#puritanical anti-sex bs +

[radicallyhonestfeedback]

this point has probably been made before but I find it so funny, sad and exhausting that there are leftists who will gladly proclaim to be anti capitalist and talk about how exploitative labour is under capitalism while being "pro sex work" and viewing it as ✨empowering✨

what's more pro capitalist and exploitative than someone selling themselves as if their body was a product? treating something intimate that people share like it's a service you can buy

[coockie8]

I don't know what anti needs to hear this, but a ship having the occasional argument, sometimes insulting each other, and having *gasp* sex every now and again is not "toxic", that's called an average, human relationship.

Sorry, but I see antis who brag about how "problematic and toxic" their blog is, while having a several miles-long DNI full of anything and everything that could even be remotely "problematic" way too often, and it's like what, exactly, are you defining as "toxic and problematic" here, when all the actual "toxic and problematic" themes are in your DNI????

[hedonists]

It really sucks how shunned rpf has become. And I mean that in a "more than before" kinda way. Anecdotal context. One of my other fandoms has doubled, tripled, in size since 2020. Fics were a huge part of it back then (still are) and were accepted as inseparable from fandom. Fandom = fan art, fan fics etc. And yet, years later, the number of fics posted on ao3 has decreased by a lot. Don't get me wrong, it's still a lot. But it’s less than what it used to be before that fandom exploded in size. There's more newer fans than ever before, but it’s as if ficdom isn't only just not growing at the same rate, it’s not growing at all. New writers are there, but they're not getting heard because when they try to reach out, they get harassed for it.

It makes me so incredibly sad to see that. It’s the biggest reason I'm so protective of this ficdom space here.

The only option available to fight this shift that’s no doubt spreading across all fandoms is to engage with your fandom creatives, especially fandom writers.

[a-lavender-boy]

People who are anti-kink at pride, I beg of you to read academic journals discussing the queer beauty of intercommunication, trust and growth through BDSM practices. How the passing of knowledge is queered from patriarchal, heirarchal, heternormative ways to an egalitarian and non-gendered manner that inherently gives agency to those in the minority. Kink when done right is QUEER: Saying "Fuck white cishets trying to harm and colonize my body, I LIKE pain and will experience it on my own terms." Or "Fuck white cishets trying to harm and colonize my body, I will use that pain to nurture, educate, and help others take agency where the government and society has tried to take it away from us." Most importantly it says "Fuck anyone who tries to shame and hide us." Queer liberation was also part of the wider feminist sexual liberation movement which brought access to birth control, sex education, and abortion.

Look up Keiran Sellars "I've been Intimate with Him as I Have been with Anybody."

Look up Robyn Henderson-Espinoza's "Decolonial Erotics: Power Bottoms, Topping from Bottom Space, and the Emergence of Queer Sexual Theology."

I'm having none of the puritanical propoganda bs.

TLDR: Kink=queer as it subverts societal power dynamics and norms in favor of an egalitarian one that gives power to all participants through consent and boundaries.

[hysteriamodes]

This has to be one of the most puritanical tweets I've seen on Twitter.

If I said this on Twitter, I would get mobbed

But I said on Twitter. At 18, you're old enough to:

-vote

-go to college

-get married

-file taxes

-enlist in the military

-drink

-adopt

-rent an apartment

I rarely rant about the whole anti-shipping/pro-shipping BS but if this doesn't sum up the whole wave of teens to early 20s being so ridiculously paranoid about abuse and "pedophilia", that they walk themselves backwards into arguably purity culture and the same logic that people on the far right argue as well.

This is not going to stop anyone under 18, much less 21, from engaging in intimacy.

What should be our bigger priority is teaching teens safe sex, consent, and healthy relationships than restrict and stunt their social interactions.

And also what we should be doing is enforcing sex crimes with longer sentences and abolishing statutes of limitations when it comes to those crimes.

Like, TBF, this is absurd and I'm ASEXUAL. But if I say that on Twitter, I'm just gonna get mobbed

[etherealwanderings]

Sex isn't dirty and it has nothing to do with "rushing things to feed a fantasy." How don't you see that you're sounding indistinguishable from ron desantis and televangelists?

Homophobic GA members think all of Byler is creepy just because it's gay. I promise you that keeping it "pure" is not gonna make them be okay with Byler. You can keep dancing around the truth, but it doesn't change the truth: you think sex, and gay sex in particular, is creepy.

This is puritan behavior.

You post stuff like "I'm gonna protect these 2 cuties from the creeps of the fandom" without any hint of irony. That is purity culture. It's the same mindset of those who try to shield their daughters from their own sexuality or who try to tell people that the only acceptable way of having sex is in a heterosexual marriage, as if sex is something that corrodes and erases innocence. Do you hear what you're saying?

Never mind that there's an obvious thematic significance to a Byler sex scene given the 80s context, as well as emotional significance (since most of sex is psychological, and it's about exploring these character dynamics. It has nothing to do with being "creepy" or "forcing fantasies" on people TF.

The show itself has already shown Byler be sexually attracted to each other, are you denying this? Have you seen hosegate? Have you watched the show?

Another example of a show that handles queer teen sexuality perfectly is the new Chucky show. After showing them fall in love in Seasons 1 and 2, Season 3 has shown their two queer teen main characters ready to take things to the next level. And they openly communicate with each other and talk about safety/consent.

No one's saying that a byler sex scene would be some weird horny thing. It would be a display of love between two characters who have grown up together and would fit within the show's main anti-conformity character arcs and themes. It would be wholesome and tastefully done. Most Bylers would want it to be implied anyway.

It's not like Stranger Things is gonna suddenly become Euphoria or Sex Education or Riverdale.

Didn't you listen to all the minors of the Tag who are feeling uncomfortable thinking about that things? Don't u care about them ? Why do u call them puritans? Also no offense but hosegate is an interpretation lol. If you watch the show without analysing it like crazy,you wouldn't even interpret that scene that way. When I first saw that scene I saw a Will being sad and breathing loudly while looking at Mike because he is nervous. He would love to run to Mike and tell him that it's his painting and his feelings but he cannot and the fact that now he thinks that Byler has 0 chance of happening. It is giving him anxiety. Noah made the same look during the rain fight and generally starts breathing loudly when Will is nervous. If you don't look at the hose and think about a banana , hosegate becomes bs. It's not even a Byler evidence. My problem isn't about Byler sex scenes in general cause if Byler was like over 20 I wouldn't say anything, it's the fact that you are burning to get that scene. You want it so bad that it becomes creepy and when a minor feels uncomfortable because of what u are saying, you call them a puritan.It is basically child manipulation! Not everyone is ready to understand anatomy ! Not everyone likes to see 2 people having intimate moments! Not everyone agrees with minors having s.x! And it's fucking valid !

[dysphoric-culture-is]

Bottom dysphoria culture is wanting to talk about it with trans friends, but they don't have bottom dysphoria and being scared they'll judge me because I'm ace as well

Dysphoric culture is!

Also, there’s a ton of weird stigma around bottom dysphoria/surgery in the trans community (and a lot of sexualization) so a lot of people feel awkward about it.

The best thing to do is just talk about it! Unfortunately the only way to combat something being looked down upon and embarrassing is to increase acceptance/visibility of the topic. And good friends shouldn’t judge you for having dysphoria anon.

[thethiefandtheairbender]

My homie please don't tell me you tried to equivalate the real life debate and seriousness bof the don't say gay bill to your anti vs. proship bs

Hi, out queer, ace, and trans person here! I also have an honours degree in the study & history of how fiction can influence reality. Let me take you for a walk (and I'll make sure it's short or else you'll pull the "you think I'm reading all that?") I also already know, thanks to looking at your blog, that you’ve decided I - a sex repulsed, ace adult in a relationship with another adult - am a pedophile, so thanks for bringing back the years of harassment I experienced when I was a literal minor but was unwilling to post my age online bc u know, I was a minor who wanted to keep my privacy a mind-whopping... 2.5 years ago. But clearly I’m decrepit and out of touch now. Never change, tumblr.

A lot of current American politics, including the Don't Say Gay bill (and previously the Hayes Code) was derived from puritanical Victorian era leanings and Calvinistic conservative Christianity. This includes: gayness as an identity > an act (trial of Oscar Wilde), idealization of motherhood, and the moral panic surrounding the 'degradation' of the English language that 18-19th century Grammarians were always concerned with (hi Samuel Johnson).

Another thing grammarians and writers have been concerned with since before is what is Okay to be portrayed in art. Plato's The Republic thinks that art is immoral because it may give people unrealistic or unsafe ideas because people are 'unable' to distinguish fiction from reality. He later retracted this, although Aristotle's Poetics was a text where Aristotle disagreed with Plato's prior established opinion.

Re: the past 3000+ years of literary discourse - those who try to restrict the radical aspects of art lose the argument every time, and start it back up 30 years later.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that art has always been very political, as is most things. Fandom, as a pop-junkie transformative spiel, has also been deeply political, particularly for marginalized people.

Fandom nowadays is full of people who believe that, in order to be really sorry about something, someone has to publicly repent per whatever moral standard has been decided to else the congregation - I mean twitter - will publicly shame them for their sin.

Fandom is entrenched in cultural Christianity and the conservative mindsets that come with it. Aphobia in fandom was rampant from 2014-2017; truscum and tucute discourse as well; how prevalent TERF rhetoric can be (women are inherently good, attraction to men is shameful, etc). I've seen all of these things in fandom. All hinge an idea on being able to decode a person's intent (somehow), the rising attachment of morality to genres of entertainment (antis), and how many antis I've seen that are TERFs or Aphobes or guzzling down that rhetoric without even realizing.

Terfs and the Conservative far-right have a long history of working together. Both frame concerns of gay people as pedophiles, being anti sex work (because sex is nasty and a sin), that we must Protect the Children who cannot monitor or make any decisions for themselves at any age. The anti vs pro ship dynamic online is a microism of larger public discussions regarding purity culture - and that includes how queerness is overly sexualized, how queer sex is seen as especially dirty, the "should kink be at pride?" discourse, and issues with respectability politics.

Antis who say we have to harass people to control what exists in fandom to "protect minors" on a moral basis are ideologically adjacent to parents who decry earlier Sex Education for children (which, every time it's implemented, is shown to decrease the amount of abuse children face, not further it). A quick scroll through your blog tells me you're willing to generalize hundreds of people's personal history with CSA because you don't think survivors can 1) vehemently disagree with you or 2) demand disclosure of their personal history to exist online void of that harassment.

Aka to take some tags to the forefront: #like the schools don't want to talk about queerness and are banning books so kids don't get Ideas#and people also don't want 'problematic' fiction in fandom in case kids get Ideas or can't use critical thinking skills#it's not a hard leap to make

It sounds like you're the one who has a problem with reading comprehension and building connections between different kinds of discourse, not me. It's almost like teenagers (queer or otherwise) raised in conservative or culturally Christian homes are more susceptible to puritanical rhetoric, or something... 🤔 (I could also get into just how American the current fandom anti vs pro conflict is, but I think this is long enough, don't you?)

A final note from this article:

Beyond betraying simple art illiteracy, though, these intensely personal, emotional complaints and appeals to public safety have a clear antecedent: religious and conservative opposition to “obscenity.” The centering of individual values and pain, the assumption that a universal moral standard exists which should guide all public or quasi-public art and behavior, and the belief that art can do material harm to both people and culture as a whole unite the two at first apparently disparate groups of angry indie gamers and religious fundamentalists.

The deployment of victimhood as an unimpeachable defense is an old tactic frequently used by hate groups like One Million Moms and its parent organization, the American Family Association, whose rallying cry “think of the children” now echoes through everything from intra-community Gay Pride discourse to the drearily predictable “there’s too much sex on TV” tweets that seem to sweep across the platform on a weekly basis.

[how-queerious]

calling gold star lesbians "elitist" and "puritan" is lesbophobic as fuck by the way, but you don't care

im calling the terminology elitist and purist* (if i said puritan [i am wont to mistype] then my bad) because it simply is. its not lesbophobic to say that its a terminology that is exclusionary towards:

a) many lebians/lesbian folks (whichever way you perfer to term it babes) who were pressured into het/hetpassing marriages or partnerships

b) those who were/are deeply closeted, and/or

b.1) didn't realize they were lesbian until later in life

c) have been r*ped/coerced into a sexual encounter and consider that sex (or are viewed by others as having engaged in sex)

d) lesbians who are (of course) exclusively attracted to women but have (willingly) participated in sexual activities that involved at least one man.

this term, which is used to refer to these women/nb folks as somehow "higher quality" lesbians, excludes many elders of the community, discounts their experiences, and honestly has way too many echoes of virgin purity culture for me to ever be anything but suspicious and wary of people who use it.

do not imply that i do not care about lesbophobia or that I'm being lesbophobic because a term that reeks of internalized misogyny and anti-sex bs makes me uncomfortable.

once again, i am not confident enough in my very brief wade into the genderqueer portion of my indentity to speak on the transphobic vibes lurking beneath this as well. i am barely into the journey of my gender identity, and have been very sheltered in terms of this particular flavour of sus. so if anyone who follows me or sees this post could make comment on whether thats just my negative brain talking or more sound, lemme know. it just seems terfy to me

[newtgeiszler]

hey can you all realize that sex isn't inherently dirty? can you all realize that even though it can be scary because it's so intimate it's actually extremely wholesome to enjoy sex with someone you love or enjoy talking about it with people you trust?

can you realize that no one is forcing you to like sex if you don't and they do or talk about it if you don't want to (unless they are then fuck them 🔫) and if you're not interested in something sexual or. kinky or something that doesn't make it problematic or depraved or sinful

people call it um. cringe culture? when 30 year olds say "don't yuck my yum" and other cutesy ass bs like that and i agree it is like. lmfao talk like a grown up.

but no i'm full on not saying you're participating in cringe culture by making puritan anti-sex posts. i'm saying you're weird and annoying and borderline sociopathic for shaming people for things that have historically gotten them stoned like 200 years ago lol

i don't fucking. care if you don't like uh...... furries or something. go dm that to your friend and don't fucking harass a group of largely lgbt people and join the ranks of fucking kiwifarms

lol like i'm really tired of 17 year olds on internet dot com being like "actually cringe culture is cool when i say it is :)" and "it's okay if i make fun of autistic gay trans people if they're 30 and horny, because getting older and having a libido are irredeemable moral failings"

go look up lolcows and how many people have GENUINELY DIED over this shit and then tell me yeah defending cringe culture is worth it and i'm absolutely nothing like when nazis and t*rfs do it, i'm cool i'm a leftist.

because you know.

people dying because they had strange taste is worth it if i get a chuckle over it.

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

ok so first off. I’m white so anyone who wants to come tell me to Delete This Post or just get angry @ me in my notes or dms I 100% understand and will take any and all criticism bc this is NOT my space to speak.

....I’ve seen a lot of VERY VALID TAKES around tumblr abt the Massive Juggernaut Of Violent Racist Culture that is ao3 and white fandom (esp Old White Fans) at large. I hade some thoughts, from the white side of things.

first off:

THESE TAKES ARE 1000000% CORRECT.

I, again, as a white person, dont need to stamp my validation on it, but im stating this loudly up front so that hopefully a few ppl might read further:

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-

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I’ve been aware for a long time of phrases like “cancel culture”, “censorship”, “puritanism”, “Fandom Is Free!!!” etc etc etc used by, to be honest, 90% or more of white fans to justify VIOLENTLY RACIST WORK and gaslight, and more often than not threaten, fans of color who speak up. White Women Tears, it’s an old ass trick.

-

HOWEVER

and here’s the However:

-

The fans who do this, while absolutely racist scum.... had this “argument” handed to them on a silver platter.

by who???

by younger white fans.

because none of these Older White Fan fuckbags or their opinions could have kept the amount of respect, credibility, and loyal puppy-dog followers they have without the new growth of Younger White Fan fuckbags who don’t just go out of their way to equate their NOTP being canon with Actual Racism/ Homphobia/Pedophilia/ ACTUAL HATE CRIMES ON THE LEVEL OF KILLING REAL HUMAN PEOPLE, but ALSO

1) ignoring the role of the CREATORS of bigoted/harmful work and going after fans, who, while absolutely complacent in a fandom by participating in it... did not MAKE it

2) deliberately refuse all attempts by others outside their cults to find common ground

and 3) actively campaign for censorship of huuuuuge swaths of fan content that centers queer themes, kink, or is made by older fans, EXPLICITLY BY EQUATING THIS CONTENT TO ACTUAL PHYSICAL ACTS OF VIOLENCE

....all while having blm banners, ACAB in their bios, rt-ing fundraisers and absolutely not donating to them, donating to joke kickstarters to kill random fans, and not so jokingly calling the cops, fbi and swat teams, and sending death threats, doxxing, attempting (laughable dumb) acts of terror, and arguing for vigilante and STATE BACKED VIOLENCE against those same fans.... who, guess what, are ALSO VERY LIKEY TO BE BIPOC.

I can NOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. saying “white fans, as a whole, and ESPECIALLY the ao3-supportive community, are active in maintaining a racist community and defend themselves by crying ‘Censorship Puritans & Death Threats Oh My’” is true. but it ignores the growing community of Im-Not-Racist-I-Have-ACAB-In-My-Bio YOUNGER white fans who are more than happy to hand that argument to the “Olds” ready to use by lumping Deeply Set Systemic Racism in with “My Fav Is OOC In This One Fic :(...”

because two groups of white people who claim to hate each other, are actually, consciously or not, working in perfect tandem to prevent any change to fandom’s racial bigotry.

-

Look:

you want to call out the “Olds” for their shit? they all say “Oh LOOK AN ANTI DEATH THREAT CULTIST PURITAN 1984 BIG BROTHER SPOILED BABY!!! ohhhh gonna tell me to Do My Taxes???” and send death threats after u.

want to call out younger whites for Not Exactly Helping? if you’re younger than * insert current Maximum Age Of Being A Good Person here * your post will b co opted by dingbats who argue that the masses of fic killing off bipoc characters in horrific ways is morally and practically the same as a 3 yr age gap between fictional adults...

...and if you’re older it’s “wowwww lmaooo look at this Crusty Old Hag I bet they * do whatever the Bad Thing of the week is * go do ur taaaaxessss arent your 3+ kids hungryyyy while you neglect them to HARASS ME, a MINOR..... oh no mODS HELP HELP IM A POOR WITTLE KID THIS BIG SCAWY ADULT IS ATTACKING MEEEEE”

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TO SUMMARIZE-

OLDER WHITE CREATORS AND COMMUNITIES LIKE AO3 NEED TO BE HELD FULLY ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE RACISM THEY BLATANTLY CHAMPION. BUT THE SAME IS TRUE FOR THE YOUNGER WHITE-DOMINATED FAN SPACES THAT HAPPILY THROW MINORITIES, ESPECIALLY BIPOC, TO THE WOLVES FOR THE SAKE OF ESCALATING A FAKE WAR, OVER FAKE PROBLEMS, WITH THE WHITE FANS FOUR YEARS OLDER THAN THEM.

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I am not going to pretend I know how to solve this. All I can say is that anyone saying “well of COURSE The Olds are Racist they support The Bad Ships(tm)”.... shut the fuck up you’re doing the same shit from a different blog theme.

...And, in my opinion??? Outside of some VERY specific scenarios that make themselves VERY obvious, the combination of Shipping and Race into a singular “Fandom Discourse” is an obviously white supremacist idea that equates real human suffering with cartoons having sex. so like. if I have any advice?

Keep Actual Racial Issues out of shipping wars, and keep shipping wars out of Race Based Criticism. YES this also includes the anti/proship BS too. If you consider a ship so tied to race/bigotry/racial caricature that the two cant be mentioned separately? mayyyybe thats not the best ship to use as ammo for P3d0 accusations and death threats agains That One Community You Dont Like.... unless.

you know.

you never cared about BIPOC fans in the first place and just wanted to sound like a Cool And Right Good Person while you sent gore pics to ppl u think Ship Wrong.

...yeeeesh that was a longer rant than I expected to write...

god, remember when Supernatural AND Voltron killed off their single WOC in the final 3 episodes but it was only ever brought up as, like, SuPpOrTiNg EvIdEnCe in the 4+ yrs of fandom outrage over 1-2 gay couples???? but yeah sure “only The Olds (cough-proshipperpedonastykinkyadultwomen-cough) are nasty stinky uglee racists” 🙃🙃🙃

[freedom-of-fanfic]

My god, antis really are the new puritans. Do they even see their own irony? For sure, it's good to dissect and even criticize fiction if you're into that, but antis take to a whole other level. The last time I felt such anxiety that the anti movement aroused was dealing with religious scrupulosity from catholicsm.

nope: they are blind to the similarities. They hate puritanical Christians, so therefore they cannot possibly be like them in any way. (this is, as it happens, the same argument used to dispute the radfem influence in anti positions.)

I mean, no surprise because:

puritanical values are so strongly imposed in like 92% of American towns and cities that I don’t think kids who grew up in it could see how it operates short of thorough deprogramming

black and white thinking and ‘us vs them’ rhetoric is basically the air American ‘Christianity’ breathes

the average American afab person/woman’s relationship with sex is probably Complicated to say the least, between the abstinence only education and the internet and the sexualized marketing of their bodies (all other a[x]ab and genders too, honestly, but in particular women and people of all genders who are born with/grow up with vaginas)

that it often comes out in the shape of ‘fictional sex that makes me personally uncomfortable is bad!’ in fandom circles is hardly a surprise

also ‘kink is bad b/c reasons’ rhetoric that sounds suspiciously like radfem voices combining with puritanical bs

nobody in America knows shit about LGBT history, queer history, feminist history, labor rights history, or civil rights history. specifically, they don’t know shit about how the rest of society goes/has gone about trying to shut them down via:

censorship

false accusations of pedophilia/abuse/murder/etc, including false police reports and false arrest

giving them bad press

terror campaigns involving threatening messages, vandalism, stalking, verbal harassment, etc

and a lot worse

so they have no idea how they’re literally co-opting the techniques of every oppressor ever to attack their fellow fans who are more likely than not also oppressed and marginalized

radfems and their ‘women have to self-examine’ choke-holding tumblr activism got young antis like ‘fandom members gotta self-examine’ instead of everyone going ‘shit, maybe it’s the bullshit systems that hurt us that we should be really examining and attacking and maybe we can let ourselves have fun that isn’t Pure and put our energy into fighting the real enemy instead of each other and ourselves’

basically things are so much ‘equal’ (online) for some marginalized people- we’re able to be so much more open - that we have the luxury of using the same shitty techniques on each other that the puritanical right has used in the past to shut us down and/or straight up excuse killing us.