Time to Get Myself Flamed: On The Prevalence of Slash Fiction in Pony Fandom · 12:50am Jun 1st, 2012
Equestria Daily recently had a post on the subject of all the slash fiction in this fandom. This was my response.
It took me a while to put together all my thoughts on this matter, and the discussion on this site has likely moved on since this was posted, but here goes anyway:
A short while ago, I was in India. While I was there, I frequently saw men holding hands with each other or putting their arms over each other’s shoulders. I volunteered in an orphanage, and the older boys would often walk up to me or sit beside me and interlace their fingers with mine. Every guidebook I read on that trip mentioned this type of behavior and explained that this was a sign of friendship, not homosexuality. That the writers of these guidebooks felt the need to put in such a notice says, I think, more about our culture than it says about India.
Analogously, ponies in the My Little Pony franchise have been licking and cuddling each other since the early 1980s, but only recently has anyone taken this to be an indication that the ponies are lesbians. Again, I think this says less about the franchise than it says about our culture and how it has changed in the last three decades. For quite some time, we have been in the business of sexualizing most everything, but in recent days, that has apparently grown uninteresting, so now we have begun homosexualizing everything, including, apparently, innocent children’s cartoon shows.
The debate over homosexuality is often presented as an argument being had by Christians against everybody else, but that’s not actually the case. For one thing, the current laissez-faire attitude toward sexuality is unique to the postmodern and post-Christian West. It has existed for only a short while in a limited (though large) geographic location, and it is probably not long to endure. Those who advocate it may think they are being cosmopolitan, but they are in fact being quite parochial and myopic.
For another thing, the arguments involved run deep. The debate over homosexuality is in the end, at least from what I’ve seen it, not so much an argument between Christians and non-Christians as it is an argument between hylemorphists and materialists, between Aristotelians and Nominalists, between deontologists and consequentialists. But almost no one studies philosophy anymore, so most who address this topic muddle through without ever stating or evaluating the fundamental axioms on which their positions rest. Modern thought is characterized, probably more than anything else, by confusion, by an inability to define terms, by an inability to make distinctions, by an inability to use logic. Many people who defend homosexual acts as normal or advocate for homosexual marriage seem to be honestly incapable, for example, of making even the simple and obvious distinction between copulation and mutual masturbation.
It appears to me, too, that this confusion of modern thought is on display in the Brony community, particularly in the popular slogan, “Love and tolerate.” To love means to will the good of someone for his own sake. To tolerate, on the other hand, means to allow or put up with another’s behavior no matter what you think of it. The two are mutually exclusive: you cannot possibly tolerate the self-destructive behavior of someone you love. The Brony slogan is a meaningless paradox.
Very briefly and inadequately, I will lay out the position I hold on the subject of homosexuality.
It begins with teleology, the study of final causes or ends. Though it is popular to deny their existence, final causes exist, and this is evident in that it is impossible to avoid them. Take an eye as an easy example: you could describe it down to the last atom, but until you say that an eye is for seeing--that’s its purpose, or end--you have not fully described it. Similarly, the purpose of the genitals is generation (hence the name), and the purpose of the sexual appetite is procreation, that is, reproduction. If an appetite is directed toward something out of accordance with its purpose, it can be described as “disordered.” That is merely descriptive; it is not an ethical judgment. If I, say, hunger to eat rocks instead of eat food, I have a disordered appetite.
All of that is relatively simple. Note, please, that the existence of final causes does not imply the existence of God, though many today are inclined to leap to the conclusion that it does, which is why arguments beginning with teleology are often dismissed as religious. There are arguments from final causes to the existence of God, but they are long and complicated and questionable at some points. The one does imply the other.
Ethically, to live a rational life of virtue, it is necessary to govern the appetites and passions with the reason. Appetites are not reasonable in themselves. I may desire to eat two entire cakes all by myself, Celestia-style, but I must judge with my reason that doing so would be bad for me. My appetite is immoderate, and so I must resist it. If I do not, the results will be a decreased ability to resist it in the future, a likely growth in the immoderation of the appetite, and, in the long run, poor health.
The way to judge the appetites is to determine if they are within the bounds set by the purposes for which they exist. The primary purpose of the appetite for food is to nourish the body. Eating is also pleasurable, of course, but if I eat merely for my own pleasure without concern for my health, I will reap the consequences. I assume this is obvious.
The primary purpose of the appetite for sex is reproduction. This should also be obvious, though many today are in the business of denying it. If the appetite is directing me to copulate with something with which it is actually impossible to copulate, such as an inanimate object or a member of the same sex, the appetite is disordered. My ethical obligation, as in the case of an immoderate or disordered appetite for food, is to resist its impulses.
From this, it can be seen first of all that a person is not morally culpable for having a disordered appetite, so whenever someone asks me if I think “homosexuality” is immoral, I have to heavily qualify the question before I can answer it. It can also be seen that homosexual acts are not morally licit.
Now I’ll bring all of this around to the discussion of fan fiction and of the essay linked in this post.
First, to deal with some of the claims of the essayist and the claims of some Bronies that the show actually contains a homosexual subtext, I refer back to the paragraphs with which I opened this. We have taken on the habit of interpreting any amount of affection between members of the same sex as signs of homosexuality, and I believe this is to our detriment; it severely hinders members of the same sex from having close or affectionate platonic relationships. The show, far from presenting a homosexual subtext, actually serves as a counterpoint to this. The show is not about lesbians; it’s about friends. To claim that Glinda must have been Rainbow Dash’s old girlfriend, or that something subtle is going on between Rainbow Dash and Applejack in “Fall Weather Friends,” or that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are definitely lesbians because Rainbow gave Fluttershy a hug in “Hurricane Fluttershy,” is to miss the point: the show is about friendship, as it says right in the title. The characters are affectionate because they’re friends, and if you don’t understand that, I’m afraid you just don’t “get” the show.
And as for Lyra and Bon-Bon, the claim that they’re lesbians in canon sounds almost like a bad tavern joke: “Hey, I saw two ponies standing next to each other in the background, and you know what they say about two ponies who stand next to each other in the background.”
During the controversy over Rainbow Dash’s ambiguous peck on Fluttershy’s nose in the season finale, I found a comment in a discussion thread that I think summs things up very nicely. I’d probably never be able to find it again, so I’ll paraphrase: “Listen, guys, sometimes girls kiss each other, particularly during stressful or emotional moments, and it doesn’t mean they’re lesbians. Now go back to your basement.”
To wrap this up, I am not opposed to any and all depiction of homosexuality in literature, fan-created or otherwise. Disordered desires are things that real people struggle with, and it would be strange to ban their depiction from literature. However, if someone writes a homosexual romance and writes it as if it’s really no different from heterosexual romance, or as if anyone who points out that it’s different from heterosexual romance should feel bad about himself, I probably won’t bother to read it because the author is revealing that he doesn’t understand his subject matter. Many of the components of romance may be present in the story, and it may have all the emotions of romance, but the fundamental reason romance exists in the first place is absent. The author is revealing that he doesn’t understand love, doesn’t understand courtship, doesn’t understand marriage, and doesn’t even understand sex.
An author I respect said something on this subject I’d like to repeat; he was writing under a handle at the time, which might mean he didn’t want to be named, so I’ll summarize his statement without giving credit: To love means to will the good of another person, but in recent times, we’ve decided you can’t really love anything without trying to have sex with it. In the modern mind, love has been replaced with self-pleasure.
I have my own ethics and I my own conclusions but I am glad that I have seen yours.
This is the type of discussion we could use more of.
not the same topic but, the same...type of eh- procedure.
orderly and calm.
well....let's open up this blog for conversation.
what does everyone else have to say?
A friend just sent me a link to a relevant article that I think is worth reading. It argues that homosexuality excludes same-sex friendship. It's about male-male friendships specifically, but I think it applies equally well or almost as well to female-female friendships: "A Requiem for Male Friendship?"
I agree with your sentiment that our culture has become obsessed with sexualizing every interaction in which genuine affection is expressed. It's something that's irked me since The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which had everyone smirking and nudging eachother at Frodo and Sam's interactions.
I do find your philosophy regarding homosexuality to be a bit flawed, however. While procreation is a key aspect of sexuality, it cannot be ignored that pleasure plays an important role as well. Indeed, a man can only successfully procreate if he's feeling intense physical pleasure. Sex can also bring two partners closer, creating a more intimate bond that also supports a more stable relationship. Further, while certainly two women or two men could not naturally procreate, we do exist in an age where artificial insemination exists, meaning that a same-sex couple who wished to create a child would, with the help of third parties, certainly be able to. This thereby eliminates the "ethical obligation," as you said, to have intercourse only with a partner one is capable of procreating with.
Additionally, millions of children around the world are being raised in foster care, lacking the innate social, economic, and emotional advantages that a child raised in a stable family environment is given. Any comprehensive system of morality should, in my view, take these children into account. Also worth consideration is the problem of overpopulation, which leads to widespread poverty, starvation, crime and violence, increased strain on social systems, and so on. Indeed, a case could be made that in many situations, it might be more ethically correct not to procreate.
Anyway, just tossing in a couple of pennies before I leave for work. Good post, regardless of my disagreements.
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"While procreation is a key aspect of sexuality, it cannot be ignored that pleasure plays an important role as well. Indeed, a man can only successfully procreate if he's feeling intense physical pleasure. Sex can also bring two partners closer, creating a more intimate bond that also supports a more stable relationship."
I deny none of this, but it's irrelevant to the argument I made.
Your discussion of artificial insemination tacitly acknowledges the very point I am making: the telos of sex is sex, that is, reproduction. People know this, and that is why homosexual couples are aggressively seeking adoption rights and getting adoption agencies that refuse to hand the children over closed down, to perpetuate the commonly accepted falsity that there is no significant difference between heterosexuality and homosexuality. Children are the natural end of procreation.
Orphans and children from broken homes are important in themselves, but irrelevant to the argument I made. However, in this part of the world, a great many of the broken homes and children who have to live in them have resulted from the very so-called "sexual revolution" that has also produced the current obsession with homosexuality.
The "population bomb" is a myth. Ehrlich and his ilk have been wrong in every prediction they've made. We are currently looking at the possibility of a "population winter" in the Western world because people who advocate for and practice such things as contraception, abortion, and homosexuality tend not to reproduce themselves at replacement rate.
If you do not wish to procreate, be celibate. I've nowhere suggested that this is not a legitimate option.
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I think DGD is right that pointing out sex has other purposes than procreation is irrelevant to his argument. However, I should add that in the virtue ethical view, which is based on teleology, the pleasurable aspect of sex is subordinate to the procreative end; actually pleasure itself would have the end to motivate people to have to sex in order to procreate. If procreation weren’t the final end of sex, one would wonder why humans (or other animals) would even have genital organs at all. You can also see why we would need to develop contraceptives to frustrate the procreative end of sex.
Of course, another possible objection would be to reject teleology or final causes, with absurd and hilarious consequences, as David Hume and G.K. Chesterton point out. I'd recommend Chesterton's "Ethics of Elfland" chapter from his Orthodoxy, where he turns the old chicken and egg question on its head by asking instead, “why do eggs turn into chickens?” Like the fairies in fairyland, the modern skeptic who rejects the inherent goals or purposes of things in nature would have to simply answer, “Magic!”
I'm going to have to make a short argument here on my iPod.
I was surprised at your definition of virtue. You say that virtue is denying yourself disordered appetites, or instinct that deviates from the norm. The issue I have is that if the deviated instinct isn't harmful or endangering to others, or the instinct isn't actually mandatory, there really shouldn't be a problem with the deviation. If two men love each other in a romantic way, it isn't hurtful or endangering to anyone's wellbeing, and there isn't much need anymore for reproduction. I feel like you're looking at this in a very technical way, when it's a much more emotional idea.
Sorry if I'm stupid. Highschool is really long.
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I did not give a definition of virtue per se in this essay, so let me give one now. A virtue is a "good habit," a moral discipline that has become second nature. To illustrate: suppose someone leaves twenty dollars lying on his desk, and two people walk by and see it. The first person is strongly tempted to take the money, comes close to taking it several times, but finally walks away, leaving the money where it is. The second person sees the money, recognizes the duty to respect others' property, and leaves the money. Both have done the right thing, but the second person has virtue whereas the first does not. Virtues are developed through practice. So a person who does not have the virtue of chastity, to return to the present subject, can still will chastity. In relationship to the passions and appetites, right behavior is determined by by right reason, which involves recognizing the telos of the passion or appetite in question and governing it accordingly. Through doing this habitually, a man becomes master of his passions and develops the virtues related to those passions.
I am uncertain what you mean. What do you mean by "instinct" in this case? Do you mean the same thing I mean by "appetite"? And what do you mean by "mandatory"?
The position you are proposing is known as consequentialism; it is a form of relativism and is self-refuting. If we discuss it further, and if you lay out your axioms, I will be able to demonstrate that for you.
Frankly, in my experience, consequentialists are quite vague in what they mean by "harm." Most any vice can be excused under consequentialism simply by narrowing the definition of "harm" to the point that someone can claim no harm results. But ethics is not simply about staying out of someone else's way or doing no harm. It is about discovering what is good and practicing it. In the case of appetites and passions, this is accomplished, can only be accomplished, by discovering what good the appetites and passions exist for.
Yes, I agree, somewhat. The position I espouse, which I have inadequately summarized here, begins with self-evident metaphysical axioms, which cannot be denied without collapsing into self-refutation and absurdity, and builds slowly with logic to practical instructions on how to live. The only arguments I have heard against this position start and end with emotion and employ vague terms such as love, which has multiple meanings in English.
366771 I'll try list format on this one.
1. I can see why you were confused.
I'm saying that, in the case of homosexuality, our appetite for romantic or physical relationships with the opposite sex is no longer completely necessary for our survival, and thus irrelevant when homosexuality is added into the mix. Overpopulation is an issue in many societies, and there is truly no necessity to keep procreation at a high level since plenty of people are still heterosexual.
2. What I mean by "harm" is mainly focusing on a strictly unhealthy appetite. Since homosexuality is a harmless deviated appetite, there is no problem presented by people who follow it. But someone with a deviated appetite like, say, physical abuse, is an unhealthy appetite. This includes any forms of physical abuse, either sexual or violent. It makes no difference who is doing it, because it is always wrong. Issues concerning homosexuality regarding abuse are pulled from thin air, for instance, saying that homosexuals are more prone to giving sexual abuse than heterosexuals. Either sexual orientation can cause harm, but it is biased to say that the orientation itself creates more possibility than the other.
3. Frankly, the definition of the word 'good' is far too open to be used as the base of an argument. We ourselves define what we utilize and define our passions as. By the same definition you give, if a woman is barren and unable to have children, her having sexual intercourse anyway is non-virtuous. If her passions come to no real positive conclusion other than the partners' pleasure, her sexual desires in any case become 'disordered appetites.' Basically, if her passions and appetites exist for naught, they are 'bad.' If this were to be changed so that his/her sexual desires were fruitful, the pleasure of the woman or man should be reason enough to call it a 'good' appetite. The same can be said by the rules of homosexual pleasure. If an act enjoyed and accepted by all its participants, before and after, is committed (omitting murder or injury) it should be defined as a healthy appetite.
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Your explanation merely repeats your assertion: that which you deem harmless is that which you deem causes no harm.
I think you have misunderstood my argument. I've said nothing about what is or is not necessary for survival. I have never claimed nor implied that everyone needs to have sex lest the race die out. My argument, rather, is that the telos (final cause or end or purpose) of the sexual faculty is reproduction. The sexual appetite is by definition disordered when ordered away from its proper end.
"Good" has been discussed and defined at length by philosophers, though you are at least correct insofar that the word has slightly different meanings in different contexts. "Good" is one of the five transcendentals and is convertible with being, meaning that all beings are good and desirable. Only goods can be objects of desire, and only goods can be objects of the will. However, because of the uncertainty of the intellect, and because appetites and passions can overwhelm reason, it is possible to grasp after "lesser" (or what may be called "apparent" goods). So, using my example of a disordered desire to eat rocks, I desire perhaps the taste, which I presumably find pleasant, or perhaps I desire simply to have something, anything, in my empty stomach; in any case, if I eat rocks, I am allowing my appetite to carry me away and overcome my reason, and so I chase the lesser good of whatever it is I find desirable in the rock rather than the higher good of nutrition, which I could only get from proper food. I can determine what I ought to eat and ought not to eat by considering the purpose or end of my appetite to eat, and thereby determine the higher good at which I should grasp and the lower or apparent goods from which I should refrain. Since the entire point of the essay above is to explain what is good in the case in question, I don't think you can accuse me of being too vague.
This does not follow from my argument. Show me step-by-step how you arrived at this conclusion.
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I understand that, but I was pointing out that it is no longer necessary to have natural sexual appetites in our society, since there is absolutely no reason to continuously reproduce. Its proper end becomes a possibility, not the only end. If this were true, birth control/protection would be just as 'bad' as homosexuality.
Again, like I said, HARMFUL appetite. Homosexual appetites are neither endangering to your physical health or mental health, and can therefore are not harmful. This is how I define harmful, and as I did in the past comment I made.
Okay, step by step.
One. You argue that an appetite that is useless or counterproductive to its original purpose is disordered and therefore a bad thing. It cannot exist for the mere reason of happiness.
Two. An infertile woman or man who attempts procreation even though they know it is impossible. Thus, it becomes a disordered appetite through their incapability to use it for its only reason for being.
Three. Since this is the same situation as a homosexual man or woman encounters, and they use their genitals for pleasure without the possibility of procreation, they should all never have sex since it comes to nothing other than the appetite for sex that should lead to procreation. The end is not reached in either way, and is thus 'bad.'
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Yes, that's correct, more or less (but remember my distinction between "homosexuality" and homosexual acts). I don't know if it's "just as" bad or not; you would need a casuist more skilled than I to answer that question.
Whether you think we need children or not is irrelevant. We are discussing what is right, good, noble, and true (that is, ethical), not what is expedient or convenient. Comments about population growth or whatnot are irrelevant to the discussion.
Again, I think you might not be understanding my argument. What I have argued is that homosexual acts are objectively immoral. That is, they are immoral regardless of circumstances. Telling me that circumstances have changed in some way does not refute, does not even address, the argument I have made. You must demonstrate either that I have committed an error in logic or that I have presented a false premise, not change the subject. Besides, your claim that the population is too large does not appear to me to lead to the conclusion that you think it does; it might be made in support of an argument, a weak argument, for celibacy, but I cannot see how you can use it to advocate for homosexuality.
Your argument, at least as far as I can see, has only two premises: 1. We don't need more kids. 2. Therefore homosexual acts are licit. You have a suppressed premise in there someplace, and I cannot discern what it is, so you must make it explicit for me.
This is where you've made your error. You've failed to distinguish between natural and moral evils.
Since you asked me to define "good" previously, and since I was rather obtuse in my answer, allow me to give clarification. We can speak of good and evil in two ways (actually three, but the third is not important at the moment), natural and moral. A thing is good insofar as it is aligned with its natural end. If an eye goes blind, its end (to see) is frustrated. This is an "evil," that is, a deprivation of a good, in the natural sense, but not in the moral sense. It is similar with a natural defect in the reproductive faculty.
Willingly blinding someone out of spite is of course a moral evil. Nothing has moral significance unless willed by a rational actor. So the deliberate frustration of the reproductive faculty is, as you correctly noted, a moral evil, but a natural defect of the faculty is not. Use of the faculty is not necessarily a moral evil, even though it is defective, because the defect is not willed.
No, it simply is not. The analogy is false; a woman by being barren does not become a man. You are treating essentials as if they are accidentals.
You are lucky you stated your opinion nicer than Reality Check did and didn't/don't have as many followers as he. This is a touchy subject to say the least. Personally, I don't care what people do with their genitals, as long as it's safe, sane, consensual, and doesn't become an obsession/addiction. Oh, and you know, doesn't destroy marriages (Fuck you dad, you cheating slut.
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P.S. For what it's worth, I'm a Christian, just an extremely liberal one.
Have a great day!