Scans_Daily

I realise my two cents are unlikely to mean much to regulars here, when I've only ever occasionally commented and even more rarely posted to this comm, despite lurking around here for years. I also realise a mod has already apologised for the wording in the statement that there are "plenty of spaces on the web where people can have fun with their casual racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, etc, while discussing their favourite comics". However, I feel the need to raise some further objections to this statement on a couple of specific grounds.

When I first discovered scans_daily as a total western comics noob back in 2004, there were two things which particularly attracted me to it. The first was the format. Between the lengthy archives and the high front-page activity s_d was a great way of staying relatively up-to-date with the big events happening at the big two companies (without buying every single issue of every big crossover or pouring over detailed reviews), to get a sense of the backstory behind a particular character or title (without having to track down hundreds of back issues), and to pick up recommendations for lesser known titles that you might otherwise never hear of. The many different posters and mix of squeeful, critical and LOLWTF examples ensured you heard plenty of different viewpoints. I own a couple of boxes worth of comics I never would have looked at twice if I hadn't heard about them here.

The second major attraction was, as the mods point out, that scans_daily has always been heavily feminist and openly slash-friendly. I think it goes without saying, however, that the way the moderators see the feminist credentials of the community has changed a lot in recent years.

The example which stayed with me was a case when a poster asking where the 'surprise buttsex' tag had gone was bluntly told that that term endorsed rape and was unacceptable - despite the joke having once been popular in the old s_d. Actually I think I first ran into the "it's not rape, it's surprise sex!" meme back in 2004 when I first got to s_d. As I understood it, it was a joke that had arisen out of yaoi doujinshi circles, where rape is a (almost ubiquitously) popular kink. There's a lot of interesting factors worth discussing over on that side of fandom, including a convincing argument that creating those doujinshi is itself a feminist act, given that Japan is really not nearly so friendly to alternative sexualities as a sampling of popular fiction might lead some fans to believe, and still has massive problems with women's rights and female sexuality. (A particular quote in an article where a doujinshi artist talked about BL as "the only way we can write a relationship between equals" has stayed with me ever since.) There's also a whole perspective on the role of rape in traditional Japanese romantic narratives and the way that shapes attitudes to this day - not entirely different from the bodice rippers of harlequin romance novels but not exactly the same either, and really there's a whole other essay topic. At the end of the day though, you can either dedicate yourself to writing that essay, or you can just sit back and say, "it's fictional, it's a common kink that does no harm, and I'm helping no-one by shaming people who enjoy it". Or, as the joke goes, "it's not rape, it's surprise sex!", because if you can't joke about something as socially convoluted yet ultimately harmless as young women enjoying weird porn, what else can you do? Yes, that sort of comment can sound problematic taken out of context, but really, what can't? Context matters.

To me, that spirit was what made the community. Maybe we couldn't change the what the media tells us we should find sexy, or the sausage-fest that is western comics, but by god we could subvert the hell out of every shred of subtext we could find, laugh at it, bond over it, and create a space where all that bullshit didn't matter so much. Let's be realistic, this is the past seen through rose-tinted glasses. The old s_d also had its vicious flame wars and genuine unpleasantness, but I'd still give it the edge over the new one.

These days, it seems the approach is to take anything as potentially problematic as the word 'lame' deadly seriously. There are certainly people out there, rape survivors included, who'd be uncomfortable with casual jokes about 'surprise buttsex', and that's nothing they should have to apologise for. However, there are also people who use humour as a coping mechanism, and who feel far more victimised by the implication they have to be 'protected' from a harmless joke in a supportive context than they would by the reverse. In the real world, people's needs and comfort zones conflict all over the places in ways like that. It's just not possible to create a perfectly safe space for everyone, and frankly, I'd side-eye anyone who tried to tell me otherwise.

Obviously, communities are made of people, and people will come and go, and change their attitudes with time. If the current moderators and remaining membership want to define the rules as they now read, then that is certainly their right; the onus is on me to move on if this doesn't suit me. But please do not suggest that alternatives are easily found. In all my years in fandom I have not found any comparable community, either in content or in spirit, on LJ/DW or anywhere else (though I would only be too happy to be proven wrong if anyone can recommend an alternative).

The mods have clearly put serious time and thought into how to create an inclusive community, and into this post, and yet still felt confident in dismissing anyone who felt less than comfortable under the current ethos as a bigot and oppressor. I don't think anything in any unfortunately worded comment I've seen here before has ever made me feel so unwelcome as that.

So as I said above, I guess I'm far from being the kind of member the mods want around here these days anyway, but I hope something in all this rambling might provide useful food for thought.