In fact, I fear I am a jack-of-all-trades.

shipping-isnt-morality

I’ve debated for a while about sharing this, but I think it’s important, and, to be fair, plenty of antis have shared the stories of their abuse.

So:

I support people creating romantic content similar to my abuse, even though that content contributed to my abuse.

Let me explain. I was very, very into Twilight when I was around 14. A couple years later a girl called me her lamb, and used the romanticization of jealousy and danger from that novel to excuse things like cutting me, stealing my phone, and demanding my passwords. Among other things. This continued until the end of high school, and it ripped apart every significant relationship in my life without anyone really realizing what was happening.

It’s definitely true that I didn’t recognize jealousy as abuse instead of romance. It’s true that I didn’t recognize “I love you” and “you can’t love anyone but me” as contradictions, and a part of that mentality came from the media I consumed. And she sure as fuck sent me fic - even forced me to write fic - which echoed those values. On a very base level, it is easy to blame my abuse on that fiction, on the unhealthy ideas of romance it gave me. For several years after getting out, I did blame romance like Twilight. I got angry when people I loved enjoyed it, and I thought I was protecting them by demanding that they stop.

But I was wrong.

Let me go out another level.

First of all, I grew up in a deeply homophobic town. There were exactly no adults in my life that I could have even told that I was in a relationship with a girl, let alone that I thought something was wrong. Abuse thrives in silence.

Second of all, I’d been homeschooled most of my life, which meant I had zero education on healthy relationships. I had no context outside of romance novels and fan fiction, which no adults knew I was reading. My view of romance was shaped by media because there were no other sources even trying to compete.

Third of all - and maybe this is most important - writing that fanfic, while in that situation, gave me a voice to things that I couldn’t even admit I was feeling. I wrote fic where a human loved a vampire, but they were scared, they were so scared, it felt like having a gun to their head all the time. They were so scared even as they loved the vampire, and they wanted them, and they wanted to help, and they wanted to be better. (She didn’t like that fic.) It took years before I would call what I experienced abuse, or seek out resources for victims. But fiction gave me a voice right then, when I needed one most.

Media didn’t get me abused. A society which failed utterly at telling me what a healthy relationship looked like got me abused. Parents and teachers and authority figures who were wildly homophobic got me abused. Fiction contributed, but if it wasn’t Twilight, it would have been something else - hell, apparently she repeated the same pattern after me with 50 Shades, and then with Captain America (somehow). Because above all, my abuser got me abused. She used fiction as a tool, but it could have been anything. If I hadn’t read Twilight, it would have been Johnlock, or Drarry, or Russia/America. All those things had more than enough content which portrayed danger and jealousy as sexy.

Do I still read Twilight? Fuck no, it’s a huge trigger. But I’ve stopped blaming it for what happened, because it was never Twilight’s job to teach me about romance. Nor was it fandom’s job to tell me, “if someone actually terrifies you, that’s dangerous, even if it’s sexy. If you love someone but they’re hurting you, you need help, not to try to fix them.” What hurt me most wasn’t fiction; it was the silence from every other quarter.

Media isn’t education on healthy relationships. It can’t be, and it never will be. “Fan fiction made me think that this was ok” means that there were no voices in our lives that we trusted more than fanfiction telling us that it wasn’t okay.

There will always be media that abusers can twist to make it look like what they’re doing is romantic and okay. Always. The abuse is still their fault, and the inability to counter harmful messages is the silence of society’s fault.

I’ll leave you with this: after I got out, I continued reading fic that featured jealousy and possessiveness as something hot. Because I did think it was hot; I now just knew firsthand that it was a kink to only be indulged in controlled situations. Firsthand experience is the harshest teacher, but it does work.

I just tag my own fic that features jealousy and possessiveness as “#abusive behavior.” Because if there is another girl like me out there, being sent these fics by her abuser, stuck in a situation she doesn’t understand - well, if it wasn’t my fic, it’d be someone else’s. The kink’s going to keep on existing. But maybe she’ll see the tag and figure something out.

Fiction is a tool, and taking one tool away won’t stop an abuser, because fiction isn’t causing abuse. If it wasn’t fiction, it’d be something else.

Stop blaming fiction for the actions of a cruel person, and the silence of the people who should have been protecting you.

It hurts to lay the blame at the feet of those you love, but if we deny the problems we will never fix them.

Be safe. Be kind.

curlicuecal

When children are getting their only education on a topic from fanfiction, they have already been failed.

simonalkenmayer

^^^

ineffectualdemon

This is a good point.

I read a lot of…inappropriate fiction as a teen. Like I got my hands on a erotic novel with seriously messed up stories AND I found a lot of stories online that were just messed up sex.

And I liked them a lot and they were a lot of an influence on me on what kind of kink I was into.

BUT none that made me think the scenarios I was reading were automatically okay because my mom and dad talked to me about grooming and what was healthy and what wasn’t and the difference between fantasy and reality.

Like they didn’t know what I was reading and I didn’t tell them but they knew how to talk to me about things in a general sense.

When I met my husband I knew it was okay to have discussions about things like hard limits and safe words and what I want in reality and what needed to stay in fantasy and same for him.

Fiction didn’t harm me because I was taught from a young age not to equate it with reality

I think arguments about things like this are people from these very different backgrounds not seeing the other side

“I was a full time housewife. I kept mostly to myself. I was a very shy person. Then one year a local school asked if I could volunteer to teach art to the children. Just one hour every day. I did such a good job that the next year they asked me to teach full time. My husband didn’t want me to do it. He said: ‘You told me it would just be one hour.” But I told him: ‘I listened to you for twenty-five years, now it’s my turn to take the reins.’ I ended up teaching for fifteen years. I built such a good reputation that children came from other schools to join my class. The whole school threw a party when I retired. The children sang songs and danced. It just made me feel so special. Teaching was the best decision I ever made. Now I feel like I’ve done something positive with my life.”

(Mumbai, India)

In fact, I fear I am a jack-of-all-trades.

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

『Ryo Asuka ♢ 飛鳥 了』

『Ryo Asuka ♢ 飛鳥了』