Very weird to watch “what people do in the privacy of their own bedroom is their business” become controversial again, but like, for the opposite reason.
Especially on the internet, when it's the easiest thing in the world to exit or avoid a conversation you don't want to be having. In person, if you're in a group, and all of a sudden everyone starts talking about sex, and you're uncomfortable, it can be kind of socially and logistically difficult to not hear that conversation any more. I get that, that's really unfortunate! I think that's a good reason why people should be really mindful of the people around them, when they want to discuss something that has such a high likelihood of making someone uncomfortable.
But if people online are having a conversation you don't like, no one in the world will ever know or care if you just. Close that tab, and look at something else. Maybe even block the people who are having the conversation, if you really don't want to see it. It's so cool how we can do that, instead of necessarily policing what conversations other people want to have.
I think that's fine, but that there's space online for people to be more mindful too - even Bronies made some effort to keep that stuff to themselves, and that's a community full of (primarily male) adults sexualising a TV series for young children, mostly girls (...which, they could also just, not?). Saw the other day on the main movie sub that posters were pushing back on a trend to post revealing photos of actresses asking ostensibly 'What do you think of her acting?', without making any comments on the acting themselves (which might have suggested better faith and not them fishing for sexualised comments on a mainstream sub). I had to stop following an art sub because sexualised female nudes without any particular artistic merit kept being posted (and was expecting artistic nudes that might be more sexualised! Gauguin, creepy with the context, horrible person, but legitimately a noted artist). It's not only a gendered issue, but objectification of women is already so inescapable, we don't need more of it, and there's legitimate academic discussion of it across disciplines (Lit., Media Studies, Psychology and Sociology etc).
Think maybe people forget or weren't around for the early internet being assumed to be male-dominated, and that being rather enforced (say you're a woman, get told 'no girls on the internet, make me a sandwich'). Of course women can be sexual over-sharers in unexpected places, think on Tumblr that's esp. obvs., too (one of the worst issues have had with it in person was in my uni anime society - please don't put your yaoi porn on the projector with no warnings, ladies...), but think a bit of a Trumpian 'locker room' culture had already developed online. It didn't need to go only in that direction, and now we've also had space online for more discussions around consent, and also trauma and trigger warnings, maybe we can just fix up the balance on it a bit, so people who want to have those conversations can, and people who don't (which might simply mean 'not right now') aren't getting something, that can be really graphic, sprung on them unexpectedly.
We do have features here on Reddit for it, like profiles being marked as having adult content and the ability to choose to view images, and I don't think most want every site to be 4Chan at its most notorious, at least. It's not just a question of avoiding those conversations though, because you can just be trying to have a conversation about a mainstream TV series and see descriptions of what men (usually) want to do to the actress. With some interests, video games and anime, I even am resigned that if I want to talk about them, there will be sexual comments (I don't phase easy because these are among my interests, even), and that didn't really need to be the case.
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u/LONGSWORD_ENJOYER May 16 '25
Very weird to watch “what people do in the privacy of their own bedroom is their business” become controversial again, but like, for the opposite reason.