being gay is not worse than committing murder, but it is sometimes treated that way. it's one of the many areas in which society's priorities are very messed up, and if you live in the modern world, there's no doubt that you have, in one way or another, experienced its corruption enough times to recognize that.
from gay people being killed by family in russia, to authors of gay romance books being arrested and jailed in china, ultra-conservative and repressive governments seek to throw the lgbt community either under a rug to stay hidden from view, or under a bus, so they can pretend that oppressing a minority group makes them look righteous.
it's the same principle that drives wars on drugs or the way that satanic panic blames occultism on videogames or rock 'n roll: scapegoating whatever thing that /looks/ bad so that you can pretend this issue is no fault of /yours/ - certainly no fault of the government or the society you live in. and so, once the videogames and heavy metal music are away from your good religious kids, they won't have premarital sex or shoot up their school. because of course it was those things that drove them to dangerous behaviors and violent attitudes, and not the mental health problems caused by a parent beating them with a belt and yelling in their face like they're a dog instead of a human being, haha - just as an example.
as the world continues to lean into conservatism and censorship, we can see these views permeating the online world as well. there's certainly a thin line between a piece of fiction that represents something versus one that actively /encourages/ doing that thing in real life. we cannot pretend that line doesn't exist, and yet, increasingly, people online seem to lose sight of this fact.
there are fans of media referred to as 'shippers' who like to, basically, imagine "what if these two fictional characters kissed"? like playing with dolls, but a bit more involved - as in drawing fanart, writing fanfiction, or discussing whatever piece of media it is. these days, there's a growing presence of people inside and outside such communities who believe that certain 'ships' have the possibility of being immoral (usually through the belief that the fun being had says something personally about the fan involved or that the mere ideas being spread can encourage illegal or antisocial behaviors). whether this is true or not, i firmly believe that the behavior of those trying to police other fans is generally pretty terrible and unjustifiable when you get to the point where people are doxxing and suicide-baiting others. it doesn't matter the reason or how well-meaning the person may be because these activities are fictional while the people being harmed in such fights are /real/. the situation is a mess on both sides and fan culture is generally considered bizarre in its entirety by mainstream society, but i do believe that these judgements tend to be related in their thought process to why governments also take a liking to censorship. it's not for improved morality or a better society; that may be what it looks like on the suface, that may even be where the motivation started, but in the way that these attempts are executed, so callous and cruel, it points to a darker origin. censoring others is for social control.
when someone wants to censor something with some political intent, why is it books on happy gay couples for children to learn about? why is it books about racism and the past and how it all affects the present? why is it articles online about how maybe our country isn't all it's cracked up to be after all? someone wants to control you, make you think and act a certain way, to keep society in a certain status quo. to stop change. and the people who pay the biggest price are those at the bottom of the social ladder. if that's not you, think about what it would be like if it was, what it would feel like to have your life erased and silenced and hidden out of shame. if we claim to care about our fellow man enough to want justice, then how can we afford to look away? how can we afford to /obey/?
"tumblr" used to a hugely popular social media website in its heyday, with people of all kinds using it - being particularly well-used by the lgbt community. when the porn ban came, it became deserted, emptied-out to the point of not resembling its former glory at all. i remember when i was younger i used to see a lot of porn of all kinds on there, from creative artwork and writing to real videos. porn was joked about as being pretty commonplace on there, so it was strange (and still is to this day) to notice what is no longer there. i have heard some say that if twitter should ban porn, people are planning to leave that social media site as well. and if this keeps going on and on and on, until the entire internet is "sanitized"... where will everyone go?
you may be thinking to yourself, what's the big deal anyway? you don't need to look at porn. maybe you never look up porn, or even despise coming across it. people can live without not-safe-for-work content laying around a website they use to chat up friends, can't they? well. perhaps kids can - should. and that's a whole other issue, that children are forced to share social media with adults because they don't have their own websites catered to them or that adults don't have adult-exclusive spaces to hang out that aren't "adult" sites. i'm not against protecting children whatsoever. but when it comes at the cost of everyone else having to restrict the extent of their online lives, their sexuality, the very extent to which their imagination is allowed to wander... there's a problem.
when i was a child, i thought sex was gross. that's pretty common. i also /did/ some pretty sexual stuff to myself anyway. i think that's pretty normal too. as i grew older, i seeked out information on sex because it was still novel to me, even though these were often materials that would have been illegal for me to access at the time. so i think it's pretty safe to say that kids know about "adult stuff", especially with the entire internet at everyone's reach these days. have you ever considered how literal infants need to look at and suck on their mother's breasts to survive, but once that child grows a little bit older, it's suddenly inappropriate and sexual for them to look at breasts? it's enough to make me think some of these supposed issues have not been genuine, but are fabricated by adults looking for something to get mad about, and in the process, damaging their children. you can tell by the mere fact that me having discussed my childhood sexuality in this blog post that is literally /about obscenity/ would generally be considered questionable and unspeakable, that society tends to veer into hysteria when it comes to this topic, rather than actually being rational. protecting children from groomers and those who would abuse them is a noble and necessary goal, but i don't believe censorship of pornography actually helps that. censorship promotes ignorance. often times, children don't receive an adequate sex education in their youth and end up acting out dangerous sexual behaviors as they grow up directly because of this. this stunted education is also a product of censorship.
some also believe that criminalizing prostitution is a good thing because they believe that that line of work is usually only performed under coercion and not free will. true or not, they fail to consider how difficult criminalization makes it for sex workers to do their work safely under threat of both client and police officer, when it may be the only thing they can do to survive. there are better methods to helping people than criminalization, such as financial assistance. knowing human nature, it should be obvious to note that it is almost certainly impossible to force people to stop considering sex, having sex, creating sexual artwork or writing, and so on and so on. yet people certainly try.
i am not against real life decency, the safekeeping of young and impressionable minds, the protection of worker's rights, etc. these are all good things. but i am against the censorship of fiction and adult content. whose morality are we catering to when we are told: you aren't allowed to see that, write that, draw that, think that, imagine that? if it's your own, then that's great - but it usually isn't. i feel deeply that for the sake of those suffering in places where they are not allowed to freely create the stories that they want to hear, where they are not free to love who they love, or even to read the books that they want to read, that it is our moral obligation to stand against censorship and against tyranny and to consume that which "they" would consider to be "obscene". read banned books. look at some porn and don't feel guilt about it for once in your damn life. thirst over whatever celebrity or fictional character on social media and don't apologize about it. that, too, is a part of you. and no one should have the right to take that away from you or anyone else.
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