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Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The Problem of Fiction and Informed Consent AKA I Think Way Too Damn Much

So what made me turn my brain of with Fujiko Mine in the first place was a scene in which Fujiko, "teaches" a bunch of Catholic school girls how to have sex.

Two things ticked me off about this and both are related to informed consent. First of The Woman Called Fujiko Mine is basically a grand thesis on Sex-Positivity... and other stuff, but lets stick to Sex-Positivity.

Safe-Sex is fine as long as all parties have informed consent. That I absolutely agree with, but kids can't have informed consent, especially when adult authority figures are involved. PERIOD.  Thus my "Fujiko, the pediphile rapist!" rant".

But I went beyond that. Lesbian, transgendered  (literary) lolita fetish porn I think I called it and yep it is.

[Note: In retrospect I now get that the scene was a double metaphor for Fujiko being a lot of young girls first experience with female sensuality and how male authorial intent has played a pediphillic role in that. Took a while and a couple reviews but I got there.]

I, in general believe in sex-positivity which includes porn at least live action porn.

I'm not super stodgy about it as hypocrite thy name is Miles, but "Fujiko, the pediphile rapist"  flipped the switch in my brain. Fictional characters don't have the same sort of volition as flesh and blood people. Erotica, pin-ups, hentai, erotic painting all in some way feel exploitative, especially when they engage the male gaze, and whenever I ...dally in that stuff I feel a sense of guilt.



Damn you e e  cummings, and my inability to resist Mega City 5000.

And I projected a bit.

Still though it does posit a question. When is it okay to use the female image, female sexuality, in fiction? If what makes sex okay is informed consent and fictional characters can't consent because... fiction, fictional characters, including visual images, are by their very nature are objectified, raped.

Never is waaaaaay too black and white, and fiddles with my notions of free speech and the marketplace of ideas. Art or at least an art landscape without sex, without ... arousal feels like a lie. Yet there are still times when things are over the top, and make no mistake Fujiko Mine is over the top, over the top for a reason but still over the top, and it feels wrong.

There is the fact that people base their real life expectations of women, (also people of color, homosexuals, and the transgendered by the way) off the fiction.

I don't have an answer for that but as a guy who writes it's on my brain.

Ah screw it and relax Miles in moderation all seven, including lust are okay that's kind of the point of sex-positivity.

Guess I now have to shut up about yaoi though. Damn, and it made such a good target.


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