Begging people to realize the answer to Bad Things⢠happening isnât to ban people from writing or publishing fiction that deals with the topic or concept. Yes even if it âfetishizesâ or âromanticizesâ the subject matter.
Fiction doesnât make rapists rape. It doesnât make child abusers abuse children. Reading about incest wonât make someone become attracted to their family.
These things happen because the abusers want to do it, want to cause harm, or want to feed their harmful sexual need.
And the response about preventing child grooming⌠maybe we should teach children to see the red flags of someone sending them sexual content? Maybe we should teach media & lit literacy in both schools and in fandom culture to recognize that while we can discuss and explore taboo topics in fiction, these things cause significance harm in real life, and shouldnât be done? Maybe we should recognize that while some people may be harmed by reading specific content, others can read about it without developing any negative impact, and that you should take that into account when reading fiction.
The response shouldnât be to ban the ability for people to explore these topics in fiction. It should be to give warnings, and to have a proper understanding that some things in fiction cannot be replicated in real life without causing significant harm to others. Itâs to develop a proper healthy relationship with the idea of fantasy and fiction, without developing an inability to separate fiction from reality.