I have been reading a bit on the OTW elections and the whole Tiffany G thing, but most of all, I've been reading comments from people supporting Tiffany saying that she just wants to clear AO3 from all the CSAM (child sexual abuse material) content and I don't know who needs to hear this but:

If someone comes to a predominantly QUEER space (like AO3) and tells you that censorship is necessary to eradicate CSAM... it's not actually CSAM they want to eradicate...

I've seen this type of discourse about Pride and about queer literature and queer movies and queer communities. It's a tried and true technique of the right and conservative movements.

First, they say there is a DANGER to the community through CSAM and they conflate the actual threat of CSAM in the community (we all know someone who thinks that writing a love story between two characters who are 16 is CSAM...), and make you believe that censorship is the only way to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. And since most people are (rightly) mind-bogled at having to explain that of course they don't support CSAM content, they bow down and accept the censorship for the greater good, without anyone actually trying to have a conversation about what qualifies as CSAM (which needs to, you know, actually involve real children and not fictional characters who are 17 and losing their virginity with their crush in a Mature-rated story about high school football and first love based on the author's own experience of losing their virginity at 17 to their crush in high school).

Then, they tell you that there are other forms of DISTURBING CONTENT, and what they really mean is porn that THEY find disturbing, for ex, (and I kid you not, I have seen comments like that) porn featuring disabled characters, which they consider to encourage the exploitation of vulnerable individuals, or BDSM porn (which supposedly encourages violence and lack of consent), or rough porn, or any kind of porn that isn't two (preferably white and skinny) able-bodied people doing it missionary style while lovingly gazing in each other's eyes. SO TO PROTECT VIEWERS, that needs to be banned as well.

And then, they tell you that even that sanitized version of porn is still porn and that people under 18 or under 21 or under whatever age they consider too young to view anything sexual regardless of the fact that not all countries have the same law about the age of maturity, should be free to surf the site without having to *gasp* filter out properly tagged works. So TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN, every explicit content is censored.

And then finally, when all that is left is a sanitized, white-washed, ableist, puritan type of content featuring General-Audience approved gay works of two nice men or two nice women holding hands and chastely kissing each other on the lips... Well guess what? :) CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE EXPOSED TO QUEER CONTENT SO WE NEED TO BAN THAT AS WELL, and since we've basically done purge after purge before and there are still a handful of people on the website, well surely they won't mind/care anymore, will they?

It's not just a slippery slope, it's something that has been done time and again, and that is why censorship on AO3 will never, never have a positive outcome.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

I know that cis men are capable of being great people which is why it’s so frustrating when they suck. Your gender isn’t inherently bad at doing the dishes. You’re just a thoroughly unpleasant person.

i'm going to make a life i love even if it's not the one i expected or thought i wanted. and i am going to let myself be proud and grateful of what i do have. i am allowed to be proud of it without other people realizing gravity of what i have accomplished in scale to my life and abilities. i do not need permission.

Re: literary magazines, I think the reason "literary" short stories and poems write about sex in such an absolutely horrible, repulsive way is pretty simple:

Even people who are otherwise sex-positive often believe writing or art that is sexy and turns you on is "porn," and has no intellectual or artistic value whatsoever.

So people try to write about sex in a way that makes it "Mean" something deeper, or they try to highlight ""higher"" emotions in the sexual experience while totally ignoring "lower" or "baser" ones, and the results are...awful, Bad Sex Awards type stuff.

In particular when authors try to write a sex scene that is meant to show something "deeper" about the characters' relationship, it invariably sounds like one of the characters is getting assaulted. You can't just remove the "sex is fun and feels really good" and focus on the Deeper Stuff!! That's NOT how it works!!

It's the idea that being horny, sexual pleasure, and literal physical intimacy do not ever, by themselves, have any artistic or intellectual value. So people who are trying to communicate something Deep(tm) try to write about sex without any of those things.

And it's Horrific for reasons that are 100% obvious and predictable

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I generated this meme because it is exactly my life right now

so many songs to listen to. so many books to read. so many things to watch. so much stuff to write. i think i will sit here and decompose