Kink shaming

[Pota2]

www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/the-porn-you-watch-shouldnt-be-kink-shamed/11453254

The danger with this is, if anything goes in terms of fantasies, how can we legitimately separate this from e.g. fantasies about children? If it’s cool to fantasise about rape and abuse, how can it not be cool to fantasise about a 9 year old child being abused or an animal being abused? I know that those who defend the ‘anything goes’ attitude will say ‘of course there is a difference’ but I can’t really see one, unless you are suggesting that rape is not as morally reprehensible or something (in which case, why isn’t it?).

This won’t end well. Sexual fantasies should be held to the same level of scrutiny as other fantasies or thoughts. If you get off on being violent to another person, you’re still a violent person. You don’t get a get out of jail free card because you say it gives you a hard-on.

(Not sure what ABO is and I'm scared to google...)

I dunno, Endof. It could be an epic failure of imagination. But most of it reads to me as bad slash meets "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus." In that the writers have internalised the message of patriarchal attitudes to heterosexual relationships, viz. that relationships can only take place between a dominant man and a submissive woman, that they apply that model to all relationships.

I also think your pregnancy suspicion may be onto something - but I think it's also down to a way of intoducing a metaphor for biology in a culture (fanfiction) which for the most part embraces the concept of the female penis. ABO dynamics enables people to have metaphors for the relationship between biological reality and personality/behaviours without actually having to admit that biological reality is a thing. Of course, it all goes off the rails, IMO, and rapidly becomes the genuine article "determinism" in that this imaginary biology then determines people's personalities in a lot of fics (there are a few which use it to explore break-downs in this linkage, which is rather better).

Personally I prefer to deal in real world biology (including how women feel about pregnancy/possibility of pregnancy).

Tyrotoxicity - alpha-beta-omega dynamics! archiveofourown.org/works/403644/chapters/665489 (Very funny, but NSFW, and may be disturbing if it cuts too close to the bone of what you've been through yourself).

I get you on slash. When I first came upon fandom, I rapidly came to the conclusion that a lot of what was driving women to write slash was the desire to take the sexual politics out of relationships and use it as a short-cut to a relationship of equals. (Plus I think it's linked to the failure of the Bechdel test in much popular culture: most movies, the meaningful emotional relationship is between the male hero and his male sidekick, or the male protagonist and male antagonist - the female love interest, if there is one, is a two-d cardboard cutout, hence fanficcers come along wanting to write sex with meaningful emotional relationship - the meaningful emotional relationship already there in the source material lends itself much more readily to gay relationships than straight ones.)

It's one of the things that prompted me to write fanfic myself - I wanted to see whether you could write half-way decent fan fic about het couples that stripped away the power imbalance.

Barbara, what I mean is that ABO writers are not particularly young or disturbed.

I don’t think it is a failure of imagination. The writers often seem to know full well what they are doing, and the purpose of the B is that there’s a whole segment of society that aren’t following traditional gender roles.

Tyro, yes, your kink is not my kink has a totally different meaning in a context where people have already agreed sexual content will be present!

It doesn’t work in wider society because wider society works on the premise that everyday life should be kept pg.

I've got into reading and writing fanfic over the past couple of years and have found that the people who write the worst kind (all of which I avoid like the plague) are generally very young and either very woke (there's always something about them being trans or non-binary) or non-neurotypical. And they have no idea about nuance or context and just set out to write the most shocking thing they can think of.

There are people within my particular fandom who I just refuse to read anything by because they think they're being bold and edgy and in fact they're just being incredibly sad and desperate.

ABO leaves me cold. I do write het smut, but I'm very careful about it and take a lot of time over it. I think age and experience has given me a good grasp on writing the dynamics of it.

Should we set up a fanfiction and feminism thread, rather than derail this one? Seems like there's quite a few of us interested in this, and from an inside perspective. I'd certainly be up for it.

Two wrongs don't make a right, Bespin. The marriages of children aged 12 to 17, mostly in poor southern rural areas of the USA , are an abomination. Utterly wrong. Reprehensible.

Incest. Pornography of all kinds. Bestiality. Pup play. All of these taboo kinks, right the way across to rape fantasies and violence, they are all shameful. Wrong. They contribute to a culture where our young women are expected to give anal sex, strangulation and the like just to please young porn sick men who have 'come' to expect it

Kinks are shameful. Some hyper woke pseudo psychology bleating about acceptance being healthy is just meaningless pap.

Fucking hippies. It is all their fault. Free love ain't so free for women.

the writers have internalised the message of patriarchal attitudes to heterosexual relationships, viz. that relationships can only take place between a dominant man and a submissive woman

This, absolutely.

Speaking for myself it wasn't so much that I thought one party had to be dominant and the other submissive. It was more the total lack of a model or framework of relationships between equals. I didn't have a clue how to write het that wasn't horribly fucked up and patriarchal because I had no model for it. And the same was so very clearly true of most other hetficcers.

Slash took some of the problem away because there is a framework for "assertive men with agency" that just isn't there for female characters.

I wanted to see whether you could write half-way decent fan fic about het couples that stripped away the power imbalance.

I think it's possible. But I also think it's bloody rare! Because you can't strip away the power imbalance without first consciously acknowledging and addressing it; and also because, unless you're writing in a setting that doesn't have sex-based power imbalances, then your characters are going to either have patriarchy-brain or be OOC.

Right. I'm going to be brave and click on that link, otherwise I'm going to struggle to follow half of this conversation.

Whoops, crosspost. Do it, Barbara! Start that thread!

I have started a thread.

I have never understood why anyone feels the need to broadcast their sex life. Keep it between you and whoever you are doing it with. I remember those godawful ‘sex to do lists’ in 90s men’s mags, and suddenly it became so cold and clinical, like a tick box exercise. Do what makes you feel good, but it’s like going on about an amazing meal. We only care if we’re eating it ourselves. As it were...

I didn't have a clue how to write het that wasn't horribly fucked up and patriarchal because I had no model for it. And the same was so very clearly true of most other hetficcers.

Oh god yes, I hear you on this one! So much of it reads like bad Barbara Cartland (and yes, I do mean that literally - stuff so toe-curling it makes Cartland look like Dworkin).

a culture where our young women are expected to give anal sex, strangulation and the like just to please young porn sick men who have 'come' to expect it

And what are we doing to put a stop to this? To change expectations, to ensure that our young women are treated with respect?

I can speak out. I do. But I'm a grandmother, people (including young women) think I'm complaining because no-one is interested in me sexually.

Where are the women supporting each other in this? Who are the lawyers who will speak for us when we try to prosecute those who have abused us? We need to get organised in ways we never have before. We are under attack.

I just had to scroll up and reread, and I'm pretty sure Detroit isn't conflating healthy consensual adult sexual activity with rape and incest.

Slight question mark over the inclusion of "pup play" there, but that's rather the point of the thread, isn't it?

"Pup play" may be occurring between consenting adults, but where is the analysis of how the hell those adults came to find wearing a dog suit and being taken out on a lead arousing?

People aren't born with an innate preference for pup play. It's a learned sexual response. And the process by which it is learned is inherently problematic.

Healthy adult sexual activity does not include s and m, pornography, dangerous kinks.

I could not care less if two, three or a whole pack of grown men want to dress up in private and get it on. But I do care when their kink is paraded and introduced to children as a normal healthy expression of adult sexuality. It's demeaning, it's not ok. It doesn't belong in public.

When I read that murder and torture of women is excused because of kinks being normalized, it makes me physically sick. I can't even search for the details of the case I'm thinking of to refer to it , ild not get it out my head.

The taboos need to stay in place.

No one said gay sex is wrong.

young women are expected to give anal sex is all Detroit said about anal sex. She is not wrong; there is research and evidence demonstrating that young women are indeed put under a great deal of pressure to accept anal sex, and that young men are being conditioned by porn to view coercing their female partners into submitting to anal sex. This is not the same as saying "anal sex is inherently immoral."

I'm not going to google feminist pornographers, because I believe it's a contradiction in terms. It suggests that it is possible for pornography to be feminist, and within the patriarchal context this is simply not so. Unless of course your definition of "feminist" hinges around choice and so-called empowerment.

I think that phrases like 'kink shaming' and 'slut shaming' are similar to 'terf' and 'swerf' in that they are used to silence any sort of criticism of questionable behaviour.

A lot of things like porn, prostitution, dangerous fetishes and pornographic music videos aired on mainstream tv are not particularly healthy nor conducive to a peaceful functioning safe society where everyone is respected. People invested in these toxic behaviours have created terms like kink shaming to silence and ironically, shame, anyone who wants to question such behaviour and use critical thinking skills.

I'm strongly anti homophobic. I don't feel gay men like women very much on the whole, nor are they pro feminist en masse.

Having spent time in the scene in an area well known for its gay scene Ive seen how young, vulnerable gay men are used and abused, forced into accepting sub behaviors they are not really comfortable with, and even drug use they are not into (mainly meth).

Pup play is just one more dark scene that does not encourage positive self esteem feelings. It is not just dressing up. It's a strongly master and servant kinda deal. Photos of pride with pups in their sexual fetish gear interacting with children are very disturbing.

Don't be so willfully innocent.

Women, gay men, we are all being shamed into accepting harmful damaging kinks. Leading to penises in women's spaces.

So we're not allowed to say "some consensual adult sexual activity is problematic and has societal ramifications" and also in the same post "rape and paedophilia are fucking horrific whether they're real or fictional" because this is conflating the two and normalising rape and paedophilia?

Um. No. Way to completely miss the point of what's being said.

Conflating damaging consensual adult sexual behaviour with healthy consensual adult sexual behaviour normalises damaging behaviour.

There's a very wide range of damaging sexual behaviour. Some of it's consensual. That needs acknowledging and addressing.

Hey hippo, I'm doing nothing of the sort.

Stop being the cool girl.

Inflicting consensual kinks, which are far from healthy, onto public spaces, is not ok. It's h

Yikes hippo, you are throwing around some horrendous accusations there. Pretty much the worst accusation you could throw at people. Nobody is conflating anything. You have done some very odd mental gymnastics to get to that conclusion.

We are pointing out that the more kink gets normalised, the more it removes societal boundaries. Boundaries are often there for safeguarding reasons and also as a way of respecting the feelings of different people (because most people don't want to know or don't care about your kinks) so it's important to be able to say 'hey I don't think this is right' without being shut down as a 'kink shamer.'

I have zero problem with homosexuality and have always supported same sex marriage and I used to think Pride was a positive thing, but I don't think it's right that blokes in fetish gear are parading around town centres in the middle of the day at events that are billed as 'family friendly.'