Just an opinion.

[emmagrant01]

This has been bothering me for a while now, and slytherincess  made a post that hit my feelings about it right on the nose.

I'm honestly boggling about all of this anger about LJ allowing anorexia comms while deleting two of our porny fanartists. Before you yell at me -- I get that anorexia is bad. I know it hurts many people, even causes their deaths, and causes irreparable harm. I do understand that it is a mental disease.

But when you go off on LJ about letting those comms stay, do you realize that you're essentially saying if they let other comms where people share their experiences with a mental disease stay, they should let adult-oriented fanfic stay too? In other words, you're directly comparing (and even equating) people who write fanfic to those with a mental illness. o_0

Okay, that's extreme, I'll admit, but here is my point: The decision of who gets to be on LJ is NOT a zero-sum game. The existence of those comms does not affect the existence of fanfic communities. We aren't competing for space. At most, we're asking LJ to be just as open-minded with us as they are with those anorexia comms, but to call for those to be deleted seems bizarre to me. After all, there are a hell of a lot of people out there who think that we are the sickos who are hurting kids. They're wrong, but how can we ask them not to judge us while we point a judgmental finger at others, no matter how warped we think they are?  Pity them, comment to them, even mock them if you want -- hell, I've happily mocked furry zoophiles in the past -- but they have a right to be on LJ too.  We are the LAST people who should be encouraging LJ to censor anyone. 

Edit: According to this comment, this is the same way the breastfeeding wank (aka Nipplegate) started. Someone pointed the finger at nursing icons when pissed off about his own being deemed inappropriate.  LJ's response?  To ban the default nursing icons.   Sound familiar?  Thanks to spare_change for this link about how badly LJ handled that one.

I'd really prefer this post not be linked from Metafandom -- thanks.

Comments

[phaballa.livejournal.com]

I think people are more upset about the pro-ana comms. And I've been to those comms, and they're pretty disturbing. Mostly anorexic girls helping other anorexic girls be MORE anorexic. How to hide it from your parents and teachers, how to make it look like you're gaining weight when you're not. They post pictures of themselves (usually half-naked) and say things like, "95 pounds, soooo fat :("

I've always been disturbed by pro-ana comms, but I never really thought it had anything to do with fandom or that LJ had some sort of say in what they did, so. *shrug* To me, the only way they're connected is that there are certain cultural pressures and prejudices concerned with both fandom and eating disorders--the way our society portrays women, the pressures to be so thin it's almost impossible to achieve via healthy means; and then the prejudice fandomers feel, ie, that gay sex is still so taboo, that none of the presidential candidates are in favor of gay marriage, that gays are second-class citizens by federal LAW.

It's sort of a stretch to connect them, but prejudice is an overarching issue that does connect us all in some way. Of course, I think that in fandom, we celebrate our differences, whereas pro-ana comms are trying desperately to conform, to the point of really hurting themselves physically and mentally.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

But the fact is that fandom folks are connecting them, and that is what bothers me. People are literally saying, "Oh so the pro-ana comms are okay, but fanfic is bad and has to go?" Pitting the two against each other is absurd and really doesn't help our cause IMO.

[phaballa.livejournal.com]

Well, it's a silly comparison. It's like comparing Nine Inch Nails to JK Rowling. They do completely different things and... it's just a dumb comparison. Fandomers are just upset because they're being told that they're perverts and their viewpoints aren't worth keeping around. To me, it's a simple matter of--if the company doesn't want to support me, I'm not going to be supporting them and they won't be getting any money from me anymore. It's their company and they can run it the way they want to, but that doesn't mean that I have to keep giving them my money.