Not done yet, apparently

[rivkat]

Thoughts inspired by cryptoxin's post, among others: No doubt where you stand on Recent LJ Events depends in part on where you sit. Here's where I sit: I don't consider myself a member of HP fandom, but my primary fandom for the last few years has been Smallville.

Here are some pictures of people the narrative told us were 15:

That's the poster advertising the show, plastered everywhere in public in mid-2001. Then there's the episode "Nicodemus":



So we're supposed to desire them -- bluntly, we're supposed to fantasize about fucking them -- but we're not supposted to say that. And we're not supposed to share our fantasies, because that would be sick. Contradictory and hypocritical are words you could use about mainstream depictions of adolescent sexuality -- which is not to accuse anyone in this debate, but to point out that the American social context is, at best, confusing. And to say that I'm basically with coffeeandink; one of the things I want from fandom as a community of women is the ability to say, "hey, that emperor [or in this case, kid] isn't wearing any clothes!"

NYU law professor Amy Adler wrote a very interesting piece, The Perverse Law of Child Pornography, available here, arguing that our cultural and legal discourses about child porn contribute to the further sexualization of children. I recommend it to those interested in the theoretical side of all this.

Comments

[beckaandzac.livejournal.com]

This is a really excellent point, really well made. I've been rewatching s1 of SV, and you've summed up a lot of my loose thoughts here. I was watching "Drone" yesterday, where Lana makes a comment about the need "to institute topless waitressing" if business at the Talon doesn't pick up. Obviously the viewer is expected to feel a surge of sympathetic lust with Clark when Lana says that. It's explicit in the text of the show, and raising the possibility that fan-discussion of that same lust is child porn is just headache-inducing. American culture is ridiculously hypocritical on this point. I'm looking forward to reading the Adler article.

(I've been lurking around SV fandom for several months, and I've read a bunch of your fic, which is fantastic.)

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Thank you!