Hello! Someone genuinely trying to understand and perhaps unlearn some reactionary tendencies. With the response to that anon about "not asking if you're a pro or anti", the response about "imagine if they put this much effort into protecting real kids" definitely got me thinking. So... Is an adult shipping children and finding that hot NEVER a red flag? Or is it case by case on seeing how that person handles the distinction between fiction and reality in other things? And bringing the issue of real kids into it, if a real kid who has been abused sees someone shipping kids and finds that a red flag in that person, that... No, no I juicy answered my own question on that one. Block them and cultivate your own experience.
hi there anon, and congrats on trying to unlearn some things! and great job catching yourself at the end there, that's exactly correct.
I will start by saying this right out of the gate: fundamentally, I do not really give a shit about what made up scenarios about fictional characters people are jorking it to in private. I am, first and foremost, interested in how they are interacting with actual, real people.
"but Makenzie are you saying people who look at sexually explicit images of real human kids should be allowed near children?" no I'm not. please note that I was specifically talking about people engaging with fictional characters who are, you know, not real and do not have feelings and therefore cannot actually be hurt, traumatized, abused, etc, in any way that actually matters. I want to be so clear about this: you can genuinely think whatever vile things you want about fictional characters. you can enjoy any problematic shit you want with little guys who don't actually exist.
like, here's an example I use a lot: I'm kind of a huge Batman fan. don't know if you could tell that or not, I'm pretty subtle about it. if you spend any time in the Batman mythos, you know that this is a story where you just kind of have to take for granted that our hero is a billionaire using his vast wealth to dispatch vigilante justice with military grade weaponry and a small army of child soldiers and cop friends to help him put people in prison. these are moral quandaries that are discussed and acknowledged within the story, but fundamentally the universe is always going to involve billionaire vigilantism and child soldiers and the so-called carceral justice system. that's just the price of admission if you're gonna read Batman.
and like. I spend a lot of time in that world. I love Batman, I love his child soldiers. he's my little blorbo or whatever. but like, at no point have I said "yeah, fuck it, preteens should be learning martial arts to fight domestic terrorists, actually. I think Elon Musk SHOULD be allowed to put on a fursuit and beat up criminals. cops need more funding." no amount of Batman comics can make me believe or act on any of those things because, you know, I'm a person with a brain and I know the difference between "thing that makes a good story" and "thing that should actually happen for real."
and the thing is that genuinely, honestly, if someone thought that it was a red flag that I like Batman, and that enjoying Batman comics was somehow a red flag indicating that I'm fine with violence being done against real, actual children? I would think that person was a nut, if I can be super real. like, I'm thinking about somebody trying to make the case that I shouldn't be allowed to hang out with my nephew because I enjoy the fictional character of Robin so clearly I'm going to kill my nephew's parents in front of him to try to get him into vigilante justice. or if someone attempted to bar me from teaching my 4th-6th grade sex ed classes on the grounds that I was obviously going to teach them to do karate to clowns instead of how their reproductive systems worked.
(although, lets be real, there are a lot of politicians who would MUCH rather let little kids cage fight each other than learn anything about safer sex.)
this doesn't just apply to morally bad things, either, btw. I also read a lot of romance novels, especially hetero romances. and the thing is, not one of those books has made me want to fall in love with a ruggedly handsome but condescending straight man. hell, none of them have made me want to fall in love with anybody, period. that's not really something I'm interested in for myself, it's just a fun and frequently funny dynamic to explore. I'm hardly the first queer person to point out that the allegations that queer media "turns kids gay/trans" is obviously bullshit since the vertible mountain of cishet media evidently failed to turn any of us straight/cis, you know?
my point being: no, I genuinely don't think it's often, if ever, reasonable to judge someone's actual, real life morals by how they interact with fiction.
I'm going to say something so vulnerable right now, because we're in a safe space here: since you asked me this very reasonable question, you evidently value my judgment and perspective at least a little bit. and I once read and thoroughly enjoyed a fic in which Dr. Horrible, from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, gets fucked by a sapient evil horse. and I don't think that makes me a morally reprehensible person, or a person who advocates for real human beings having real sex with real horses. I think it just makes me kind of a weirdo with a bullshit tolerance.
if you want to hear a MUCH more thorough take on this, complete with addressing the issue of shipping fictional children, I cannot recommend Princess Weekes' video essay enough:
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btw if you ever read anyone expressing a scientific "fact" that involves any version of "....AND WE HAVE NO IDEA HOW/WHY!!" then that's a huge red flag
the fact that the speaker even knows enough to report on it means that someone out there has researched it. there are a fuck ton of things we don't understand fully, but if someone has studied it enough to report back on their findings, that means we have at least an iota of evidence or data. in my experience, if you look into things scientists "have no idea about," your results will range from "we don't understand this very well so experts are not going to use very definitive language, but here's what we do know and what theories we've constructed from that" to "this isn't 100% proven yet, but we have a lot of evidence and are fairly confident."
ofc there are some rare exceptions where we genuinely have no idea, but also sometimes we know exactly what causes something and OP literally just made shit up lmao
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Some intersex people genuinely don't want to be included but the majority of us want to be. It's actually really difficult to be in queer spaces that consistently enforce sex binaries, never use the updated progress flag with us, and never have intersex flags.
Often the idea that we don't want to be included comes from intersexists who want us to remain as "disorders of sexual development" (outdated offensive term). It's unfortunate that this idea permeates the queer community so much.
You can see photos from this intersex organization using the pride flag, if you need more than an anon's word. https://interactadvocates.org/#
Thanks for the information!
I didn't know "disorders of sex development" was considered outdated and offensive, I thought it was actually a modern (more formal?) alternative to "intersex". Unless that was "differences of sex development"? (I almost tagged it on the original post but I wasn't sure what the term was.) Ah, I found more information on the link (x). Thanks for the website, very helpful!
This subpage is a great source on intersex people wanting to be included! It's a bit more ambivalent than I expected - combined with this anon's word and my previous impressions it seems like there are still a significant amount of intersex people who don't want to be a part of the queer community, but the ones who do want to be included would much prefer the queer community open its arms. So it seems to me the best course is to do so and the intersex people who want to can individually distance themselves (my impression is most people of that group more want to be personally distanced than think 'I' should never be a part of 'LGBTQA') and only partake in intersex communities.
We recommend adding intersex to your organization’s LGBTQIA+ acronym only once you have intersex leadership, consultation and/or resources. Intersex people have very specific needs, just like each letter of the acronym.
This line in particular stood out to me because they only provide guidance for what organizations should do... I feel like most times when the decision is being made whether or not to use the intersex progress flag, it's individuals and small groups like my GSA making posts, selling merch, decorating a space, etc. that aren't serving any needs besides community for anyone... I guess I already came to the conclusion to include by default though? (Honestly this page feels just barely strong enough for me to send to anyone if this question comes up in the future, so if anyone has any more sources do send in more anons!)
Honestly I was hoping for something like "our survey of as many intersex forums/organizations/people as possible found that 80% of intersex people want to be included in 'LGBTQIA', pride events/orgs, and the progress pride flag" --that this had been "laid to rest" and I could just tell my friend straight "no, intersex people want to be included now"-- , but of course I shouldn't expect things to be too simple haha, people & groups are nuanced and nuance comes in the form of caveats. At least I feel much more informed now!
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