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

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard that about the breastfeeding wank. Man, if that's true, that's even more reason for us to be reasonable now. :-P

[spare-change.livejournal.com]

I can try to hunt down a link if you want, but it would probably end up coming from Encyclopedia Dramatica. ;) But yes, LJ Abuse only acts when there's a complaint, so that guy reported breastfeeding userpics as obscene thinking he would expose the illogic of LJ policies and win back the right to use his own. Obviously, it didn't work then, and I don't think it will work for fandom now.

[spare-change.livejournal.com]

Here (http://ljabuse.blogspot.com/2006/06/nipplegate-summary.html)'s the whole story, with plenty of links.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Thank you! *edits that into post*