[ SECRET POST #4470 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4470 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 33 secrets from Secret Submission Post #640.
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

[fscom]

04. https://i.imgur.com/eXvlkoB.png

[(Anonymous)]

I think less of boys with shitty taste too tbh

[(Anonymous)]

LOL, +1

[(Anonymous)]

Well, first of all I don't think people are pretending that they're above harmless sexual fantasies for women. I think they're acting like they're above badly written sexual fantasies for women, which is quite different. I don't think anyone's an asshole for saying that they deserve better quality potent sexual fantasies in their literature.

[(Anonymous)]

I literally knew a bunch of girls who got into bad relationships because "I want my own Edward." Surprise, the controlling, abusive bastard wasn't romantic in real life.

[(Anonymous)]

*proudly an asshole*

For the record, I don't care if other people are into these stories. I'm not gonna tell them they're wrong for liking what they like. But... harmless? Most of the people I know who devour these kinds of tales are in unhealthy relationships themselves, or at least are unhappy. I mean, I wouldn't ban them or anything, but I wouldn't say they're totally harmless.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, there are problems with these pieces of media - I don't know 'after' but the way race was handled in twilight (and everything with Jacob at the end oof) and the generally damaging approach to BDSM in Fifty Shades come to mind as things people have been saying for years - but it's certainly a different conversation than it being tropey.

There's nothing wrong with things being indulgently trope heavy but I'm not quite sure these are the examples in particular you want to use for this secret.

[(Anonymous)]

They're really shitty, though, even by the standards of the genre.

[(Anonymous)]

I have no problem with fiction about stalking or abusive behaviour, I have no problem with people who enjoy reading it and have fantasies about that sort of thing.

I do have a problem with it being marketed as romance for teens. I think publishers have more of a responsibility to make a clear distinction, because they're marketing to an audience that may not yet have the ability to make that distinction for themselves.

No, it's not a new problem. It's not the biggest problem in the world. It is still a problem though.

I'm not proposing censorship and banning it from being published or restricting who can read it. I just think it should be obvious when you pick up a book whether it is a romance or romanticised abuse.

[(Anonymous)]

Fifty Shades of Grey only helps making women who read porn a laughing stock because it is absolute garbage on every possible level. If something that was well-written was popular enough to become such a joke at least I could throw down against people dissing on it, but as it is I can't be sure when it's coming from a sexist place.

And yeah, people have the right to create and enjoy things I think are bad, but these authors are all wankers which doesn't help.

[(Anonymous)]

They are not harmless.

[(Anonymous)]

>50 Shades
>harmless
Firefighters disagree.

[(Anonymous)]

no, i agree. lindsay ellis made an excellent video on the matter called "dear stephanie meyer"

[(Anonymous)]

Uh. I hate those series because I see a lot of men use their popularity as proof that all women want abusive, controlling, rapist boyfriends which is actively harmful to me. And also because those kind of tropes does absolutely nothing for me.

It has nothing to do with "I'm not like other girls" OP, and if you've spent any time on this site when 50 Shades of Grey is discussed, you'd damn well know that. You're just rationalizing it as that and disregarding legitimate concerns from women about these series in an attempt to make yourself feel righteous.

[(Anonymous)]

They're not harmless though?

[(Anonymous)]

*boggles*

Am I seriously the only person on this comm who thinks fiction is harmless?

Or are the rest of you guys just too exhausted by the Purity Police to say anything?

[(Anonymous)]

The problem is that people constantly talk about the things girls read/watch but they never complain about the boys' media that portrays abuse.

[(Anonymous)]

lmfao is that harry styles wattpad story the twilight of 2019

[nightscale]

Tbh as far as published books of the same ilk go, Twilight wasn't that bad, it wasn't great either but it wasn't The Worst book of all time.

50SoG though? I'm sorry that series really is unmitigated garbage.

I could read Twilight because while I didn't like Bella or Edward much I found the universe and some of the side-characters interesting enough, and I could blitz through each book in about 2 hours.

50SoG on the other hand... is just awful. And the porn isn't even worth sticking about for! That at least could have made it bearable.

I've not read the third so I can't comment on that one, I might find it okay, might like it, might not.

[(Anonymous)]

Welp, you heard it here, OP. Twilight and 50 Shades officially invented abusive relationships. Before they were published, nobody ever talked about domestic abuse as a serious and way too common problem because back then women only had healthy, safe relationships with men.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree, anon. Rolling my eyes so hard at some of the comments here. On one hand, we enlightened nerds regularly read kinky non-con/dub-con fics with woobified baddies. On the other hand, we turn our nose up at Twilight/50 Shades and scream about how immoral they are and how they will corrupt the innocent minds of poor young girls.

So fucking stupid and just another form of shaming women. I mean, these are literally romance-fantasy novels written by women for women. Let's give women a little bit of confidence that they can tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

[mishey22]

I've never heard of that third one

(frozen comment)

[(Anonymous)]

Women were a mistake tbh. No wonder men think it's okay to rape them, they pretty much beg for it when they allow fiction like this to be so popular and then defend it to the death.

[(Anonymous)]

You're right. You don't see people getting so butthurt about male wish fulfilment yet people love to shame women for the same thing.

I never got into any of those fandoms, but I think a lot of fanfic/fanart, across all m/f, m/m, f/f type pairings, includes those "cringe" tropes and nobody sees the hypocrisy while they try to shame others.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree. They are harmless, but they're also cringey fantasies and badly-written books. In general, something I've noticed is that most people, when they experience an extreme cringe reaction to something bad that ALSO has problematic politics (which these books, like many sexual fantasies, and many entries in the romance genre do), they disproportionately attribute the source of their cringe reaction to the problematic politics. But sometimes, the problematic politics of a piece of fiction just really aren't all that important, and the reason why we're cringing so hard is a mix of embarrassment at (1) the straightforwardness / blatantness of the (romantic, sexual) fantasy, (2) the awfulness of the prose, and (3) the reminder of the kind of trashy dreck that fuels book sales and that people don't have the self-awareness to realize is embarrassing.

Like, I feel the same way about how the internet reacted to fedoras / neckbeards / sword guys / bronies / etc. Undoubtedly those guys had awful politics. But also undoubtedly most of the passion in the hatred for them came from the fact that they made us cringe; the fact that their politics were also so awful made it socially acceptable and even morally righteous to hate them. But when I look at reactions to Twilight and the rest, I think the emotion that seems to be propelling people to action is embarrassment more than moral outrage. I think the problem is that people are unable to sort "this thing is cringey and bad" from "this thing is problematic" into two different piles -- it all becomes one thing.