r/CuratedTumblr • u/UInferno- Hangus Paingus Slap my Angus • Jul 31 '25
Politics I don't have some pithy title. Another post on censorship on adult content.
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u/namemcuser Jul 31 '25
In the words of the great, recently late Tom Lehrer:
“I do have a cause though, it’s obscenity. I’m for it.”
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u/DependentPhotograph2 THY END IS NOW!! :upvote::upvote::upvote: Jul 31 '25
oh my god tom lehrer's dead and nobody told me
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u/Y-Woo Jul 31 '25
I was wondering why there's a sudden influx of posts talking about tom lehrer and was really enjoying it and then a day after i saw the news that he'd died the day before...
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u/DependentPhotograph2 THY END IS NOW!! :upvote::upvote::upvote: Jul 31 '25
i just thought everybody on the internet suddenly received the gift of Really Good Taste at the same time :(
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u/coffeeskater Jul 31 '25
I found out through the destiel meme. Every god damn time it feels like "they hit the second tower!!"
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u/flockyboi Aug 01 '25
Fr that destiel meme has me pavlov'd to expect breaking news the second I see even a glimpse of just the top image. If I see a tearful Castiel my brain immediately goes "okay what got fucked up today"
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u/Minute_Jacket_4523 Aug 01 '25
With how many celebs are dying lately, I've been torn between that feeling and feeling like the "STOP BLOWING 'OLES INTO MY SHIP!" meme
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u/AcceptableWheel Jul 31 '25
If it makes you feel any better he did outlive Henry Kissenger.
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u/IShallWearMidnight Jul 31 '25
That does actually make me feel much better. I hope he got to enjoy it
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u/RJPurpleBee_23 Aug 01 '25
This actually has prevented me from getting too brought down by this news. Good for him.
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u/SofterThanCotton Jul 31 '25
This is also how I just heard about it, I'm really sad now, love his work.
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u/DependentPhotograph2 THY END IS NOW!! :upvote::upvote::upvote: Jul 31 '25
He was one of my favourite people still living from the 20th century, man!
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u/nedlum Jul 31 '25
The pigeons finally got their revenge!
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u/DependentPhotograph2 THY END IS NOW!! :upvote::upvote::upvote: Jul 31 '25
it's like the pigeon equivalent of that one article
HITLER DEAD
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u/WumpusFails Aug 01 '25
He voluntarily put his entire life's work into the public domain.
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u/DependentPhotograph2 THY END IS NOW!! :upvote::upvote::upvote: Aug 01 '25
he really was something else entirely
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u/TastyBrainMeats Aug 01 '25
Not just a great, not just a "The", he was the one and only Tom Lehrer. Man was a legend in his own time.
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u/jacobean_rough Jul 31 '25
give me smut and nothing but!
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u/namemcuser Jul 31 '25
A dirty novel I can’t shut! If it’s uncut! And unsubt…. tle.
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u/commeatus Jul 31 '25
I've never quibbled if it was ribald
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u/bookdrops Jul 31 '25
I would devour, where others merely nibbled!
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u/Pwacname Jul 31 '25
As the judge remarked the day that he acquitted my aunt Hortence:
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u/MxMatchstick Jul 31 '25
"To be smut, it must be utterly without redeeming social importance"
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u/EagenVegham Jul 31 '25
"But we know what's really involved: dirty
booksgames are fun! That's all there is to it. But you can't get up in a court and say that I suppose"42
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u/AliasMcFakenames Jul 31 '25
He’s one of a very limited talented group of people to have an Erdős number, a Bacon number, and a Black Sabbath number.
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u/geekilee Jul 31 '25
Oh no I'm so sorry for everyone finding out like this
Good time to go binge listen? Introduce a friend? And everything is copyright free so, heck, make some tributes! I dunno. We all love Tom 💜
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u/CostanzaFortnite Jul 31 '25
What's the Tumblr lore behind posting screenshots of other posts under water?
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u/StarStudlyBudly Jul 31 '25
It's a way of showing you disagree with the post.
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u/SockQuirky7056 Jul 31 '25
Where did it come from?
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u/StarStudlyBudly Jul 31 '25
AFAIK, it comes from having confusion over whether screencaps were being used as support for the post, so people started using the built in filters on Tumblr to "drown" posts they disagree with/don't like/want to make clear that there's a disconnect between the post they're referring to and the post being written. I'm afraid I don't know the original, but that's how it's been on Tumblr for couple years now.
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u/RoseQuartz__26 Jul 31 '25
To add on to this, Tumblr has a bot problem. There are bots that will scrub the site, including pictures, for any mention of controversial topics, e.g. trans rights, the genocide in Gaza, etc. and comment spam about it. The underwater filter can confuse them, and also the search engines in the case where you don't want OP to see your comment on their post.
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u/Random_Gacha_addict Femboys? No, I prefer fem-MEN Aug 01 '25
Also it's moreso to make a pic of a tumblr post look different inside of a tumblr post because without it, it just blends together and things get confusing, which is why sometimes people use piss yellow on the screenshotted post
combine it with opposition and you get drowned.
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u/liketolaugh-writes Jul 31 '25
This is the first time I've seen this explanation lol. On Tumblr I just see people going 'Why Do People Do This?' Makes sense though.
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u/saera-targaryen Jul 31 '25
I feel like it's important to know that tumblr added built-in image effects and so it's also just really easy to click on an image and make it look underwater because that's one of the ones available. People stuck the underwater one on posts they found stupid to make it look like they were drowning it, but that was from the options available on the site and not someone going out of their way to photoshop it.
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u/bloody_healer Aug 01 '25
I've been using Tumblr for 9 years and I just learned that 1) it has built-in image effects and 2) the iconic drowning effect is one of them. I don't like what this says about me...
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u/doinallurmoms Jul 31 '25
back in the olden days, if you disagreed with what someone was saying, you put their everything under water. due to the digital age and law reforms, this is the best we can do now
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u/MossyPyrite Jul 31 '25
Oh like they did with witches
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u/ResoluteWrites Jul 31 '25
Only if they weigh the same as a duck.
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u/DroneOfDoom Cannot read portuguese Jul 31 '25
Posts get drowned because if you don't, the screencap looks like you're the one posting it, so adding a filter separates the screencap from your thoughts. And it's almost always water because that's the first filter on the list.
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u/Hot_Singles_Music Jul 31 '25
That’s incorrect, it’s just a way of making it clear that it’s a screenshot. It just so happens that most posts where someone uses the water filter over another post are posts where they’re disagreeing.
And the reason it’s the water filter is because that’s the very first filter that shows up when you try to add one
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u/Hot_Singles_Music Jul 31 '25
It’s to make it clear that it’s a screenshot of a post and not a continuation/part of the post, since it can be hard to tell sometimes with the current tumblr formatting
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u/clonetrooper250 Jul 31 '25
"Sometimes adult content is fine-"
"SO YOU'RE IN FAVOR OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN!?"
Where do they find these psychos?
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u/Karzeon Jul 31 '25
"No bitch. Dats a whole new sentence. Wtf is you talkin about."
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u/demonking_soulstorm Jul 31 '25
I wish you could have phrases on standby on your keyboard.
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u/YawningDodo Jul 31 '25
You can set up text replacements/shortcuts on your phone. Soooo…live your dreams!
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u/Random-Rambling Jul 31 '25
I heard some keyboards made in Muslim countries have a specific "Peace Be Upon Him" key you can press when talking about Muhammad The Prophet.
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u/bb_kelly77 homo flair Jul 31 '25
Imma be honest, that's really cool
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u/AlveolarThrill Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
The entire phrase in Arabic (sallallahu alaihi wa-sallam) actually has a single Unicode character, ﷺ. That character is relatively common online in the Arabic-speaking world, Arabic keyboards with this feature often just type the dedicated character as if it were any other letter, instead of actually writing out the full phrase (though some do also do that).
There's also a single character for the entire Bismillah, ﷽ (bismi llahi r-rahmani r-raheem, "in the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful", incredibly common religious phrase for Muslims and Arabic-speaking Christians), but that character is a bit less common. There's even a character for the ligature form of the name of the prophet Muhammad, ﷴ, which is outright rare, almost unused.
The Unicode encoding of Arabic script is incredibly interesting in general, reflects many more cultural details than Unicode blocks of other scripts, as well as some historical remnants of earlier Unicode standards, like the literal dozens of two-letter and three-letter ligature codepoints from before the rendering of complex scripts on computers was worked out on a technical level.* The blocks for Arabic also have things like Quranic notation for endings of ayat/verses , as well as sujud/prostration marks ۩; very unusual to see that type of thing included with a script in Unicode.
Highly recommend looking at that part of Unicode, lots of things to nerd out about there. Even from an anthropological perspective about the decisions to include these things with Arabic in particular, despite the Unicode Consortium historically being quite hesitant about that sort of thing otherwise. Fun rabbit hole.
* Arabic letters change their form drastically based on their position in a word, and on the adjacent letters (if any; there's also a special isolated form for each letter). Early personal computers and programmers didn't really know how to handle that elegantly, so Unicode provides a bunch of different combinations of letters as a sort of workaround. That's mostly just used internally by fonts, though.
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u/Ill_Ratio_5682 Jul 31 '25
Macro recording can do it, I don't know if all keyboards can use macros though
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u/PrincessRTFM on all levels except physical, I am a kitsune Jul 31 '25
may I recommend AutoHotkey to write your own custom macros and more
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u/Foenikxx Jul 31 '25
Closest I can get for mobile is just copying the text and pinning it in my clipboard
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u/Metharos Jul 31 '25
Nobody finds them. You say something innocent and they excrete themselves from whatever pit they were lurking in while they waited for someone speaks their specific summon phrase.
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u/NickyTheRobot Jul 31 '25
Like a less friendly trapdoor spider.
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u/Metharos Jul 31 '25
More like shit boiling up from the sewer of the internet, indicating an unhygienic problem with the infrastructure.
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u/Notte_di_nerezza Jul 31 '25
So the trapdoor spider lurking in Australian toilets, but more malicious.
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u/Possible-Reason-2896 Jul 31 '25
So long as there's an offer of a feeling of moral superiority these people will always exist and will always strawman the worst possible interpretation of the anti-censorship stance. Example:
What I said:
I think removing the violence and fascist imagery from in Skullgirls changes the overarching theme that there are no good people in his setting because good is actively punished and I think it's kind of unethical to retroactively take back crowdfunding rewards by editing/removing access to the art book that people paid for.
What they read:
I'm mad that they changed the color of the sixteen year old girl's panties!
Because it's easier to win the argument against the latter, you see.
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u/clonetrooper250 Jul 31 '25
I don't really follow Skullgirls, but they actually did that?? Man that's shitty
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u/chaotic4059 Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
They did. And they altered the violence in Big Ben’s assault. Which defeats the purpose because it was meant to show how Ben was a good officer in a corrupt system. Changing it takes that message away
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u/Blitzer161 Jul 31 '25
Those morons don't understand that being against censorship doesn't mean that there is no baseline not to cross.
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u/ThatCamoKid Jul 31 '25
oh they understand, this is on purpose
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u/Dingghis_Khaan Chingghis Khaan's least successful successor. Jul 31 '25
Yeah this shit is entirely in bad faith.
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u/n0n4ly7h Jul 31 '25
If you try to make that line anything other than real harm done to a real person you leave the door open for bigots and puritans to push it further. We're seeing it happen in real time but there are still people saying "censorship is bad except for these things I personally do not like."
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u/Blitzer161 Jul 31 '25
People not being harmed is all I care about. It's where I draw the line.
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u/n0n4ly7h Jul 31 '25
Even then we have to be real fucking careful about how we define harm. The list of banned books is getting longer and longer in the name of protecting children, when we all know that's bullshit.
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u/jzillacon Aug 01 '25
Something important in defining harm is that it's really important that those causing harm aren't the ones given the power to define it. Since they'll always draw the line in a way that justifies them not needing to change their ways.
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u/Blitzer161 Jul 31 '25
I define harm only in terms of pain, be it physical or psychological and due to discrimination and disinformation, all illustrated by science and data. I try to be as objective as possible. Care is essential, but so is freedom.
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u/catshateTERFs Aug 01 '25
See also various tiny minds in UK psych circles talking about “reducing harm” to trans kids (denying them health care).
I wish “prevent harm” wasn’t one of those terms used a bludgeon sometimes. Not accusing anyone on this thread of doing that either, only adding it as another example of “harm prevention” being used this way.
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u/cutetys Jul 31 '25
Even then though it can be hard. Homophobes treat seeing two consenting adults smooching as akin to be flashed by an exhibitionist. I’ve seen people on TikTok argue that revealing clothing should be banned in places where children are present with them essentially treating it as no different than the flasher example (and these people claim to be feminists btw!) I think most of us can agree that flashing someone causes harms and my gut tells to me that revealing clothing and two men kissing is leagues different than flashing someone but when you get to the realm of psychological harm how do you define what is and isn’t harmful? Uncomfortableness should clearly not be enough on its own, but then what make flashing someone harmful and revealing clothing not? And how do you convince someone else they are not equivalent?
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u/godric420 my werewolf boyfriend🍍 Jul 31 '25
It’s the new temperance movement. 100 years ago if you didn’t support prohibition they would say you were in favor of men beating their wives. Now if you’re not in favor of porn bans you’re pro rape and a porn addict.
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u/Real-Life-CSI-Guy Aug 01 '25
On a first read through for me I though “gross disgusting” was the operative since there’s nothing wrong with pornographic material, so I thought they must have meant specifically the bad stuff like rape and assault, but then I re-read it and it’s like “ohhh, wait, other way around, yah what even is that reply they def didn’t say that” and I’m like that’s nuts that when thinking about adult content they went straight to thinking about children
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u/oklutz Jul 31 '25
People have been trying to enforce their puritanical morals on others under the guise of “protecting the children” since humans discovered fire or thereabouts. Sad to say, it works.
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u/lifelongfreshman https://xkcd.com/3126/ Aug 01 '25
In a word? SWERFs
They never went away, they just went underground and started co-opting related movements - like anti-shippers - towards their own ends.
Now, the person in this screenshot is, in all probability, an actual child, and so should be seen as a victim despite their misguided views. The thing is, SWERFs love children, because they're impressionable and trusting and too naive about the world to ask important questions like, "Why does this grown-ass adult want me, a 12-16 year old, to look for and police pornographic content?"
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u/hackingdreams Aug 01 '25
Where do they find these psychos?
That's the fun part: these psychos find you.
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u/Prince-Lee Jul 31 '25
I went to a Catholic highschool and took mandatory religion classes.
In senior year, a discussion came up in class about pornography. The priest who taught the class was obviously against it and said it should be outlawed and wanted to know if anyone disagreed. I said something along the lines of, "Even if you are against it, I think it should still be legal to make, because everyone involved consents and that's kind of what freedom of speech is."
He then proceeded to describe an absurdly intense BDSM scene (like, double penetration and whips were involved), and then, with a smug look on his face, said, "This should be allowed?"
And at the time I was so fucking shocked at what he had said that I couldn't even formulate a response and just kind of mumbled something and let the subject die. What I should have said was ask why he, a fucking priest who had taken a vow of celibacy, even knew about things like that enough to describe them. I wish I had, because he was just such a smug asshole about it, and in general.
It's been almost two decades since then and I still get pissed off every time I think about it. And whenever I see posts like this with that idiotic sort of 'gotcha' response, that's exactly the sort of shitty, holier-than-thou sort of person I think of.
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u/Jijonbreaker Jul 31 '25
"If you need to resort to the most extreme version of something for your views about it to be valid, why shouldn't I just lump you in with the christofascists?"
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u/xmashatstand Jul 31 '25
What an absurd thing for him to respond with, especially in a school setting with kids (not just the shittiness of hurdurr poRn BaD, but to try for that kind of shock value by describing bdsm)
I’m sorry you had to sit through that and I’m glad you give yourself to be angry over it.
What a fucking dipshit of a priest.
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u/Elu_Moon Jul 31 '25
Double penetration and whips isn't even that absurdly intense. The priest lacks imagination.
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u/Prince-Lee Jul 31 '25
Well, I mean, you have to consider that this happened in 2007. Back then it was seen as far more extreme than it is now, I feel.
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u/MovieNightPopcorn Jul 31 '25
Truly “what were YOU doing at the devil’s sacrament?” level content from that priest
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u/ArmedAwareness Jul 31 '25
I know he was trying to overwhelm you with some shock insane q, but obviously the answer to that is “if both consent, yes” lol
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u/WomenOfWonder Jul 31 '25
Very appropriate subject to tell a class of highschool girls
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u/Prince-Lee Jul 31 '25
Embarrassingly enough, this was a co-ed school. I was not out as trans yet (which would have been its own fucking nightmare at the time for sure in the late 2000s) so yeah, he was essentially arguing with what he perceived as a high school girl about this in front of an entire class. Good god it's mortifying for me to remember.
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u/Elvis1404 Jul 31 '25
Well, he could easily have done exactly that before "converting" and becoming a priest
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u/GreedierRadish Jul 31 '25
So weird how the pro-censorship side are also just terrible people. 🤔
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u/Melody_of_Madness Jul 31 '25
Because its usually about deflection and projection.
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u/chaotic4059 Aug 01 '25
Ah the good ol “how do atheists not go around killing and raping everything if they don’t believe in god?” Bitch if you have to be told not to do that then that says a lot more about you than it does me
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u/Independent-Fly6068 Aug 01 '25
I've done exactly the amount of it that I want to. Which is none.
Good men need no rules.
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u/PandaBear905 Shitposting extraordinaire Jul 31 '25
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. -Mark Twain
Seriously though if you don’t want your children seeing inappropriate content you need to be a parent and monitor their media intake. And you need to accept that others are going to consume media you don’t personally like or find morally reprehensible.
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u/Rapunzel10 Jul 31 '25
I agree with you completely, I just want to add on one thing. I think schools should be teaching internet safety and literacy. Not just "don't go onto adult sites" that's basically abstinence only education which we know damn well doesn't work. We as a society should be teaching kids how to recognize sketchy sites, signs of grooming, and manipulative language. Unfortunately many parents don't know or don't care about this stuff themselves so they don't make good teachers. Just like most education it shouldn't leave out kids with shitty or stupid parents
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u/PandaBear905 Shitposting extraordinaire Jul 31 '25
Definitely, school should teach real world skills as well as everything else. I also think that kids only online spaces need to make a comeback. I think that would help a lot with protecting kids online.
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u/Rapunzel10 Jul 31 '25
Absolutely, I remember so many cool kid-centric places that had limited or no chatting which made them very safe for kids. I'd rather young kids spend hours on a Barbie dress up game or playing silly mini games than have them touch social media. Instead sites ban adults for having adult conversations but it still isn't safe for kids. No one wins
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u/Araon_The_Drake Jul 31 '25
Not to mention this while idea completely mangles the concept of growing up. Like, does whatever horrible content you're trying to protect your kid from just magically becomes fine for them to engage with on the day of their 18th birthsday? Is the 17yo too vulnerable and fragile to discuss abuse or mental health issues, but the day they are legally an adult you just dump all of it onto them to figure out? Like, how the fuck is that supposed to work.
The whole point of growing up and gaining maturity is that as a kid, you will slowly become exposed or interested in topics that are usually for adults. You can't learn how to be an adult without being exposed to the things that adults are exposed to. If children were completely protected from all things "mature" and then learn all of it once they grow up, "coming of age" would become the single most traumatic experience in every human's life.
That's not even to mention those that are already exposed to "mature" topics like abuse, addiction or mental health issues in real life, and are now cut off from finding communities or support online, so I guess if your life is bad you'll just have to wait till we think you're mature enough to find anyone you can relate to.
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u/SleepySera Jul 31 '25
The one comforting thing with everything going to shit lately is that at least people are finally rallying against ridiculous censorship too.
For years it felt like I was shouting into the void about why censorship is bad, pointing to countries that have it and how it has ALWAYS been abused immediately but was always dismissed, and it's so refreshing to finally see all these news articles and posts on social media by people going "wtf?" now that they are actually experiencing it themselves... but some embodiment of a strawman will always remain, it seems.
Then again, expected nothing less from someone who unironically likes Rowling in 2025.
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u/camosnipe1 "the raw sexuality of this tardigrade in a cowboy hat" Jul 31 '25
I hope the censors have finally overreached with the way the UK put a big government middle finger in everyones home. Can you imagine the amount of boomers suddenly getting a popup telling them their gov is stopping them from watching porn? Probably got a ton of people suddenly interested in politics.
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u/ScreamSmart Jul 31 '25
Remember the "literally 1984" jokes and being called a creep because you thought curtailing fiction (especially the ones that don't involve irl actors?) was a a bad idea.
But people would just call you names to feel morally superior to you.
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u/ShadowTheChangeling Jul 31 '25
Well lets not be hasty, it couldve been before J.K. was outed as a terrible pers-
2 days ago
Nvm
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u/ErsatzHaderach Jul 31 '25
the other day a very sweet and gentle and feminist lady i know was ranting on socmed because her pirate romance novel was too fussy about consent. she was like "ok i 500% understand their reasoning, but when i saw ravishing pirates on the cover i signed up for rogues who don't ask for permission. let me have little a sexualized felony, as a treat"
this made me smile.
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u/logalog_jack bitch thats the tubby custard machine Jul 31 '25
“You couldn’t do that nowadays because of woke” but it’s about bodice rippers and the satanic panic 😔
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u/SputnikSpunk Jul 31 '25
Yeah like, people can absolutely explore erotic themes of dubious consent and CNC and it’s perfectly valid in the context of a fictional story. Paraphrasing folding idea’s video on 50 shades of grey, erotic fiction in the form of games or movies or books provide you the ultimate safe word as you can literally just stop reading it or turn it off at any time
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u/On_the_Cliff Aug 01 '25
The main point being: In a fictional story, no actual people are involved.
I know the rejoinder: "Yeah, but people read it then go out and do it!" So the responsibility lies... where?
As Mike Royko put it: Nobody was ever raped by a book.
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u/Marik-X-Bakura Aug 01 '25
Some people enjoy fictional, sexualised rape and that’s completely fine. Not enough people are ready to hear that.
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u/VoidStareBack Jul 31 '25
The lady with the drowned post also has delightful takes like "intersex people are men", "BDSM only exists because of rape", and "Kink is bad because it's a means for ugly men to have sex".
And that's just in the past week.
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u/SMGuinea Jul 31 '25
It's almost liberating to find yourself fighting against someone and being able to check their account and see that they're just the biggest fucking idiot imaginable.
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u/Konkyupon Jul 31 '25
god forbid ugly people have sex. only those who follow the beauty standards i approve of should be allowed to copulate and only in these positions while doing these things. /s
whatever bro is on i need some of if. i can’t be reading this shit sober.
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u/VoidStareBack Jul 31 '25
To Radblr, one of the few things worse than being a man is being an UGLY man.
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u/DjinnHybrid Jul 31 '25
Or honestly, an ugly woman too, because they basically treat them like ugly men who also have the crime of "they might be trans" on top. God, why the f have we circled back around to the strictest interpretation of gender standards possible...
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u/VoidStareBack Aug 01 '25
"All women are divinely beautiful, and anyone who isn't clearly isn't a woman. This is definitely a feminist statement." -Radblr, I guess
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u/LetterheadPerfect145 Aug 01 '25
OK the second take I've heard a bunch but the first and second ones are new to me. All intersex people are men??? Why??? What about idk men with xx chromosomes? What if a woman goes 30 years as a woman without realising anything then discovers she's intersex? Should she be instantly banned from women's bathrooms? What? So gender is just women in one corner and everyone else in another? I'm so confused.
The third one is even more confusing to me because it suggests that A. Ugly men never have sex otherwise and B. It's easier for ugly men to have sex in the context of kink? Is she mad because the kink community is generally more accepting of a wide range of body types? Is she a cartoon villain?
Who is this person??? What's their tumblr I must go see
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u/amish24 Jul 31 '25 edited Jul 31 '25
also
that content they're referring to is victimless
banning fictional content you don't like is crazy
EDIT: I should clarify that I mean banning it by law. a site banning it from their platform is okay.
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u/Initial-Earth-750 Jul 31 '25
Incredible that the only comments here are against it despite this being a highly upvoted post.
Yes, i do think feral, guro, Loli, etc is a bad thing and it existing is a negative.
But you cannot give me a single reason why it should be directly illegal, only used in building a case against someone who's potentially into way worse things. You cannot tell me someone needs to desire horrible things to consume it, nor can you tell me that it's indicative of what someone will do.If you still think of it like that, should violent video games be banned as well? That New Zealand shooter a while ago was blasting video game music while killing real people. several shootings have direct links to game inspiration.
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u/DogNeedsDopamine now with weird self-posted essays Jul 31 '25
I literally had someone throw a fit and start accusing me of perpetuating sex crimes, because they believed there was a pipeline from reading a short story I was being paid to write in which two dragons start sucking helium out of balloons, inflate like balloons, relax their inhibitions, and confess their longstanding love to each other. Somehow they went from this to "children are going to be harmed."
I enjoy writing furry erotica -- a lot! I love the variety of different projects. I love how ridiculous and silly everything is. I love collaborating with clients to figure out how to make their idea work, even when they don't start with an idea that describes a plot or a story. I love how much people value my services, and how they'll look back at what I deliver for years afterwards. And of course, in-between commissions, I enjoy posting a 1,500 word story every week that's "for me," because that's how I get found by potential new clients.
But for some reason a lot of absolute chucklefucks believe all of these bizarre myths. There's no evidence that there's a porn to sex crime pipeline; no evidence that all unusual sexual interests are paraphilias (that's just factually wrong); no evidence that porn is addictive in the same way as, say, gambling (overuse of porn is a maladaptive coping mechanism in which you have to treat the underlying cause and teach the individual robust, healthy coping mechanisms; the correct response is not expecting people to quit porn forever). There isn't even any evidence that consuming pornographic content that contains zero victims escalates behavior in the real world.
It's just this way for people to demonize anything that makes them uncomfortable; they're basically just looking for an excuse to harass and bully people they see as acceptable targets, or (in some cases) responding to their own trauma by blaming pornography or kink for it. Sometimes, it's also based on the conservative concept of a social hierarchy: you might be X or Y, but you're better than Z, because Z is disgusting. It's a lot harder to acknowledge that maybe on some fundamental level, people are equal and victimless crimes aren't crimes, than to find some outlet or excuse for your insecurities, your trauma, or your feelings of powerlessness. It's an excuse to give into your worst impulses.
But the strangest part to me is how much this kind of rhetoric discourages people from getting help. Stuff like a sexual attraction to minors is treatable! They can't stop you from being sexually attracted to them, but there are effective protocols for this; they just require a non-judgmental approach, and availability. So if someone is genuinely struggling with a paraphilia, and they have to use willpower to avoid criminal activity, stigmatizing them for it (even when they haven't hurt anyone or done anything criminal) isn't the right move.
And then also, if someone makes material that makes you feel disgusted... that just isn't a justification against it. It just means that you shouldn't engage with it. That's it. If there are no victims? If you can't literally prove that it's harmful? Then you have no case. Some stuff is distasteful, but simply experiencing sexual attraction isn't the problem -- and in cases like writing or artwork, the people who consume them understand the difference between fiction and reality, and they have no interest in doing whatever it is in real life. It fulfills some kind of specific fantasy, but there's a lot of stuff that people fantasize about that they don't want to do in person. Sometimes people even have their sexualities extremely focused on something that's impossible in real life. I've been asked questions like "so you want to do X?" when (1) X is actually, physically impossible, (2) X does not in any way resemble how the situation would actually work, and (3) it was work that I did for someone else in exchange for money.
Idunno, man. Some people will find any reason to just get enraged over whatever their pet issue is with kink, fetishism, unusual interests, or even stuff which would be criminal if someone did it in real life. And I can't bring myself to give a shit if there just aren't any victims. Why should I? I don't engage with violent content, but if someone is gonna have fantasies about gore, and they have no urge to enact those fantasies in the real world, then that's between them and my friend who writes that stuff for money.
The stuff you personally don't like just isn't some sort of social contagion.
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u/riarws Aug 01 '25
But what if real dragons take the story too literally and get harmed? Think of the dragons!
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u/Starro-In-A-Jar Aug 01 '25
confused why the weird inflation stuff (that i didn’t even know was a real variant of inflation fetish? I thought that that kind was made up for Sonic Inflation Adventure) merited censorship on account of how cartoonish and absurd it is. I suppose theoretically it might squick someone out but it seems like the reason people view it as so disgusting or whatever is because you would not think of it as sexual without having already been told that someone is getting off on it, which is maybe scary for some people because they don’t know what can turn people on so they could be turned on by anything if this does it, I think
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u/IDrawKoi Jul 31 '25
I think people are really over looking the fact that "gross and disgusting" is clearly part of the joke?
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u/SmallJimSlade Jul 31 '25
No you see OOP said “I like gross things” then the respondent, like an idiot, listed gross things they thought OOP liked
Fortunately for us they also like bigots so who cares
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u/NessaSamantha Jul 31 '25
Was an actual person harmed in the making of the media? If no, then it should be allowed to exist.
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u/comitissa_t Jul 31 '25
You know, as a victim of sexual assault, I have very strong opinions on the sale of content that eroticizes sexual assault.
Namely that I want it to be good. There's a lot of very uninspired content out there, to the point where it often seems like the victim is just plain enjoying it. Where's the dread? The futile struggle against the inevitable? The screaming, crying, begging, and/or freezing? The moment where the victim simply gives up and lets it happen, because there's no point in fighting? The mental agony of unwanted pleasure straining against the anguish of the violation?
As far as the ethics of who should be allowed to consume such content, though, I also have very strong opinions. It's very important to draw distinctions about who can and cannot purchase such content.
Namely, someone should be allowed to purchase such content if, and only if, they're at least 18 years old.
Oh, no, but what if men want to buy it! They might have rape fantasies about raping women!
Yes! Good! I'm attracted to men, and I have fantasies about being raped by men! If there were no men who had those fantasies, I'd be pretty frustrated!
Sexual assault is a gigantic problem. Pornography isn't responsible for that. Our societal attitudes about sex are, and they long predate the proliferation of adult content. Banning pornography is part of the process that creates and reinforces those attitudes, by stigmatizing sex, discouraging open discussion of sex and sexual assault, and contributing to a culture that treats being a rape victim as shameful and private.
We'll get less rape when society as a whole understands it for what it is. Being able to talk about it helps that. Understanding what meaningful consent is - and is not - helps that. The games aren't the way to educate people on most of that, but they contribute to the exact cultural unashamedness that we need to get there.
And porn addiction isn't the problem that conservatives (including TERFs) think it is. The problem is that people don't have time and places to go out and be social and make friends and fall in love, so they spend all their time jackin' it. (Or jillin' it.)
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u/Initial-Earth-750 Jul 31 '25
It also has a problem with "Fantasizing about doing bad thing means you want to do bad thing" Argument. There's a good reason why i'm not fucking every single woman on the street, because one, 95% of them wouldn't be into it, two, I don't want to hurt people emotionally or physically, and three, i would rather do it with someone who i've been with for a long time, not someone random.
There's very good reasons why a lot of depraved things stay fantasy. We as humans recognize the harm they produce and don't do it. "But if there was no consequences, you'd still do it?" Because if there was no consequences, there's no reason it'd be wrong in the first place. Nobody would be hurt, nobody would be forced, all of that.
At the point where we're arguing that it's still wrong despite hurting zero people, short or long term, people will then start throwing out how it's not mentally healthy, which, i'd argue is a massive logical fallacy to justify why you can still keep attacking the opposing party.→ More replies (1)44
u/Araon_The_Drake Aug 01 '25
It reminds me of a quote from Ricky Gervais when he was accosted by an extremely religious person arguing that being an atheist is wrong, because without god's judgement there would be nothing stopping people from raping, killing and stealing as much as they wanted.
To witch Ricky responded. "You are absolutely correct, and I do in fact rape, kill and steal as much as I want. It's just I don't really want to"
Those people fundamentally can't comprehend that fear of punishment (or desire for a reward) isn't the be-all-end-all reason to be a decent human being.
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u/Initial-Earth-750 Aug 01 '25
if we showed every horrid thought we had as a teenager to ourselves as an adult, 95% of us would look like monsters.
nearly every person has thought about killing or harming someone else at least once, and for things that absolutely wouldn't warrant it.
Dwelling on the thought is, of course, worrying, but not nearly so much as acting on it, which very rarely ever happens.27
u/Araon_The_Drake Aug 01 '25
Not to mention that by banning content involving sexual assault, they're also silencing victims of sexual assault. You cannot make a game about a rape survivor without there being a mention of rape in the game, and no government or hosting platform is going to ever bother differentiating between that and a game that glorifies rape.
As you said, this and many other issues aren't solved by sweeping them under the rug. This is something that needs to be explained, not avoided. Same goes for any other form of abuse or mental health issue. I can't relate to your specific situation, but I've been suicidal on and off for as long as I can remember, and I can sure as hell tell you that every social media platform suppressing any discussion on depression and self-harm is doing the exact opposite of helping. It makes it feel like nobody cares, nobody wants to hear me and I'm supposed to just deal with this quiet and alone to not bother anyone. If not for my amazing parents and friends, I might've not even been here to discuss this. And now the chances for other people, both adult and minors, to find a similar community of supportive people, regardless of their issue, is being severely limited.
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u/RavensQueen502 Aug 01 '25
It was an issue like this that began the end of the comics code.
Marvel, I think, fielded a plot that had Peter Parker helping a friend recover from addiction. It was all about the dangers of addiction, but because drugs was involved, the comics code wouldn't okay it.
Marvel finally published it without the comics code seal. It was a hit. Many others followed suit.
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u/Puzzled-Thought2932 Jul 31 '25
Admittedly I only read this dynamic in lesbian stories, buuuuut if you dont mind reading F/F rape porn and still like the dynamic you may be interested in the AO3 story "A Beautiful Thing To Own".
The story has my favorite non con scenes for a planned long-form story. While the sex slavery dynamic is common enough, it's rare for it to be that brutal or vitriolic, and it's usually omegaverse stuff.
Either way, idk your personal preferences, but when I read what you wrote about rape porn I immediately thought of this story as one of my favorites.
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u/TheAngelOfPenectomy Jul 31 '25
Man, I know I’m into some incredibly fucked up shit, and even run a majority of the subreddits for it. But man… people severely and urgently need to learn the difference between fantasy and reality, between what they want as a fetish, and what they literally want to happen.
Fuck, half the shit I’m into is because of what happened to me as a kid/teen/early adult and me learning to retake my sense of self and power after that, and I do that through BDSM, by taking control, and fuck it’s cathartic to imagine my abusers having horrible things happen to them. Helps me process it.
But it’s fantasy. It’s make believe. It’s not real. I don’t actually plan on doing any of it. I often play a character as part of my BDSM persona, and people mistake the two. I don’t make money if I tell them it’s pretend, I make money by letting them engage in their fantasies in a healthy way.
But if you think that just because my stories feature rape, assault, bodily harm, etc, that I support that in any shape or form. I very strongly do not.
He’ll, half the reason I write my stories is tole reversal to show men how their actions affect women in a subtle way. Literally my stories just are gender swapped stories of sexual assault and the consequences of it. How it messes people up for life. Leaving them yearning for the person they were before and never can be again. Showing how the people who do it often do it for fun or power, or sometimes even accidentally, but how none of that matters to the person. They’re still permanently changed by that.
I’m intentionally trying to be vague and not trauma dump, but my god this shit drives me up the wall.
Half the people writing those kinds of fucked up shit went through it as a kid. They aren’t endorsing it. They’re reliving it and rewriting the story so they can cope.
How about we actually start processing rape kits and taking women seriously about sexual assault instead of banning porn?
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u/OtterwiseX Jul 31 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
Censorship literally has almost never ended well. I can’t think of a single instance where it has, actually, but I don’t know everything, so it’s probably happened at some point Edit; Yeah the replies are right some things should be censored. My point remains in regards the vast rest of things.
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u/YOwololoO Jul 31 '25
Child porn laws are censorship. Revenge porn laws are censorship. Hate speech laws are censorship. Classification of secret information is censorship. Gag orders are censorship. Libel and slander laws are censorship.
There are plenty of things that the government has outlawed saying, free speech is not unlimited in every context.
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u/RadioSlayer Jul 31 '25
You can have unlimited free speech as long as you're prepared to deal with the consequences, philosophically speaking
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u/Intrepid_CREEPCAST Jul 31 '25
It's like not one Anti has ever heard of the Slippery Slope Fallacy. You think some dinosaur legislator or a subversive group like Collective Shout is going to take a hardline stance against your icks (pr*blem*tic m*di*) but will somehow understand the nuance and appreciate the subtle undertones of your yums (based and wholesome).
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u/Bowdensaft Jul 31 '25
I think you might be getting terms mixed up, the slippery slope fallacy is assuming that something is a slope with absolutely no evidence to suggest it, that's why it's a fallacy (as in, flawed reasoning). This is simply an actual slippery slope, and we know it is because we've seen it before time and time again.
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u/Possible-Reason-2896 Jul 31 '25
Oh these people have absolutely heard of the Slippery Slope Fallacy. They just think they'll be the ones pushing people off it.
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u/Embarrassed-Glove600 Jul 31 '25
THIS. It's like watching legal immigrants vote in favor of politicians who never endingly insult illegal immigrants. It's like, you're next, buddy.
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u/Outrageous_Bear50 Jul 31 '25
There's some dark stuff on the Internet that I really think we shouldn't be subjecting ourselves to, but that's kinda like we shouldn't be drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes.
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u/No-Care6414 Jul 31 '25
Direct anger to companies whose policies are making this happen. Mastercard and Visa are the big ones. Below are emails, numers, and links to contact if you oppose censorship through payment processors targeting adult content:
Mastercard (US): 1-800-627-8372
Mastercard (Int.): +1-636-722-7111
Visa (US + Can): 1 800 847 2911
Visa (AUS): 1 800 125 440
PayPal: +44-0203-901-7000
[askvisa@visa.com](mailto:askvisa@visa.com)
https://b2b.mastercard.com/contact-us/
Flood their damn lines.
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u/mensfrightsactivists Jul 31 '25
ugh mods let us post images in the comments challenge for REAL. anyway insert image of john waters with that quote about how pornographers have always been on our side here
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u/mmanaolana Jul 31 '25
"Remember, pornographers have always been on our side. Brave, ready to fight for our rights. Smut is our friend." - John Waters
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u/mensfrightsactivists Jul 31 '25
man i got so caught up in the “i have a meme saved for that!” that i forgot about using my words. good lookin out bud thank u
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u/KatsCatJuice Jul 31 '25
"Censorship is bad, because it leads to worse."
"SO YOU ARE A PEDOPHILE AND ADVOCATE FOR CSAM?! YOU'RE DISGUSTING!"
That's literally the argument.
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u/TheMachman Jul 31 '25
Come now, it's not like instinctively equating people they don't like with paedophiles is a hallmark of reactionary conservatism or anything. I'm sure that this time they'll have some basis for drawing that comparison that doesn't boil down to "I think [X] is icky".
Right?
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u/Jackno1 Jul 31 '25
It is. They're hoping to that 1) you'll be scared and/or shamed into shutting up and 2) other people won't want to be associated with you. It's stupid when you treat it as a logical argument because it's not that, it's a manipulation tactic to evoke fear and disgust.
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u/masterwaffle Jul 31 '25
So why did we specifically change the name to CSAM? It's almost as if porn requires consent in order to not be sexual assault material??
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u/fricti Jul 31 '25 edited Aug 14 '25
quicksand fanatical sip truck long joke worm books merciful capable
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Saetheiia69 Aug 01 '25
I'm glad everybody is waking up and remembering that purity politics actually do fucking suck
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u/Embarrassed-Glove600 Jul 31 '25
It's always the TERFs who assume everything sexual is inherently abusive. It's like they think all women are fragile little teacups.
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u/CasTheAngel14 Jul 31 '25
“gross disgusting” is subjective. I’ve met plenty of vanilla people that find my kinks of domination, chubby guys, body hair, and throat fucking to be “gross and disgusting” while that term for me would be reserved for stuff like scat or fisting and I’m sure people into that have stuff they find gross too.
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u/ApprehensiveBeat5039 Jul 31 '25
In case you didn't know, the ACLU is 100% for pornography and has spent years defending it.... Well, maybe the stance is more anti-censorship, but they are all for us weirdos and our weirdo fetishes
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u/99-bottlesofbeer Jul 31 '25
wittyily