Whose “Safe Space” is Fandom Anyway

Meta
Title:	Whose “Safe Space” is Fandom Anyway (Balancing Boundaries: How to Keep Fandom Safe and Welcoming for All)
Creator:	CameoAmalthea
Date(s):	Feb 25, 2018
Medium:	Tumblr post
Fandom:	Panfandom
Topic:
External Links:	Fandom and Feeling: Whose "Safe Space" is Fandom Anyway, Archived version
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Whose “Safe Space” is Fandom Anyway (Balancing Boundaries: How to Keep Fandom Safe and Welcoming for All) is a 2018 essay by CameoAmalthea.

The topics are triggers, antis, safe spaces and fandom, boundaries vs purity culture and proper tagging of fanworks.

"I believe that all adults should have a right to control their bodies and lives and make choices. Again, the hard part is when someone else’s choices effect you. If someone does something that does not involve you, but still upsets you, even hurts you (because emotional pain still hurts) do your boundaries, your right to say ‘no’ give you the right to tell them they’re not allowed to do that. The long answer is you have to learn to accept you can’t control other people."

Excerpts

In fan works sometimes themes explored in fiction are dark or taboo. Sometimes they are a response to oppression (women live at risk of sexual assault, many are survivors or know someone who is a survivor, it’s no wonder themes of rape fantasy are common among women as a power fantasy to take control, although shame women experience for consenting to sex (slut shaming) may also be a factor, easy to imagine sex without the guilt of consent). Sometimes they explore in the safety of fiction what writers couldn’t explore in real life, like teenage sexual awakening. Sometimes these works play with the forbidden or reimagine relationships. It’s a space where creators have control to shape reality as they see fit.

The conflict comes between those who think these themes ought not to be published where they could harm a viewer and those who think themes out to be published where they can help a viewer as much as they helped the writer.

Whether harm means make someone feel uncomfortable, triggering someone, leading a vulnerable person, like a minor, to have an unhealthy or unrealistic view of relationships or leading an abuser to think victims want to be abused since people like reading about it, antis are concerned people might hurt by harmful ideas in fiction.

Whether these works helped the writer in exploring their own sexuality or in coping with trauma or in finding happiness and something that was for them in a world where most media isn’t made for them. (it’s made by and for white cis het men who make up the majority of writers/producers/directors/publishers), anti-censorship/anti-antis are concerned that many are helped by the ability to explore things, even harmful idea, in fiction.

The points have been argued, and I’m not interested in debating to what extent fiction is harmful and censorship (self censorship is still censorship) is needed. I’m interested in how we, as a fandom, can balance these interest and create a safe space for everyone.

Everyone has a right to consent and to set boundaries. To say no to things they don’t want and to say yes to thing they do. In a four part essay, I’ll take a look at how we can balance boundaries so that fandom can be a space for all.

How do we respect people’s boundaries when people are upset by different things and find comfort in different things? Sometimes two people’s valid needs are at contradictory. So if two people have different opinions on if something is upsetting who is valid?

Example:

I’m a CSA survivor and this makes me very uncomfortable and reminds me of my trauma, triggering me.

vs.

I’m a CSA survivor and this content doesn’t upset me, in fact I enjoy it, and people comparing it to my trauma makes me very uncomfortable and the rhetoric against it reminds me of my trauma, triggering me.

Question: Which opinion is matters?

Answer: Both Do!

Both are valid. Both are real descriptions of very real emotions.

I’m a survivor and I blog about recovery here, as well as advocacy. I’ve also talked about the fact a ship some see as problematic I see as comforting and helpful. (you can read that here).

So how do we balance boundaries?

Part of it is recognizing that emotions are valid. You feel how you feel. There’s no wrong way to feel about something (because we don’t have full control over our emotions).

What we do have control over is our own actions. Taking steps to avoid our triggers and taking steps to help others avoid there triggers (Tagging when asked, not bringing things up that upset people).

Even if two people have contradictory emotional responses, how they feel can both be valid and true for them. Both deserve to be able to set boundaries. Not forcing content other people want to see on them. Not trying to control what content people who want to see that content can find.

Tagging actually helps with both.

I had a conversation yesterday with an artist who is uncomfortable sharing fandom space with older fans given some amount of fandom has sexual connotations.

Some minors and survivors don’t like the fact adults write or draw NSFW fanart about teen characters (whether they’re teens in canon or high school AUs).

That’s valid.

They shared:

“When we have people approaching their mid-20s and nearing their 30s coming on my art and calling [teenage video game characters] sexy that makes me uncomfortable and I have every right to feel disrespected and uncomfortable and call out the behavior. I do not want my art consumed by people who think that is alright, and if you are one of those people I kindly ask you to never interact with me or my content again.”

That’s also valid.

You absolutely have the right to feel uncomfortable about anything and to say, “X makes me uncomfortable, please don’t say that to me’.

That’s a boundary.

You absolutely have a say in what people can say to you or talk to you about, and in what you want to see.

But remember, one person’s boundaries aren’t the same as everyone’s boundaries and experiences aren’t universal.

Personally, one of my first fandoms was FF7. It was an older fandom then (it came out in 1997) so by the time I was old enough to look at 18+ rated works there were plenty of adults in the fandom writing them.

Of course, there were adults there, it came out a long time ago, just as of course there are adults in the Kingdom Hearts fandom. (If you were anywhere near the character’s age when the games came out, you’re in your mid-twienties to early 30s now because the game came out nearly 16 years ago).

As a young person in fandom, I was happy adults existed who were writing adult content, because the fandom being older meant there was tons of stuff available to read. Once I turned 18 and was actually allowed to look at NSFW/18+ stuff, I wanted to explore it to see if there was anything I liked.

My friends had favorite authors and loved them. My husband read Cloud/Sephiroth work called “Blonde Ambition” by @owmyhearteries. The fic is about Cloud as a teenage gay boy in love with the much older Sephiroth. There is sex in this fic.

For my husband, it became the vehicle to project himself and vicariously explore his own sexuality. As a teenager he was an orphan by abandonment living with a conservative grandmother in Mississippi, who’d been treated like he was the living embodiment of shame because he was born out of wedlock. (It’s Mississippi). So he could never be a teenage boy who had celebrity crushes openly. He couldn’t even dream about acting on them.

So a story of a kid from a small town going to a big city and having that dream boy fall in love with him was a perfect fantasy. It was escapism. And it was something which helped him come to accept his own sexuality and be ok with liking boys. Because sex was portrayed as positive and normal.

Responses

[jamblute]
I can’t agree more. With proper tagging, there can still be a space in fandom safe for everyone without shying away from “heavy topics”.

I personally believe that difficult subjects have to be addressed as a society in fiction in order for change to happen. Not talking about racism or sexual assault doesn’t make it not happen, it takes the crimes invisible.

Talk about it. Show the damage done to a character people empathize with, not a stranger in an news story heard in passing. You think something is wrong, don’t let it be swept under the rug.

Make a story about it, make people address it - but don’t make survivors relive it. Tag for triggers, show respect. Don’t deny it ever happened.

As a survivor of emotional abuse myself who is also demisexual, I find solace in a fair amount of fiction that contains subjects such as emotional abuse and discrimination based on sexuality. I feel less alone, I know that my struggles aren’t forgotten or meaningless to those around me.

People see it and they know it’s wrong. I take heart in that, but not everyone does. Not everyone is ready to see that. That’s fine. Use the right tags, but don’t hide bad real life things in fiction. That helps no one.

[alyndra9]
I’d been noticing lately that people seem to be using ‘safe space’ in a way very different from how I’m used to thinking of it and seeing it in fandom contexts. ‘Safe from being hurt or offended’ vs ‘safe to express dark or kinky things freely.’ This is a way better articulation of thoughts than I would have been able to do on the subject; @cameoamalthea , any way you’d want to add it to AO3 as meta?