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My account & A sociological analysis of FA policy
2 years ago
Hi all! You know the drill. Obligatory policy update complaint. But this one is actually researched!Obligatory mention that I'm also on inkbunny too in case this account gets nuked: Altair0256
To get the main stuff out of the way, I will NOT be leaving FA unless I'm banned from it. If they ban me from it, they're also banning at least half the fandom too, and thus I'd argue it's really their loss. So, I'm not losing sleep over it. Still, I will at some point be backing up my whole gallery on inkbunny so that even if I am banned, y'all will still be able to see all these very adorable commissions/paintings of mine.
I'll also be checking with the staff at some point in ~several days once things have calmed down if my gallery is compliant. I doubt it will be.---
Now for my editorial time :] Don't worry, I'll try to keep it dense for a topic as complicated as this!
I think the people arguing whether this rule 'goes too far' or not, or exactly what it does or doesn't apply to are somewhat missing the point. In my opinion, the only censorship and forbidden content should be content actively encouraging violence or abuse. That's not to say that it's everyone's job to consume & like content they find abhorrent - but protecting some people from content they don't like to see by *banning all sharing of it*, is definitely not the way to do it.
I'm honestly a bit confused what motivates them here - surely it's easier & friendlier to just create a blacklisting tool & punish people who don't tag for it, than to leave a pretty large fraction of the site's users in constant fear that some random rule will get them banned for art they uploaded N years ago which followed all the rules at the time. No matter how small that fraction is, why are we creating a system where this fear has to exist at all?
Well, to anyone worried that the very existence of 'cub' or 'cub-like' content may instigate pedos, I would remind people that, regardless of appropriateness (I do NOT condone making these attractions reality), it is very much a sexuality one is born with/develops at a young age. Source: Psychology Today (a science-based low-bias source) (See this article in The Walrus as well) This means that, as much as many of them hate it, their attraction can't simply be ignored and go away on its own. (again see above reference) Although some can simply survive with no outlet at all, I know at least a couple non-offenders born with such an attraction who intentionally consume cub content/similar things as their only safe outlet- and who universally find it keeps them satisfied. By implying that cub content actively causes direct harm, it directly suggests that looking at art alone is enough to persuade otherwise normal people born with something they can't control to suddenly change their moral compass, break the law, and commit society's most abhorrent crime. It's no different to suggesting that violent video games directly cause mass shootings; if committing an actual sexual assault against children was on the table in the first place, hiding pictures of pikachu and chibi characters is NOT going to prevent it, nor is even hiding cartoon pictures of 'childlike' anthro dogs or foxes or wolves.
Has seeing my art made absolutely any of you choose to tie up, molest, and torture a real fox? Has it caused any of you tie up, molest, and torture a human? If the answer is no, then how can you justify banning cub and cublike content for real world safety except that it makes you uncomfortable? If so, how would a personal blacklist not fix that problem just the same? And how long is it going to be before I have to bring up the same sources showing that people don't "choose" to find feral bondage hot and aren't suddenly monsters because they saw art of it? Or bondage at all? Or anything anyone can possibly justify as objectively evil to explain why they find it gross? The satisfaction of those living in a world where they don't have to confront uncomfortable things is ALWAYS greatly outweighed by the silent suffering of the people who didn't conform to what those happy few find "comfortable". Jews, homosexuals, pedophiles, or simply people who like "cute looking cartoon characters", they're treated like criminals for the simple act of being born, growing up as a child some way, because of the vague threat that they might one day BECOME criminals if we don't ostracize and censor them hard enough.
So: Mainstream or not, pervert or not, absolute degenerate or not, you should be worried when any sort of expression is singled out. It doesn't actually improve the world: it makes advertisers & a few vocal ignorant fear-mongerers happy, and actively harms bystanders just trying to make art they enjoy & may even help radicalize the people it's supposed to 'punish' by ostracizing them like this. I stand against child abuse, I stand against animal abuse, and I stand against anything that genuinely campaigns for these in the slightest, but I stand *FOR* allowing artistic expression on this site. I stand for making and consuming art that makes you happy no matter how weird you are (We all are on this site!) and I plead that one day, somehow, this site can see how banning all violent video games to stop mass shootings will only make ruin almost everybody's happiness and make them stop using the site. Don't become tumblr.
~Altair2056
PS: If you have any concerns, rebuttals, or questions, do feel free to criticize me in the comments. Unlike FA apparently, I want to have an open dialogue here. If something seems nonsensical, call me out on it so I can have a chance to try and either correct myself or explain my thoughts better. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Well, that's the nuance I want to put forth. There's often a dichotomy put forth that either we relentlessly attack and destroy something we don't like, or simply accept it in full. There is way to prevent child abuse just the same, but without destroying someone's life and happiness in the process. We can stop pedophilia without the collateral, but people are so laser-focused on destroying it at all cost they simply don't care what collateral pain, suffering comes up in the middle.
Right now, all the complaints in FA are that collateral manifesting. This is the end-result of destruction through hate, and unless we change the path we run the risk of falling into the cold war-era red scare. Obviously the Soviets sucked. Obviously communism sucked - but nobody nowadays views the ousting of all finger-pointed ""communists"" as helping that. They look back on the tragic collateral that happened, and yet here we are making the very same mistakes again.
Also a lot of stuff that seems to be acceptable looks like porn of 12-15yos, yet suddenly a chibi character or midget is suddenly pedophilia. That's just outright discriminatory towards little people as it's on the basis of height and not age. Let's not forget, pretty much most feral characters, even Disney adult ferals easily pass as "adolescent" animals. And in the wild, adolescent animals do engage in sexual activity with each other. In that sense they could at least restrict clearly adult x younger looking and not young mature animal style porn.
But again I don't know what exactly they're referring to because they don't really event mention the term "feral" for example. Though if it's what I think they mean it is concerning considering that it covers a significant majority of the fandom.
Do you think it's possible that the proliferation of a "taboo" subject in art could lead to enough potential perceived normalization that one or more people who are into that taboo subject start to think that performing the act(s) in real life might not be thaaat bad, such that they might consider trying it?
I truly don't know. It's meant as an in-good-faith Devil's Advocate response to your thoughts, but it's also a very honest question. I think the potential answer might be, "possibly yes, but it would be very, very rare, and probably require the offender to already have a mental illness that has impaired their self-control." If that's the answer, then what do we do with that? And what if the mental illness they're suffering is clinical depression from decades of feeling like they aren't welcome in the world around them because of something about themselves they can't change?
Sigh. Everything about this is shitty. Watching people realize practically in real-time that they are no longer welcome to be themselves on FA... Ugh. I strongly empathize with your, "The satisfaction of those living in a world where they don't have to confront uncomfortable things is ALWAYS greatly outweighed by the silent suffering of the people who didn't conform to what those happy few find "comfortable"" point.
And that's just talking about the past and the present. As someone who has written not only sapient feral stories, but also wrote noncon in the past, and still writes dubcon where the ability to give consent is often taken away during the climax of the story, I cannot help but feel like I'm one of many who would eventually be on the chopping block.
The level of taboo normalization that has to happen before that could be a legitimate thing would need to be at cult like levels. Lots of communities glorify killing or violence in their media and movies, but only those in extremist cells or cults actually go out and murder because they think it is an okay and fine thing to do.
As for whether being demonized can lead people further into depression and more likely to seek out the bad behavior, yeah that is a thing. What have they got to lose right? They are already being treated like criminals who did the bad thing, just for having the bodily urge, so what do they have left to lose.
It is also not too hard to imagine folks being so afraid of discussing their taboo urges that they could not even confide them with a trained therapist or counselor. Sweeping problems under the social rug never makes things better. Demonizing a taboo doesn't help anyone.
Also I'd like to remind anyone who finds themselves here, having a mental illness makes you 10 times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime. Needing help doesn't make someone a dangerous person, it usually makes them a victim of one.
As for the other part, yeah I am no longer a part of this community (FA). It only welcomes a select group of interests, and harshly demonizes those outside of it. I don't feel like it is a community anymore.
(PS I've been a fan of your short and kinky writing style for a long time)
My above journal certainly came from the angle that the answer is a simple "no, not really" but let's have another look at that, to try and reconstruct that thought process, see if it makes sense.
It's a fairly well-published fact that, more often than not, the full political beliefs of people tend to fall down to what the people around them think, and what the news they watch says. Someone who lives in the country in Idaho is far more likely to oppose abortion than someone who lives in the middle of a big city in California. Despite that fact, both people will believe that their stance is the optimal one. Ultimately, that comes from a sense of community around them. For better or worse, most people don't really think critically of the morality of everything they do. They won't sit down and spend hours contemplating the pros and cons from all potential angles - it's much less stressful, much easier, much quicker to just listen to what the people around you (your community) says and take their word for it.
I contend that social media - FA, or just the fandom at large, or even the internet as a whole - has now come to act somewhat similar as a community (or at least be perceivable as one; not getting on a tangent about parasocial relationships right now). If you find a community that supports something you feel, it can potentially feel validating to the same level as your neighbors & parents & society at large supporting it. And the best part is, you can just pick whatever community seems to encourage what you've come to think. Nowadays, if your beliefs for whatever reason do not entirely agree with the people around you, it's much much easier to simply find a community that does online.
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Now, to bring it back on topic: I believe, as a result on this, that it's fairly reasonable to believe that people who are seeking validation for taboo interests of theirs will find whatever they think endorses them. Again, for better or worse.
But, I want to emphasize the distinction between "being attracted to this is ok" and "I have manipulated my moral compass enough to commit a crime" (almost) everyone has a racist grandma or uncle in the family, but very few people have a relative who committed a lynching. A huge number of people play video games which almost unequivocally glorify extreme violence (COD games have been the best selling in a given year for most of the 2010s, for instance) but the army doesn't exactly preferentially recruit experienced video game players because they will be naturally more tolerant of gunning down other humans. I think there's a huge step between finding yourself attracted to the concept of something, and being willing to throw morals and law to the wind and go commit a crime. In fact, if you feel that you have a safe space and a community by which to express it already, you will be MUCH less motivated to go taking drastic, dangerous actions.
No, the people who were going to commit a crime already know what they want, and how they feel about it. They can cite any number of inspirations they want, but in the end it was they who made the choice to act on their own, and were just looking for anything they could to point the finger at. As for how to deal with those people, I think the single best choice remains to emphasize normalizing the interest, while distancing itself from the action itself. It's fundamentally separate, and should be tackled separately. You don't guide delinquent youth away from crime just by banning all violent movies and making it illegal to buy guns. That won't change their brains. DEFINITELY not in any good wya, at least.
This is coming partially from personal experience - I know for a fact that a few people who watch me *do* in fact abuse animals/have abused them in the past. In every single case though, said people didn't contact me to say I encouraged them in the slightest, but instead because they thought they'd found a kindred soul who endorsed what they were already doing anyway. I'm incapable of stopping those I've met - trust me, I've tried - but among the many people I've met interested in my work, I have never once encountered a single example of one radicalized simply by normalizing the interest. That's just anecdotal of course, but it does make for a bit of a real-world confirmation of the theory I worked through above.
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Anyway, I guess this serves to explain why I think no matter what your stance is on pedophilia or zoophilia, or any other taboo subject from snuff to noncon to bdsm, I think supporting the existence of this content should be in your best interest. Theoretically, it appears to make people happier & diminish radicalization/ostracization (probably the single greatest cause of extremism), and that seems to pan out in real life. Of course, horrid people will exist out there, but you need a lot more than some hot pictures and stories to start thinking that you can/should go committing felonies.