I’ve debated for a while about sharing this, but I think it’s important, and, to be fair, plenty of antis have shared the stories of their abuse.
So:
I support people creating romantic content similar to my abuse, even though that content contributed to my abuse.
Let me explain. I was very, very into Twilight when I was around 14. A couple years later a girl called me her lamb, and used the romanticization of jealousy and danger from that novel to excuse things like cutting me, stealing my phone, and demanding my passwords. Among other things. This continued until the end of high school, and it ripped apart every significant relationship in my life without anyone really realizing what was happening.
It’s definitely true that I didn’t recognize jealousy as abuse instead of romance. It’s true that I didn’t recognize “I love you” and “you can’t love anyone but me” as contradictions, and a part of that mentality came from the media I consumed. And she sure as fuck sent me fic – even forced me to write fic – which echoed those values. On a very base level, it is easy to blame my abuse on that fiction, on the unhealthy ideas of romance it gave me. For several years after getting out, I did blame romance like Twilight. I got angry when people I loved enjoyed it, and I thought I was protecting them by demanding that they stop.
But I was wrong.
Let me go out another level.
First of all, I grew up in a deeply homophobic town. There were exactly no adults in my life that I could have even told that I was in a relationship with a girl, let alone that I thought something was wrong. Abuse thrives in silence.
Second of all, I’d been homeschooled most of my life, which meant I had zero education on healthy relationships. I had no context outside of romance novels and fan fiction, which no adults knew I was reading. My view of romance was shaped by media because there were no other sources even trying to compete.
Third of all – and maybe this is most important – writing that fanfic, while in that situation, gave me a voice to things that I couldn’t even admit I was feeling. I wrote fic where a human loved a vampire, but they were scared, they were so scared, it felt like having a gun to their head all the time. They were so scared even as they loved the vampire, and they wanted them, and they wanted to help, and they wanted to be better. (She didn’t like that fic.) It took years before I would call what I experienced abuse, or seek out resources for victims. But fiction gave me a voice right then, when I needed one most.
Media didn’t get me abused. A society which failed utterly at telling me what a healthy relationship looked like got me abused. Parents and teachers and authority figures who were wildly homophobic got me abused. Fiction contributed, but if it wasn’t Twilight, it would have been something else – hell, apparently she repeated the same pattern after me with 50 Shades, and then with Captain America (somehow). Because above all, my abuser got me abused. She used fiction as a tool, but it could have been anything. If I hadn’t read Twilight, it would have been Johnlock, or Drarry, or Russia/America. All those things had more than enough content which portrayed danger and jealousy as sexy.
Do I still read Twilight? Fuck no, it’s a huge trigger. But I’ve stopped blaming it for what happened, because it was never Twilight’s job to teach me about romance. Nor was it fandom’s job to tell me, “if someone actually terrifies you, that’s dangerous, even if it’s sexy. If you love someone but they’re hurting you, you need help, not to try to fix them.” What hurt me most wasn’t fiction; it was the silence from every other quarter.
Media isn’t education on healthy relationships. It can’t be, and it never will be. “Fan fiction made me think that this was ok” means that there were no voices in our lives that we trusted more than fanfiction telling us that it wasn’t okay.
There will always be media that abusers can twist to make it look like what they’re doing is romantic and okay. Always. The abuse is still their fault, and the inability to counter harmful messages is the silence of society’s fault.
I’ll leave you with this: after I got out, I continued reading fic that featured jealousy and possessiveness as something hot. Because I did think it was hot; I now just knew firsthand that it was a kink to only be indulged in controlled situations. Firsthand experience is the harshest teacher, but it does work.
I just tag my own fic that features jealousy and possessiveness as “#abusive behavior.” Because if there is another girl like me out there, being sent these fics by her abuser, stuck in a situation she doesn’t understand – well, if it wasn’t my fic, it’d be someone else’s. The kink’s going to keep on existing. But maybe she’ll see the tag and figure something out.
Fiction is a tool, and taking one tool away won’t stop an abuser, because fiction isn’t causing abuse. If it wasn’t fiction, it’d be something else.
Stop blaming fiction for the actions of a cruel person, and the silence of the people who should have been protecting you.
It hurts to lay the blame at the feet of those you love, but if we deny the problems we will never fix them.
A male colleague was making fun of the #metoo movement a few days ago, and many more (I’m one of 5 women in a department of 200 men) joined in. So I raised my voice and said I was glad women were speaking up about sexual harassment and assault and that I hoped that everyone who perpetuated this toxic behavior got taken down.
“Yeah but it’s a trend now, lots of them are just saying it for their 15 minutes of fame.” He then continued to say that he didn’t know anyone who had been harassed or any man who had done it.
I asked him if he had a daughter. He did. I asked him how old she was. She was was 17. I told him I’d bet my rent money that his daughter had experienced sexual harassment.
“That’s impossible.”
“Did you ask her?”
“No.”
“Well then, do it.”
The next day, he came in the office with five bouquets of flowers for all the women in our department, including me. He publicly apologized for making fun of sexual harassment and for making our lives harder by doing so. He said that he simply hadn’t known how widespread it was. Apparently, his daughter deals with it very regularly. She hadn’t told him because of the way he spoke about assault cases that were on the news. She thought he’d think less of her if she’d mention it. It was her idea that he should make a public announcement. He said he felt like a bad father.
I said: “You were. Same goes for everyone who laughed with you. Be better, now you know better. And educate other men that still think the same way you did yesterday. And next time someone tells you about an experience they have, don’t automatically assume that because you haven’t seen it, it’s not true. That kind of willful ignorance is why we still deal with this shit.”
He also offered to pay my rent as that was part of the bet, but I told him I’d rather have him put effort in being a person his daughter and wife could be proud of.
In conversation the other day my mom stopped and asked my dad about what percentage of women he thought had experienced sexual harassment. He said about 20-30% maybe. My mom told him that both of us had been harassed multiple times at work (same goes for both of her sisters) and that she had actually been assaulted by a groper on a public bus. I have never seen anyone’s face go slack so quickly before as he realized that literally every woman in his family had experienced this. And while I’m glad he believed us and has changed his view on that subject I still can’t shake the frustration, the anger, that it required being sat down and spoonfed these incidents that we didn’t particularly wanted to relive. This is something that women have been saying for years, but men just never listen. Not even when they’re forced to sit in mandatory harassment in the workplace training seminars.
i can’t believe all the people losing their shit over this post are the same people who make ‘triggered’ jokes.
Here’s the thing.
If you at all monitor your language based on your audience—avoiding curse words in front of kids, using bigger words in front of your boss—you obviously care about the impression your words give people.
Do you avoid talking about the attractive sex after your bestie’s breakup? Congratulations, friend, you’re being a decent human being.
Your friend wishes you call them Charlie instead of Charlotte. It’s just a nickname. Would you say “No, your birth certificate says Charlotte so I’m calling you Charlotte?”
Your co-worker tells you that he gets extremely uncomfortable when you clap him on the shoulder, due to a creepy uncle who did the same thing. Do you make a point to clap him on the shoulder every time you see him?
It is really not that difficult to be “politically correct.” It does not mean that you must eliminate all opinions completely, it merely means—at a basic level—that you should attempt to be aware of your audience and how your words and actions affect them.
Don’t call it being “PC,” if you must. Call it being “aware and empathetic.” Being a human with decency and respect for other people, cultures, and experiences.
“I’m tired of being shamed for having natural body hair.
“When I was twelve years old, I realised having body hair as a woman was ‘wrong’. I spent the next seven years meticulously making my body ‘right’.
“I now rarely shave a lot of my natural body hair, because I don’t want to. It helps me to feel like my body is mine, and I feel beautiful this way. Yet I am constantly told that I shouldn’t.
"Through pressure from the media and through everyday interaction, I am constantly, consistently, subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) told I must adhere to a sexist beauty standard which deems the natural state of the adult woman’s body unacceptable, even disgusting. Society is saturated with images and messages that tell me I should be ashamed of my choices, that tell me I do not have a choice at all but an obligation to meet these particular standards of attractiveness by removing my body hair. I am tired of feeling obligated. I am tired of succumbing to feelings of shame. I am tired of people treating my legs as a hilariously radical feminist statement. I am tired of this being a big deal.
"My choices about my body, as a woman and as a human being, should be the concern of nobody else but me.”
on a sincere note though, you guys do know that 22 is not old and 30 is not ancient, right? like yeah by 30 you will hopefully have matured but hearing some of you talk like life ends at 30 is a little worrying. one day, not as far away as it may seem, you will be 30 and you will still be a person with value, you will probably still have a lot of the same interests, you will still use the internet, and you will still be you. you have your whole life ahead of you
I’d like young women especially to see this post. Your life isn’t over because you’re aging! So much of the best is yet to come, and your life isn’t defined by how fuckable you are.
Yes, your life isn’t defined by how fuckable you are, for sure!
But also!!
You will be fuckable for a very, very long time–maybe longer than you’d like, depending on who finds you fuckable.
More importantly, if you haven’t already, your eroticism and desire will gradually stop being about who finds you fuckable, but who YOU find fuckable, and man oh man, is that an amazing transformation.
@oceaxereturns is a beacon of wisdom and we are proud she is among us
wupacing 