:p

I've been really stuck and frustrated with my sketching lately, so was experimenting around with that. And somehow...made this?? I really like it tho! And the process was fun too!

I was thinking about how problematic these guidelines are in general, but especially considering the ban on pornographic content created for sexual arousal in a space dominated by women and queer people. Disentangling sexual content from sexual arousal immediately makes me think of fundamentalist religious beliefs on how sex should be regarded and practiced as reproductive only.

This is a space where women have created sexual content for other women for a very long time that has catered to fantasies and is a safe space to explore sexuality without the ethical issues of something like porn. I’m not trying to sound conspiratorial, but the culture winds have been pointing conservative for some time and to now have sexual content need to serve a purpose other than arousal on this platform is not only subjective af but a slippery slope.

Women and queer folk should be allowed to explore their sexuality within these spaces, and to make it need to serve a narrative purpose sounds very puritanical. I write this as someone who does actually put thought into making sex scenes serve a narrative or emotional purpose in my stories. I write this as someone who also writes smut one shots that are meant for enjoyment and sexual gratification only.

I am anti-censorship. I am a feminist. I am queer.

These guidelines conceal targeted censorship of specific groups behind its vagueness. Yes, the commercial nature of the website makes this almost inevitable but I couldn’t help but think of how much sexual literature is being attacked for being shallow and surface level when it’s probably the most ethical and consensual way to engage with kinks and porn general - and a female dominated space, surprise surprise…

To decide that sex has to serve any other purpose than gratification/enjoyment is weird. To have sex that is published in ongoing stories have to serve a narrative purpose will undoubtedly lead to censorship of even works that do try to abide by the rule.

Sex is normal, sex is a part of life, and it doesn’t have to support a story to be meaningful and positive. Fanfic is a space that turns the light on when the traditional media dims it. It interrogates what happens behind the curtain, be it sexual or emotional. It extrapolates relationships and ties beyond what is awarded space in traditional media. To ask writers to turn off the lights, let the scene fade into black, reinforces that we should not be looking at what happens, that it is wrong or dirty or bad. It is not. Sex can be exciting and pleasurable, it can be intimate and awkward and it can be a space to explore power dynamics.

Jfc this world is going down hill. Friendly reminder that censorship helps no one in the long run, no matter how 'for the children!' you make it seem.

It's just tragic as someone who joined during the glory days of being sold to one direction and those rejected mate werewolf stories. I mean Wattpads been going downhill since they sold their souls to the adpocalypse and you couldn't even read your own stories without ads but still.

And people are still advocating for censorship on ao3 because there's a couple of weird fics out there. As someone who was a minor when they joined a lot of fandom spaces, I was in middle school, I fear we've so lost the plot.

Even as a kid I knew to mind my own business and not read something if it made me uncomfortable. Why are we treating kids like they're stupid? Anytime you see some comment advocating for censorship on ao3 someone will be there like 'I was a kid who found this stuff and it traumatized me so no one should be able to have it'.

Its one thing if a fic isn't tagged correctly or if it's a situation similar to the early 2010s mlp fandom where people were making adult animations of a kids show with no warning for actual kids who wanted to interact with the show. That's not what this conversation is about.

This is about people who either chose to not fully read the tags and then complain or people who read the tags and then chose to continue.

Google is free if you don't know what a tag means. It's not the author's fault you were too lazy to look it up or thought you could handle it when you couldn't.