Because intelligent discussion is one of the best weapons against idiocy

[beachlass]

I've said it in a comments thread, so I'll find the courage to say it in my own journal.

I'm assuming the Warriors of Innocence instigated account and comm deletions are hitting some people that are posting unhurtful things, and have trigger words in their interests, and I'm certainly, in no way at all trying to align myself with unthinking censorship, or the like.

But.

I have a soft spot in my heart for a couple of pairings that have a bunch of shota/underage stuff posted about them. To say that it's fictional and causes no harm and that I don't have to look at it is fine up to a point. But there's some stuff out there - not a whole lot, but some - that really seems to be child pornography. There's pictures of Sasuke and Kakashi in our fandom that make me remember vividly what it was like to be molested as a child. Setting aside the harm it does to me - because I know that scanning copycock or steelandsparks might bring up something that will upset me, and I could just completely stop going to those comms (and I'm damn careful about what I open up) - setting that aside...

I still worry about what's going on when someone creates sexually explicit imagery or writing about a child and an adult. I worry about who is in the communities looking for that. And today, I'm not entirely comfortable about my own silence when I've seen that kind of stuff. Maybe I need to have some more courage about naming my discomfort to authors and creators, rather than silently turning my back and not mentioning it. Making nice. What's the cost? What, and who, have we been tolerating in communities?

Comments

[beachlass.livejournal.com]

There's definitely some grey in this discussion. Varying shades of it, some all swirling around fog-like making clarity a rare commodity. Because, no, clearly not everyone who has ever read or written shota is actually condoning, never mind committing child abuse. Actually, one of the things I'm reminded of discussion in feminist circles in the 90's about S&M and power and the appeal, for some survivors in power games in sex that were safe and controlled.

And yet.

I think it's important to hold onto the 'And yet'... to continue to keep our eyes open and our minds engaged, and listen when our guts say "Oh, fuck. This isn't cool, this isn't just harmless fantasy."

After posting this I did hop over to a list of deleted accounts. After the outraged fan postings I'd seen today I was surprised to find tt wasn't a list of lj users with obviously fannish names. There were some fucking creepy sigs there. I wondered how many people that have been posting "save us from this" have actually read the account names.

I've rarely ended up on the side of freedom of speech - too often been in debates where it's been thrown out as a defense for really damaging behaviour. In Canada, it's certainly not an absolute right - it has recognized limits - usually determined case by case - and the most common restrictions would be child pornography and hate crimes (hate speech?). I think rather than absolutes, we're looking for thoughtful and open minded balance - looking not to protect against offense, but against actual harm.

[crazy-toffee.livejournal.com]

I was surprised to find tt wasn't a list of lj users with obviously fannish names. There were some fucking creepy sigs there.

Actually, I did the same thing, and ended up with pretty much the same feeling. I get the impression though - from viewing the fan uproar - that the anger is mostly directed at the deletion of certain comms, rather than particular users. There are some recognised harmless people (and RPGers, lolz) who got their accounts suspended, but as for individuals, it seems to be that most of what was hashed out, was hashed out with good reason.

I'm still not so sure about the comms. There, I found many more cases of comms that were purely fandom/fiction related, and that does bother me. Though we usually stretch the limits of what is acceptable in comms, it would have been better to contact the mods about those very limits, rather than punish a whole group, with no real in-depth analysis of the actual nature of the community.