Why Fantasy Is Not Reality · 9:51pm Jan 22nd, 2019
This post has been delayed by depression, but it's important. I need to weigh in on the controversy MrNumbers gestated.
Fun in fantasy; horrifying in reality.
First, the history.
MrNumbers wrote a blog post decrying the theme and content of some of the mature stories which end up in the feature box. His post called out An Intricate Disguise by name as an author who "does not understand women and consent", and with wit unmatched referred to him as "AIDS" throughout the rant. Several of the best authors on Fimfiction signal boosted this post and offered their strong support for it.
An Intricate Disguise made a blog post of his own which included a set of rebuttals from other popular mature-fic authors whose works had been targeted by the original message. Michael Hudson weighed in separately, arguing that the fics MrNumbers doesn't like are indeed dumb—but he did it without slandering the authors or readers in the process.
Before I begin, I need to stress that intelligent, important, and useful things were written in each of these posts, including MrNumbers's. I encourage you read the blog entries before continuing.
Despite the positives, some truly awful things have also been written on both 'sides' of this debate. Several of those things were written by MrNumbers himself. I'm disappointed in the authors and readers who have responded to the subject in a disrespectful and inconsiderate manner (the comment threads are repulsively toxic). I'd like to say I'm disappointed in MrNumbers himself, but unfortunately I have over time grown familiar with his opinions being intelligent and insightful but at the same time pompous and slanderous toward those who disagree with him. I am extremely disappointed in the authors who signal boosted the blog entry without qualification, many of whom I know and consider my friends.
In my opinion, the most important thing MrNumbers writes about is the fact that female authors have been harassed for "addressing" the subject themselves. I suspect the author's gender has little to do with their harassment (male authors are also harassed for discussing this issue), but I have no doubt that there are authors who "address" this topic in a well-intentioned and non-condescending manner who have had to deal with harassment and vitriol in response. This is a problem on Fimfiction, as it is in the world in general. Ponies today are less willing to see things from another's point of view, quick to anger, and increasingly tribal. The internet is part of the problem: everypony is free to box themself into an echo chamber that only offers them the reality they want to believe in, and those echo chambers are factories of intolerance and hatred (whether liberal or conservative or whatever). Some of what MrNumbers discusses also touches on this topic in a positive way.
As a brief aside, MrNumbers also writes that female authors are leaving the fandom because they share his opinion. I see no evidence that this is true (either the leaving or the sharing), but it isn't largely what I take issue with.
Throughout his entry, MrNumbers consistently builds a thesis that authors who produce content he doesn't like do so simply because they don't know any better. He calls their content "toxic" and an "awful mindset". He complains that the popularity of stories that repulse him reflect values which are not "feminist", and that "feminist" is what the fandom is supposed to be. (Unfortunately, you can't pop the "f" word without immediately turning your comment section into a nightmare.) To an extent, I agree that our fandom should be empowering for women, as I find the show does reflect those themes.
But then, MrNumbers writes something that absolutely requires me to respond, something far worse than calling a fellow author "AIDS" because you don't like his art. He takes issue with readers who point out that the fiction he doesn't like is simply fiction, and then he suggests that exposure to fiction leads to sexual assault:
Too often I see stories play fast and loose with consent and see the authors say; “it’s just a story” or “it’s just porn”. But storytelling is fundamentally moral lessons, even if it’s just the literary equivalent of hand softener and a kleenex, and when you show characters coerce consent, or start the fuckin’ without consent and that character gets rewarded for it... then you’re teaching a very dangerous lesson, just because you didn’t want to put more effort into the fantasy you were selling.
That’s really bad. According to Project Five Thirty Eight, in the US only about one in five cases of sexual assault occur where the victim didn’t know their attacker. It adds that only about 11 percent are reported with a weapon.
Ignoring the statement that authors who write dubcon/noncon do so because they are lazy (rather a contradiction to the "they don't know any better" thesis), his suggestion is not supported by science and is highly prejudicial. Calling readers who enjoy a kink you don't "sex criminals" is slanderous and wrong, and after spending more time reviewing what he'd written, seeing authors signal boost this turned my stomach. People who write enjoy stories you don't like don't deserve to be painted as monsters with a broad brush.
(Just in case you think I missed it: yes, MrNumbers does say "this isn't about kink shaming, but...", however, he then goes on to do precisely what every statement that begins with "I'm not racist/prejudiced, but..." does. A good rule of ergot is, when reading sentences, you can safely ignore everything before the 'but'.)
So yes, some of the things MrNumbers wrote were very important and needed expressing, and I commend him for that. And some of what he wrote was absolutely appalling and deserves to be called out.
Now let me share something personal with you about my family that will explain why this subject is so important to me.
At BronyCon last year, I was at Tir Na Nog with a large group of authors (maybe forty or so). I sat at a small table with three other authors, and one of the authors brought up the subject of whitekitten, a fan of My Little Pony who commissions extremely misogynistic artwork. If you haven't heard of him, however bad you can imagine the artwork and accompanying text being... it's worse. Mares forced to give birth into meat grinders. Rape focusing on pain, degredation, and the idea that females of all ages are worthless except for being meat (except for girls with dicks). Lesbians tortured and murdered for being lesbians. He is Tala Tearjerker here on Fimfiction, but he doesn't come here much because he finds writing too much of a chore.
In response, I informed them that whitekitten is my husband.
Dead silence. Then the response, "Oh. Oh! Well, um, I don't hold that against you..." and some awkward stares.
Let me set the record straight.
My husband is not a misogynist. He loves women. He's very conscientious. He's glad the Weinstein's and Cosby's of the world are finally getting their due. He would never dream of hurting a woman physically or emotionally. He reads the rabbits subreddit and literally cries for minutes after learning one of the bunny rabbits he's seen pictures of has died or been hurt. He's the sweetest guy you'll ever meet.
But, what gets him off are extreme fantasies, and that's okay. He is not a monster, and I don't appreciate people suggesting to me that he is. You think you know what goes on in other people's heads, especially when they're very different from you, and you really, really don't. MrNumbers and those who share his opinion are not actually psychic when they talk about other people's "toxic mindsets". They only believe they are, and they are absolutely wrong.
Jewel (whitekitten) has a Discord channel for people who follow his commissions, and frankly, some of those people (based on what they say) are probably are human trash who I do worry about. But most of them aren't, and for those who are, Jewel's artwork didn't make them that way. The Meese Commission on pornography tried very hard to demonstrate a scientific link between pornography and violence against women and totally failed. Real-life misogynists may be more likely to appreciate misogyny in fantasy, but appreciating that fantasy does not mean you are a monster. Treating people like they are and attempting to incite antipathy toward them is discrimination. Period, end of sentence.
Fantasy is not the same thing as reality. Of all people who should know this, it's bronies, because fandom in general is full of people stuck in our heads by choice. We may want to live in fantasy, and we may love to pretend, but we know the difference and it is legion.
People who write stories about lesbian horses fucking and complain about somepony else's kink are not well-grounded in reality. I'm honestly more concerned about what someone like MrNumbers might do to a woman than I am about my husband. If you want to see better stories in the feature box, then write better stories about popular topics. Don't write an article slandering half the fandom because you're upset your cerebral porn openly discussing the merits of consent wasn't well-received.
Note: please do not rant for or against the concept of "feminism" in the comments. Use words to say what you mean and do not box people into groups in order to make your point. This is not a blog post about ideologies or how different people may choose to define them differently, and I don't care how you choose to define feminism because it isn't relevant to the discussion. And if you think that either feminists or the people who decry feminism are the source of all the evil in the world, you probably don't have anything worth saying in the first place.
EDITS:
0) I've been made aware by Regidar that one of the issues is that AID and mythrilmoth disagree with other authors and readers about what constitutes noncon/dubcon, and should necessitate a story tag to warn potential readers. I agree that can be a legitimate problem. (I don't know enough to say whether or not I agree that they have a problem tagging stories or understanding consent in reality, and I wouldn't make assumptions.)
1) I also want better porn, and I agree most of the porn that gets featured is crap. But that's my opinion and it doesn't mean there's something wrong with the people who like it. I refuse to look down on anypony because they have different tastes from mine. It doesn't surprise me that many of the authors who signal boosted MrNumbers's post were among the best authors on the website: being a good author makes it harder to tolerate bad writing because you have to discipline yourself to do better, which makes it easier to judge others unintentionally. (And a lot of them probably just want better porn.)
2) In full disclosure, I write a lot of dubcon myself (although I do use the Noncon tag for it). I do this primarily because I want my stories to make people think and closely evaluate their moral compasses. I feel there is a lot of grey area within the topic of consent beyond the idealism of being able to act with certitude of your effect on the other person, and my stories are centered on the theme of ponies acting out of love in situations where difficult choices lead to difficult outcomes.
3) I apologize if I seem to insult MrNumbers by saying I've grown accustomed to him acting pompous, or that he believes he can mindread other people's mental states. Those are my impressions and I don't think I'm entirely mistaken, but I still have a lot of respect for him, even if I don't always agree with the way he chooses to express his opinions. I follow him because I like him as an author and critic, and I have no plans to stop following him even if he ends up losing all respect for me due to me writing this critique. I think he's a well-intentioned and moral pony, and most of my interactions with him have been very positive. I bear him no ill will. But I strongly disagree with a small subset what he's saying, and I think it contributes to an environment that makes the fandom less safe for me and my husband. I know there are people who would hurt Jewel if they could, and this is chiefly because they don't understand the hard distinction between fantasy and reality that we're able to have.
Man, it's fucked up that things went that way. Hopefully things can be resolved civilly.
5000936
The biggest problem with democracy is most people are heavily prejudiced and see the world split into two groups: self and other. This is a natural thing to do with a human brain, but it is not an accurate reflection of truth and reality.
5000961
I would rebutt that the biggest problem with democracy is that, at the end of the day, human agency is limited by perception. Normally, that's not a big deal since humans are basically the most perceptive lifeforms on the planet. The problem comes in in that there are ways to consistently warp and undermine people's ability to perceive reality by attacking certain structural features (like the part emotion and abstraction play in our perceptions) and exploiting certain realities (like the fact that ain't nobody got time to get super educated on every deliberately obfuscated, obtuse issue you make up).
Splitting people into tribes and playing into the I versuses the Other is just one means of manipulating perception.
In response, I informed them that whitekitten is my husband.
I had suspected as much, but was disinclined to ask. It is striking in general how seldom violent/domineering pornography is aspirational, but instead reflects unease with one's darker impulses. A surprising amount of the time as well, the author seems to be the viewpoint character, the one suffering the abuse. Most cuddly porn, by contrast, seems to be just what it looks like. It's a dichotomy that perhaps deserves more attention than it gets.
I'm not sure if it's touched on here or elsewhere - this is an argument featuring some participants that i want to keep far away from, so with the exception of blogs from people I trust I'm trying not to get involved - but it definitely doesn't help that, in my experience, there's a pervasive belief among people who aren't into "controversial fantasies" (dubcon, snuff, etc.) that the people who enjoy those fantasies are okay with the topic and who enjoy it without compunction.
Nothing can be further from the truth. I've met people from both genders and multiple generations that have confided in me about how they hate the fact that they enjoy these sort of fantasies. Some of these people have told me that they recognize that what's going on is ultimately a byproduct of brain chemistry, but hate how it drives them towards fantasies that - while they have the good sense to differentiate between fantasy and reality - still make them feel as if they're tacitly endorsing a culture that's okay with "the real thing." And I've met other people that find it a moral failing on top of everything else that they even think about controversial fantasies in anything other than a damning light, and consider themselves fundamentally horrible people for even acknowledging that they have these fantasies in the first place.
There's a lot of self-hatred among people who fantasize, particularly towards the more controversial end of that spectrum. It's not ubiquitous, but it's absolutely there - and arguments that people who have certain fantasies endorse criminal acts are easy to internalize and make trying to come to any sort of closure about the difference between fantasy and reality much, much harder. When people are vocal and adamant about their distaste for certain fantasies, some fantasizers are able to ultimately brush off the statements as a misunderstanding or an insubstantial attempt at shaming. Others take it much, much harder, to the point of taking it to heart that what they fantasize about informs their entire personality to varying degrees and feeling persistently ashamed for even having opinions in general.
I hope that people who don't understand exactly how hurtful their arguments are will eventually be able to understand the impact their words can have, and think before they spout inflammatory and potentially damaging rhetoric.
5000961
The biggest problem with democracy is that we, as the Romans before us, have allowed the poor, who have little other stake in society, to vote themselves bread and circuses. It will end for us as it did for the Roman Republic.
Here taking 'fantasy' to specifically mean 'sexual fantasy', I inherently cannot understand this. And I suspect I am not the only one.
All my kinks are things that I would love to try in reality, despite the fact that a significant portion of them are physically impossible. I cannot imagine a person having a kink and not wanting to try it out. Given our base frame of reference is ourselves, it makes sense that anyone who has a similar viewpoint would assume that everyone else is the same way as them. This is why I think the fandom is full of pedophiles and people who want to fuck their sister; I can't imagine separating the fantasy from the reality in that sense.
Which is a shame, because it makes me a tremendous hypocrite. I'll be the first in line to rail against anyone who thinks video games cause violence, but write a story about Twilight fucking Shining, and I'll assume you're wanting to do that behind the scenes. Life is hard.
5001000
You are now communicating with an individual who enjoys the fantasy of being raped, which is on the mild side of what they enjoy in fantasy, and who vehemently does not want to be raped.
Greetings.
Hey-ya, Tricky!
Gotta admit to you, that as soon as I saw this shit, I went: "Oooooh fuck. The dust JUST settled over this shit."
But I was wrong. Dead wrong. Wronger than wrong about how brilliantly right this essay of your's was. Choosing not to bore you, I'll skip the details on why I agree with all of your points. It comes down to this: You were able to summarize all that I felt and thought about the situation, and on top of that, back it up with legitimate experience. In a controversy largely toxic, you were able to bring freshness and gentleness into the great debate.
While I wish for the dust to settle once more, I am glad that you, even though delayed, threw your two cents into the ring.
Also, I am sorry to hear about the depression thang. Should you ever need someone to call, ya knows ya can always hit your boi up.
~ Yr. Pal, B
[ETA] Trigger Warning: Discussion of rape and rape fantasies.
Better known author posting under clop alt here.
A friend of mine and I—the pair of us sharing a fairly (very) tame but also somewhat loaded romantic / sexual history—are both quite into noncon/dubcon. There was a year or two, back before I got into the pony fandom, when we were both writing stories in other fandoms that were... well, pretty darn edgy for us, at least. (We may or may not have been writing them for each other.) A lot of it involved rape. Sometimes this was romanticized, sometimes it was just emotionally destructive toward the characters. We liked the fantasy of breaking someone, or being broken. (Again, it's not entirely clear which side of the fantasy we liked more; it is perhaps telling that our more memorable stories usually involved principal characters being forced into situations where both were applicable.)
Then, the daughter of one of her coworkers got raped at a party.
It forced us both to step back a bit and reevaluate the things we were fantasizing about. We were sheltered enough that neither of us really had experience with rape or sexual assault, I don't think—even rape or sexual assault of anyone particularly close to us. We wound up having a long(ish) conversation about our fantasies and the reality of rape as a thing that happens, and what differentiated the two. We both, I think, felt worried about whether our fantasies meant we were condoning things like this happening in the real world. We both came to the conclusion, I think, that at the end of the day we were still comfortable with our fantasies. What we found appealing about the rape fantasy was very different from the motivating factors in real rape. We were drawn to a species of emotional sadomasochism we found there; the rape fantasy for us was really about emotional relationships expressed through domination. Real rape (to the best of our understanding, anyway) had very little to do with the person being raped, and was more a one-sided expression of dominance and/or control—in other words, it had almost nothing to do with the relationship between people.
I don't know if we were deluding ourselves in some way, but I remain pretty comfortable with that conclusion. At the same time, I do sometimes fantasize about raping said friend—or perhaps better to say, fantasize about bringing her to a point of ego-annihilation, with her approval, in a rape-like context. So it's not like these are fantasies that are safely tucked away in my mind. But at the same time, the exciting parts of these fantasies would all break down for me if she weren't on board with the scenario, so it seems like it fits into pretty standard BDSM stuff.
Not totally sure if/what this contributes to the conversation, except to express solidarity and approval for the notion that some of us have potentially squicky fantasies, that it can be really nice to explore them in a safe context, and that our fantasies can still recognize the importance of the participation of all parties. Anything that's relationship-focused rather than self-focused, it seems to me, is likely to be pretty pro-social even if it has an antisocial veneer.
Then again, the most important point in MrNumbers' argument—that the expression of these fantasies may provide reinforcement for people whose fantasies are legitimately antisocial and don't recognize the nuance in which we take refuge—doesn't seem all wrong to me. Is there an important cost to normalizing notions of rape? It seems likely to me that there is. But I'm not sure I'm comfortable saying that this is sufficient reason to discourage people from finding healthy (healthier?) outlets for fantasies like this, either.
5001000
5001042
To explain PresentPerfect's point a little, one of the hardest things for a human to accept is that 'your mind' and 'other people mind' are not the same.
While we all have differing views and the like, and we may accuse each other of being illogical at times, we tend to believe that we are all wired together the same and that anyone who isn't by definition must be extremely mentally ill.
Thus as PresentPerfect states, they knows inherently that enjoying a fantasy is not the same as wanting it...
But because their mind only has kinks they actually want to participate in, it is very hard for them to not see other people's kinks in the same light.
This is actually becoming a bigger issue globally. This inability to recognize just how mailable the mind is, and just how different even a normal, completely sane person mind can be from your own has been projected into the limelight recently, as it has long been responsible for discrimination but few people address the underlying cause.
Some of those people who are terrified of Trans individuals going into a female or male bathroom because, "they must be perverts" cannot conceptualize the idea that gender is an important part of who someone is. They see sex as something that is only relevant to the act of mating and if a doctor declared to these people one day, "Actually we were wrong, you are actually the opposite sex" they would simply shrug their shoulders and move on.
And thus, unable to conceive an importance of sex or gender outside mating....anyone having issues with bathroom choice MUST be a pervert, because why else would it be an issue.
Others have issues with Asexuals because they cannot conceptualize not having sexual desire. Its something that is inherently part of who they are, something they deal with every day (or almost every day) so to be told, "I don't lust." isn't something they can wrap their heads around. The words make logical sense, but its a sentence they can't fathom.
And this list can go on and on. Their are many hundreds of ways humans are base coded differently that fit into the broad church of, "You are 100% sane" and many of these mental identities are different enough that the identities, fantasies and the like are almost complete opposites.
And this is something the world will have to learn to deal with. Their is a famous quote, "You can’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” but what we are beginning to understand is that compared to your mindset, some people may as well have fins. And if you come across someone whose mind is that vastly different....the best you can do is trust them and be empathetic.
To use myself as an example....I never will understand national identity, gender identity or genetic identity. I am Australian and a male, but neither of those things are important to me. Where my ancestors come from is interesting, but it does not fill me with the same drive that fills some. To me, my hobbies define me first and foremost, things I choose rather then things I have no control over.
But I make EVERY effort to be empathetic to those who struggle with gender identity, who consider their nation important to them, who seek out who they are based off their past. I cannot visualize why this is important. People have tried to explain it to me, but I just can't fathom it. But I will ALWAYS stand up for their right to seek this stuff out.
5001042
All I know is that fetishes, like sexuality, are not something one chooses.
5001085
And at the risk of going on a rant, the pains of separating fantasy and reality would be much less painful if society put any thought into teaching people how to do it. Sitting kids down in front of movies, TV, you name it, telling them, "Okay, now this isn't real," talking about the events with them afterward, explaining things that didn't make sense to them. Parenting is time consuming, good parenting even moreso, and that's assuming you even know what you're doing.
Otherwise, we just have to figure it out ourselves and hope we can do so before we've hurt too many people.
5001082
Sex and relationship education would not be porn's (and romcom's) de facto role in society if the rest of society had not failed us in these regards.
tl;dr yes but it's everyone's fault
5001095
An excellent point, sir-or-madam-or-*.
5001089
Given the short length of your post compared to mine, I don't think anyone could accuse you of going on a rant, least of all me.
Still a very valid point. A friend of mine has proposed a school all people need to go to before becoming a parent, in jest for the most part, but it is true that the quality of the parent inherently effects the person the child will grow up to be.
One of the most grounded people I know was watching Horror Movies from age 3, and while I recognize that some of that again comes from who she is, (as her siblings are no where near as grounded) her distinction between fantasy and reality is a testament to her parents teaching her that none of those movies are real.
Also, as an aside, their is nothing cuter then your Niece telling your mother that Jeepers Creepers is "only a movie ,nanny" and that "Their is nothing to be afraid of."
5001000
I kinda have a feeling that you're confusing environment (like reality of some kind of fantasy) and preferences. Or, nerdy speaking, probability distribution and utility function.
That's not statement about reality, that's statement about preferences: you're not doing any of them in actual reality (even physically possible ones). And I suspect that it's not because you're too busy doing other things that ranked higher by your preferences.
People indeed have different preferences, but actions are not shaped by preferences only, they're also shaped by environment (and kinks are just a tiny fraction of human preferences), so there's no contradiction here.
It appears it's not delaying anymore. Is Enemy retreating?
Whitekitten is your husband?!!
Man, the world is smaller than I knew!
Actually commented on some of his commission on Furaffinity a few years ago or so. Got an answer back. Was happy about it!
Well, anyhow, one of my problems with Number's blog post is the claim not to kink-shame while also telling their readers some kinks lead to objectively worse stories. "I'm not kink-shaming you, I'm just saying your kinks are bad and you should be ashamed!" Hypocrisy much?
I'm not a fan of cuckolding, but Carrot Cuck got a solid upvote. And yeah, I wasn't a fan of Blueblood's castration in TSJ, but that wasn't because of the act itself (which is also one of my no-no's) but because of the context of to whom and when it was happening.
5001000
Well, to propose one potential model: gross desire vs. net desire. Say that someone has a kink for X, something that they believe would cause significant harm to themself and/or others if they actually tried it. If they don't want to cause that harm, their net desire is to not do X even if they still have a gross desire to do X. In fantasy, however, the restrictions of reality don't apply, and so imagining doing X can cause little or no harm; thus, the gross desire to imagine X may be slightly less than the gross desire to actually do it, but the negative factors may easily be lower still such that the net ends up positive. Does that make sense?
5001089
5001082
5001085
I've... actually stopped talking to someone on this site, over this very issue. Ended up blocking them. We used to have some interesting discussions, but at some point, he went off the deep end. I don't know what happened.
I just know that after he told me kinks are always a personal choice;
that to have them, I need to have been at best traumatised, but more likely brain-damaged at some point;
that my kinks are a threat to the overal mental health of society;
that they must inform how I treat women and children and therefore should be closely watched;
and that it doesn't matter if I keep my fantasies and my reality separate, merely having those kinks is the same as some no-name shmuck who actively preaches the exploitation of women and children and minorities (he loves to go on about some dude Roosh-Whatever)...
... I realised, he wasn't talking about me. He was talking about himself, projecting his insecurities on me but too blind to see it.
Wow! I had no idea. I discovered Whitekitten a few months ago, and have since considered him my "gold standard" for socialized art production. I abhor the concept of public art funds, because once they garner ample support to distribute several thousand dollars per project, they inevitably promote exclusively mainstream art which could not be offensive to any of the many supporters contributing to a fund of that scale. Almost anybody can appreciate that kind of art, but in my observation, virtually everybody favors some niche genre or aesthetic fetish.
Whitekitten, from what I can tell, is just one guy with a lot of experience interacting with a genre of artists he appreciates. Like a hundred people or so trust him to curate the art they consume, and they all get to contribute to the propagation of lesbian hyper-futa anthro-pony non-con/dub-con, usually with cum-inflation and/or eroguro that they really want to exist.
I wish there were way more people like him curating crowd-funded artistic endeavors for comparably niche genres, but nobody asked me how the world should work.
As the saying goes, I'm sickened but curious (I'd rather avoid the other things listed, but this one feels like it fits that cheap B-class horror aesthetics I'm fond of).
Also, of all the blogs about this drama, this one is probably my favourite. Definitely more reasonable than some others, rather pitiful attempts.
5000993
Oh, this, absolutely.
I'm going to write a follow-up blog post tonight.
5000994
This is absolutely true. I know Jewel deals with subconscious stress from his fantasies.
I deal with conscious stress over some of mine.
5000997
I'd agree in that populism can be dangerous. The "dictatorship of the proletariat" often considers what the privileged want (not that poor are privileged, but support from populism largely comes from white males and other dominant classes) without regard for what the unprivileged need or how many kulaks get stepped on in the process.
In America one of the big wrenches in our system is the fact that we used to be able to vet all of our presidential candidates through the machinery of the two major parties—and now we can't do that anymore. The GOP and Dems wouldn't allow someone as insane as Ross Perot (I'm not talking his policies, which were sensible; he's literally crazy as fuck) advance through the primary, but you can't pull support from somepony who has billions of dollars because they don't need party funds to remain electable. That means anypony with substantial wealth has a shot at being elected, and most people with substantial wealth (excepting the richest of the rich) didn't come into that wealth as a product of their own talent and effort.
5001000
You need to understand it, because it's true, and a lack of understanding of this basic idea is what leads to prejudice and discrimination toward people with unusual fantasies.
People who fantasize about being eaten alive don't actually want to be eaten alive, for an obvious example. If that isn't clear and understandable then I don't know what is. Just because your fantasies align with your real life desires doesn't mean other people must be the same way. Jewel detests gory imagery or anything that indicates women are actually being abused—he has a visceral reaction of disgust. These two realms are not the same for everypony.
5001390
It just makes no sense. I've always assumed if the two didn't align, the person in question is lying about something. (I honestly think there is a group who enjoy child porn just because it makes others mad or is 'edgy'.) I'm definitely not going to think poorly of your husband, though, someone you know better than I. I've certainly never heard of anyone being disgusted by their own fantasies before. I'll have to try and keep this in mind in the future.
5001085
This.
One of the reasons trans discrimination is high is the fact that most people literally cannot understand what it is like to be trans. Even to try comprehending it is, for many people, an impossible task. It's not because they're not flexible-minded enough, it's because you cannot fully understand it unless it happens to you. Analogies can help but they fall short of the experience.
Somepony once asked me to write a story where I stepped on his television and crushed it with my heels. I understand the kink and its nature, but it does nothing for me and I can't really comprehend the experience. That said, I don't think he was a bad person for having the fantasy. (For the record, I declined.)
5001153
Not yet, but I had spare time because I missed the classes I teach due to severe myofascial pain. Replacing a crown triggered the pain something fierce, but fortunately this time it returned to baseline quickly. (When I put the temporary crown on I was in constant pain for ten days.)
5001394
I can vouch for the disgust at own fantasies thing. I would give a great many things to have fantasies that don't make me want to die.
5001394
If you're interested in having a discourse about trying to understand that point of view, I'm absolutely willing to discuss it. Just say the word.
5001394
You kidding me? I don't like half the kinks I have, and a couple of them just make me feel bad if I masterbate to them. If my ding-don't gets hard to something I find morally disgusting, then you bet I don't like it. There's a difference between what we like and what we like to masturbate too. Just like there's a difference between fantasy and reality.
5001394
"I've certainly never heard of anyone being disgusted by their own fantasies before."
There probably is some selection bias from who's likely to be reading this blog post in the first place, but I think you may just have gotten lucky, or at least happened to not have run across it. Personally I'm finding the idea that someone hasn't encountered that even secondhand kind of mindboggling, even if, on reflection, I intellectually don't see a reason why it should be, so there appears to be some mutual perceived-world-expanding going on here; thanks. :)
5001562
It's very possible I just haven't been in a forum discussing it. :B
5001568
Oh, aye, like I said, intellectually it made sense, once I was thinking about it, that there'd be people, likely substantial numbers, who just never had it come up in conversation (coupled with no firsthand experience). I'd guess that the percentage of this site's population fitting that is lower than the percentage of the general population, but still. It's just that this is something I don't think it had really occurred to me to think about before.
Best blog/blog author for this topic, hooves down.
I wrote my Twilight Sparkle fiercely dedicated to the notion that 'fantasies are your own and can be anything and it's OK, reality is judged on a different basis'. I copped out, though: could have gone much darker but ended up suggesting that she had fantasies about Celestia (even, reciprocated!) and both she and her mentor had panicked at the mere thoughts, believing them to be incestuous. This is a cop-out in that it became possible to explain to both of them that no, Celestia was NOT Twilight's actual mother, and that they'd overreacted. All the same, it motivated a fierce determination in Twi to both have 'inadmissible fantasies' and to never ever reveal them.
These things are always awkward and often dismaying. I myself got hung up on Elfquest in puberty and ended up heavy into extremely petite women, not because they were young (often they're not!) but because they were 'elves'. Try explaining that! And since it's the legacy of a visual comic defining my libido, it's not even 'elves' in the whole worldbuilding sense, it's just a visual look. To this day I've never found even a temporary partner to enjoy this kink, and there's nothing remotely forbidden about a woman my age of that build: it's just weird and awkward to be driven in that direction. (there's also nothing to make such a person a good match for me, or to make them a well-rounded person AS a person, and I know it: like my lack of sex life growing up, it sits around as this abstract thing interfering with me and offering no benefit)
It seems like getting well and truly kinked up over wildly inadmissible things is a very similar burden. I sympathize.
So, more unnecessary pony drama, then. Business as usual.
I don't know what to think of all this, honestly. Is the preferable alternative simply to have everyone who separates fantasy from reality to... leave? Or should they be converted into thinking differently? 'Coz I know either option would lead to the same result, at least for me.
What is the point anymore, I wonder... the freaks are lazy, the moral busybodies are relentless, and the average reader is swamped in stories. Don't even get me started on the religious angle for this. My religion encourages exploring your dark side, and breaking taboos. Can I file this under religious persecution, then
Screw all this, man. Just get the stories out and let the site burn if it has to, I say.
5001180
Yeah, it's pretty amazing. He literally gets paid to think up horrible porn. (Although all the money goes to the commissions, and he still spends our own money on them as well.)
Truly living the dream.
5001394
So you literally believe people who fantasize about being eaten want to be eaten?
Seriously?
5001953
In my defense, there was that one guy in Germany...
5001996
They never should have allowed that show to air... it was just animal cruelty with no purpose other than shock ratings. Anypony with any biology knowledge could tell you how ludicrous it was on its face.
Ah, that idiot asshole.
Still, it surprises me that someone from furry doesn't immediately understand the distinction. I'm planning to do a follow-up post about this because there are some things left to clear up that might help.
5001996
also, Germaney
5002016
I'm missing something, then. I thought he was referencing this: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1448497/Cannibal-filmed-himself-killing-and-eating-his-willing-victim.html
5002031
Yeah, that one. <.< Not aware of anything else.
But I mean... Is it not a reasonable conclusion to come to that, if masochists want to be hurt, and foot fetishists want to touch feet, and, fuckin', I dunno, people who really like farts want to be farted on, that people with self-destructive or other-destructive or morally questionable kinks wouldn't want to act them out as well? I mean, they might not for overarching reasons, that's one thing, but having a fantasy and wanting to act it out have always seemed like two sides of a coin to me. Don't be so surprised. :B
5002048
Well, no. I've spent about the last six hours writing and discarding replies to this, and I'm not sure that it can be logically explained. Fantasy and desire aren't necessarily congruent. They can be, but they don't have to be. It's possible to enjoy fantasizing about something from which, if given the chance to actually do it, you would recoil in horror, EVEN IF you knew, logically and irrefutably, that you would 100% get away with it. It's intuitively obvious to me, but I suspect that it's beyond my power to explain. I may have another whack at it tomorrow. Sorry.
5002195
My point is that it's not something a person would consider unless they themselves fit that category.
A little more positive energy now, so chiming in on the more recent additions to the discussion:
The inability to distinguish fantasy from reality, or the desire to act them out in reality, is a largely independent factor relative to the fantasy itself.
Now, I say largely independent because the fantasies do have a few elements that can increase or decrease the odds, but these in turn are experienced differently by different people, so... will you consider that a trait of the fantasy or the person, I'd still say the person is the deciding factor because several people can have the fantasy and not want to act it out irl. But anyway, the trait of the fantasy itself is the sensory barrier.
When you imagine something, you do so with incomplete data, and usually idealised versions of what data you do have. Case in point: regular intercourse. How many people imagine the smells that come with it, do you think? How about the feeling of your partner's cold feet on your warm body?
So yeah, I'm calling pre-existing condition on the extreme cases, for whatever it may be worth.
Honestly? I find that I'm mostly with 5002048 on this. As previously mentioned, my fantasies include some fairly dark stuff, but they're still things I think I'd enjoy acting on.
Important caveat to that, though: I feel comfortable defining the fantasy in very general terms, but operationalizing it into something I think I'd actually enjoy doing requires pinning down precisely what I actually find appealing in the fantasy and figuring out how that could be achieved without the negative baggage.
I think this is probably one of the reasons so many people dig role-play. I've also got a suspicion (which I can't confirm because it's not in my list of fantasies) that people who enjoy vore fantasies are more likely to be into vacuum beds, say.
I can imagine that it's possible that people really do fantasize about / enjoy fantasizing about things that they really wouldn't want to do outside of those imaginary fantasies, and certainly many people in these comments have said as much. But my personal experience is more that my fantasies tend to involve certain core elements of physical or emotional sensations that are easily imagined in a particular scenario, but that take more work to figure out how to practically accomplish in real life with consensual situations. The desire for those physical or emotional sensations, at least for me, is not a thing that only exists in fantasy. Focusing down from the general situational fantasy to the thing I really like about that fantasy and expect I'd enjoy in real life, though, isn't necessarily an easy process.
5002031
5002048
Oh. I thought you were talking about the guy who did a special on some horrible cable channel (maybe Spike?) where he was going to be eaten alive on live television by a very large snake. He had on a special suit and a breathing apparatus. I'm pretty sure it happened in America because we have enough idiots like that here.
He got his legs partway into the snake but had to bail because the snake's throat began to crush his legs, as anypony who understands snake anatomy could have told you. He got out before breaking any bones, but they had to kill the snake to extract him.
5002244
I agree that it might be intuitive that fantasy and realistic desire are the same, but in my experience not everypony makes that assumption (including ponies for whom fantasy and actual desire are identical).