I am feeling very crappy at the moment, and not really up to comments but I felt like rambling. I'd flock it but it's acting partly as a reply to someone not in my circle, so comments are screened to prevent drama I'm not up to handling (I had to nap for 2 hours this morning to get the energy to surf the internet)
So, for those not paying attention to fanfic fandom, there were some nueroscientists who made utter aggravating offensive idiots of themselves with a really amazingly bad survey. Their plan, afaict, was to study the innate neurological wiring of desire in the brain by an anonymous online survey about slash on the logic that (a)Only women write it and (b)It's socially unacceptable, thus must be the result of innate wiring not socialisation. And it got worse from there. I'm not going to go into it because it has been discussed to death, but if you're interested poke at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
linkspam starting here. (Anyone got an up-to-date synopsis I can point to?)
In the giant flaming fallout of this, three pieces of RPS (explicit slash about the straight men running the survey) were made, afaict in this order.
Someone (I've lost the link) wrote a story at their own lj.
Text story by fridgepunk in the comments to the researcher Ogi's lj
and a while later (NSFW OMG WARNING WARNING)Tentacle porn photo manipulation by Alchemia at his own lj
Some background on RPS as I understand it: it's very controversial with a lot of fanfic writers (and even more so with people who don't like fanfic!) But the general consensus amongst RPFers is that it's not really about real people but the public personas of celebrities, and is ok as long as the subjects don't come across it (unless they actively seek it out in which case they have noone to blame but themselves) Personally I am squicked (grossed out) by it but don't think it's OMG wrong.
I saw people happily linking to the first two stories and was made rather uncomfortable. I skimmed through the first page of replies to the comment fic and was disturbed that noone seemed to question the ethics of posting explicit, insulting porn about Ogi to his own lj. To me it pinged as akin to all those nasty hatesex discussions etc of Sarah Palin and Anne Coulter, and while I couldn't vouch for the author's intent I felt a spiteful glee to the way it was sometimes linked about, as if to say "Ha! Mess with fandom and we will write embarrassing insulting porn about you!" (fridgepunk talks about their motivation here if you're interested)
On the other hand I could see why people liked the story and felt it was appropriate. Certainly nothing fandom has done is anywhere near as bad as what these guys did. It just felt like it was close enough to the line of stuff we shouldn't do regardless of how much the person "deserves" it that it should at least be discussed.
I then saw Alchemia's picture and was OMG squicked. It hits several of my squicks at once and just..ew (well made, mind you. But squicky :)). But then ithiliana posted with some links to people who felt it crossed the line and an interesting conversation started in her lj about whether or not it and the fic were appropriatte. I was happy that it was being discussed, and had my mind opened to other interpretations of the art. All good.
Then I felt really crap and dropped out of the conversation for a bit. There was much polorised ranting about how the art is Totally Unimpeachable Protest Art or Totally Inappropriate , and it descended a bit into "Your opinion is supporting the Patriarchy while mine is bringing it down!" on both sides. This annoys me.
So, anyway, at this point I'm ambivalent on the art. But I do think that people are being influenced by their squicks about tentacle porn and manips into suddenly being "bothered by the ethics", since afaict hardly anyone else (other than me! I was squicked before it became cool! *cough*) was bothered when it was just fridgepunk's fic even though it's a more unambiguous violation of community norms.
I also think that all the people talking about how we're "a community of women" and eliding the fact that Alchemia (a trans man) isn't a woman, and that one of the major flaws of the survey was the way it invisibled men and intersex people, are perfect examples of the sort of thing I was complaining about here. (nb I am NOT saying that anyone who defended the art is being cissexist! Just noting a specific issue which I've seen associated with multiple POVs)
Also: in![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elf's thought on Hentai she said
there's a difference between mocking someone with erotica because erotica is your most versatile communicative tool and mocking someone with erotica because sex is the most degrading thing you can imagine.
Which sums up the pro-protest-RPF argument very nicely, and I think explains why I reacted against it all so much initially. On the whole I prefer my fic to be relatively non-explicit, and tentacle porn RPF is a very long way from how I express myself creatively :) I still think that in the context of, say, an outsider's lj, it's important to consider how sexually explicit stuff will come across to people who don't come from the same subculture (and, as it turns out, even to the ones who do but, like me, approach it differently)
I'm sorry, were you expecting a point? I said I wanted to ramble :)
So, for those not paying attention to fanfic fandom, there were some nueroscientists who made utter aggravating offensive idiots of themselves with a really amazingly bad survey. Their plan, afaict, was to study the innate neurological wiring of desire in the brain by an anonymous online survey about slash on the logic that (a)Only women write it and (b)It's socially unacceptable, thus must be the result of innate wiring not socialisation. And it got worse from there. I'm not going to go into it because it has been discussed to death, but if you're interested poke at
linkspam starting here. (Anyone got an up-to-date synopsis I can point to?)In the giant flaming fallout of this, three pieces of RPS (explicit slash about the straight men running the survey) were made, afaict in this order.
Someone (I've lost the link) wrote a story at their own lj.
Text story by fridgepunk in the comments to the researcher Ogi's lj
and a while later (NSFW OMG WARNING WARNING)Tentacle porn photo manipulation by Alchemia at his own lj
Some background on RPS as I understand it: it's very controversial with a lot of fanfic writers (and even more so with people who don't like fanfic!) But the general consensus amongst RPFers is that it's not really about real people but the public personas of celebrities, and is ok as long as the subjects don't come across it (unless they actively seek it out in which case they have noone to blame but themselves) Personally I am squicked (grossed out) by it but don't think it's OMG wrong.
I saw people happily linking to the first two stories and was made rather uncomfortable. I skimmed through the first page of replies to the comment fic and was disturbed that noone seemed to question the ethics of posting explicit, insulting porn about Ogi to his own lj. To me it pinged as akin to all those nasty hatesex discussions etc of Sarah Palin and Anne Coulter, and while I couldn't vouch for the author's intent I felt a spiteful glee to the way it was sometimes linked about, as if to say "Ha! Mess with fandom and we will write embarrassing insulting porn about you!" (fridgepunk talks about their motivation here if you're interested)
On the other hand I could see why people liked the story and felt it was appropriate. Certainly nothing fandom has done is anywhere near as bad as what these guys did. It just felt like it was close enough to the line of stuff we shouldn't do regardless of how much the person "deserves" it that it should at least be discussed.
I then saw Alchemia's picture and was OMG squicked. It hits several of my squicks at once and just..ew (well made, mind you. But squicky :)). But then ithiliana posted with some links to people who felt it crossed the line and an interesting conversation started in her lj about whether or not it and the fic were appropriatte. I was happy that it was being discussed, and had my mind opened to other interpretations of the art. All good.
Then I felt really crap and dropped out of the conversation for a bit. There was much polorised ranting about how the art is Totally Unimpeachable Protest Art or Totally Inappropriate , and it descended a bit into "Your opinion is supporting the Patriarchy while mine is bringing it down!" on both sides. This annoys me.
So, anyway, at this point I'm ambivalent on the art. But I do think that people are being influenced by their squicks about tentacle porn and manips into suddenly being "bothered by the ethics", since afaict hardly anyone else (other than me! I was squicked before it became cool! *cough*) was bothered when it was just fridgepunk's fic even though it's a more unambiguous violation of community norms.
I also think that all the people talking about how we're "a community of women" and eliding the fact that Alchemia (a trans man) isn't a woman, and that one of the major flaws of the survey was the way it invisibled men and intersex people, are perfect examples of the sort of thing I was complaining about here. (nb I am NOT saying that anyone who defended the art is being cissexist! Just noting a specific issue which I've seen associated with multiple POVs)
Also: in
elf's thought on Hentai she said there's a difference between mocking someone with erotica because erotica is your most versatile communicative tool and mocking someone with erotica because sex is the most degrading thing you can imagine.
Which sums up the pro-protest-RPF argument very nicely, and I think explains why I reacted against it all so much initially. On the whole I prefer my fic to be relatively non-explicit, and tentacle porn RPF is a very long way from how I express myself creatively :) I still think that in the context of, say, an outsider's lj, it's important to consider how sexually explicit stuff will come across to people who don't come from the same subculture (and, as it turns out, even to the ones who do but, like me, approach it differently)
I'm sorry, were you expecting a point? I said I wanted to ramble :)