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Sexual fantasies are, for many, many people, inherently transgressive. That's how the human psyche works: it takes the shit you're afraid of, the shit that hurts you, the shit you're ashamed of wanting, and it mixes it all up into a high octane bonerade.
People watch actors pretend to get murdered in horror films because it's a safe, cathartic way to experience something that terrifies us. Many women fantasize or act out rape fantasies because they dont feel like they can safely disinhibit without being called a whore.
As a survivor of sexual violence, it galls me when people act like I need to apologize for drawing heavily TW'd, *extremely divorced from reality* non-con of fake people I made up. Dont get mad if you refuse to read my warnings.
There is so much light, fluffy, feel good erotica out there. If that's the stuff you want to jerk it to, it is there for you.
My work is for adults who can tell the difference between reality and fantasy. I draw what turns me on, what helps me reclaim a tiny bit of the power that's been taken from me. I'm not going to apologize for that, ever.
Read my terrible, corrupting, problematic pornography for just $1, you filthy degenerates http://patreon.com/celineloup
You, paying to watch aliens destroy Manhattan in The Avengers: everyone involved in making this movie, as well as everyone else in this theater, is glad 9/11 happened.
In 1973, according to Nancy Friday, nobody wanted to admit that women had ANY sexual fantasies. The subject would come up and men would look at their wives and girlfriends and claim, "my girl doesn't have any fantasies!" And the women would go quiet.
Nancy Friday asked women to send her their fantasies anonymously to her, and she compiled them into a book. People were horrified. It turns out women, their lives lived in a perpetual state of preyhood, think about a lot of deeply uncomfortable shit when they masturbate.
I'm talking about women who survived the holocaust fantasizing about Nazis. It seems shocking and perverse until you realize that the fantasy transforms something utterly terrifying into something safely controlled and pleasurable within the confines of a fantasy.
I'm sure those women lived with crippling shame, and I think that's a tragedy. Our dumb animal brains dont care if a fantasy is offensive, it just wants to feel safe and in control.
Nancy Friday's book "My Secret Garden" changed the way people thought about women's sexuality. It seems like a sad regression if we were more accepting about it in fucking 1973 than we are in 2018. https://www.amazon.com/My-Secret-Garden-Nancy-Friday/dp/1416567011
What's particularly interesting to me is that women have been building safe spaces in fandom to explore their transgressive fantasies since Star Trek aired in the 60s. Have you read those early works of fanfiction? It was kinky as hell.
It's only very recently that theres been a backlash within certain fandom communities about "problematic content", as if these are real people being hurt, or as if fanfiction has a moral responsibility to model healthy sexual behaviors (it doesnt).
I think that prudishness has spilled out into a general culture that is at odds with itself. Men go on making shitty, problematic art for mass consumption and we take our valid anger about that and turn it into a microscope to scrutinize marginalized erotica creators with
JSYK, the scary thing straight men are trying to control most often in their fantasies is women's ability to reject them. That's not exactly transgressive; our entire culture for thousands of years is designed to protect men from that pain.
Straight men don't make very good pornography for this reason (or, often, art of any kind)
Alright, you've been very loud, and I need some rest. Muting notifications for this thread.
Good morning! If you liked this thread, I wrote another one about setting boundaries in hetero relationships here: https://twitter.com/celineorelse/status/989172774882152448?s=19
This one is also very good: https://twitter.com/celineorelse/status/994620172391591936?s=19
A lot of you were with me until I said men make a lot of bad art, lmfao. Ok. I'm nursing my sick husband right now so I don't have time to make another 50 tweet thread to educate you about art history, social justice, and the politics of the male gaze, so...
Instead of having a knee jerk reaction, first read this thread: https://twitter.com/celineorelse/status/1058984113502326784
Then, watch this fantastic documentary by John Berger called "Ways of Seeing" to catch you up on all the context you need (that my followers already knew when I made this thread initially).
My stance is that men can make whatever art they want, *provided that it is honestly labeled and shown in the correct context*, and that if they DON'T do this, they listen to criticism about it and respect people's feelings.
Number one, I think y'all don't fully appreciate how much of men's art is uhhhhh dishonestly labeled.
If you've watched the John Berger documentary you might begin to understand the scale of this problem, but for good measure lets take a look at a thread of some contemporary men's art I've seen just in my day to day life, without warning: https://twitter.com/celineorelse/status/771346255079415808
Hopefully by now you're taking a look at the way women are depicted in the media you consume in your daily life. Men, being the overwhelming majority of film directors and ad execs, get to shape the way we look at women in media.
Much has been written and said about the consequences of this imbalance of power:
Men are so invested in a sexual fantasy of female subordination that we don't even see it as a fantasy anymore; it has defined women's place so completely that most children go from cradle to grave accepting it as normal---at least in the media they consume.
So, yes, the vast majority of men's erotic art is mislabeled. And my condition is that if it's mislabeled, we have to talk about it. We have to point out the parts that are pure fantasy. We have to point out the misogyny, if the men who created it won't.
Which brings me to point Number Two: Men typically do not like this. Do I really have to say it? Do I really have to sit you down, hold your hand, and explain to you all the ways in which Men Do Not Like Being Told Their Work Is Actually Just A Horny Sexist Fantasy?
I refuse to believe you really need me to tell you. You know already. But if you really want to have this conversation, I'm going to need you to read Dr. Kate Manne's book, "Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny". https://www.amazon.com/Down-Girl-Misogyny-Kate-Manne/dp/0190933208/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&ref_=tmm_pap_title_0&sr=
Alright. If you still think I'm being an asshole, at this point, that's fine. Nothing I say here actually threatens men's ability to make whatever art they want to make. Instead of wasting my time arguing with me about this, go to a museum. Support your favorite artists. Grow up.
Here's a comic I made some years ago for the AV Club about men's fantasies and how they shape the world: http://celineloup.com/comics/you-should-know-where-you-come-from/
This thread is making the rounds again (hi new followers and patrons!) because this happened: https://twitter.com/celineorelse/status/1097832703779586050
And I refer to this thread A LOT because one of the main things men do when they see a woman complain about comics like these is they write us off as sex-hating prudes, which couldn't be further from the truth in my case, but it's a convenient strawman. https://twitter.com/celineorelse/status/1097847719765463040
When I say men have made a lot of bad art, I am talking about their inability to empathize with The Other (in this case, women) and the way they see the world through the lens of their fears and sexual fantasies. https://twitter.com/celineorelse/status/1097857846891429888
I talk a lot in this thread about how I don't accept un-labeled pornography in fine art, advertising, or media for adults---but I will ESPECIALLY call out stories for children that present sexual assault as a harmless, funny thing cool men do to women https://twitter.com/celineorelse/status/1096475580600594433
Men have been harassing me for days because I think a classic comic they loved as children sucks. Men who I would bet on any other day would call themselves champions of free speech lol.
This comic ran for 169 volumes, was adapted into several animated shows that ran on Japanese and French kid's networks, and even got made into a movie starring Jackie Chan. It was HUGE. They're STILL making movies about it.
And the truth is, it raised a generation of men to not take women seriously. I know because these same men are in my mentions making excuses for why grabbing women's breasts or rubbing your boner against them is, y'know, funny, and why aren't I laughing?
At no point can they even begin to imagine what its like to experience that for real, or what it's like to tell someone you trust about it happening to you and then be told you're either lying or need to "lighten up" (or else you might be fired or not welcome in certain spaces)
It also taught a generation of men and women that beyond maybe a slap or a light scolding, or if you have a giant cartoon mallet handy, any reaction to being bullied like this is over the top and makes women look like insane, ball busting bitches. How TERRIFYING is that?
City Hunter isn't isolated by any means. It was a product of its time, and many other classic mangas like Lupin III or Maison Ikkoku feature lecherous men that the female characters must simply tolerate. Rumiko Takahashi accepted the reality men had designed to their advantage.
But I think because the protagonist of City Hunter is portrayed as this hypercool gunslinger desperate, frightened women turn to when they have NO OTHER OPTIONS for help, it's especially shitty to also make him an infantile creep.
This thread also thankfully features male artists my age, some of them fathers of young boys, who can look back on the stories they loved as children and not feel threatened when they realize how much toxicity they didn't notice (because they were kids!!!!)
They're wonderful people, and more relevant to this thread, I think they're great artists in no small part because they were able to grow and have empathy for others. I treasure that, and I know lots of men are and can be like them.
Here we fucking go again! https://twitter.com/celineorelse/status/1137834817926643716?s=19
