Myfandomrealitea - My Fandom Reality

Hello ^__^ I have a question that I'm hoping you could educate me on: I recently watched a video where a reviewer criticized a dark romance book, and kept insisting that the pairing between a male/female student/teacher couple was considered grooming despite the characters both meeting after they were adults & having a 7-year age gap (minimal imo). I understand that there were themes of power-imbalance and possessiveness that might turn readers off, and aside from this being fiction, I'm genuinely curious as to whether this would constitute as grooming in the real-life definition of the term? I'm familiar with this being used to describe CSA, but I know that antis like to warp and abuse certain words, and I just want to make sure I'm not downplaying or brushing off anyone's irl experiences. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Grooming is intentional behavior. It can be done by anyone at any age, although its most commonly (and legally) defined in regards to minors.

While there are inherent power-imbalances and differences in experience with "older age gap" relationships and, as per your example, relationships where one person is in a position of authority over the other, it entirely depends on how the relationship is treated and how the person with the most power treats the person with the least.

Realistically; nobody can control when or with whom they fall in love. Its something that simply happens. However, within the relationship there are easy ways to identify points of concern that turn the relationship into an unhealthy or imbalanced one.

For example: (Assuming the teacher is the male.)

Does he wield his authority over her inappropriately? Does he use it to gain dominance over situations or choices?

Does he use his age, experience, position, ect to benefit from the relationship or choices within the relationship, against her will or to her detriment?

Did he actively pursue her with reasonings relative to her lack of authority against him, the vulnerability or convenience of her being his student, ect?

Is he controlling, manipulative, pushy, overly possessive/jealous, emotionally abusive, ect?

Does he deliberately mislead her or manipulate her with positive emotions, acts and thoughts?

Such behaviors are what constitute as grooming and are what make a relationship between two mature, aware, consenting adults unhealthy and inappropriate.

That said, its a dark romance book. Anyone complaining or criticizing a dark romance book for whatever topics or depictions it may contain are buffoons.

https://www.tumblr.com/myfandomrealitea/751296525323370496?source=share Screaming from the rooftops "WANTING THINGS IN THE PROPER AREAS IS NOT CENSORSHIP"

i watched someone pretend to be an anti to fit in while being pro ship on twitter. when the antis found out, it did NOT go well. the slight difference is this person mostly deserved it, they used to harass me for a ship we both liked (but they were above it now right? lol), and routinely parroted anti views (telling people to die, etc) and harassed people for being pro ship on tumblr. when the antis found their twitter and all the "gross" ships they consumed they ate that person alive, basically.

I've seen people getting outed for being incognito in opposing spaces multiple times and I can honestly say not a single one has ever ended well.

At absolute minimum its been a witch hunt of harassment. At absolute worse I have seen people descend into self-harm and panic attacks and losing their jobs.

ITS. NOT. WORTH. IT.

I always want to wholeheartedly agree with the "create what you want, just label it" argument. I really want to. Right up until people defend unexamined bigotry. For example, I once ran into a story where Martha Jones was actually about to fail out of medical school when she met The Doctor, because she was "incapable" of learning human anatomy and medicine, and despite "bribing her teachers". I wrote in my journal that I thought the story was racist, in a public post, and people scolded me for being censorious and not letting people "have fun". (This was back when LJ was viable.) I have a pile of other experiences like that. I would never agree with the antis that Someone (aka them) should prevent people from writing whatever, but I feel like to completely agree with "create what you want, no limits, nothing matters but creating," I have to agree that a fan of color has no right to be hurt by a story that turns an intelligent Black woman into a cheat and an idiot, even in that fan's own space. What do you think?

You have every right to feel offended or hurt by a story. But your hurt and offense does not negate someone else's ability to create. Nor does it dictate that you can tell them what they can and cannot create.

How do you know the author wasn't a person of color themselves? How do you know they weren't writing the story based on their own emotions, difficulties or experiences? Is painting a person of color as 'unintelligent' a common theme in their works or was it just the plot device of this specific story? If Martha Jones was Asian or Indian or Caucasian, would you have still been offended on her behalf that an intelligent woman/intelligent woman of color was being turned into 'an idiot'?

These are questions we have to ask ourselves when trying to determine if a work was genuinely created with the intent of being harmful. Because individually not liking or being hurt by the content's of a story is not a good enough reason to advocate against it.

The 911 fandom, for example, saw a lot of it with Eddie Diaz. People were so entrenched in fandom virtue signalling that pretty much any depiction of Eddie Diaz in fanfiction was getting bitched about as 'out of character' or 'racist' including works written by actual people of color. It got to the point where for quite a while fanfiction production within the 911 fandom dropped way down because people were too annoyed with or upset by the constant accusations no matter what was being written.

And I know it probably sounds like I'm just smokescreening for racism or excusing it. but I can promise you, I've blocked and reported authors and fandom creators before for being blatantly racist in their content. But fanfiction and literature become trickier because the purpose of stories is not to be palatable or feel-good. Stories do not have to be pleasant. Fanfiction does not have to conform to the source material.

Describing someone as "incapable" is typically a turn of phrase and has nothing to do with trying to allocate unintelligence to a specific type of person. Plenty of people would be classed as "incapable" of learning medicine because its a hard fucking thing to learn. You need to dedicate more or less five-ten years of your life to studying it before you even really get anywhere with actually practising it.

If you're someone who's easily distracted or has trouble remembering things and vice versa, you're unlikely to go into a career field that especially demands these things of you.

I imagine in any case her failing out of medical school was likely the plot point that leads her to going off with The Doctor. Which is a simple narrative and not a case of "unexamined bigotry." Its just as likely that if the author had had Martha Jones simply give up her aspirations and career to follow The Doctor, someone else would've been offended by the trope of a (black) woman giving up everything for a (white) man and deemed the story sexist or racist. Possibly both.

When analysing literature you have to be critical of if something is offending you personally or if it was intended to offend people of color as a whole. If the answer is only the former, then its a situation where you just have to recognise the work is not for you and move along.

is it normal to feel guilty for being proship? like i know its honestly not that big of a deal but i suppose ive just been listening to antis too hard and now i feel like im broken for believing in what i believe in. they keep talking about how being an anti is normal and if i disagree then im weird. am i overreacting :sob:

Being an anti is not any more normal than being a proshipper and as a proshipper the sole reason you feel guilty is because of the pressure and harassment antis direct at you, which is their goal.

Be unapologetically proship. If they are entitled to their beliefs and are unapologetic in their misguidance, then you are entitled to the same claim to normalcy.