This will be a post about enjoying problematic media, but I will use one simple example for this post.
To get to my point, I want to show a little part of an artwork I made some months ago:
This is a bite mark on the collarbone of some original character. (The artwork is nsfw enough for tumblr to have flagged it, but in the grand scale it's rather tame.)
What you might take from this bite mark though, is that's its rather clumsily drawn and doesn't look all that good. ( the person biting must have had a deformed jaw for him to leave such a weird mark is what I am saying)
I had a lot of problems with those bite marks and had to re-do them a lot of times until I got to this point.
Why?
Because I didn't have any references.
But of course, as any person who has internet, I could have just googled some references, right?
Yes, I could have. But I didn't want to. Why?
Because I can't stand real gore.
I got no problem drawing some lines to make it resemble a bite mark, but seeing the real deal? No, thank you. I really didn't want to put myself through that just to get a more realistic bite mark for a drawing. I would have sooner bit down on my own arm than look up gore pictures.
And that's the point I want to make: Just because I don't mind seeing something in a drawing or even draw it myself, doesn't mean I want to see it in real life.
This artwork could have worked without any bite marks, but I added them to give it more excitement and more edge, and that's it. I wasn't advocating for people to bite their partners or make a statement about how biting people is actually a really good thing, and I highly doubt anyone could read that message from the drawing itself. (Which I am not showing because Tumblr)
And of course, this goes for so much more than just for bite marks, but let's just stay there to give it more perspective:
When I see a real bite mark, I know there was real pain, real blood, a real person who suffered and it makes it impossible to feel any joy about it. The moment you see a photo of a bite mark, you know there was pain involved and someone who caused said pain.
And no amount of fictional gore ever made me feel different to real life gore. And I watched gorey media since I was 11!
And who suffered for me to draw that bite mark in that artwork?
No one. I didn't suffer when drawing it, and the character I drew didn't suffer either, because he isn't real. I didn't bite him for the image, I just drew some red lines and blobs. There was no real pain involved in the making of that drawing.
Showed it some friends I knew would be into it, and that's it.
Would tumblr not have flagged it, it would be on my blog, tagged for all who don't wanna see gore drawings.*
And I've talked so much about bite marks, mainly because that is the most "problematic" thing I've drawn that I can show, but it goes for anything that is deemed problematic.
Making the content in no way means that the people who make it like it in real life, just how can't see real injuries, but have no problem drawing them/seeing them in drawings.
It's not that hard to grasp. Something that isn't real just won't have the same impact as something that is real.
*As a little PS, I am of course not saying that fictional gore/nsfw/problematic stuff can't be triggering or disturbing to some people. That's why you should tag your problematic content. But I still don't believe that seeing fictional pain will trigger the same reaction as seeing real pain. It's just not the same. And acting as if people can't differentiate from it is just insulting anyone's perception and intelligence.
This is what the fandom police just can't admit to openly: fiction and reality don't have a 1:1 overlap, what one likes in fiction does not in the least have to be the same thing they like in real life. (And many people find the things they like in rl to be quite boring to read about in fiction, so they simply don't)
@just-antithings answered an anon who said they liked the idea of kissing very much but not the real deal. I can read the most fucked up torture fics as long as the content is 95%+ fictitious. The moment the author admits that they drew inspiration from real life torture cases I get moderately uncomfortable. Everyone has stories like this to tell, and of course the fandom Frollos know and experience this reality/fiction separation as well, they just chooseto apply it only on the things they like-the unproblematic stuff- and deny it in the same breath for the stuff theydon't like -everything "problematic".
@antis-delete-your-blogs-pls-thx can probably weigh in better than me on this.
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