Fiction, Reality, Fandom and Adulthood

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Title:	Fiction, Reality, Fandom and Adulthood: a media academic and CSA/incest victim’s account; OR: Stop Using Victims As Your Shield And Take Responsibility for Your Actions You Wanker
Creator:	theangryvictim
Date(s):	February 22, 2017
Medium:	Medium article
Fandom:
Topic:	Social Justice and Fandom
External Links:	Fiction, Reality, Fandom and Adulthood, on Twitter, on Tumblr
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Fiction, Reality, Fandom and Adulthood: a media academic and CSA/incest victim’s account is a Medium article by theangryvictim.

The article goes in detail about the author's own experiences with fandom in 2006, on Fanfiction.net, and as a rape/CSA/incest victim.

As of early 2020, the article has been removed and replaced with placeholder text, but can still be viewed in archived links.

Some Topics Discussed

The essay covers a range of topics that have become hot-button issues as a result of Tumblr social justice fandom, including:

• Fiction vs Reality
• framing in fiction, including rape, incest, age gap ships, and abuse
• victims and victimhood being used as rhetorical devices within fandom discussions about morality and fiction
• fandom adults, and how they interact with young people in online spaces

Excerpts

I’ve never been particularly interested in ship wars and other such fandom wank. Even when I first joined fandom at eleven years old it seemed like a hot-bed of chronically insecure and eternally pissed off people arguing only for the fun of it, or to validate the ‘legitimacy’ of their liking a thing. This opinion has only strengthened over the years, from a vague feeling at that age to something I can express in a single sentence.

As a media studies academic with a special focus in fandom, I should probably be more intrigued by this whole phenomenon. I’m really not though. There’s nothing to investigate here: people feel like they’re fighting for some right they perceive as being challenged by other people expressing their dislike of a thing. Chronically insecure and eternally pissed off. So much so I’m sure there’s already people prepared to leap down my throat screaming about how they’re not pissed off or insecure it’s just that — blah, blah, blah, let the fansplaining begin.

This isn’t new. This isn’t exclusive to fandom. And usually I think this isn’t even worth commenting on.

Then something horrible happened: they started dragging social justice discourse into it. Specifically, related to rape culture, childhood sexual abuse, incest, domestic abuse, trauma, and most of all, victims. Suddenly I’m seeing posts either shouting about how ‘problematic’ it is to ship XY because it’s ‘abusive’ and won’t somebody please think of the victims, right next to posts shouting about how ‘problematic’ it is to call people out for shipping XY because it’s not ‘abusive’ and even if it was ‘abusive’ some people ship to cope with their trauma and won’t somebody please think of the victims!

Is it really okay to do whatever we want because it’s ‘just curiosity’?

That seems to be the question people are afraid to ask with these topics, along with: What purpose does my curiosity here serve?

Of course, most people would say it doesn’t need to serve a purpose. They’d probably call me capitalist for suggesting it should serve one. But here’s the thing: once you’ve dived in, once you’ve got the answers to your morbid curiosity, what next? What are you going to do with that information? How are you going to process it? Are you aware of the risks, of how potentially traumatic even rubbernecking on other people’s suffering can be? Are you going to process it at all? Are you going to help victims? Are you going to sit around stewing in ‘the feels’ until they pass? How are you going to process the natural horror this will inspire in you if you’re not totally detached from what you’re hearing? Are you just going to brush it off like it never happened? Are you just consuming mindlessly?

Isn’t it fucked up to ask trauma victims to lay ourselves bare for you to pick at whenever you’re curious?

“Oh, but they’re fictional victims!”

Yes, they are. And going into writing a detailed and accurate portrayal of a fictional victim is the suffering of real victims. You only know how to reflect it in fiction because of what has been expressed in reality.

People don’t write fiction from nothing, they write it from reality. Therefore all portrayals of trauma in fiction come from the scars of victims, usually distorted and warped by people trying to satisfy a morbid curiosity without actually engaging enough to understand our pain. We’re your fucked up award bait and you morbidly twist our suffering until you call it ‘beautiful’, an ‘exploration of the human condition’, a ‘curiosity’. And then just to stab us in the back again, you go ahead talking about how ‘fascinating’ the mind of an abuser is until our stories are all about them! Until Lolita goes on romance shelves because you trust the unreliable narrator who is a literal child rapist over his victim.

Isn’t it worrying that people find it easier to relate to an abuser than a victim? And if they don’t, then why are you always focused on portraying the criminal as human over their victims? Victims do it because we have been manipulated into doing so. What’s your excuse?

And more to the point: you can’t call fiction a way to satisfy morbid curiosity about real things unless you believe fiction reflects that reality in a meaningful way. Not necessarily an accurate way, but in a way that has enough meaning to address your morbid curiosity. If this is the case, how are you stopping yourself from processing this fiction as a signifier of reality? How are you stopping yourself from normalising what you’re seeing portrayed? And if it’s a morbid curiosity that you regularly indulge, well. Aren’t you all the more likely to normalise it?

Face it: it’s a morbid curiosity because it doesn’t feel real to you. And unless you’re engaging with media dealing with trauma in the right way, with the right framing, and actually processing what’s being shown to you, that curiosity amounts to nothing more than fetishing our suffering.

From one side I hear, ‘Victims should silently let people ship whatever they want, however they want.’

From the other side I hear, ‘Victims should silently be relieved when people tell others to commit suicide in our names, grateful for every account of our suffering to also be silenced.’

Or maybe, you should stop invoking victimhood in your fandom discourses. Maybe you should stop twisting our realities and the facts of media normalisation for the sake of an argument that’s clearly primarily based on your need for strangers on the internet to approve of your life choices. Maybe don’t drag us into your petty fandom wars.

But I understand: fandom is an extreme place. You feel like you have to be extreme here. You don’t, though. You can like or hate whatever you like or hate, you just can’t say or do whatever you want to justify it. You probably don’t even have to justify it.

Reject that insecure voice in the back of your mind instead of following it on the quest for the moral pedestal.

We do not choose what media touches our lives. What we choose is how we interpret and reframe it for others, and whether we climb the bodies of real victims to reach moral pedestals.

Oh but I know, most of you who’ve read this far will come away going, “Yes! This exactly describes how those creeps in fandom behave!” and never turn that critical eye to your own behaviour. After all, your intent is good, isn’t it? You never meant to hurt anyone. You’re just having a fun time in fandom, and it’s not your fault if people misunderstand your actions and remarks. They’re judging you prematurely. They don’t know you. Your intent is suddenly all that matters, not that you’ve got a real person in front of you in pain that you, however accidentally, contributed to.

How do you react when people ask you to stop? Do you talk louder to explain yourself? Do you tell them to go away? Do you tell them they misunderstood, it was never a problem, they’re just overreacting, you didn’t mean it like that, what a silly little spat now let’s keep being friends?

Do you stop and think carefully about what they’re asking, or do you jump straight to insecure self-defence?

I don’t know about other victims, but I always judge people most by how they react when I ask them to stop.

Stop dragging victims into your Discourse Wars.

Do not touch my body. You don’t have the right.

Comments

Responses are largely positive, and have been on Twitter and Tumblr, where the article was circulated. It currently has 521 RTs on Twitter and 615 reblogs on Tumblr.

Thank you so much for writing this!! As a teenager in fandom who's just starting to come to terms with both my current stance and my past thoughts on this issue this really helped me in understand the questions raised and reflect on how i see the different types of ships where this applies. you've written this in a really powerful and poignant way, and i hope you won't get any shit for this because it's something everyone in fandom should seriously use for self-reflection.

i think a lot of fannish ppl try to divorce their awareness of issues from their behavior so (in tandem with the rhetoric of this article, whose author is mostly anonymous) they can recognize behavior as bad w/o self-reflecting[.] like its so easy to say "this article is correct and this behavior is bad" w/o acknowledging issues w our own thoughts & behaviors... to agree w the message in theory but not in practice. to say "well im not one of Those Ppl." when ppl inherently victim-blame & victim-shame[.] anyway basically my point is that its easy to say, flimsily "that was a good read" w/o taking into acct what it says abt ur thought & behavior & considering how to improve and change that

I definitely learned a lot from reading this article and I realize I did all these things without realizing and it made me think a lot about how I evaluate these matters wrt consuming what I think in fandom. (I mean, what I read & enjoy in fandom) granted, I tend to actively avoid anything involving abuse, whether romanticized/written as is but I've been in the firmest belief that authors should be able to write what they want, w/o repercussions and I realize, after reading, that this is a very harmful thing to say to anyone in general, and I am genuinely sorry

This essay is extremely well-written and does a marvellous job of acknowledging the complexities that exist in writing about abuse. I recommend that anyone who spends time in fandom (i.e., virtually everyone online) take the time to read it and to really think about how your interactions with fan content impact survivors.

I don’t want to see anyone recommend a student/teacher fic, a mail order bride fic, an incest fic, a minor/adult fic, et cetera, unless it’s one that is VERY clear about the relationship being abuse and NOT romantic nor sexy. Normalizing and fetishizing abuse in fiction creates fan culture that silences and hurts survivors, and I’m tired of seeing it everywhere.

This is a very important essay that ALL SHIPPERS OF ANY FANDOM should look into.

It leaves a critical perspective from someone who is as a VERY REAL victim of abuse from pedophilia and incest to being someone as a fan and content producer in fandoms.

I personally am interested because I want to be a more critical person when enjoying fan content to prevent myself of justifying anything or at least, that’s what this essay is suggesting people should do. To really check yourself and not justify that abusive crap that happens to the victims.

I’ll tell you one big thing she emphasized and that’s DON’T DRAG VICTIMS INTO SHIPPING DISCORD. YOU ARE LYING TO YOURSELF IF YOU DO BECAUSE YOU REALLY AREN’T DOING THEM A SERVICE.

Still though, I highly suggest you read it yourself and see what you take away from it.

1. very well written if very difficult to read #it's not as easy as saying don't eat spicy food if you dont like heat #its just not that simple #fandom needs to learn that what they do affects real life #fandom needs to grow up and accept responsibility instead of hiding in this shells #there is so much wrong in fandom. #and this essay spells it out step by step #everyone should read this #no matter where they stand in discourse

1. really interesting read #i recommend it if you can handle the more graphic sections detailing OP's past #but it's a good insight on what to be critical with in fandom #like i see things that adults fans say and ship in the year of our lord 2017 #and i'm still caught side-eyeing them so hard #and it also takes in account the awful behavior of antis and pulling non-willing csa survivors in their arguments and using them as a soapb #overall a really really good read #soapbox*

1. so tldr is #in case you don't have time but want to know and will read it all later bc it is a good and informative read #is you can write things just write them the RIGHT and proper way #as in not glorifying or praising or romanticizing something awful but punishing it properly #but framing it correctly to assure the victims they ARE THE VICTIMS because they are and they don't deserve to think less of themselves #or to think what happens to them is NORMAL because it's not #because fiction and reality do have an overlap in society #a very real overlap #this topic has a lot of push and pull for varying levels from victims and those who have never been victims #but the victims POVs should always always be considered #and fictional abuse very much affects them #and their views and feelings must be valued and respected in this discourse #did i miss anything? #did i get anything wrong? #important #something to learn from #a real person to learn from and gain compassion for them and others in this situation

1. this is really really good#by far the pieces EVERYONE INCLUDING ANTIS need to listen to is#the part were it says not to drag CSA survivors unwillingly into am argument#if a csa survivor doesnt want to talk u can not force them to talk#in fact i would appreciate if anyone who wasn't a csa survivor would just stop talking about how survivors should act#including tropes like the Bad Survivor who is always loud and angry#and the Good Survivor who is angelic and quiet and accepts their shortcomings#there is no bad survivor and there is no good survivor

Follow-up discussion about "red flags"

Approximately a month after publishing the article, theangryvictim then posted the following on Tumblr:

People being disturbed by your interests in rape, abuse, paedophilia, incest etc and taking it as a red flag is not unreasonable. It is always a red flag, even if you do keep it to fiction, because perpetrators of these crimes often use these types of fictions to ‘validate’ their interests. We all know this is true.

You do not get to tell people it’s meaningless as a red flag because it’s not. You can consume and create whatever fiction media you like, but you cannot refuse the consequences of doing so. This is one of the consequences. People will judge you based on your interests, as they should.

If you’re not willing to accept the consequences, don’t create or consume the media. Stop telling people to ignore red flags, that’s extremely dangerous – and doesn’t help your claims about understanding the lines between fiction and reality at all, by the way.

This generated much more controversy than theangryvictim's original article, as it directly criticizes shipping trends, and may also be seen as a criticism of the oft-iterated Don't Like, Don't Read.

There's a good point in here somewhere, but it's lost, again, in the notion that creators should be condemned for the actions of criminals.

Orrrrrrr... we've been the victims/survivors of these crimes and feel safe exploring our pasts through fictional venues.

NO IT IS NOT A "RED FLAG" AND LUMPING KIDS WITH TROUBLED MINDS WHO NEED AN OUTLET IN WITH ACTUAL BAD PEOPLE IS WHAT'S DANGEROUS HERE

you can't tell ppl to ignore red flags, but if they're disturbed by the content you consume they should unfollow/block instead of harrassing

I really, really did not want to beat this long dead horse again but

it is also a consumer's responsibility to curate the content they view

Some people like exploring dark, fucked up shit in fiction/art precisely bc that is the only place to look into it w/o negative consequences

If you like disturbing shit, don't tell ppl not to be disturbed

If you're disturbed, remove yourself from said content

It's not that hard

theangryvictim's response to some of these concerns:

Did I say or advocate for condemnation? I'm saying it's natural to take someone's interest in these things as a warning sign, especially for victims of these crimes, and that it's childish and irresponsible for creators & consumers of that media to advocate for people not to take it as such. I write a lot of fiction about these things myself, it comes with the territory, and if you write it well people will move past that initial cringe & judgement. If you don't, they won't, and then maybe it's time to self-reflect rather than telling people to ignore their instincts around people fixated on rape & abuse. Some people are fixated on things because they want to do it. Others aren't. In this situation, with this topic, it's dangerous to pretend otherwise, and downright irresponsible to tell people "don't be creeped out!!!" when it IS a legitimate warning sign.