[ SECRET POST #2831 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2831 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.
[The Great British Bake Off]


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02.
[Trailer Park Boys]


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03.


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04.


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05.
[Gotham, Ugly Betty]


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06.
[Outlander]


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07.
[Short Circuit]


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08.
[Agents of SHIELD]


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09.
[Are You Being Served?]


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10.
[Avengers]


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11.
[Gotham]


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12.


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13.


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14.


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15. [ SPOILERS for Valiant Hearts; The Great War ]












Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #404.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, but I kinda feel like the fact that Light Yagami is fictional and the Nazis aren't is, in itself, a significant difference here. And it's really, really, really fucking hard for me to look at the idea of someone being so removed from the realities of WWII such that the Nazis come across as almost fictional, and see that as a defense somehow. That's, I think, closer to being the problem than to being a defense.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean that this person's primary exposure to Nazis is through entertainment -- Inglorious Basterds and Hellsing -- where they're very much placed into a fictional setting and made hugely charismatic. Without having been personally affected, I don't think that the OP has any way to turn off the "fetishization" aspect because I imagine such things are often unconscious.

[(Anonymous)]

Again, I'm not sure that's really a defense to me.

If they're interested in the Nazis - which they've clearly said that they are - and they're interested in them not just for their uniforms but for the things they did as an actual historical entity - which, again, they've said they are - but they somehow haven't actually learned anything about how evil they were and have just relied on entertainment that puts them in a fictional setting, and they've failed to go out and educate themselves so that they they don't know who these people are that they're so interested in, that's on them.

[(Anonymous)]

THIS a million times.

[(Anonymous)]

I think, though, that you're mistaking what the fascination with evil is.

The fascination (at least in my experience) isn't with hurting people. It's kind of a power fantasy -- it's about doing what you want -- WHATEVER you want -- and damn the consequences. It's not about hating the victims or wanting them to hurt (in fact, you may feel a great deal of sympathy for them) but about the fact that, for people who are very self-conscious or who worry about being a good person a lot, fetishizing villains can be a release from that. It can be a way to not feel so constrained and that's sublimated into sexual desire.

Maybe. Not saying that's OP's case, but I have seen this happen before.

[(Anonymous)]

^This. Fetishizing villains makes me think of power-play, not sadism (unless it's of the BDSM variety). I can't speak for OP, but I'd assume this is where she is, not like, getting sexual gratification out of the thought of millions of people being slaughtered.

[(Anonymous)]

But I think, when you're having that kind of fantasy about a group that actually existed, there's a very real danger of losing touch with the historical reality of what existed and replacing it, in whole or in part, with your fantasy or something like it. That's my concern.

And I don't think that's inevitable or total. I mean, no one here is an idiot. But when you turn that group into a power fantasy in a way that's separate from what they actually were, I do think you run that risk. I mean, you were already talking about how the Nazis are replaced with their fictional representations who are rather different, and it's the same thing, isn't it?

[(Anonymous)]

I agree that OP should watch out and make sure she's not woobie-fying real Nazis. And that she should be vigilant in making sure that her fantasies aren't impinging on reality. But at the same time, I just don't think there's anything morally wrong with what she's doing as long as she keeps it in perspective.

Let me put it this way -- I like to be called names like "slut" or "whore" when things are hot and heavy. But I would NEVER tolerate it if a partner called me that outside of the context of sex because I know it has very different implications.

I think as long as OP can recognize that, her fetish isn't harmful.

[(Anonymous)]

Um, yes and no. In principle, yes, I think rape fic and Nazi fetishizing are comparable, and I think that people who enjoy rape fic are in danger of losing touch with the reality. I also think both things can be fine in theory. But I think the context of the two things is actually kind of different, and I think that's why I react to them differently. For a few different reasons.

For one thing, I think people have a more immediate familiarity with rape and sexual assault - not in a victimhood sense necessarily, but in the sense that it's something that's very much with us, whereas the Nazis are a historical subject and something that's often treated in very broad, general, almost meaningless terms. In the Internet fanficcy feminism fandom part of the culture there's an emphasis on understanding these things and educating people about them, and in my experience it's fairly common for people who are into rape fics to also have a nuanced understanding of rape, sexuality, abuse, and how rape fic interacts with those things. I don't think the same is true of Nazi fetishism, and I think that's important because the depth of knowledge and emphasis on understanding is in a lot of ways what matters.

I also think there's a difference, in some ways, between an emphasis on the act or the situation, and the emphasis on the perpetrators. Even when it's just the uniforms (which I'm mostly OK with), but especially when it's about the historical situation of them being evil. A lot of my problem with it comes from that: it's specifically a Nazi fetish.

I think those are, in my mind, the big differences, and the reasons why I tend to think one is more difficult than the other to maintain.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks to you as well for taking the time! It's interesting. Also, as I think happens frequently, this is a discussion that started out with me making flippant and un-thought-through comments, and in many ways working out what I think as I've gone along. So please forgive me if what I'm saying is inconsistent, or if some of my earlier thoughts were patently dumb or offensive.

I guess there are two main points that I want to make. First, I don't think this kind of thing is exclusive to erotica and kink (although that's obviously where fetishization takes on a much more literal and immediate sense). The same problems absolutely crop up with the presentation of the Nazis in media generally. I mean, using the Nazis in an erotic sense isn't fundamentally all that different from using them in an entertainment context that's divorced from their historical reality, is it? And you can see this as broadly analogous to the way that we think about rape - if you care about the presentation of rape in the media, that's something that's obviously not going to be limited to rape fic, it's a much broader concern. So I think it was wrong of me to focus so much on erotica, with Nazis, but I do still think there are ways in which erotica can get worrisome as much as other things can.

Second, I don't at all think that someone who does educate themselves on the history of the Nazi party will necessarily stop being turned on by Nazis, although I can definitely see how my statements would have implied that. I mean, there's certainly a part of me that fundamentally doesn't understand how someone can be turned on by the Nazis qua Nazis. But that's not the point I've been trying to make - like I've been saying (albeit extraordinarily poorly), I don't think it's fundamentally wrong to be attracted to Nazis. It's more a matter of ensuring that one understands who the Nazis were and ensuring that one is able to maintain that understanding rather than mixing up all these different, later images. And I don't think that's necessarily an easy thing to do, particularly if you don't have a lot of knowledge about the Nazis in the first place. It's difficult.

I do think I was probably prejudiced in the sense that most of the people I've known who've been super into Nazis have been pretty sketch, and that was probably wrong of me.

[(Anonymous)]

People will eventually be so removed from the realities of WWII that the Nazis come across as almost fictional. Personally I think it's a bit soon.

[ill_omened]

It'll happen in our lifetime anon.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, it is happening already. I just feel like it'd be more... polite, or something, to wait out a century.

[ozaline]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comicsandcosplay/comics/critical-miss/12024-It-s-Not-Like-I-Reich-You-Or-Anything

Like this?

[(Anonymous)]

Well, we are slowly reaching the point where the last survivors of the time period are dying, so soon there won't be any people left who actually lived through the period. There are certainly not people in fandom who lived through the period. So it's not really surprising that the period is becoming more and more 'fictional' to us, just like the 19th century or the Middle Ages.

[(Anonymous)]

Except for those of us who know survivors, have heard their stories in person, seen the emotional and/or physical scars. It's still very real.

[diet_poison]

Or have direct ancestors who had immediate family members die in the Holocaust.

It may not be as personal to me as it is to some others, but yeah, it did directly affect my family and I will always take it very seriously, even if it all happened before I was born. (I mean I like to think I would have done so anyway, but...yeah.)

[(Anonymous)]

Not in Europe. French and German people are still very much traumatized, for instance.

[(Anonymous)]

It's not so much about when the people who remember an era die, it's when the people who knew those people in life die or become the minority.

[(Anonymous)]

Even when the last Holocaust survivor passes away, their kids will still be around - and that generation is scarred, too, if in a different way.