Apocalypse, or how to stampede over Prairie fields...
Riders
of Apocalypse started out as a parody/counterpoint to various anti-hentai
and anti-yaoi/yuri StS groups (also known as a Pure Prairie League),
who are concerned with bashing individuals of different mind and eradicating
(banning) any form of StS fanwork which doesn't fall under their 'criteria'.
To a large extent, that's what we still are - if the "anti-H" debate
is going to be had, then someone needs to argue the other side.
From this
perspective, it may look like an overreaction, as most of the Riders
now have their own StS sites where they can put whatever they please
while the above mentioned groups are almost nowhere to be heard. However,
at the moment the whole Riders idea started, there were only several
large StS sites who hosted other artists' fanwork and fanfics, but only
if they met various criterias. And that'd be perfectly fine hadn't most
of those criterias turned around "morality" and "decency" in a sense
those individuals understood those terms. To make things worse, they
came forward with a propaganda (which was at best offensive), based
on the presumption that not only do they know what they like, they as
well know what is best for everyone else - and that the material they
dislike is (and the people who do enjoy it are) somehow inherently inferior.
That being
said, it was not necessary to enjoy "H" material to make your blood
boil - you simply had to feel that those people have no business telling
you or anyone else what they 'should' be reading or looking at.
Personally,
I would not have a problem if it was, say, a campaign to force authors
of adult material to display a warning before making their content available.
In fact, I might even have supported that. I also would have no problem
with a separate listing of authors that offer no adult content and want
to say that their fanworks are free to be viewed by minors without having
to encounter any material for those older than 18 years of age. I would
have no problem with that, although I would find it overly hypocritic
when the anime itself contains adult materials. Or maybe someone is
to tell me that explicite killing, beating up to death and bathing in
your own blood isn't an adult material, while, for goodness sake, sex
is ! Regardless of how the sex is depicted, it's perverted! Depicted
sexuality is inherently perverse! So no decent, upstanding person would
ever have anything to do with it! Right?
Wrong.
Now, we
do have a sense of morality, and one of decency. We agree that no one
should be exposed to sexually explicit material against their consent.
We just fail to see where morality and decency intersect with making
images of, or stories about, sexually engaged anime characters. We always
found funny that, in the eyes of the Pure Prairie, enjoying any explicit
lemon authomatically rendered us a drooling, immoral maniacs hell-bent
on the destruction of all things good. Thus the name 'Riders of the
Apocalypse'.
As for
objectification, how is a character depicted having sex for your enjoyment
any different from a character depicted fighting crime, piloting giant
robots, or playing with a cabbit for your enjoyment? What makes sex
special here? What makes it stand out? We just don't see the problem.
It's one thing to be against sites that focus only on hentai or etchi
anime, however another to avoid the issue altogether when it is mentioned
in the story.
However,
any arguments on both sides will end up simply serving their own kind;
the people who already believe that the sex you can see is bad will
not want to go anywhere near it. Their justifications will be preset;
they will either already be familiar with the rationalizations behind
antiporn rhetoric (the children will be corrupted, the women will be
objectified, and the people so exposed to erotica will be harmed in
some ill-defined fashion that results in the generation's sexual and
violent evils) or will be so entrenched in irrational fear of sex that
they don't need that rhetoric to support their fears (upbringing, religious
doctrine, media scare tactics, urban legends -- all these things can
play a part in the subconscious association of porn and evil).
I have
thus decided to devote a small part of this Club to all the people who
belong to the other group - who do enjoy StS (or any other anime) erotic
material, so they could freely, carefreely and without that damn 'guilt'
agenda - continue to do so! It's mainly the stuff written or made by
the Riders themselves, but all the contributions are more than welcome!
In other words, if you agree with messa's above written mussings, please
please please contribute something to this Club -it can be a StS fanfic,
CG -work, a graffic-pen work, or whatever is that you have made by your
own hand, and has a thin (or even better thick ^_~) citroussy flavour!
Thanks
for reading this far, now click on the bellow advisory if you deem yourself
ready for the Apocalypse! ^_~
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