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I really want to leave Something Awful right now
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
"I just wouldn't tar absolutely everyone who ever posted there with the same brush (or I wouldn't still be here). A lot of people in the SA thread do."
Pretty much. I posted in TVTropes enough to know that the pedos, sickos, and whatever people shunned by SA are the minority, and yet many people on the SA thread are willing to paint everyone who posts there as a sicko.
Off topic, but how do you quote?
Highlight a part of the text and press the "block quote" button to the right of the formatting tab.
Probably should have realized that. Thanks.
Whale - Well, there is an element of "the mob advances on Dracula's castle with burning torches and pitchforks" in these threads. Obviously, they don't have the power Joe McCarthy used to wield.
If you ever read FYAD, the goons there tend to mock these sort of threads for caring so much. They like mockery, but they're much more nihilistic about it:-
Average goon 1 - "Rick Santorum nearly said the word "nigger" on TV!"
Average goon 2 - "ZOMG he's a terrible racist and will destroy the US if he gets the Republican nomination!"
FYAD poster 1- "rick santorum nearly said the word "nigger" on tv."
FYAD poster 2 - "he's terrible. lol."
Okay look I'm going to be going all LF-leakage here and it's going to be abrasive and sucky and weird but please read my entire post, guys, please.
Pedophilia is bad.
Of course none of you disagree with that statement. Even if you were to argue that pedophilia is a mental disease or disorder and we should pity those who have it, not ostracize them, it would still have the core argument that "pedophilia is bad."
Now consider "ephebophilia." Yes, ephebophilia has a technical medical definition that is separate from pedophilia. Pedophilia is "attraction to children;" ephebophilia is "attraction to teenagers." So a ten-year old is a child and a thirteen-year old is a teen, right? Is a twelve-year old a teenager or a child? What is the functional difference between a seventeen-year old and an eighteen-year old, other than that they can't have sex with an adult (in some states)?
Therefore, there is an actual reason to have sexual consent laws. It's because of consent. And the biggest point to make here is that they are to protect children and teenagers from being abused by a higher authority. The way that any given society's power structure operates inevitably leads to adults being superior over children and teenagers, and consent laws are there to protect those people from being emotionally manipulated into having sex because of the inherent power that an adult holds over someone younger than them.
So yes, even though pedophilia and ephebophilia have two different definitions they are exactly the same thing because the exact same power structure of dominance over the younger party exists in both. The people in the SA thread are mocking tropers for pretending that they are different just for having different dictionary definitions even though they are, functionally, the same, and ephebophilia is just a word that you can find and replace in any given situation with pedophilia to get the exact same argument. There is no functional difference between ephebophilia and pedophilia at all.
Some people make the mistake of believing that TVT is a morality enforcement tool.
You're making the argument that because TVTropes does not care about morality it shouldn't care about morality, which is a dangerous path to follow because then you could argue that virtually anything, be it death threats or overt racism, can be allowed because they have no need to care about what individual users like and dislike.
Not everyone agrees on what's right, but everyone knows what's wrong. There's things you just do not do.
I'm pretty sure that philosophers have argued over the past few thousand years or so about this exact point, so stating "Everybody has an innate sense of right and wrong" as fact isn't accurate.
I still think TVTropes is a screwed up community, but the SA thread is far from the bastion of sanity I used to think it was.
It's a single thread. Seriously. There are many other, far more far-reaching things one can say about the negative parts of SA and, in fact, several have happened recently. "These users in this thread make fun of a website too much" isn't one of them.
Isn't FYAD regarded as horrible in the rest of the site? Sort of like /b/ in the rest of 4chan?
I said "the SA thread", not SA itself. I realize that in a site so big, there's probably a lot bigger problems (even if I don't know since I don't really go on very often). Actually take time to read my statement before you go on a rant about it.
^ Pretty much.
Now I'm curious.
Nohaynicklibre - Yup. There's a lot of backbiting between FYAD and the rest, but the rest are stuck with FYAD because Lowtax likes it and used to post there.
I don't understand why you're defending the whole forum when people are criticizing the thread.
Just because they argue doesn't mean they are not wrong
It's an exaggeration to say that everyone agrees on what's wrong, but the core idea that there are some acts that most people agree are wrong (Rape, murder, theft) is not exactly wrong or unfounded.
The TvT forums should care about morality. The wiki simply can't discriminate against heinous works.
Basically, saying that TvT shouldn't have a page for X work because it features something horrible is the same as saying that Wikipedia should not talk about X because it features something horrible. And that simply doesn't make sense, when the aim it's to be a catalogue of data.
The issue when this horrible thing is implicitly praised, but running away from the discussion of sex and paedophillia leads to ignorance.
> > I think this has led to paedos being seen under every bed.
> Are you comparing Cold War hysteria to the SA thread on TVT?
In terms of mentality (though not scale or impact), the two situations are somewhat similar.
> ^^ Just because it can be troped doesn't mean it should.
Give me an example of something that can be troped but should not, by your standards.
> Off topic, but how do you quote?
[ quote ] stuff [ / quote ] and take out the spaces
> Is a twelve-year old a teenager or a child?
Biological argument: This depends on whether the 12-year-old physiologically sexually mature (i.e. has passed puberty).
Simpler argument: "twelve" does not contain "teen", so no.
> Therefore, there is an actual reason to have sexual consent laws.
Mind you, no one has ever argued against age of consent laws.
> So yes, even though pedophilia and ephebophilia have two different definitions they are exactly the same thing because the exact same power structure of dominance over the younger party exists in both.
No, you're wrong. Pedophilia is sexual attraction to pre-pubescent individuals, and ephebophilia is sexual attraction to post-pubescent pre-adult individuals. NEITHER TERM says ANYTHING about any power structure of dominance, issues of consent, or the like. In fact, neither term even goes as far as specifying that that attraction is acted on onto a real-life individual of the age in question.
> You're making the argument that because TVTropes does not care about morality it shouldn't care about morality
Not quite. I'm arguing that it should be neutral on moral matters, as long as the matter cannot reasonably directly lead to negative consequences (just like the distinction between "hate speech" and "fighting words".)
Pokegirls. It can be troped, yes, but it's basically nothing except women getting raped.
Most countries where teenagers are above the age of consent have laws disallowing sex between them and authority figures they are entrusted to such as parents, guardians or teachers, which is perfectly fine and serves to protect them from the very thing you mentioned. However, you can't deny that, while pre-pubescent children are pretty much asexual and have no sexual drive, teenagers do have it and are sexually capable, not to mention that there is little to no physical difference between an older teenager and a younger adult. So, no, they are two very different things.
As for ephebophilia being a medical term, I haven't heard it being used absolutely anywhere until I read the SA thread. From what I've later learned about it is that, medically, it's one of a group of terms signifying a preference towards a certain age group, even though it appears to colloquially be used to signify any attraction to teenagers, which is how I was using it.
Isn't FYAD regarded as horrible in the rest of the site? Sort of like /b/ in the rest of 4chan?
Now I'm curious.
Lucky for you guys, these two things are related!
In the Feminism and Misogyny Megathread, starting roughly here, there is posted a front page article (this one) that satirizes the trend of being as sensitive and politically correct as possible. Many, many people in the thread misinterpreted this article as being bigoted, when in fact it is only trying to make "light" of the situation. The argument from them was that by satirizing these things it is severely hateful towards those of actual non-cisgendered alignment. The point that they seem to miss is the fact that there is a difference between making light of something to point out how stupid it is and making light of something to point how how stupid some of the people arguing for it are being; the article, with its multiple bizarre prefixes and use of as much coddling as possible, is the latter but easily mistaken for the former. This eventually spilled into a discussion of FYAD's "ironic" bigotry, and finally, finally, after all these years, FYAD was explained.
FYAD exists as a place to make fun of everybody on the Internet, and be as funny as possible. The humor is engineered to be as funny towards FYADers as possible. Many people who dislike FYAD's use of slurs (which are, themselves, used as a way to make fun of the people who actually use them in earnest) also dislike their general sense of humor and feel that many of the posters are not actually as "ironic" as they claim. It is then explained that FYAD does actually call out those that are being "ironic" to mask their actual bigotry and not to be funny. They are still arguing over it.
It's really fascinating stuff, really.
As an aside, the Reddit thread was closed and gassed. Many here might think that it's because it's a circle-jerk, but it's not. It's because it was an unfunny circlejerk. Forums user ego symphonic summed it up nicely.
I will concede that the TVTropes thread is pretty bad. But not exactly for the reason you guys think.
And finally, in related news, the Minority Perspectives thread in Games was closed and gassed for being a circlejerk, but in the sense that instead of educating those who didn't know better, the Glitterbombers and ts12s and others of that thread were condescending pricks who treated everyone they disagreed with as children instead of just explaining why they were wrong.
Well, actually, all the terms are technically for "preference", and that includes the full series of age-related terms:
Most countries where teenagers are above the age of consent have laws disallowing sex between them and authority figures they are entrusted to such as parents, guardians or teachers, which is perfectly fine and serves to protect them from the very thing you mentioned. However, you can't deny that, while pre-pubescent children are pretty much asexual and have no sexual drive, teenagers do have it and are sexually capable, not to mention that there is little to no physical difference between an older teenager and a younger adult. So, no, they are two very different things.
> Is a twelve-year old a teenager or a child?
Biological argument: This depends on whether the 12-year-old physiologically sexually mature (i.e. has passed puberty).
Simpler argument: "twelve" does not contain "teen", so no.
> Therefore, there is an actual reason to have sexual consent laws.
Mind you, no one has ever argued against age of consent laws.
You are missing the point. An age of consent law is set up to protect younger people from being abused by older people through the use of dominance and emotional manipulation, and because of the way these power structures encompass both teenagers and children, there is no difference between ephebophilia and pedophilia.
While true, I'd argue that observing it can give insight to internet media misogynism, which is a thing.
Poe's Revolving Door strikes again!
Poe's Revolving Door strikes yet again!
Did you even read my addressing precisely this point, later in my post?
I explained that the two terms are different, and their difference lies outside the scope you're talking about. The two terms are purely about sexual preferences, and say nothing about power structures, consent issues, or real-life impacts.
CountryPumpkin - I will concede that the Reddit thread could have done with less raeg and more wit. I tried, but I'm not the most naturally hilarious person on Earth.
I'm not surprised to hear ts12 acted like a condescending prick in that Games thread, since that seems to be his default mode. It's tolerable only as long as the person he's arguing with is even worse.
Also, if Pokégirls should not have a TVT work page, then should Custer's Revenge have a TVT work page? What about Lolita?
^ Some people find RAEG funny, entertaining, or at the very least gratifying.
So to put it succinctly, basing your online personality and community solely around being ironic or sarcastic is a terrible idea.
^ Well that would explain the strong aura of Poe's Revolving Door.
I think I get it now, even though I may not agree with the point (by the very same logic, we ought to ban mentally challenged people from having sex, because they might be abused by their smarter partners). Also, what Glenn said.
Custer's Revenge shouldn't, because it doesn't even have a story and you couldn't really assign tropes beyond bad jokes or pretentious rambling about the nature of American conflicts with Native Americans, but Lolita should, because it's a classic, influential piece of work, and its subject matter isn't meant to titillate.
I'm okay with works having pages, even if they deal with detestable subject matters, as long as its a classic or its influential. But many works dealing with detestable matters that have pages, like Pokegirls, are less "influential" and more "sickos living out their rape fantasies."
Actually I'm surprised Utena hasn't been cut yet. But eh.
That's a rather low scope.
That also basically says fiction can only talk about bad shit in the world if it is really old or is something that person likes.
I should clarify. Works dealing centrally with rape, child porn, snuff, and probably some other things I can't think of right now.
^ Centrally, and in support of. A book or movie about the atrocities of the Japanese in WW2 deals with the subject centrally, but not in support of.
Really, to make a sensible judgment on the subject, you have to get close to admitting that there is such a thing as Notability, to distinguish between the genuinely important works about unpleasant subjects and the screwed-up fanfiction for perverts.
I can't see FE doing that after all these years.