It’s incredibly foolish to disregard the dialectical relationship that exists between any materially existing entity/process and its fictionalised depictions; this includes even the most difficult and sensitive of topics like sexual violence and abuse. To say that the fictional depictions, whether actual published media or various informal play scenarios, have nothing to do with the real thing is absurd. They are obviously drawn from the image and ideas around it, and in turn can have varying forms of influence on how people conceptualise and respond to such things in reality. But at the same time the real and fictional are ultimately still separate and so it’s equally absurd to talk about them as though they are one in the same
Like you can’t take for granted that a piece of media depicting something automatically endorses it, or even that any “endorsement” exists in a context where it’s materially meaningful. You can’t take for granted that someone engaging in a sort of roleplay reflects any interest repeating those actions or affirming those values in real life; half the time the sense of moral transgression and personal aversion is part of the appeal. If you think that a fictional representation of a problem in any way exacerbates that issue in reality then you need to put in the work to demonstrate an actual throughline, a specific relationship between the material and ideal.
It’s also very important to be aware of the limits; a discrete piece of fiction may reflect and in some limited ways reinforce social values but it’s never going to “normalise” these values any more than the material structures that created them in the first place. A larger aggregate of media can have a larger effect, but only within the limits of the prevailing material conditions. While a causative relationship can’t always be ruled out entirely, it’s usually more constructive to view fiction through the lens of reflecting widely extant values rather than as bringing them into existence. The role of the ideal shouldn’t be ignored but it shouldn’t be irrationally inflated either, no matter how socially rewarding or emotionally satisfying indulging in that irrationality may be.
Of course, it’s not as though all the people making misguided criticisms are doing so in good faith. There’s clear inconsistencies and blindspots where certain subjects are treated with a lot more scrutiny than others. While this can be understandable considering the highly sensitive and traumatic nature of what is being discussed, this certainly doesn’t make it justified especially when this inconsistent scrutiny is rhetorically weaponised to harass others.
Even limited ourselves to “fetishisation” and ignoring all the other ways fiction can reflect reality in upsetting and reactionary ways, there’s plenty of fetishes which exist in the context of horrific abuse that are allowed to be discussed and presented with relatively little pushback. Now sometimes the sexualised fantasy is kept very distant from the grim reality. The figure of the “French Maid” in her black frilly dress is so far removed from the reality of contemporary domestic work that many people forget the position of “maid” still exists. But the fact of the matter is we live in a where countless domestic workers, largely impoverished women from the Imperial periphery, face horrific sexual abuse at the hands of their employers. Now obviously the material and ideal distance between the maids of Fantasy and Reality does greatly limit their relationship. I’m not advocating for stronger interrogation here; clearly a girlthing calling its girlfriend “my lady” has very little to do with the abuse of women under Imperialism. But the fact that it’s hardly ever interrogated at all does demonstrate how panic over “problematic fetishes” have very little do with actually understanding systems of abuse and how they relate to media and kink
And this inconsistency becomes even more glaring when the genuine abuse has a much clearer influence on its fictional representation. Like handcuffs in bed are such a widespread form of kink that even very mainstream media will casually mention it as a joke. Completely uncontroversial and yet deeply emblematic of police violence; a relatively common and frequently very vicious form of abuse that often takes sexual forms. Even forms of child abuse aren’t safe from being turned into relatively “safe” forms of sexual expression; think about how common “spanking” in bed is and then think of the other primary context where spanking is involved.
Like the “sexualisation”, “fetishisation” and (by the standards this term is typically used) “normalisation” of abuse is everywhere if you look for it and yet many people will accept some forms of fictionalised abuse as harmless fun and others as dangerous degeneracy not based on any principled analysis but simply from thoughtless disgust. You can’t just condemn something or someone because of their mere proximity to an abuse, regardless of how vicious and vile that abuse may be in reality. You have to actually understand what you’re critiquing and how it related to reality; otherwise your criticism won’t be anything better than puerile reaction
like we really hate to hear this - but power is in every human relationship. unless you are the exact same as your partner in age, class, race, ethnicity, religion, language, nationality, citizenship status, gender, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, salary, education, etc, you have to negotiate the problems material power differentials pose to love, to treating others well. the response to this seems to have been to make certain points of difference - like age - load-bearing, in a way that erases others - class would be my example: far bigger a power disparity than, say, a ten year gap in age between adults is class and inheritable wealth, but you almost never see that acknowledged in the same way. and even if you were at parity in all those areas (gay twincest sweep??) there is still the emotional power that someone’s love and desire for you gives you over them. you can’t get rid of it. you cannot find the perfect relationship where it doesn’t exist by steadily winnowing down your “ethical” options via widening designations of “problematic relationships.” you have to confront the power you have over other people and think how you will wield it most lightly. sorry!
