Something I feel I need to say after the recent shooting

GoodBoy741

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Recently in America there has been a shooting. The shooter killed a lot of people, claiming that it was all about his hatred towards women. This has pushed people to look at issues of misogyny, including taking a look at the incredibly misogynistic websites that he visited.

I feel like I need to talk a little about the kinds of stories I write. This isn't really about anyone else on Chyoo, just me. I don't see myself as anything like the shooter, but I wonder if I'm a bit like one of those guys on the websites he went to.

I write a lot of mind control stories. Now, the closest real world parallel to mind control is drugging a woman before having sex with her. Obviously, that's rape. So if mind control really existed, it would be rape, too. I've had some issues with that in the past. In some ways, some of my stories are the worst of this genre. I've posted stories on another site where the geeky guy is clearly getting sexual revenge on women who have treated him badly. The proximity of this to what a madman has recently done bothers me.

I write these stories more about the control than about the sex. The idea of the relationship being completely simple, with the guy knowing for certain that the woman wants what he wants, appeals to me. That's why I also write stories where women control men, because it still has that simplicity of purpose. I don't actually want a character who wants to hurt other people, I like to think that my characters make sure their victims enjoy the sex. However, the victims are still victims.

I like to think that fantasy is a place where we can do unspeakable things. We can fantasize about robbing a bank or having sex with a married woman because there are no consequences in a fantasy. I like to think that just because I fantasize about these things doesn't mean that I get any closer to being confused about what is right and wrong in real life. I don't think I'm going to stop writing stories where a man uses power to make a woman want to have sex with him, because I think there's a place for that in a fantasy context.

However, I'm starting to worry about what I'm putting into the world. When I write a story about one woman who is evil and gets mind controlled because she deserves some guy's revenge, does even one of my readers misinterpret that? Does even one person think of her as an example for all women and feel justified in his hatred? I'm not even talking about some psychopath with a gun, just some jerk who looks for any excuse to justify treating women badly.

I do love women. I love them *as people*, people who have every right to exist and live their lives how they want without harassment or fear. I don't want to contribute to the idea that it's okay to treat them badly. To me, my stories are an expression of my own insecurities, my own turn-ons, my own fears, and my own successes in life. To someone else, they might take something different from my stories.

So I'm not sure about my future here.
 
Stop worrying about it. Besides the fact that this is already being spun into a political agenda enough without you helping it, you can't hold yourself responsible for the choices of others. For all the hype bullying gets as causing school shootings and suicides, consider how many people have been bullied and did neither, instead channeling it into fiction writing or legislation to stop it. Look at all the rape victims who don't kill their rapists or become rapists themselves. And plenty of people with abusive or bigoted parents have broken the cycle of abuse and bigotry.

This is the same. The misogyny's only role in this tragedy is it gave him a specific target. Without it, he would have waited for another trigger and found a new specific target. Even dealing solely with misogyny, the mentally well of our world learn to doubt and not accept everything as truth; and based on the number of people with a form of mental retardation who are considered high-functioning, I'm inclined to think the only people incapable of doubting are those with an attachment disorder. The shooter didn't doubt because women seemed to confirm his misogynistic beliefs, but does that excuse it? And what of the next guy? What's his excuse for not doubting?

Just stop thinking about it. We're all responsible for our own choices. If someone chooses to read your work and interpret it to mean women are objects, that's their sin. But if you choose to stop writing because of what mentally ill people might do with your writing, that would be your sin. Anyone who would try to blame you is looking for a scapegoat to push an agenda - either the acquittal of their clients or legislation that prevents women from being seen as anything less than strong matriarchs.
 
I agree with kaitou, in that you shouldn’t over think it. I wouldn’t associate the evil crimes of one sad psychopath and the fantasies within your own and indeed any of our stories. I would think it obvious to any healthy human being that most of the content on here doesn’t represent the real world; like you pointed out its just fantasy and only someone who had previously twisted ideas wouldn’t recognize it being just that - fantasy.

I am often bewildered by the discrimination to certain groups like women or homosexuals who in my opinion are in general the kindest and least objectionable members of society.

However if you do feel like you can’t/shouldn’t write or post publically anymore, well then that’s your decision. But I think that would be a shame. As I for one, and I'm sure others on here would agree that your stories and writing are some of the most enjoyable/creative on the site.
 
Just to clarify, I'm not talking about the psychopath. He's a psychopath. That's just what got the debate going in America.

The issue is that we can't just say, "Well, I'm not a psychopath, so I'm fine." That's what concerns me. There's a ton of misogyny out there that some people think is acceptable. I've seen the way some internet sites talk about women compared to hate groups. Honestly, it doesn't seem like an unreasonable comparison.

So I'm talking about the guys who go online and find things that justify relentlessly hitting on a woman after she tells him no. I'm talking about the guy who will make a million crude jokes to a woman until her boyfriend shows up, because in his mind it's only the boyfriend who deserves respect. I'm talking about the guys who will never hit a woman, but they will use their anger and jealousy to justify treating them like inferiors at work.

That's the kind of thing I'm worried about contributing to. I'm not worried about creating horrible, gun toting monsters, I'm worried that telling stories about indulging negative feelings towards women is just a bad idea in general.
 
And I'm requesting you silence that debate if such a reason is motivating it. I'm all for eliminating misogyny from the real world, but talking about it in any relation to the shooting is only going to bring about another massacre for an equally moronic reason since we failed to address genuine causes and instead scapegoated to misogyny.

Writing about negative feelings towards women isn't a bad idea. In fact, it's a great idea. It's a real feeling, a real mentality. That does wonders for a piece, regardless of whether or not you choose to slip in a message related to it. Some of the greatest fictions in history involved a protagonist wielding some form of bigotry, and not all of them abandoned it. Anyone who would use you or other fiction writers to justify that misogyny is acceptable doesn't have a very firm conviction in the first place; otherwise, they'd be quoting non-fiction. Furthermore, some of these people who think misogyny in fiction is wrong turn a blind eye to misandry in fiction, and this double standard should discredit them.

If a character isn't allowed to think a certain way, then it's called censorship. If someone takes your work out of context, then they're looking for evidence to fit their beliefs and would find a way without you or fiction. The mere suggestion that the mind control genre is wrong is the only thing objectionable in your thoughts - and don't you dare say it's only wrong when a man controls a woman.
 
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I've thought a lot about the impacts - large and small - that having fantasies can have on a person, and that writing/speaking about those fantasies can have on others.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: As long as you are clear about your interests being only fantasy - not something you'd ever do with a real person involved - and limited to a context in which you're not imagining something happening to a real person, you've fulfilled your responsibilities.

You can't control other people's interpretations or behavior. You can't make someone mature by writing or not writing something; saying or not saying something. You can only express your beliefs and the reasons for them as best as you can.

So, personally, I always make a note about my beliefs on any site that I post submissions to. I link o it from my stories or I highlight it in my signature line or something - and then I feel like I've done all I can do. I've done my part in explaining why I have certain fantasies, and that they don't correlate to my beliefs about how things should be in the real world. Maybe that helps them to reflect on their own beliefs and interests, and maybe it doesn't change a thing. Whatever bad things someone does after reading my stories, though, isn't at all my fault - because I advocated against those things.

Simply writing something like "noncon fantasies are hot" when turned on is equivalent to saying "I want to beat the shit out of you" when enraged. It doesn't show approval for noncon or violence in general. It doesn't justify any real-life actions. It's just an expression of a psychological state (arousal or anger, and an imagined event that might satisfy us).

We wouldn't say that public anger over the bank bailouts or fantasies of irresponsible bankers being hurt is equivalent to watching actual bankers and imagining how one could harm them and get away with it - and wishing to do so. We wouldn't blame anyone who has ever jointed a protest for the actions of violent anti-whatever groups. It's the same thing with erotica.


Having a fantasy in which a female character is mostly a sexual object of desire isn't misogynistic. Misogyny is an active thing - something you do or think related to someone else. When writing erotica, you aren't actually imagining doing horrible things to a real person. The "people" in stories are more like cartoon characters - fundamentally unreal; no matter how realistically they are written.


To say it clearly with a reference to something you wrote, you aren't "telling stories about indulging negative feelings towards women" - you're writing about things involving cartoons that people imagine looking more like real women than like what they see in a Disney movie. Unlike a Disney movie, you aren't writing a story that you want to tell in order to communicate some message or to make people feel for the characters - you're writing for the sake of exploring a psychological interest - which is an incredibly complex thing. In that sense, it's no different from writing about how arousing tires are or red cups are (both of which are things that we can be psychologically conditioned to be aroused by).


So, chillax. You're not doing anything wrong by sharing impersonal, unrealistic fantasies.


The people who (1) write things about or (2) do things to people that they actually know are people would have done so even if you had never written a word.
 
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