#Triggered · 10:26pm Nov 8th, 2018
I'm starting to change my opinion of my story Geldings. I have decent evidence now that most downhoofers aren't reading a word of the story.
Downhoof Pony is OP.
I've long puzzled over why Geldings is my lowest-rated story. It's definitely a rough one emotionally speaking, but it's far from the most disturbing thing I've posted. It isn't foalcon material (arguably, at least) and it's rated M so I'm not getting "how dare you post this where foals can see it" hate on this one. But it has a tremendously low ratio.
I know many of the downhooves are from actual readers, but every time I post a chapter I immediately get two or three downhooves. That tells me that ponies are seeing this on the front page, clicking through to the story page, and downhoofing based on the story description alone. And most of my new downhooves fall into this category.
This is the description:
In Equestria, the first emission of a colt is celebrated as a transition to adulthood as a gelding. Castration of young male ponies is required by law. It's one of the reasons their society is so orderly and violence-free.
Featherweight, terrified of losing his gonads, joins an underground resistance of intact stallions. Still, he wonders: am I really doing the right thing?
That's literally it. This is the description that launched a thousand downhooves? 
Frequently when I post a chapter update, somepony will post a message in the story forum like this actual message I received a few days ago:
I don't have to read to (sic) story to see this is a stupid one.
I've since added this gem to the Wall-O-Hate on my user page (though I corrected the syntax just to be nice). Admiral Q Ponyform claimed that the story description is impossible because you need sperm to make babies, at which point several readers explained how it works if you actually read the story, and in response the good Admiral responded it was still stupid and this was even more reason to downvote without reading first.
I can understand downhoofers who get upset with the apparent moral equivalencies in the story once they've read through the first two chapters (though this changes as the story progresses), but it seems strange to me that of all the stories I've written, the book-by-its-cover fallacy hits this one the hardest.
So, then... What is it about this story description that triggers readers so hard they must immediately downhoof? I have some suspicions, naturally, but I still wouldn't have predicted this degree of response.
Probably that it’s just a very uncomfortable topic for a lot of people, especially people with testicles.
4964997
You're basically suggesting testicles lead to downhooves.
A lot of people just have an inherent need to slam something that even remotely triggers them for some reason. Just ignoring it and moving on is impossible.
I wouldn't read too far into it, haters gonna hate.
Probably the declaration that gelding stallions is the reason that Equestria is violence free.
Welcome to the vast majority of the downvotes I get on my clopfics.
Well from that description, the author is clearly a filthy, man-hating, feminazi SJW. Seriously, though, I can’t think of anything better designed for baiting Mens’ Rights assholes than a story that appears to be in favor of compulsory castration.
4965015
One of the reasons. But yes, I suspect that as well. The idea that testosterone leads to violence isn't something people like to think about, even though it's medically very true. That fact is one of the things that makes the story uncomfortable.
4965019
Please tell me that's sarcasm.
4964999
More the cutting off of them, actually.
4965020
4965015
Pretty much. The story taking its time to establish the premise means there isn't a strong condemnation of the practice early on, in turn making it possible to interpret it as at least tacit approval of compulsory castration of one gender. And you don't need to be a "Mens’ Rights asshole" to be put off by a story apparently telling you there's something inherently wrong with you and you should be mutilated for society's sake.
4965024
To be more clear, the first sentence is sarcasm, but the second sentence is not.
4965020
There is also the imprication of the mares never behavig in an agressive manner that can be taken from it. Which would obviously be nonsense. Then again since a chunk of geldlings still exibit non geldling behavior even mandatory castration would not eliminate violence.
4965019
I mean the story IS in favor of compulsatory castration since it being compulsatory is the whole premise of the story... doesnt mean the author is or anything such but its quiet easy to see why such a story would attract downvotes.
4965038
Still, the latest two chapters especially appear to come down very hard on the side of pro-gelding due to the narrative perspective. I doubt that will hold, but right now, that's more because I refuse to believe that barrel doesn't have a bottom somewhere. Anyone unwilling to wait for the other shoe to drop will simply leave, likely after leaving a downvote.
4965019
An old British series 'The Tripods' comes to mind, where children of age undergo 'capping', a ceremony performed by the alien overlords to reduce violent tendencies.
Can you say with certainty that the creators of that series were pro mental castration ?
Of course not.
Can you say with certainty that the author of this story is clearly a filthy, man-hating, feminazi SJW ?
Even if that comment was in jest, claiming "my balls, mine!!" as as reason for downvoting is actually what this author is on about.
Shall we burn the books of 'The Tripods' series because "my mental well-being, mine!!" ?
Same premise mate. It's a story.
Isn't the story supposed to make us uncomfortable though? It presents a controversial opinion, normalizes it, and then gives us a protagonist that is afraid of that thing. It's similar to TSJ in that way, just way more upfront from the beginning.
4965019
Um, right! Appears to be. Yes. Heh.
4965056
Oh damn. I was totally thinking of The Tripods when I came up with this story.
Rumble is like the girl the protagonist didn't realize was capped.
4965038
Maybe from the description, but in the story mares are clearly violent. Feather's mother tells a story about her youth, and the nurse in the last chapter.
That description is certainly enough for me to reject it viscerally.
Did I downvote? No. But I don't think I've downvoted a single story.
If the description is remotely accurate for the story within, I cannot fathom enjoying the company of anyone who enjoyed the story.
4965056
I love living in an age of discourse that makes it impossible to be hyperbolic enough to clearly mark a statement out as sarcasm.
4965124
Welcome to Fimfic then.
Reading through your comment again, I can see. Sorry.
On this site in particular, it is impossible to tell a highly triggered individual from good old sarcasm.
Even when adding footnotes to my own posts stating I do not agree with what I've discussed (sarcasm, real world instances, etc...), the triggered downvote army descends.
4965124
Poe's Law at work. Thanks Internet!
I mean... it's a foalcon fic that implies castration can fix society. I think you might actually be triggering people lol
Also the cover image makes my testes want to crawl up inside me.
I think you just got to own it.
4965116
I don't think you should be so quick to judge people. Just because somepony can enjoy reading dark fiction doesn't make them an unpleasant pony to be around.
4965264
Oh, I definitely own it.
4964999
Which leads to a SPIN-OFF story!
I think it is just an emotional reaction. You see something you do not like and you act.
4965056
Oh, and The Tripods also briefly figured in with TSJ with Twilight as protagonist and Flash Sentry in the other role. Pinkie instead of Flash to a lesser extent.
Full disclosure: I haven't read the story itself. Reason being not because of any perceived quality or lack thereof on my part, but simply that it does not fit the things I am currently in the market for. Reading some of the descriptions... eh, I can see why someone would like it, if only as a means to shock the system. Grant Morrisson did a similar trick with 'The Filth', and that's one of my favorites (though the subject matter was more diverse in its perversions there.)
That said, having had a few brushes with the sacred chaoist practice of iconoclasm, I'd like to offer the following theory for the kneejerk reaction:
What you describe is too close to a reality for many of your readers. Mayhaps they've already been cut, but slightly higher. And flayed, to boot.
Sure, mandatory castration is a far cry from routine circumcision, but the similarities are striking enough: it's supposedly done for a good reason, but the evidence to its benefits is minor at best. It's done explicitly to boys, partly to curb their sexuality [insert any one of the other more out-there suggestions ole' Mister Corn Flake had on that topic here, followed by a reference to the Hollywood PoundMeToo movement and its easily verifiable statistics on accused men who are safely assumed to be circumcised.]
It's normalised to the point that an intact male is considered a freak in some areas, and it's done to young children who, by definition, cannot give consent while the parents force a life-changing operation on them or a nurse simply does it by default.
Oh, and it gets vehemently defended when challenged, even by those who are victims of it. They don't like the idea of little boys being gelded because deep down, they feel like they were 'gelded', and the downvote is simply a coping mechanism to stop from facing the ugly truth. But, again, haven't read the story, and I am an intact- oh sorry, Americans prefer to call it un-cut, right? Like how a football player's leg is unbroken, or a young girl's ears are unpierced. Anyway, I'm neither a reader nor a victim of the practice in question, I'm just spitballing here. Seemed like the obvious answer to such a reaction, is all.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna grab some marshmallows to roast over the flamewar that's bound to ensue.
Those who claim that they do it for the art will vore me for this, but ultimately, the success of the story boils down to "selling" the premise to the viewers. Now, the premise you're trying to sell is a pretty niche one, and definitely very hard to sell to the audience that mostly uses pony fiction for escapism.
It's not just about castration; every once in a while I see an author trying to write a Very Serious Story with a dash of Based on My Own Horrible Experiences (just yesterday I had a doubtful pleasure of reading a story about homophobia which, regardless of author's probably best intentions was still a badly-written pony fic about homophobia, thus falling somewhere between Absolutely Absurd and Persistently Pathetic). Others see that too – and thus, your audience are mostly people who are hardwired to think "serious ponyfic = bad ponyfic", so you're doomed from the start.
Even with a more accepting audience, I don't think this premise would fly anyway. Like, I prefer to think the authors know what they're doing and not judge the stories too soon, but let me quote my comment from Geldings itself:
That was chapter 3. I gave up hope somewhere in chapter 5, if fimfic is to be believed. It just didn't click for me on any level – it didn't work as a dark fic, or a dystopia or as whatever you intended. Initial flaws piled up, and imagining the castration-related issues with show-accurate ponies didn't help my immersion at all (on a semi-related note, someone once told me that imagining all the characters as anthro rats makes Twilight actually readable. This apparently isn't true with ponies). I also felt a hint of insincerity from the story – as if it was trying a bit too hard to paint itself as shocking, but I'm probably not the one to talk about that.
So, to sum up, I think there are two main flaws: unworkable, audience-alienating premise and, at least for me, plot that aims big, but falls rather short. Add an unfortunate choice of medium (seriously, liberated from pony canon, it could probably work better on some level as an original story) and you get the reason for this rating.
4965500
"Cut" is explicitly used as a euphemism for gelded in the story.
I'm sorry people are such jerkwads sometimes.
I'm not sure why you're surprised. The premise is... offputting in the extreme.
(I'd also downvote for your usage of "downhoof")
4965500
That's nice. Uncut is disgusting and ugly looking.
I, like 4965848, don't understand why this surprises you. In fact I'm bothered that it doesn't; it suggests you don't see how disturbing and offensive it is. Your description posits a pony society that is unusually sexist and cruel, asserts that males are the cause of social disorder and violence, and implicitly suggests that we, too, would be better off if our males were castrated. Within our current social context, people who don't know you will probably assume that's the argument you'll make in the story.
Let's imagine another story with this description:
Would you be surprised if that gathered down-votes?
4968825
Your argument is an extreme and ridiculous exaggeration. There's no rape of stallions in the story description, only the excision of gonads done with anesthesia. There is no "subservience" in the story description whatsoever: geldings are treated as equals in society. It's sad but understandable that you need to add excessive rape and misogyny in order to make your point, because your point is completely illogical.
Let's talk logical. There's a reason geldings are more common than stallions: they're less violent, and far less likely to kill. That's a simple horse fact. Removing the clitoris from a mare has no effect upon her behavior. It doesn't make her less violent. Removing testicles does make a stallion less violent. That's why it is done everywhere in the world.
It isn't rocket science.
4968825
It reads like Nazi-Feminist dogma. (Despite usually being a meme, radical feminists / feminazis are in fact a thing. I have no quarrel with people who wish women to be more equal to men aside from wishing they'd do it somewhere where their equality to men isn't legally protected. I do have an issue with misandrist / feminazis like Tricky is presenting herself as, that believe the world would be better if men were castrated or etc.)
4968825
4969027
Just for the record, I haven't advocated, nor am I advocating, for the castration of men. I simply wrote a story about a society where horses get gelded for the supposed betterment of their society. It's not hard to imagine a situation where the males of a species are so dangerous uncut that mass castration would actually be preferable to allowing mass-murder. The idea of a society of horse geldings (which most male horses are on Earth, specifically to reduce violence) is considerably less bizarre than magical ass tattoos and clouds that can be pushed around.
Eh. I don't think this is true, if you mean "there are a sizable number of feminists who want to castrate all men". That's largely a fiction pushed by people who oppose feminism in all forms.
4969092
No dude, it's literally a thing that exists.
Smh you're sounding a lot like Satch, and that's where I'm exiting the conversation. Have a nice life.
4968878
Forced castration is much worse than rape.
I wasn't speaking over whether the reasons used in your story were logical or not. I was trying to explain why people downvoted your story. Speaking factually doesn't mean you won't offend people. If I tell Jack that he's stupid, and in fact everyone, including Jack, agrees that he's stupid, that doesn't make the statement inoffensive. If you tell your audience, which is 90% male, that males are the cause of violent crime, you are insulting them. Whether the insult is deserved is a separate matter.
Similarly, society would be "more orderly" if women were made subservient to men, because the phrase "an orderly society" literally means a society that is ordered--a society whose members have a clear and unchanging ordering, from the greatest to the least, like the ordinal numbers. When Plato emphasized the importance of social order, when the Catholic church stressed the importance of order within the church, they didn't mean that more orderly was more peaceful or less violent. They valued order for its own sake, because they both thought a society that was orderly (arranged in a strict and never-changing hierarchy) was logically more perfect than a society in which social relations might not always be clear and could change. And that usage is, I think, still what many people have in mind when they speak of "orderly society". The factual correctness of the claim that making women subservient would make society more orderly, however, doesn't make it inoffensive.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't have written the story or the description! That's a separate matter. I'm not even saying that people should never offend each other. I'm saying that the description is offensive, and that's why it offended people. Being correct or useful or interesting doesn't imply being inoffensive.
Nearly two months late to the discussion, I have an explanation to suggest; or rather, one more explanation to throw into the mix of overlapping factors that probably all add up to the result?
Our criminal justice systems in the civilised world are built on the principle that it's better to let ten guilty people go free than one innocent person be falsely convicted. And I think the notion of mandatory corrective procedures flies rather in the face of that. As Cheerilee and Featherweight's mom mention, it isn't necessary for most stallions, but it's done to catch the few who'd be a problem if left unaltered.
Again, they're eager to discourage gelding being seen as a punishment here. But it is a punishment in some societies, for sure, thankfully more historically than today, so for those who haven't read the story, those nuances won't come across.
Like Admiral Biscuit's story The Feaguing, this takes something we routinely do to non-sapient horses and transfers it to sapient ponies, and then looks at how that changes the situation. And I think that's a reasonable counterargument to the point that there are more geldings than stallions in real life, that they're not sapient. Whereas a sapient individual is capable in many cases of overcoming hormonal impulses towards violence, because they understand it's wrong, and are capable of empathising with potential victims. And the setup in the story treats all stallions as already having failed that test.
Or, you know, removes the temptation to fail it in the first place, from the other point of view. But still, implying that someone can't be master of their own bodily impulses can be rather insulting, even if statistically some definitely do fail that test.
None of that is a criticism of the story, by the way. I'd like to read more of it. That's just my guess at another reason for some of the downvotes.