KPOP FANDOM YOU ARE KILLING ME!!!!

[lirazel]

Gah, y'all, I have been so incredibly spoiled by my flist/dashboard, by my years in Buffy fandom, by the happy little world of feminist-consciousness I've been living in fandom-wise for the past few years. Trying to figure out how to deal with a fandom that isn't even on Feminism 101 levels is hurting my heart and my brain and making me realize how grateful I am for all of you.

Warning: fairly explicit talk about rape/sexual assault below the cut. PLEASE don't click on it if it might hurt you in any way at all.



Okay, so there's this tumblr blog that's basically dedicated to the female gaze and reveling in how hot the Infinite boys can be. All good: I love that. A lot of the graphics (gifs/pictures/whatever) in the posts are accompanied by little mini-fic scenarios involving one of the guys and 'me.' Now, I mostly don't read these because I really don't care much about them--very few of them are anything like my kinks and you know how I feel about porn when it isn't accompanied by character development.

But last night aerintine messaged me and asked me if I'd seen the latest one about Myungsoo and how uncomfortable it made her and how she'd sent an anonymous message to ask for a trigger warning. So I went over there to read it and y'all: it was a rape story. There is no way around that. Myungsoo gets mad at 'me' kissing his BFF and he tears the narrator's clothes off and forces himself on her while she's saying "no" and "stop" over and over. And there was NO INDICATION in this post that something like this was coming: it was totally out of nowhere.

I was appalled.

[Brief moment aside: I realize a lot of women have rape fantasies and I have zero problem with that. Fantasize about what you want to fantasize about. But I realize it makes me profoundly uncomfortable when this particular fantasy is shared like this because...Myungsoo is a real person. I know I'm all about the whole 'rpf isn't actually about the real people it's about the characters of their public personaes that doesn't have anything to do with who they really are' thing, but apparently not when it comes to casting one of these real people as a rapist. Myungsoo is a sweet, really good boy who is easy-going 99% of the time and that remaining 1% when his anger gets to be really big he does the smart thing and he gets out of there (I really admire this, btw. He knows what his limits are and he tries to remove himself from the situation, so while I've seen him REALLY PISSED OFF, I've never seen him act in an inappropriate way in that anger. Precious baby). Of course I don't really know him, so I don't know what he's actually capable of, but I really don't think he'd be blatantly evil like that. Somehow the fact that he's a real person as opposed to a pure character makes me feel like this whole scenario was just...slandering him. I hate that. I hate him being associated with something like that (and this isn't even getting into my own personal belief that he's demi-sexual/asexual ANYWAY--I won't go there b/c it's pure speculation). Ugh. ANYWAYS.]

So aerintine and I both messaged the comm and said 'hey, that was a rape fantasy, can you please include trigger warnings'? We were both firm but polite.

To her credit, the admin apologized immediately and went back to put on a trigger warning. YAY! All would be well and good except....

Except that she talks quite a bit about how 'that wasn't her intention' and that it might be read as rape but the character enjoyed it so it really wasn't, etc., etc. Cue, again, me wanting to pull my hair out. Y'all, I can link you to the story if you want, but I hope you'll take my word for it: there was literally no other way for this story to be read. The 'Myungsoo' character has NO WAY OF KNOWING the narrator's character was 'enjoying' it (and the narrator didn't make the enjoyment very clear, either, other than a brief 'but I kind of liked it' sort of thing) since THE ONLY WORDS SPOKEN were begging to stop and saying no over and over. That is rape, at least on 'Myungsoo's' part even if the narrator secretly enjoyed it.

Plus, there's this:

I personally don’t see it as something that severe but you are right, some may. It’s just that some times saying “no” while having actual sex does not have to precisely mean the real thing. It can 1- be used as a pretext for the other person to continue, and/or 2- just a way of turning the other person on; And while I wrote, it was used in that exact content and never as an order which Myungsoo dissobeyed.

UM. NO. It's true that 'no' can be used in other ways during sex BUT ONLY IF THE PARTNERS HAVE ESTABLISHED THAT UP FRONT AND HAVE A SAFEWORD IN PLACE. Which was totally, totally not the case in this context. The fact that the admin doesn't understand that is killing me, especially since she and a lot of subsequent commenters said a whole lot of stuff about how 'it's all in different povs' and 'you didn't mean for it to be taken that way' and 'different people interpret things in different ways' and people saying that our messages were 'hatemail' and that 'if you're reading this blog you know it's about pervy stuff you should get over it.'

THERE IS NO CONSENT ESTABLISHED IT IS NOT OKAY END OF STORY.

So I wrote a long series of comments explaining that, explaining consent and safewords and things like that, accompanied by thanking the admin for apologizing and putting the trigger warning in place and reassuring that I don't think she's a bad person and that I appreciate the female gaze of the site and things like that.

I did all this on anon not because I don't want the admin to know it's me--I'd be fine with that--but because I know for a fact that if I included my url I would get hate (perhaps really extreme hate) from other people. I know that would happen because that's what tumblr fandom and kpop fandom is like. UGH.

I have very little hope that I'll change the admin's mind. It sounds pretty made up already. But the fact that so many of these young girls (most of the followers are teenage girls) agree with her just scares me. Because they have no conception of consent. None. And that terrifies me. I've been lulled into an incredibly false sense of security by the awesomeness of my flist and I forget that there are all these girls out there who are so brainwashed by rape culture that they don't even know how consent works (YES MEANS YES!!!) and oh it hurts my heart and it scares me and I just want to hug them all and make them hot chocolate and sit them down and explain consent and ownership of their bodies to them in ways they will understand but I can't do that it I hate that I can't. I hate it.

Kpop fandom has given me so much unbelievable joy--maybe (maybe) more than any other fandom I've ever been in. But it's been accompanied by all these reality checks about how awful people can be and how vulnerable young girls are and how absolutely indoctrinated they are by rape culture.

I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO, Y'ALL. I just really don't.

Comments

[emda.livejournal.com]

I think talking about this in your journal is a great start. Like you said, in everyones flist theres a lot of teenage girl that've been living vicariously through fandoms & they take what they "learn" there to their real life.
I personally dont like rape scenes even when there the role playing scene development, and when that scene is not there is a rape scene & there is no way around it. One of the biggest mistakes I've seen with fandom writers is that they assume the reader will get what they wrote hence why there is so much triggering content.
And I feel a bit of worry how easily other reader disregarded the need for a warning for triggering content. When someone writes you want & expect a reaction but not something that can be harmful to the reader.
Wow there so many things that worries me about this whole situation but I think you are at least sharing valuable information with your flist!!!

Awesome post!!!

[aerintine.livejournal.com]

I sent another Anon message this morning which the the admin responded to - and again, she was apologetic (YAY!) and humble about it (YAY!) but then trawled out the excuses again too and showed total cluelessness about the crux of the problem. BOO.

God, poor everyone. The admins, the women and girls following this blog, all of this fandom in general. POOR EVERYONE. (Poor Myungsoo. He'll never see it thank goodness, but it was hard to read, on his behalf alone. Hence the need for WARNINGS.)


This fandom brings me more joy than possibly anything else I've been involved in since I entered fandom in 2007. I don't say that lightly. The last 6-8 months have been like a dream discovering all of this WONDER and EXCITEMENT and pure, unadulterated JOY. And frankly, I only expect it to grow. There is so much goodness here, so much to love, so much that enriches my life in a number of ways big and small.


So yeah, this is a cold pail of water. And I don't know how to address this because that story and all the reactions to our messages tells me that we've hit the Kpop fandom iceberg, so to speak. Now we have to face it and deal with it. And it seems way too huge to even know where to begin. I'm paralyzed with not knowing how to handle it.

[thevignette.livejournal.com]

i think that bringing this up here is a really good thing because i've been shocked over and over again at how many girls out there have these alarming conceptions of rape and consent. it's definitely something that needs to be talked about more often. it makes me sad and incredibly frustrated when i see / hear things like it's not a big deal or it's not that serious, because it is and sometimes it's so hard to make people see that.

[laeryn.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I feel really uncomfortable with anything involving rape. I am ok with people fantasizing with it, because we all have fantasies and anyway it's one thing to fantasize about it or even make some sort of scenario with your partner who you trust and you've agreed to certains things or not, than an actual rape. I have some kinks that may not involve rape but involve some other things some people might be uncomfortable with, and I'm 100% ok with that. I'm all for sexual freedom and discovery and I think it's amazing people (especially women who've sort of hidden it a lot more through the years, because you know, female sexuality is wrong *rolls eyes*) has started to be more open about it.

BUT. It still makes me uncomfortable, which is why I always avoid like the plague anything remotely involving rape. Hell, even that episode of Buffy the vampire slayer where Spike almost forces Buffy makes me incredibly uncomfortable and I've found out that I spend half of that scene looking anywhere but at the screen. And Spike is a fictional character AND I understand where that part of the plot comes from (meaning I understand why the writers did what they did there). So imagine when it's Myungsoo (a real person that I sort of lovelovelove in that way you can only love people you don't really know at all but kind of do know in a sense) and it's in an scenario where there's not a reason for it to happen at all. I'm not against people writing it (or maybe I am? I don't know, I think I still have to figure out A LOT OF THINGS about RPF, honestly), but I am always going to ask for a trigger warning because it would've shocked me way too much. (Though I should also probably add that those 'scenarios' aren't my cup of tea, either; for some reason they don't make me comfortable. It's one thing for me to fantasize about Myungsoo in my head, which I do, but a whole different story to have some other person writing it and me reading. It's makes me feel... weird, idek).

Idk. This feels weird? I'm feeling really bad on Myungsoo's behalf because I cannot believe that Myungsoo could ever do something like that. And it looks/sounds dirty to me, to have his image and persona tainted with such an action without warning anyone who could possibly feel like me about it. Honestly, I've seen a lot of things like this done in fandom before. The Harry Potter fandom was prone to this sort of scenario, and I've personally read one fanfiction that did something like this, but it felt completely different because while it was obviously not nice, it was well done. It was about (spoiler tag in case you don't wanna read it) Bellatrix Lestrange using her wand and an object to rape Hermione Granger in the hopes of getting information about Harry out of her, and in it, Bellatrix really believes that doing such a horrible thing (even she's aware of how horrible it is in said fic) is the only way she has of breaking Hermione and make her betray Harry. Which I've always thought it was cruel and twisted but sort of clever and very in character with Bellatrix. It also helps that I know the author and I know her beliefs and principles and that was merely a piece of fiction and she knows where she stands and knew how to deal with it. This case you introduce here is the complete opposite of that and makes me feel really disgusted.

[spunspider.livejournal.com]

:( kpop fandom is a murky place, as are all fandoms, but it's based in a different culture and a different language so the rules are sortof different. i've pretty much exited stage left bc it's not fun anymore and that's partly (mostly) my psychological issues settling in, but yeah, there are some major shitshows to be had, and gender politics and sexual prejudices play a big, big part in that.

i'm glad your admin was nice and apologetic and cooperative, but i also felt really sad reading about her trying to justify the fantasy as not rape. because it is. and i've never actually backed out of reading rape as rape in a narrative, but where consent is dubious, i've sometimes justified it, and sometimes it really is difficult to categorise, but the biggest problem can be questioning your own motives, just getting to a state of consciousness of the fact of needing to do that. because when we invest our love in something we don't want the object of our love to turn out to be awful. and when it comes to rape, people backpedal fast. and it's perfectly understandable. and fucking rape culture. it's so insidious, and time will teach these girls a lot and i hope to God that it doesn't come from a bad situation. i also feel the need to squish your face for how very staunchly you do not blame them, because a lot of people are righteous assholes when it comes to ~social justice and it is actually completely counterproductive schismatic dickishness and completely against the point.

[ghostyouknow27.livejournal.com]

Well, I am coming from a fandom where RPF characters do ... a lot of bad things, which may affect my general level of surprise/shock. But if someone's writing out their rape fantasy, I don't expect established consent, because that can interfere with the fantasy? You know, the fantasy isn't based on a carefully negotiated scene with safe words, even though if someone wanted to act out their rape fantasy, that's the way it would go. On a similar note, on general memes, I see a lot of BDSM types saying that, when they read/write fic, they're not necessarily going for the realistic, negotiated, carefully constructed scene. They want the scenario that would be unacceptable/awful in real life, because the fic is constructing the fantasy, just like the real life scene constructs the fantasy. I'm not an expert on this stuff by any means, but it makes sense to me that, when people write out their kink fantasies, a lot of it won't align with acceptable behavior in real life. The author definitely should've used a content warning, but I don't think the fic necessarily needed to include established safe words, etc.

That said, her response is upsetting. It is concerning that you have young girls/women who don't understand consent and who confuse the fantasy with how things should operate in real life. It's also ridiculous to expect people to know your non-con scene was all consensual in your head or to say that your non-con scene wasn't non-con; for that, you definitely need some kind of context/set-up. But I'm guessing that you're smacking up against some language/culture differences. I don't think you can change the whole fandom, but hopefully these kids will grow up and get exposed to new ideas and learn to think differently about things, like a lot of us do. And maybe some feminist meta wouldn't hurt. :P

[kwritten.livejournal.com]

Y O U ♥

I don't even know what to do or say right now. This is really hard.

I personally never read the scenarios on that tumblr because the personal pronouns of "I" and "me" kind of squick me. I think they are cute, but I don't read them. And I typically love the admins - because they seem to be so squish-able.

But this breaks my heart. For Myungsoo and for the dialogue that happened. (Bravo to you and to J for messaging the admins and I AM SO SORRY that people are saying that it was hate mail - UGH I JUST CAN'T EVEN!)

and oh it hurts my heart and it scares me and I just want to hug them all and make them hot chocolate and sit them down and explain consent and ownership of their bodies to them in ways they will understand but I can't do that it I hate that I can't. I hate it.
oh honny - I feel the exact same way.

Kpop fandom has given me so much unbelievable joy--maybe (maybe) more than any other fandom I've ever been in. But it's been accompanied by all these reality checks about how awful people can be and how vulnerable young girls are and how absolutely indoctrinated they are by rape culture.
Maybe it was just time - maybe you needed to feel safe and comfortable and loved and proud - and now it's time to get back in the world. You have your blanket now - you have your safe space and now it's time to get back into the nitty-gritty.

Time to wade back into the sludge.

Which sucks - but I think, even though we have found a pocket of love and happiness - the world keeps going, and it's actually getting worse out there. And maybe now you are strong enough to help?

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

D: D: D: wow, that is so awkward and uncomfortable and.... okay, then.

Do you want to write some kind of meta about consent? Because if you do, I am here for you. As you know, peer-educating and consciousness-raising about consent are kind of my thing.

(P.S. IF YOU WANT TO READ FLUFFY RPF THAT'S NOT YOUR FANDOM IN WHICH ADORABLY CLUELESS BOYS NEGOTIATE KINK AND CONSENT, I CAN HELP YOU OUT WITH THAT.)

[vergoldung.livejournal.com]

Crying and crying.

We need to do something. (But, what?)

[angearia.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry this happened. :((

I ran across something triggering on my dash the other and it was so incredibly upsettting. And then I checked to see if there was even a trigger warning, which there wasn't, so I immediately unfollowed that person.

I just.... rape culture. Sometimes I slip back into selectively not noticing how gross these attitudes are, because it's emotionally draining to be hyperaware all the time. It's just so problematic and upsetting, especially when you see how unaware young women are of its influence.

[silverusagi]

It can 1- be used as a pretext for the other person to continue, and/or 2- just a way of turning the other person on

Wow. I know people actually think this, but wow.