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Post by Daedalus on Aug 7, 2014 8:17:53 GMT
Late night post, and I apologize in advance: I do not wish to re-open this can of worms. Looking at the arguments here, the people who said 'this didn\'t hurt any real people' are correct, obviously. So why am I so bothered, especially days later? That question has nagged at me for a few days, and I think I've found my perspective on the answer. I'm curious what you all think of this reasoning; I don't want to start a fight. Emphasis is not to shout, but just to point out where I'm feeling emotion in typing.I obviously had a very strong knee-jerk reaction that this art was * morally* wrong (see my first post), and should be removed. Again, this is not a desire for censorship on my part. I just felt, without being quite able to point out where exactly, that something was very very wrong here. And that's not an adequate reason itself, clearly. I gave no reason to support my answer save vague feelings - certainly not enough reason to condemn art. The implications of sexual content were disconcerting, of course. I love the world Tom's built, and the characters in it - obviously despoiling the image of characters in that world makes me angry. But even much more visually graphic smut of Gunnerkrigg characters (when I stumble occassionally across such things) has never provoked such a strong reaction in me. They're in bad taste, but I've never even considered that those should be removed/censored/whatever. So there's something else here in this picture, beyond that. It's not even the picture on DeviantArt here that bothers me, actually. I had the reaction of outrage before seeing the picture upon * reading the comment that accompanied it*. Which brings me to the heart of the issue as I see it: the overt implications of pedophilia and rape shown here are not innocent simply because they're in 'virtual' form on non-real characters. Instead, the creation of (fan-)art glorifies the idea of the subject matter (in the manner that it is presented here, at least), and implies a legitimate aspect to the rape and child molestation depicted. Even worse, the passive language of the comment ('Annie needs more foreplay') is what cuts at me and makes me hate the artist with a burning passionate anger, because the passive language is inherently accepting of an idea that itself is repulsive: by presenting statutory rape as not out of the ordinary in the slightest (read: emotionlessly), it is presented as acceptable. Any doubt that the subject matter is presented as legitimized can be dispelled by looking at comments on the page, saying 'nice picture! love the idea/tone' etc. (Which now are removed, so I suppose it's not proof. Bah. Irony.)Same reason I could not stand to watch even animated child pornography. Plus, you know, the point of having a 'report this' on DA button is exactly this. Regardless of any moral arguments either way, the art unambiguously violated the agreement taken by all artists posting there, including the artist who made it. That's not mob-mentality censorship, by definition, unless you consider the original rules against the posting of the content as censorship. |
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Post by zimmyzims on Aug 7, 2014 9:50:38 GMT
Late night post, and I apologize in advance: I do not wish to re-open this can of worms. Looking at the arguments here, the people who said 'this didn\'t hurt any real people' are correct, obviously. So why am I so bothered, especially days later? That question has nagged at me for a few days, and I think I've found my perspective on the answer. I'm curious what you all think of this reasoning; I don't want to start a fight. Emphasis is not to shout, but just to point out where I'm feeling emotion in typing.I obviously had a very strong knee-jerk reaction that this art was * morally* wrong (see my first post), and should be removed. Again, this is not a desire for censorship on my part. I just felt, without being quite able to point out where exactly, that something was very very wrong here. And that's not an adequate reason itself, clearly. I gave no reason to support my answer save vague feelings - certainly not enough reason to condemn art. The implications of sexual content were disconcerting, of course. I love the world Tom's built, and the characters in it - obviously despoiling the image of characters in that world makes me angry. But even much more visually graphic smut of Gunnerkrigg characters (when I stumble occassionally across such things) has never provoked such a strong reaction in me. They're in bad taste, but I've never even considered that those should be removed/censored/whatever. So there's something else here in this picture, beyond that. It's not even the picture on DeviantArt here that bothers me, actually. I had the reaction of outrage before seeing the picture upon * reading the comment that accompanied it*. Which brings me to the heart of the issue as I see it: the overt implications of pedophilia and rape shown here are not innocent simply because they're in 'virtual' form on non-real characters. Instead, the creation of (fan-)art glorifies the idea of the subject matter (in the manner that it is presented here, at least), and implies a legitimate aspect to the rape and child molestation depicted. Even worse, the passive language of the comment ('Annie needs more foreplay') is what cuts at me and makes me hate the artist with a burning passionate anger, because the passive language is inherently accepting of idea that itself is repulsive: by presenting statutory rape as not out of the ordinary in the slightest (read: emotionlessly), it is presented as acceptable. Any doubt that the subject matter is presented as legitimized can be dispelled by looking at comments on the page, saying 'nice picture! love the idea/tone' etc. (Which now are removed, so I suppose it's not proof. Bah. Irony.)Same reason I could not stand to watch even animated child pornography. Plus, you know, the point of having a 'report this' on DA button is exactly this. Regardless of any moral arguments either way, the art unambiguously violated the agreement taken by all artists posting there, including the artist who made it. That's not mob-mentality censorship, by definition, unless you consider the original rules against the posting of the content as censorship. Having never seen the picture or the page where it is supposed to be, I can't comment that, but your reasoning here really appeals to me in general. |
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Post by eyemyself on Aug 7, 2014 13:35:59 GMT
Late night post, and I apologize in advance: I do not wish to re-open this can of worms. Looking at the arguments here, the people who said 'this didn\'t hurt any real people' are correct, obviously. So why am I so bothered, especially days later? That question has nagged at me for a few days, and I think I've found my perspective on the answer. I'm curious what you all think of this reasoning; I don't want to start a fight. Emphasis is not to shout, but just to point out where I'm feeling emotion in typing.I obviously had a very strong knee-jerk reaction that this art was * morally* wrong (see my first post), and should be removed. Again, this is not a desire for censorship on my part. I just felt, without being quite able to point out where exactly, that something was very very wrong here. And that's not an adequate reason itself, clearly. I gave no reason to support my answer save vague feelings - certainly not enough reason to condemn art. The implications of sexual content were disconcerting, of course. I love the world Tom's built, and the characters in it - obviously despoiling the image of characters in that world makes me angry. But even much more visually graphic smut of Gunnerkrigg characters (when I stumble occassionally across such things) has never provoked such a strong reaction in me. They're in bad taste, but I've never even considered that those should be removed/censored/whatever. So there's something else here in this picture, beyond that. It's not even the picture on DeviantArt here that bothers me, actually. I had the reaction of outrage before seeing the picture upon * reading the comment that accompanied it*. Which brings me to the heart of the issue as I see it: the overt implications of pedophilia and rape shown here are not innocent simply because they're in 'virtual' form on non-real characters. Instead, the creation of (fan-)art glorifies the idea of the subject matter (in the manner that it is presented here, at least), and implies a legitimate aspect to the rape and child molestation depicted. Even worse, the passive language of the comment ('Annie needs more foreplay') is what cuts at me and makes me hate the artist with a burning passionate anger, because the passive language is inherently accepting of idea that itself is repulsive: by presenting statutory rape as not out of the ordinary in the slightest (read: emotionlessly), it is presented as acceptable. Any doubt that the subject matter is presented as legitimized can be dispelled by looking at comments on the page, saying 'nice picture! love the idea/tone' etc. (Which now are removed, so I suppose it's not proof. Bah. Irony.)Same reason I could not stand to watch even animated child pornography. Plus, you know, the point of having a 'report this' on DA button is exactly this. Regardless of any moral arguments either way, the art unambiguously violated the agreement taken by all artists posting there, including the artist who made it. That's not mob-mentality censorship, by definition, unless you consider the original rules against the posting of the content as censorship. Having never seen the picture or the page where it is supposed to be, I can't comment that, but your reasoning here really appeals to me in general. Ditto to what zimmyzims says. Plus strongly held feelings about media that glorifies abuses of power and rape culture. I am very glad I did not see this particular image from what was said about it. |
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QuotePilgrim
Full Member
Behind my door, there are twelve other doors.
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Post by QuotePilgrim on Aug 7, 2014 18:55:26 GMT
@dédalo I disagree with you on a very fundamental level here. I honestly think that nothing one can do or say that does not harm anyone both directly and intentionally is morally wrong. That includes fantasizing about rape. And yes, it includes talking about rape as if it's a good thing. As long as it's only fantasy, there's nothing wrong with it. You are basically saying that simply being a pedophile is morally wrong, even if one never even touches any children their whole life. I simply cannot agree with this. I think it's unfair to judge someone based on what happens inside their head instead of their actions. If this makes you too uncomfortable, let's try with a different subject: Have you ever wished for someone's death? I believe you have; everyone does this once in a while. Do you think wishing for someone's death is morally wrong, even if you don't end up killing that person? I don't know what your answer's gonna be, but I do not. I think you can wish someone's death, you can even fantasize about killing that person with you own bare hands, and there is nothing wrong with it. If you aren't the kind of person who would actually kill someone, then you are not a bad person, and wishing for someone's death will not make you a bad person. I think you could even write a message somewhere on the Internet saying “I really wish that guy would die”, and I would not see anything wrong in it. But I understand you. I understand why you had such a strong reaction to that image, and I do react similarly to some stuff people put on the Internet. I just think we fundamentally disagree on what makes something immoral. I do not think the picture was immoral, and I do not think its text description was immoral. In other words, Hitler did many terrible, terrible things. Writing Mein Kampf was not one of them. Regarding the removal of the image: It was against deviantArt rules. Everyone who reported were just helping them enforce those rules, which is, from a logical point of view, the right thing to do. I do think, though, that what those rules do is some sort of censorship (and that is why I never report anything). The thing is, the people who own dA have the right to chose what to allow or not; they have the right to arbitrarily censor whatever they want there. I decided not to help them with that, but anyone who does isn't doing anything wrong. |
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Post by Daedalus on Aug 7, 2014 19:48:30 GMT
QuotePilgrim: we appear to disagree on a fundamental level here, and I don't think there's much left to discuss. But thank you for your perspective, sir. A few short notes, moving slightly away from the original impetus of the discussion: -- The analogy about Hitler (incidentally, Godwin's Law) is a false comparison in one specific way, though it's not at all relevant to the fanart that began this discussion. Specifically, the reason Hitler's writing of Mein Kampf was wrong is because it actively attempted to convince the readers to undertake genocide, fanatical racism, etc. This is analogous to a guy coming up to you and saying "You should go murder that person." There's a definite distinction from "Man, I want to murder that guy.". And the writing of the book did cause great harm indirectly, and Hitler intended exactly that. Both harmful and intentional. -- Personally, I *do* have a problem with, as I said earlier, something which would be terrible in real life being shown as acceptable under any context. People's actions are determined largely by what they deem acceptable in their mind, and by allowing yourself to fantasize about topics which would be horrifying in reality (and especially fantasizing about undertaking such actions), you do inevitably treat the ideas as partially acceptable. This would not be a problem if you could maintain a strict barrier in your mind between 'mental' and 'real' landscapes, but someone who could keep this barrier perfectly is so rare. And the disaster is unspeakably great if one 'slips' once. My two-cents. EDIT for clarity: Above, I don't mean that believing (or imagining) things like that makes you a bad person by default. Everyone feels like that sometimes (scumbag brain). Accepting that one has those thoughts is natural. Embracing those thoughts and being willing to actively fantasize about them (fetishizing them), however, is beyond squick to me, and I would argue it's morally wrong. But I assume our opinions diverge here. -- When you say "I understand you", I assume what you mean is that you understand how my beliefs would lead me to that conclusion. Under our beliefs lie vast generalizations of experience we cannot express fully. You will never understand my reason for holding those beliefs fully, just as I will never understand your reasons completely. But please understand that my beliefs here are motivated by close personal experience, and I'm not an agent of the thought police. It's funny we're debating this because of a picture that did not have any graphic imagery, only questionable content.
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Post by TBeholder on Aug 7, 2014 20:00:19 GMT
It's adorable. But the demagogy around this issue is that someone's right to say this or that in private gets mixed with their right to force anyone else to hear them.
Example: suppose there's a community dedicated to fetish of cyborg-trans-clonecest, and they took a shine to one of characters from Gunnerkrigg Court. It's their problem, right? Right. Don't want to read their ludicrous crap, don't visit them, as simple as this. As long as they don't try to make it your or mine or Tom's. No one owes any spammer playing the audience. No matter how speshul the spammers feel.
Returning to the subject: the obvious answer is "to Deviantart staff, according the procedures explained also somewhere on Deviantart". I can't help but think that anyone who demonstrates failure to understand this does pretend to be stupid a little too hard.
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QuotePilgrim
Full Member
Behind my door, there are twelve other doors.
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Post by QuotePilgrim on Aug 7, 2014 21:04:24 GMT
Okay, Dédalo, I think you are right about the Hitler analogy. I should have not used it. (Although if someone says that “you should go murder that person”, and you do just that, it's more your fault than anyone else's.) -- Personally, I *do* have a problem with, as I said earlier, something which would be terrible in real life being shown as acceptable under any context. People's actions are determined largely by what they deem acceptable in their mind, and by allowing yourself to fantasize about topics which would be horrifying in reality (and especially fantasizing about undertaking such actions), you do inevitably treat the ideas as partially acceptable. This would not be a problem if you could maintain a strict barrier in your mind between 'mental' and 'real' landscapes, but someone who could keep this barrier perfectly is so rare. And the disaster is unspeakably great if one 'slips' once. My two-cents. EDIT for clarity: Above, I don't mean that believing (or imagining) things like that makes you a bad person by default. Everyone feels like that sometimes (scumbag brain). Accepting that one has those thoughts is natural. Embracing those thoughts and being willing to actively fantasize about them (fetishizing them), however, is beyond squick to me, and I would argue it's morally wrong. But I assume our opinions diverge here. Yes they do. I really think that the great majority of people who actively fantasize about something would never do it in real life. You say that people are essentially unable to keep a mental barrier between reality and fantasy, and I don't think that's the case. I think pretty much everyone is capable of that, and the people who aren't capable of that are actually the minority. In fact I believe that fantasizing about something probably only makes someone less likely to actually do it. (For instance, it has been shown that more access to porn makes people less likely to have sex. No, that is not a joke.) It's funny we're debating this because of a picture that did not have any graphic imagery, only questionable content. It is, isn't it? I guess it is because a lot of people are deeply affected by the subect we are discussing. Anyway, given the fact that we are probably never going to agree on this, we should just let this thread die. Just one more thing: If there was a way one could experience simulations of fantasies indistinguishable from the real thing, what do you think would happen? Would they do more of that in real life, or would that completely keep them from doing it? I vote on the latter, for sure. EDIT: TBeholder: Do you honestly think posting something on deviantArt is forcing them to see it? Really? So, if I wore a t-shirt saying I am pro-choice in a public place would I be forcing people to read it and agree with me? Come on, that's absurd. |
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Post by sapientcoffee on Aug 7, 2014 22:00:25 GMT
Just one more thing: If there was a way one could experience simulations of fantasies indistinguishable from the real thing, what do you think would happen? Would they do more of that in real life, or would that completely keep them from doing it? I vote on the latter, for sure. I'm gonna go with the completely unfun answer of "it depends". It depends on why and what and how often and how invested...like most things. Gaming is always fun for the media to pick on, but what people get out of it is what they put it - it's just a reflection of who they were anyway. I've got a friend in the military who when he comes back from deployment spends about a solid week gaming to exorcise any latent demons, but there are others who game and obsess over hurting others "who done them wrong" (not a quote, just a south-ism) in the form of pixels. The guy that wants to leave his rage behind does, the dude that holds his dear to him doesn't. While dude that holds on to anger might never actually kill or physically hurt anyone, they might be one of those ragey, misanthropic people that vent that anger in other ways. Fantasy (in the form of games) helped the first guy, but isn't helping the second - it's just helping with what the people are using it for. For Star Trek nerds: holodecks are an amazing and good technology, the way Lt. Barclay uses them isn't. While a person might never do what they fantasize about, it's good to take a kind of "mental health" look at what they're getting out of it. (I'm terrible at connecting thoughts in text, just ask if clarification is wanted/needed) Here's a couple things for the anger stuff: www.psychologytoday.com/blog/get-psyched/201309/anger-management-what-works-and-what-doesntwww.nytimes.com/1983/03/08/science/venting-anger-may-do-more-harm-than-good.htmlTL;DR: I think maybe while we can higher-brain mentally separate reality and fantasy, our lower lizard brain can't, so reality checks are important. |
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Post by Daedalus on Aug 7, 2014 23:17:20 GMT
we should just let this thread die. ...you do know those are literally opposites, right? :/ But whatever, I'm all for dropping this topic altogether. I guess we can agree on something after all, haha. Returning to the subject: the obvious answer is " to Deviantart staff, according the procedures explained also somewhere on Deviantart". I can't help but think that anyone who demonstrates failure to understand this does pretend to be stupid a little too hard. I think the title question was about how (as in, where's the button on their site) rather than who or why - and thus it should only have had a single answer. It merely derailed in a particularly spectacular way into an ethics/philosophy discussion. (As threads are wont to do around here.) |
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Post by TBeholder on Aug 8, 2014 3:09:31 GMT
Returning to the subject: the obvious answer is " to Deviantart staff, according the procedures explained also somewhere on Deviantart". I can't help but think that anyone who demonstrates failure to understand this does pretend to be stupid a little too hard. I think the title question was about how (as in, where's the button on their site) rather than who or why - and thus it should only have had a single answer. It merely derailed in a particularly spectacular way into an ethics/philosophy discussion. And it's somehow not obvious that this question should be asked on Deviantart itself, rather than anywhere else on internet, and most likely is already covered in FAQ there? Come on. That's disingenuous in a clumsy way. |
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Post by Marnath on Aug 8, 2014 7:27:43 GMT
I think the title question was about how (as in, where's the button on their site) rather than who or why - and thus it should only have had a single answer. It merely derailed in a particularly spectacular way into an ethics/philosophy discussion. And it's somehow not obvious that this question should be asked on Deviantart itself, rather than anywhere else on internet, and most likely is already covered in FAQ there? Come on. That's disingenuous in a clumsy way. Really guys? This is only page 2, you can't have forgotten the opening post already. I did report it, and they told me "needs more info before we'll do anything." The question was, how exactly does it need to be phrased for the moderators of the site to actually do something? |
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Post by legion on Aug 8, 2014 12:47:08 GMT
The problem is, of course, that the picture in question wasn't hurting anyone, it didn't hurt anyone and wasn't going to.
The people who reported it, on the other hand, effectively did hurt the artist, both in this particular case and in general by contributing to the atmosphere of anonymous denunciation and automatic removal without possible appeal that is more and more prevalent on the internet (just like on youtube any claim of copyright infringement will now lead to the removal of a video, even if that claim is completely bogus).
Your actions are much more offensive than that picture.
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Post by eyemyself on Aug 8, 2014 13:40:58 GMT
Claiming that images or words that perpetuate, glorify, and celebrate harmful actions or ideas like the hyper-sexualization of a minor by an adult authority figure (which is what I gather this image did. I thankfully did not see it.) - fictional or not - is either disingenuous or naive. Art and media exists within a cultural context, are shaped by that cultural context, and in turn shape that cultural context.
We live in a world where female bodied people, particularly young female bodied people are routinely subjected to having their personal agency over their own bodies violated... often violently. For those who are sensitive to this seeing images glorifying the objectification and sexualization of young girls can be distressing, and distress is a form of harm. Many of the commentors on this thread who did see the image have expressed feelings of distress upon having seen it.
On the flip side, permissiveness about allowing such images to be displayed in public places like DA sends a certain message of permissiveness about the subject matter of the image to those already inclined to objectify and sexualize young girls. When we send the message that we think the artists' right to broadcast fantasies about hypersexualized underage girls to an unwitting and unexpecting public trumps the feelings of distress triggered in people who may unknowingly stumble across the image, some of whom are likely survivors of childhood sexual trauma or friends and family of survivors we are giving more validity and weight to those fantasies than we are to the feelings of the people who have experienced real harm because of a culture that is already very permissive of the objectification and sexualization of young girls.
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QuotePilgrim
Full Member
Behind my door, there are twelve other doors.
Posts: 142
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Post by QuotePilgrim on Aug 8, 2014 17:03:34 GMT
I was not going to post here anymore, until I saw this: Claiming that images or words that perpetuate, glorify, and celebrate harmful actions or ideas. The image might be glorifying and/or celebrating a harmful action. But perpetuating? That's ridiculous. I have used the same exact example before, but I am going to do it again. There are a lot of video games out there that glorify violence in a lot of different ways, and they are not making anyone any more violent. Being permissive of those video games is not in any way being permissive of violence in the real world. We allow those video games to be made and distributed because we know they are ultimately harmless. Not only video games, people are getting more and more exposed to violent media, and at the same time, we see violence in the real world declining over time. So yeah, maybe media shapes our culture, but if it does, it is not in such a direct way as you claim, so things like "if we allow violent video games people will be more violent" or "if we allow depictions of rape there will be more rapes" are complete nonsense. As for the images being possibly distressing: here I do agree with you. But here's the thing: there is nothing we can do that won't distress someone. Who will be distressed by what is completely unpredictable. Some people are probably more distressed by Game of Thrones than most would be by that image; should we then forbid broadcasting of the series? Some months ago I have drawn and uploaded to deviantArt an image of girl with an eye socket empty and her eye inside her mouth. I believe that some people would feel bad looking at it, or some of my other drawings (none of which are against their rules); should I be deprived of my right to draw things like that? Once I have stumbled across a discussion on rape jokes on Facebook. One of the comments was from a woman that was a victim of rape. Not only she said she was perfectly fine with such jokes, she was actively fighting for the rights of people telling those jokes. (It was a really really long time ago.) Should we forbid those jokes because some people (including some men) feel bad when they hear these jokes? Indirectly and unintentionally offending someone is very different from intentionally harming someone. The former is impossible to avoid, no matter how hard you try. So, I repeat, anything that does not harm someone in very direct and intentional way is pretty much completely harmless. TL;DR: The fact that some content may hurt someone's feelings is not a good reason to censor it. I wish this thread was locked. Even though I really really want to stop posting here, it is very hard to do. |
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freeman
Full Member
That 70's Coyote!
Posts: 242
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Post by freeman on Aug 8, 2014 17:28:29 GMT
Claiming that images or words that perpetuate, glorify, and celebrate harmful actions or ideas like the hyper-sexualization of a minor by an adult authority figure (which is what I gather this image did. I thankfully did not see it.) - fictional or not - is either disingenuous or naive. Art and media exists within a cultural context, are shaped by that cultural context, and in turn shape that cultural context. We live in a world where female bodied people, particularly young female bodied people are routinely subjected to having their personal agency over their own bodies violated... often violently. For those who are sensitive to this seeing images glorifying the objectification and sexualization of young girls can be distressing, and distress is a form of harm. Many of the commentors on this thread who did see the image have expressed feelings of distress upon having seen it. On the flip side, permissiveness about allowing such images to be displayed in public places like DA sends a certain message of permissiveness about the subject matter of the image to those already inclined to objectify and sexualize young girls. When we send the message that we think the artists' right to broadcast fantasies about hypersexualized underage girls to an unwitting and unexpecting public trumps the feelings of distress triggered in people who may unknowingly stumble across the image, some of whom are likely survivors of childhood sexual trauma or friends and family of survivors we are giving more validity and weight to those fantasies than we are to the feelings of the people who have experienced real harm because of a culture that is already very permissive of the objectification and sexualization of young girls. First: I think we all agree that DeviantArt with its policy and its community is not a place to express such ideas, which the take down of the picture on topic verifies. As it is Tom's right to decide what he permits and does not to be done with his copyrighted material, it is also Deviant Art's right to govern the material it hosts. There are other, more appropriate, places and communities for this stuff. On the larger scale, the disagreement seems to stem from, should it be allowed to express such ideas at all in forms of fiction in mediums such as writing and drawn images. There are other examples beyond child on child or adult on child sexuality, such racism and libel, or on larger scale anything that concerns religion or alternative medicine, or anything that is currently illegal in form of being incitement . As one can see, there are some slippery slope tendencies here, and we can see that excessive banning of expression of ideas (like in form of draw pictures) clearly lead to greater harm than good, and thankfully in most western countries and other places as well, the idea of greatest freedom of expression that is practical has been dominating. I think pictures of fictional underaged persons doing sexual things, even if for sole purpose to arouse, still fall within this. You may feel the other way. For sake of fun, I have wrought some mental experiment for the fun of everyone: 1) So, we have this guy who is really into pedophilia. He does not actually exercise it as it is illegal, instead he takes a soap box and finds a nice crowded street corner, where he stands on and loudly advocates for completely abolishing the law on age of content, sometimes he also cites stories of fictional sexual encounters between adults and minors. In most places that do not have loitering laws this would be legal. What if he also drew pedophilic pictures and hosted them on his own server? 2) On this very forum people have expressed of waiting bikini scenes to appear in the current chapter. Have they forgotten the characters are grossly underage? Worse still, they express it as if it was socially acceptable. Just imagine if that happened in real life, with real people. Could the difference be, in fact, that these characters are not real. (Anyway, almost anyone would probably be wearing the official GKC one-piece swimsuit designed in thirties, so nothing much to see there.) I'm also grateful for this forum for allowing us to have this sort of discussion, I think it would have been removed for example in QCforum on basis of their "don't be creepy" -rule. One needs like ten million posts and balls size of coconut to not have their post removed if it even hints on any non-canon sexuality between characters who are all adults excluding one tomboyish daughter of a support character and few androids of unambiguous age. |
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Post by The Anarch on Aug 8, 2014 18:02:19 GMT
"advicing to crime" (I can't find the proper legal term for the latter). Incitement? |
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Post by philman on Aug 8, 2014 18:18:33 GMT
Claiming that images or words that perpetuate, glorify, and celebrate harmful actions or ideas like the hyper-sexualization of a minor by an adult authority figure (which is what I gather this image did. I thankfully did not see it.) - fictional or not - is either disingenuous or naive. Art and media exists within a cultural context, are shaped by that cultural context, and in turn shape that cultural context. We live in a world where female bodied people, particularly young female bodied people are routinely subjected to having their personal agency over their own bodies violated... often violently. For those who are sensitive to this seeing images glorifying the objectification and sexualization of young girls can be distressing, and distress is a form of harm. Many of the commentors on this thread who did see the image have expressed feelings of distress upon having seen it. On the flip side, permissiveness about allowing such images to be displayed in public places like DA sends a certain message of permissiveness about the subject matter of the image to those already inclined to objectify and sexualize young girls. When we send the message that we think the artists' right to broadcast fantasies about hypersexualized underage girls to an unwitting and unexpecting public trumps the feelings of distress triggered in people who may unknowingly stumble across the image, some of whom are likely survivors of childhood sexual trauma or friends and family of survivors we are giving more validity and weight to those fantasies than we are to the feelings of the people who have experienced real harm because of a culture that is already very permissive of the objectification and sexualization of young girls. First: I think we all agree that DeviantArt with its policy and its community is not a place to express such ideas, which the take down of the picture on topic verifies. As it is Tom's right to decide what he permits and does not to be done with his copyrighted material, it is also Deviant Art's right to govern the material it hosts. There are other, more appropriate, places and communities for this stuff. On the larger scale, the disagreement seems to stem from, should it be allowed to express such ideas at all in forms of fiction in mediums such as writing and drawn images. There are other examples beyond child on child or adult on child sexuality, such racism and libel, or on larger scale anything that concerns religion or alternative medicine, or anything that is currently illegal as in "advicing to crime" (I can't find the proper legal term for the latter). As one can see, there are some slippery slope tendencies here, and we can see that excessive banning of expression of ideas (like in for of pictures) clearly lead to greater harm than good, and thankfully in most western countries and other places as well, the idea of preserving greatest freedom of speech that is practical has bee the prevalent one. I think pictures of fictional underage persons doing sexual things, even if for sole purpose to arouse some people, still fall within that. You may feel the other way. For the sake of fun, I' have wrought a mental experiment for the fun of everybody. 1) So, we have this guy who is really into pedophilia. He does not actually exercise it as it is illegal, instead he takes a soap box and finds a nice crowdy street corner, where he stands on and loudly advocates for completely abolishing the law on age of content, sometimes he also cites stories of fictional sexual encounters between adults and minors. In most places without loitering laws this would be legal. What if he also drew a pictures of pedophilic encounters and hosted them on his own server? 2) On this very forum people have expressed of waiting bikini scenes to appear in the current chapter. Have they forgotten the characters are grossly underage? Worse still, they express it as if it was socially acceptable. Just imagine if that happened in real life, with real people. Could the difference be, in fact, that these characters are not real. (Anyway, most anyone would probably be wearing official GKC one-piece swimsuit, so nothing much to see there.) I'm also grateful for this forum for allowing us to have this sort of discussion, I think it would have been removed for example in QCforum on basis of their "don't be creepy" -rule. One needs like ten million posts and balls size of coconut to not have their post removed if it even hints on any non-canon sexuality between the characters which are all adults excluding one tomboyish daughter of a suport character and few androids of unambiguous age. I'm not sure what counts as 'grossly' underage, but the characters on the ship are all 14 now I think, so they are only 2 years underage (by UK law anyway). I'm not advocating anything! Just taking a bit of an issue with the word grossly, which I would have taken to mean pre-puberty. I agree with your point though, I have thought that a bit odd in the page threads too, people comparing it to manga and anime, which very often feature extremely sexualised young girls. If the image (which I have not seen) had been of Annie and another person in her year, Kat or Gamma, with the same comment and insinuation, would people have been as upset? Or even if it had been Parley, who is still a schoolgirl, but a few years older and presumably 16-17 by now and so of legal age in the UK. your point about the shouting about paedophillia, he would most likely be stopped as he is shouting offensive things in public space. But just saying you are into it without practising it is not a crime. Indeed in the UK there was an active group in the 70's openly lobbying for the lowering or abolition of consent laws (later shut down when several of the leaders were arrested for abuse). I think it is estimated that a reasonably high proportion of the male population, around 5% or something, does have attraction towards children, the vast majority obviously do not act on it, but presumably these are the ones creating and consuming these drawings. |
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freeman
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Post by freeman on Aug 8, 2014 18:40:18 GMT
. I think it is estimated that a reasonably high proportion of the male population, around 5% or something, does have attraction towards children, the vast majority obviously do not act on it, but presumably these are the ones creating and consuming these drawings. Well I'm a guy who consumes these drawings, but I am not into real children almost at all, teens at most. Also consume regular porn. I thing there are many like me. I also like many comics that depict young women or girls non-sexually, simply because these girls are pure, they do not do what real girls do, they don't think like real girls do, and most importantly they don't know who I am, what I look and they possibly can't judge me. Is it not a surprise that many of these comics are written by men? It is a form of escapism, yes -I could not handle a real girl. Also 3) There are several animes of which target audience is adult men. Even if these animes are completely non-sexual, the men watching them are sexually attached to the characters. Is this child porn, in the same manner as a large collection of photos of bathing, swimming or generally playing children would probably be judged to be? |
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Post by eyemyself on Aug 8, 2014 18:45:02 GMT
I was not going to post here anymore, until I saw this: Claiming that images or words that perpetuate, glorify, and celebrate harmful actions or ideas. The image might be glorifying and/or celebrating a harmful action. But perpetuating? That's ridiculous. I have used the same exact example before, but I am going to do it again. There are a lot of video games out there that glorify violence in a lot of different ways, and they are not making anyone any more violent. Being permissive of those video games is not in any way being permissive of violence in the real world. We allow those video games to be made and distributed because we know they are ultimately harmless. Not only video games, people are getting more and more exposed to violent media, and at the same time, we see violence in the real world declining over time. So yeah, maybe media shapes our culture, but if it does, it is not in such a direct way as you claim, so things like "if we allow violent video games people will be more violent" or "if we allow depictions of rape there will be more rapes" are complete nonsense. As for the images being possibly distressing: here I do agree with you. But here's the thing: there is nothing we can do that won't distress someone. Who will be distressed by what is completely unpredictable. Some people are probably more distressed by Game of Thrones than most would be by that image; should we then forbid broadcasting of the series? Some months ago I have drawn and uploaded to deviantArt an image of girl with an eye socket empty and her eye inside her mouth. I believe that some people would feel bad looking at it, or some of my other drawings (none of which are against their rules); should I be deprived of my right to draw things like that? Once I have stumbled across a discussion on rape jokes on Facebook. One of the comments was from a woman that was a victim of rape. Not only she said she was perfectly fine with such jokes, she was actively fighting for the rights of people telling those jokes. (It was a really really long time ago.) Should we forbid those jokes because some people (including some men) feel bad when they hear these jokes? Indirectly and unintentionally offending someone is very different from intentionally harming someone. The former is impossible to avoid, no matter how hard you try. So, I repeat, anything that does not harm someone in very direct and intentional way is pretty much completely harmless. TL;DR: The fact that some content may hurt someone's feelings is not a good reason to censor it. I wish this thread was locked. Even though I really really want to stop posting here, it is very hard to do. I am going to be upfront with you QuotePilgrim Having read your previous comments on this and other topics I have little to no respect for your opinions on this matter. Your comments consistently fail to account for institutionalized power and institutionalized systems of violence against certain groups. If we lived in a world where everything was equal and certain groups were not more likely to be subjects of violence, oppression, hate crimes, and persecution than sure you're everything is bound to offend someone argument might hold some weight. But we don't, and the fact is that young girls as a group are far more likely to be the victims of sexual assault, violence, and oppression than the general population. When an image is visually degrading a member of a vulnerable group in a way that that group is frequently victimized in real life then it is a pretty damn good bet that a large portion of the population will find the image uncomfortable at best and offensive at worst. There are, of course, outliers... but we have laws prohibiting pornography featuring minors for a reason. I'm getting sick of seeing you repeat your false correlation about violence in video games as justification for your "everything is ok" attitude about this stuff. Whereas studies regarding violence in video games having an effect on the prevalence of actual violence have been inconclusive studies into the effect of depicting permissiveness around violations of consent, rape, and sexual assault have been shown to have a definitive link with people's real world attitudes about consent, sexual violence, and rape... I'd be happy to link you to these studies but I have a feeling you wouldn't bother to read them since they are inconvenient to the point of view you have repeatedly espoused. [Edit: Links to several studies because they were requested. The Effects of Mass Media Exposure on Acceptance of Violence against Women: A Field Experiement, Repeated Exposure to Violent and Nonviolent Pornography: Likelihood of Raping Ratings and Laboratory Aggression Against Women, The Effects of Exposure to Filmed Sexual Violence on Attitudes Towards Rape.] I am not interested in arguing with you on this. Frankly, I think you try to be deliberately antagonizing in your comments on this forum. TL;DR Social Harm in the effect that images that normalize and glorify oppression of oppressed groups is a real thing. This is an extremely black and white way of viewing issues of harm that allows for justification of all kinds of micro-aggression. I really, really find your reasoning to be skating very close blatant justification for all kinds of indirect but abusive behaviors. You could use that argument to say street harassment was ok, or stalking, many kinds of bullying would be "pretty much completely harmless" by your definition. I have nothing more to say to you on this subject. I am done here. |
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freeman
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Posts: 242
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Post by freeman on Aug 8, 2014 19:17:53 GMT
TL;DR Social Harm in the effect that images that normalize and glorify oppression of oppressed groups is a real thing. There are many middle ground solutions beyond outright ban, if that is even what you advocate. The idea is to limiting the amount of exposure. The proposed ".xxx" top level domain for primarily pornographic content is one well know example, and there is much discussion online on its shortcomings as well. A milder level could be that such content would need a subscription to view, this is how online retail of tobacco has been handled in my country for example. Even milder version could be to require the site to have a disclaimer that states it hosts fictional depictions of child abuse before a viewer can enter, and what would come to linking such material, most non-"outlier" online communities would probably ban it as they tend to do now. You could link some of those studies for me. |
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Post by fwip on Aug 8, 2014 19:28:50 GMT
Frankly, I think you try to be deliberately antagonizing in your comments on this forum. Yup. Seriously, QuotePilgrim, stop it. First the Fanart/Copyright fiasco, now this... |
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Post by Lightice on Aug 8, 2014 19:33:19 GMT
I wondered why a straightforward topic kept going for so long, and finally decided to look. Really not sure why this is a topic that needs to be addressed here, but whatever. I throw in my two cents. TL;DR Social Harm in the effect that images that normalize and glorify oppression of oppressed groups is a real thing. There is no correlation found between availability of fringe pornography and real-life cases of sexual abuse. This is well established for example by the rape statistics of Japan, which are some of the world's lowest in spite of easy access to all kinds of disturbing forms of such fringe porn in the country. In the absence of such connection, I can't consider censorship to be an acceptable approach regardless of my personal feelings towards certain types of content; accepting freedom of expression, even when it's used to be unpleasant or offend is, in my opinion, one of the more important values of civil, secular society. While no-one should be forced to be exposed to media that they dislike, insisting that no-one should just doesn't sit right with me. If one form of fiction is to be banned for moral reasons, where does the limit lie? Many films and video games on the surface glorify violence and criminal lifestyle, but very few of their consumers would take their stories as actual life lessons. As long as people are educated and intelligent enough to understand and acknowledge the distinction between fact and fiction, interference to media should be kept in minimum. Keep in mind that extreme pornography is a tiny fringe media that has next to no impact on the attitudes of the mainstream society, in any case. |
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Post by Daedalus on Aug 8, 2014 19:46:05 GMT
Yup. Seriously, QuotePilgrim, stop it. First the Fanart/Copyright fiasco, now this... To be fair, I deserve a portion of the blame for perpetuating this thread. Otherwise it would have died the anonymous death it so richly deserves. |
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Post by CoyoteReborn on Aug 8, 2014 20:21:42 GMT
I do not wish to re-open this can of worms I don't want to start a fight. I'm all for dropping this topic altogether. I was not going to post here anymore we should just let this thread die. Even though I really really want to stop posting here, it is very hard to do. For the lulz, I've decided to collect these statements. And yet, the thread has not died! Amazing! Stay tuned, on CoyoteNews! (Kudos to eyemyself for being the only one so far to actually follow through on the sentiment...) |
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Post by fwip on Aug 8, 2014 20:25:30 GMT
Maybe we could call a vote to have Tom lock this thread? All in favor, 'like' this post. All not in favor, reply and say so.
(I don't think this counts as upvote 'whoring' given that there isn't even a way to see how many likes/upvotes you have.)
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Post by Daedalus on Aug 8, 2014 20:26:59 GMT
In the USA it's 18, so I would personally classify this as 'grossly underage'. Perhaps that's part of the reason I feel strongly here. But I see how that could be contested. Also, Parley/Smitty is massively different because of the small difference in age. Plus, legally, it would be covered under the Romeo and Juliet Laws in most places in the USA, making it legal here as well. (Kudos to eyemyself for being the only one so far to actually follow through on the sentiment...) ...point taken. Yes, I catch the irony that I've responded here. I'm with fwip on locking the thread, assuming Tom Siddell sees this. This is my last post here, for realz. |
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freeman
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That 70's Coyote!
Posts: 242
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Post by freeman on Aug 8, 2014 20:49:09 GMT
Maybe we could call a vote to have Tom lock this thread? All in favor, 'like' this post. All not in favor, reply and say so. (I don't think this counts as upvote 'whoring' given that there isn't even a way to see how many likes/upvotes you have.) Why? The overall discussion has been relatively polite and low key, and is dying anyway. Just don't want to see discussion on such matters here? If that is the consensus so be it, but I see it's a bit sad considering how well it went. As a summary, there have been three pervs who feel their right to view morally questionable drawings threatened and two other persons with rhetorical claims that such pictures are helping the child molesters in the end, one of who walked away after opposing party's repeated reassurance on equally non-backed claims. Such careful and vague has been the tone of the argument that I don't even know it these opposing persons even want ban all fictional depictions of child abuse, or generally argue it is harmful, or just don't want to see it in DA. Overall though I hope that us who have attended to this argument leave it with little more insight, sadly not so much more that it would have justified the time wasted, I afraid. |
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QuotePilgrim
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Post by QuotePilgrim on Aug 8, 2014 22:20:10 GMT
Frankly, I think you try to be deliberately antagonizing in your comments on this forum. Yup. Seriously, QuotePilgrim, stop it. First the Fanart/Copyright fiasco, now this... : No, I am not. The opinions I have expressed on this forum on any subject are the ones I had way before I even registered here. And I honestly am surprised at how strongly some people disagree. (I mean, okay, I understand that some would disagree, but it looks like you are getting angry at me. It's hard to believe.) If you just ignored me, trust me, I would be silent. But somehow, you guys seem to be incapable to ignore me (and, to be fair, I am apparently incapable of ignoring you too). I wonder why that is. Also, if you really believe I would not read any scientific studies you linked, you do not know me at all. I am very open to changing my mind, although I sort of understand why you would think otherwise. The thing is, though, I hold the opinions I do because of scientific data. Please, prove me I am wrong. Give me proof beyond reasonable doubt. I would absolutely love it. And no, I am not being sarcastic. fwip: No thank you. I will not stop exercising my right to freedom of speech. |
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Post by Lightice on Aug 8, 2014 22:24:19 GMT
fwip: No thank you. I will not stop exercising my right to freedom of speech. That's not a road you want to step on. Freedom of speech doesn't mean that a forum moderator would have to allow you to say what you want on their site. While I agree with much of your general stance, you are stepping unfortunately close to breaking the "don't be a jerk"-clause of the forum's rules. Lets just agree to let this topic drop, shall we? |
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Post by legion on Aug 8, 2014 22:24:23 GMT
I guess we should ban mermaids and sirens from all media, since they're obviously rape metaphors (seducing and "devouring" men against their will).
Also, vampires. And Little Red Riding Hood.
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