Not how much we love it, but how much he hates it.

[druidspell]

So, this is a public entry [which is potentially triggering in regard to rape]. *waves to the public* I haven't made one of these for fun in a while--it's been a fannish "These things I find unacceptable" type of year for public posts. (I promise, my next public post will be a meme or a quiz!)
Unfortunately, this is not going to be a fun post; this is going to be a post addressing things I find unacceptable in fandom right now. (It's motivated by this post by seperis, which she wrote in reaction to this VERY NSFW and POSSIBLY TRIGGERY piece of protest art. (SERIOUSLY UNSAFE FOR WORK, PEOPLE.) alchemia made that photo manip of Ogi Ogas engaged in some rousing tentacle sex as a reaction to SurveyFail.

Bullet Points!
SurveyFail
Let me explain. ... No, is too long. Let me sum up:
*Drs. Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam are writing a book called "Rule 34: What Netporn Teaches Us About the Brain." Despite the book's release date being in 2010, they are apparently just starting their research. In the course of their research, they revealed themselves as homophobic, biphobic, transphobic, misogynist, willfully ignorant, condescending shitheads who are bad scientists with bad methodology, little to no grasp of the ethics of research involving human subjects, and no desire to truly learn from their mistakes and the valuable information and insight fandom was willing to offer them.

Protests!
*In protest of their treatment of the members of our community, some fen have decided to educate these two "researchers" about certain rules of fandom: 1) "Don't Mess With Slashers, for You Are Cute and Look Good With Other Men" (warnings for Real Person Slash) (here, here, and a poem that is not slashy but is lolarious here; and 2) "Fuck Not With Fandom: Fandom Fucks Back, and You Can Forget About the Lube" (the aforementioned protest art that is still NSFW).

My Reaction
Time for an anecdote.
When I was in high school there was a guy in my class who was openly, outrageously, fabulously gay. (I went to Catholic school; this was revolutionary.) We were friendly for the most part, and we had the same group of friends. Around the middle of junior year, he wronged me, in a major and deeply personal way. I felt violated, and I was in a towering fury. And so in revenge, I (and another acquaintance who wasn't involved otherwise) printed out personal ads for men seeking men, wrote salacious messages on them, and taped them to the inside of his locker so that he'd be sure to see them.
I'll give you some time to process that: I'm a lesbian, and a slasher, and I deliberately sought out a way to punish him for hurting me that would attack him where he was already vulnerable as a gay man in a religious school in a way that I myself was vulnerable to attack. I purposefully used a method that society used to hurt both of us with the intention to hurt him, even though it pissed/pisses me the fuck off when anyone else did/does it to me, or to him for that matter.
Does it matter that I was sorry for it after? Does it matter that to the acquaintance I roped into it thought it was a funny joke? Does it matter that I'm still so ashamed of it I sometimes wish I had his phone number so I could call him up and apologize? Does it matter that he never knew it was me?

Membership in fandom gives us a lot of freedom on the internet. It gives us space to talk seriously about our lives, our pain, our joy, our thoughts on all matter of things. It gives us the ability to share our kinks, our squicks, our fantasies, and fandom gives us the ability to do all of those things and write them or draw them or vid them or meta them and share them with other like-minded people. The best of fandom is a way for a lot of us to accept ourselves, our sexuality, our kinks, and see those things as beautiful and good instead of shameful and perverted. And while tentacles aren't really my thing, there is nothing wrong with them, or with writing or drawing or vidding tentacle porn.
For me, what the protest art does is not the best of fandom that lets us share our kinks and fantasies in a way that is about mutual pleasure and happiness. For me, that manip makes me feel squidgy inside, and not in a nice way, in a way that makes me feel like my heart is beneath my feet and my stomach is crawling up my esophagus.
seperis said it best, I think, in reply to a comment to her entry: "I--and this will seem to contradict earlier statements--don't much care if his wee feelings were hurt or he cries into his pillow. Part of me thinks this is hysterical and deliciously deserved, but that part of me gets zero airtime if I can help it because of the medium of sex was used as the weapon of choice. My personal feeling that he can fuck himself slams up against kink is awesome and why are you taking something I get off on and using it like this. It's sharing what we love in a way that has nothing to do with how much we love it, but how much he hates it." (original comment)


ETA 09/04/2009 16:25: I did not at first put up a warning that this was triggery. *headesk* No can brain, have teh dum, plz forgive.




Anyway, as always, it is Defriending Amnesty Day around here all day, every day, including weekends and bank holidays. If what I've said is offensive to you, feel free to defriend me.

Comments

[elf]

This post has been included in a linkspam roundup.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

here via linkspam.

i find the reactions about the various bits of art interesting, because most of it seems to come out very negatively to the visual piece, and less so to the primary badfic (by fridgepunk). while my reaction is exactly opposite.

and my reaction is the way it is because of me perceiving the badfic was written primarily to hurt and humiliate ogas, while the image seems to be true protest art -- to make people THINK. protest art is by definition not comfortable and happy-making, so i wouldn't expect that from it. and frankly, not all fandom is about mutual pleasure and good feelings; there are bits that explore the dark edges, and to me that's a valuable part of fandom, and probably what i've benefitted from the most over the years.

i'm not conflicted about your anecdote -- it wasn't art, it was meant to hurt, and you're right, it was out of line.

i'm a little conflicted about the badfic, but three things make it go over the line: it was posted in ogas's journal, the author wanted to humiliate him, and the author used transphobic imagery that hurts trans people (micropenis) with which to do it.

i started out conflicted about the picture, but i've pretty much come down on finding it acceptable, and in fact, rather a good piece of work. it wasn't posted to his journal, and was in fact flocked before people convinced the artist to unlock it; it wasn't meant to hurt; the imagery is NOT of a rape (lots of people are misrepresenting this), but of consensual, kinky, crossdressing sex. it made me think. i'd hope it'd make ogas think if he saw it, because it nails his sexist, homophobic, transphobic, egotistical attitude to the wall to stare him in the eye and demand he confront himself.

i don't doubt that that might, no, probably IS hurtful. dealing with our own deeply engrained prejudices usually is. but hurting isn't its primary purpose. and that kind of pain is sometimes necessary.

[druidspell.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

As far as the fic: I am not conflicted. It took the things I love about fandom, about RPS fandom, and broke all of the rules in a way that was meant to hurt and humiliate Ogi and Sai. I couldn't even read it, because where the art stepped on my buttons, the fic smashed through them and pushed me so far out the other side of uncomfortable and angry that there was nothing left to be conflicted over.

As for the pic? ... Time passes, and while I still don't agree with some people's interpretations of the art, I've realized that I don't have to agree with them. None of us are interrogating the art from the wrong perspective, after all, and for the people who agree with the pic, and the artist's method of protest, that picture is a valuable statement.


Even though there were several pieces of protest work that I could have posted my thoughts about, I posted about the art because I could see and study it. The fics I couldn't finish reading though, and I feel that my incomplete reading might have led me to blunder in ways that are more offensive than I found the original fics.
But I decided to share what I did to him because, having read part of the fics, and seen the art, what they reminded me of was that feeling of closing the locker door. They made me feel mean inside, and although I'm sure that the authors and artist never intended for that reaction to occur, that's what I felt.

[dharma-slut.livejournal.com]

here via linkspam as well.

My question would be; what is the similarity between that situation and this one, and what are the differences?

I have to assume that the messages you put on your ex-friend's locker door (inside that door) would have caused him great danger if other people had seen them. That there was a potential for immediate, possibly physical effect.

I would look back on that in some shame as well, and for the same reasons.

But this, to me, is the nutshell;

It's sharing what we love in a way that has nothing to do with how much we love it, but how much he hates it."

Me, I think that's perfectly just. He didn't have to be here. He didn't have to focuss on our sexual preferences, and he didn't have to show his general asshattery about what he ALREADY KNEW we love-- that part couldn't possibly have been a surprise to him. he'd been reading kink-bingo, after all.

I'm trying to think of an analogy; If I wandered out onto a soccer field, and started asking the players intrusive questions about soccer, and made it clear that I thought they were really weird to be playing soccer, you just know someone would shout; "Heads up, idiot!" and fire the ball in my direction.

That's kinda what I saw happening here.

I'm not going to respond to this right now.

[druidspell.livejournal.com]

Thank you for taking the time to comment.

I'm not trying to ignore you or the issues you addressed in your comment, I'm just trying to step back and make sure that my issues aren't boiling down to "If they'd just used a different tone" (because if that's what I'm really arguing, someone take away my internet forever, seriously). But I will respond to you and the points you raised in this comment at a later time, because I think you're onto something here.

I am in no hurry :)

[dharma-slut.livejournal.com]

After I commented to you, elfwreck posted to her blog ( dreamwidth link here (http://elf.dreamwidth.org/268699.html#cutid1)) that says what I have been trying to formulate-- only more better, I think.

That was an awesome post; thank you for linking me to it :)

[druidspell.livejournal.com]

And I think (and this is the part where I expect some disagreement) that there's a difference between mocking someone with erotica because erotica is your most versatile communicative tool and mocking someone with erotica because sex is the most degrading thing you can imagine.

elfwreck actually encompasses my problem with the fics/art in that sentence: although I can see how for other people the fics/art read as using erotica as a versatile communicative tool, for me, their primary impressions are of erotica being used to degrade them. Objectively, as protests, I think the fics/art are effective means of communicating the consequences of fucking with fandom. Subjectively, my context of the fics/art is that these things use sex and kink in ways that I am not comfortable using. Obviously, mileage varies.
But to me they remind me of closing that locker door after using someone's sexuality against them, and I'm sure that's my own past and issues obscuring my view of the RPS and protest art that's been created as a reaction to SurveyFail.