the watering-down of serious accusations

this post discusses 18+ topics. i'm not your parent, but don't get pissy if you ignore this warning

i would be pro fiction in a vacuum. given no outside input, i would come to the most rational conclusion that the world of media and the world of reality are two distinct realms, and that as long as i have a basic understanding of that fact, it does not matter what fiction i consume.

outside a vacuum, however, exist the dumbest motherfuckers i have ever met in my life. they only push me further and further away from supporting any (and i cringe calling them this, but for clarity i must) anti's mission. i do not try to be open-minded--i am shown incompetence, and i expect incompetence. thus far, i have not been let down.

this rant is spawned from a tiktok i saw that called the infinity pillow "borderline bestiality." you know, the bear stuffed animal with the motorized dildo? it's this infinite and cyclical watering-down of words that mean things that i find so acutely pisses me off. 

no, a stuffed bear with a pink silicone dick is not bestiality. no, furries are not zoophiles. no, consuming gay romance is not fetishization. no, teenagers having sex in media is not pedophilia.

this is not a controversial statement. these situations just, by definition, are not these things. but people in fandom--and particularly young people in fandom--seem to conflate "x thing they don't like" with "y federal crime" far too often, to the extent i'm sure they don't even understand what they actually mean.

the result of this is that not only are actual, harmful crimes being plastered onto poorly made velocity edits, but anyone who doesn't immediately throw themselves into sending death threats to a rando online gets their argument intentionally misconstrued. i see this often with downright lies about the term "proship." 

an actual conversation i've had went like this:

internet person: [responding to someone] a proshipper is someone who ships illegal things like minors and adults or rape
me: being proship is quite literally just being pro shipping. adhering to don't like, don't read, minding your business, and separating fiction from reality.
internet person: idc kiddie diddler

?????? it just boggles the mind. kids who are barely scraping the end of puberty now possess the ability to echo-chamber decades old sentiments into baseless takes within the span of weeks.

now, i could talk ad nauseam about the deterioration of media literacy and reading comprehension, and i'm sure i will eventually, but i'm not even sure that's the problem here. i think it's just a deliberate intent to misinterpret arguments that are challenging to their current ideas. 

it's easy to call someone a fetishizer for reading yaoi and then turn around and read heartstopper instead. one is toxic, dirty, problematic--the other is pure and innocent, just like all queer relationships. it's easy to say things like "you can read the material, just don't support the author," as if the work would still exist even if they hadn't written it. 

because it's much, much harder to come to terms with the fact that sometimes, you like messy things. you like bad love, and things you cannot have, and sex, and drugs, and crimes, and the taboo. and it's hard to come out from behind a wall carefully constructed of "holier-than-thou" bricks. 

i say this as someone who used to be an anti, circa 2020. i used to hate everyone who didn't consume media with the same ever-present veneer of guilt that i did. because that's what it was: guilt. i read gay erotica, and watched hardcore porn, and got off to the idea of resisting a little too much, and i hated myself for it--so i hated everyone else for it, too.

it was only when i understood that no one that actually matters gives a shit what you masturbate to that i mellowed out. there's a life to live outside mind-numbing internet discourse, y'all. go think about those fictional characters fucking nasty. thought crimes aren't punishable by death, like 14-year-olds think they are.