Luka Hates Biphobes And Racists

The post said "Stop trying to censor erotic art just because someone else doesn't like it. It won't work."

Aces can and do experience the beauty in erotic art. We just don't experience it the same way Allos do.

😈 You are allowed to have evil characters who are not punished by the narrative by the end of the story.

😈 You are allowed to have evil characters who win.

😈 You are allowed to have evil characters who make evil look fun and cool.

😈 You are allowed to make your fun, cool evil character the protagonist.

😈 You are allowed to glorify, romanticize and eroticize evil characters and villainous acts.

If someone wants to write a story with a villain protagonist who wins, they totes can, that's what the post is saying.

I definitely agree that people shouldn't be bound by typical story rules (like I don't believe every movie should be a standard tropey superhero movie lol) but even in existing stories that are bleak, there's a purpose for that bleakness that couldn't be achieved if they weren't bleak.

I guess I just wonder why say, someone would write a story where you follow a villain protagonist who tortures random people who aren't even also bad people, they're just random people living their lives, and you treat what the villain does as cool basically universally and there's never an implication of any kind of comeuppance or even internal conflict or torment. It kinda feels as if that is something that falls under the initial posts' ideas.

I swear I'm not trying to strawman you or OP's post, this is genuinely me trying to understand it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding and the point of the initial post isn't that all the stories produced under this criteria would be quality/good, and just that we shouldn't try and micromanage people because it just opens up a bunch of other kinds of censorship and it just generally doesn't work.

However, I feel as if even with this framework, I would think it'd be justified if there was some kind of public outcry, not anything systemic just general populace, over a story that basically fits the description I said above. As in a story that more or less showcases someone terrible, shows it to be terrible, while also more or less romanticizing it and never adding any sort of nuance to themes or anything like that. I'm not saying it can't be a tough line to tread, but I do feel like some things deserve to be treated with scrutiny, not a systemic level but on a personal level.

There's a great video essay (specifically it's first part) by Dan Olson about Fifty Shades of Gray (the first book and the first movie) that explores this sorta idea really well and more or less is my thoughts on this sorta thing in the extreme.

I'll admit I am kinda biased in this regard. I have a minor preference for stories that are wholesome and straight-forward to some degree and am trying to open myself up to more bleak and uncomfortable pieces of art overall, many of which I do quite enjoy for what they are. I also believe there are plenty of occasions where a story being fiction does mean you have more leeway to explore things you obviously wouldn't want to happen in real life, but I do believe there's a line somewhere that shouldn't be crossed without invoking some sort of justified reaction.

Part of what made me kind of have the "I kinda feel like a fascist for saying this," line, is that I tend to gravitate towards art that I feel speaks to some sort of truth. It could be a very shallow truth. Like it's truth could be, "Sometimes we should just enjoy ourselves and relax," but it is something that feels true and correct. And that truth doesn't have to be comfortable or even affirming. I Saw The TV Glow, before I've even seen it mind you lol, is extremely bleak in it's themes in a way that I deeply relate to and it's kind altered my whole perspective on life if I'm being honest. Themes like, "You have to take action or nothing will improve without you trying," or "No is going to come and save you," are themes that I think feel truthful and worth saying, even if they are uncomfortable to hear sometimes.

It's a common fascist belief that art should serve a purely utilitarian or straight-forward purpose and that "degenerate" art, which usually was just anything the ruling party or group didn't like or made them uncomfortable, should be prohibited/destroyed. I despise this idea for obvious reasons and don't believe there should ever be any sort of genuine state-sanctioned prohibition on difficult art, but I myself am kinda turned off by some pieces of art that strives to be challenging on an emotional/personal level, so therein lies the issue. I sometimes feel the impulse to say, "This piece of art didn't inspire any sort of productive emotion or call to action, I felt like I just sat through something sad and/or miserable," and I ponder what value it brings to the table. Now, this is almost always a completely irrational response, and usually it just takes some time for me to understand what it was trying to say and why it made the choice it did, but I almost never get it initially. And regardless, I don't think my personal discomfort should ever translate to actual praxis or policy lol.

Anyways sorry a bit of a tangent, I guess what I mean to say is that I have a hard time understanding what a story like what I mentioned above says about the human condition or about truth, even shallow and straight-forward truth. I guess I would be tempted to view stories that don't have any of this nuance or just outwardly celebrate doing evil with no conflict or introspection as just bad if not really bad art.

To attempt a TLDR; I definitely believe some stories with these traits existing makes complete sense and accomplishes a specific artistic goal. I just am conflicted over why you would want to write an non-introspective story about a person doing evil and openly being romanticized with no catch at all. Perhaps the point of the above post is more nuanced than I'm claiming, but even with some of that supposed nuance, I feel as if the public having it's own non-systematized reaction to art that they feel crosses a moral line can often be justified. I do believe fiction shouldn't be formulaic or be forced to only fit within a narrow framework, and part of my disgust may be down to personal bias I will readily admit. I obviously don't want this kind of overt censorship to by systematized, but I do personally feel as if even if I don't believe something should be coded in law it might be worth scrutinizing or critiquing.

I can certainly understand there's enjoyment in reading that, but my question is what exactly do you enjoy about these stories?

I can understand the thrills of a fighting game, I can understand the release of adrenaline of an action movie, I can understand the aesthetic appreciation of a dress up game, I can understand the heartwarming feeling of a romance story, I can understand the grit and the mettle of a dark fantasy story where things go irrevocably wrong and there's a lot of struggle to ever maintain hope.

I can even understand the appeal of dub-con or consenting non-con, as those have very relevant power dynamic fantasies to fulfil, even if their idea personally makes me squick, I can understand the reasoning behind it.

What I can't understand is what enjoyment do people have on watching a genuinely evil figure fucking shit up. Why is it fun to watch the villain spread terror to countless innocent people? What is so enjoyable about watching evil characters torturing other characters for the sake of gratuitously making others feel pain? What is so sexy about having them rape others and just get away with it?

And finally: We enjoy things because we consider them fun, enjoyable, important or at the very least relevant to us. It's not be a 1-1 ratio like "I like playing violent videogames because I want to do the violent things I do in videogames", but I have a hard time genuinely understanding what enjoyment can one have on a story where the main character does very evil stuff, said evil stuff is glorified and encouraged and just becomes a self indulgent evil story, doing evil things to other people and relishing on doing said evil things.

If you actually want me to understand your point, at least answer me

Is it the concern over the subject matter of those stories and wondering who would enjoy these things and for what reason?

There is no bad subject matter to art nor will there ever be. HOW we engage with said topic is far more important.

What makes this discourse so weird is "Why can I question these topics (more lighthearted topics) and not question those topics (more loaded topics)?"

More importantly than saying "X is good/X is bad", it's important to understand "why" we enjoy these things. I've dug a fair share of troubled feelings while exploring my likes and attitudes. I have questioned my taste for ultra grim, misery porn, my endless search for cathartic release with great acts of defiance/violence against authoritative, godlike/religious figures and not everything I engaged at that times was healthy.

I'm only posing this question about said original topics because the point you brought up was:

Humans have been enjoying stories about awful things for millennia, from Greek tragedy to the entire horror genre. It may not be fun for you, but it's extremely common and normal and healthy.

There are a some implications here, which I cannot agree with:

People have always enjoyed these things and that makes it normal and ok.

People have perfect control over their minds, their impulses, their desires and have a very clear and defined barrier between the fictional and the real.

The fact that these things were historically enjoyed is true, but that doesn't make them necessarily good. From gladiator matches to the death in ancient times to jokes banalizing sexual assault, these things stem from time-sensitive cultural bubbles where values were different and people thought these things were okay.

The second one is even trickier for me to accept, because that directly contradicts several other life experiences both shared and lived, as well as all the years I spent studying psychology. Sure, I am an undergraduate, but what I studied already points out that there is no clear cut barrier between the things we enjoy in fiction and the things that compels us IRL.

Again, not a 1-1 scale, but according to everything I've studied and seen, there is no such a thing as "I like watching X in my stories, but have no interest in X in real life", where one's fictional interests are completely divorced from IRL.

You simply cannot generalize your discomfort and project it on the whole of humanity. People have been doing terrible things to one another since people have existed - long before the ubiquity of dark, violent media. People have also been consuming dark, violent media as catharsis since such media has existed... otherwise it would not exist.

A desire for the imposition of one will or one perspective upon the many is fascist. It just is. To conceal such a motivation underneath halfhearted "why shouldn't we question this?/I'm just asking questions" protestation - even if you don't realize you're doing it - does not absolve you of the behavior.

You are not the arbiter of what is acceptable. No one person is, or can be. The farther into that mindset you descend, the easier it is for you to be unthinkingly drawn into oppressive movements, which will inevitably overstep your own boundaries and seek to suppress that which you now find inoffensive - or even virtuous! Artists either have the right to make art that offends and disgusts (but does not involve exploitation of real people), or no one has the right to make art at all.

So no Poland?

this post is blatant misinformation, op is straight up lying about both the article and video to scare people, neither is true. here's some links so you can see for yourself.

stupid matt walsh video

stupid fox news article

as a hormonal teenager i could develop a crush on someone i saw once and most of my daydreams and fantasies were about romance or sex. but now that i'm an adult no longer going through puberty, it takes a lot more for me to develop a crush on someone, and a lot of my celebrity or fictional character crushes are more or less acknowledgement that i find them physically attractive than fantasies. my daydreams are primarily about shit like owning a house and being financially stable.

am i demisexual compared to my teenage self, or is my teenage self hyper-allosexual compared to me now, or has my attraction always been a normal/average amount depending on my age? does it even fucking matter? how should i know (and WHY would i need to know) the amount of attraction my peers experience, or how well they need to know someone before developing feelings for them, or if they fantasize about fucking celebrities? what PURPOSE do microlabels serve other than creating a bunch of pride flags to make money off of?

Trans people like you and me identify as our gender, and we change our bodies to match, but science can't yet change biology fully. And that's OK, and in the context of a relationship it's reasonable that someone might not make that distinction without them seeing our identity as valid.

To relate this back to bisexuality, it means both are true: we are attracted to both biological sexes, and as such the gender doesn't matter.

Sorry if me just repeating what you said in my own way is annoying, you're the most reasonable person I've seen on these subjects.

All good, I'm glad to hear from someone reasonable as well tbh. I usually try to avoid these topics on this blog since they can be so contentious but at this point I don't really care honestly, I'll talk about whatever people wanna bother me about.

liking men or being with a man as a bi woman doesnt make you less part of the community

it doesn't make your attraction to women lesser or weaker or fake or non-existent

it doesn't make you bad or a traitor or any other biphobic bullshit that biphobic hets and biphobic members of the lgbtq community accuse you off being

it doesnt make you deserving of any mistreatment or abuse that might happen in your relationship with a man or due to your attraction to men (gods forbid you ever experience anything so heinous and inexcusable)

it makes you bisexual and that is perfect. you are perfect. your bisexual attraction to and love for men is perfect.

you are a member of the lgbtq community no matter what biphobes within it or outside it say.