of old, pointing fingers and screaming at those people you didn't understand because they made you feel something you didn't like, and rather than addressing it like an adult capable of understanding complex subjects, you chose to cast them out, demonize them, and ostracize them. That's not on them. That's on you.
If we had closed our eyes to things that made us feel uncomfortable, we would never have moved into the enlightened age, the technological age, and we certainly wouldn't be discussing it on a global multi-media platform that transmits data in mere instants.