From @rbbrpigmen: fully concur. For my part, I’ve been more cautious of what sort of stuff gets shared. Fortunately I’m not as hot with the tumblr so much these days, but can find myself going to the original tumblr of something and notice posts that cross lines into dodgy ideology and anything political. There may be one or two posts that edge towards that, but ultimately the idea of these tumblrs are to get your rocks off in imaginative ways and hope everyone’s cool enough to enjoy.

I think it’s becoming increasingly difficult to try and parse out who is being ironically edgy with this sort of thing and just erotically shitposting, and who is being earnest with it in a way that is actively harmful. In the end, I don’t think the two of them have that much of a difference in terms of outcome or appearance–you can think you’re just having a taboo laugh reblogging the 14 words or whatever, but it looks exactly the same as someone reblogging it because they actually believe it–and irony is a very weak shield, in my opinion. 

We’re all only responsible for what we post. We can’t control the content of others on here, or any other site like this. All we have is our own lines, our own judgement, and we’ll each have to bear whatever consequences come out of those choices.

From @yearofthepiglet: I think this post is thoughtful, and I appreciate ot! Regarding the previous comment, in erotic context, there’s no purely visual cue to separate a racist/nationalist/naxi skinhead from a purely gay fetish-type skinhead. Eroticizing the latter often looks/feels like eroticizing the former. A PoC or Jewish person reading stories about skinheads could easily believe fetishists were becoming even more unwelcoming to them by fetishizing the people who brutalize them.

I think, visually, this is spot on, but I have a bit more latitude in written erotica to draw out these sort of distinctions. I also think that PoC and Jewish folk (speaking as someone who comes from a Jewish family) can make their own determinations about what excites them sexually–which might have nothing to do with what they want to experience in real life. People are…complex, and oppression is complicated, and sexual desire is murky, confusing, and impossible to rationalize. What you feel just is what you feel–these answers today are just my attempt to communicate how I am feeling now, at this moment, about what I (don’t) want to write and why.

Mostly, I think it’s important to distinguish between sexually fantasizing about fascist behavior and relationships (which I think is, generally, outside of ethics, because I don’t think we’re really capable of controlling these sort of feelings) and actually belonging to an authentic fascist group (which is most certainly not, ever, ok). Fantasy is…complicated. Sexual desire is complicated. The joy of BDSM as a sexual politics is that it provides a framework where these sorts of complex desires can be mediated between people in a safe environment and with consent. In the same way, fiction and erotica can be a way for people to explore these desires in safe contexts. But these same frameworks can be hijacked and used to excuse behavior and beliefs which are damaging, hurtful, and dangerous to not only others, but to our own communities as well.

I generally want to believe the best of people, but realistically speaking, gay men aren’t immune to the pull of white supremacy as an ideology, and I have no real interest in enabling that, or fueling it. I think, at this point in politics, it’s more important to be careful about what we say, and how we appear, and take stock of what we are enabling, and who we are valuing, in our communities, and why.

From @mynewme88blog:   I thought gay skinhead where the a bigger fetish thing no need to put put poletics into any thign and why not make a erotic horror tranfomation

It’s impossible to just remove politics from something. The choice to attempt to divorce something from politics is a political choice itself–a choice to ignore the implications and context of what your doing, because otherwise, it might make you, or others, uncomfortable. The idea becomes all the more laughable when you suggest removing politics from a cultural fetish which is coded throughout with political history, symbolism, and meaning. 

That said, if it doesn’t bother you, it doesn’t bother you–that’s fine! I’m not here to pass judgement on it, just that, over time, it has come to really, really bother me, in a very visceral way. I don’t enjoy looking at gay guys playing dress up as authentic fascists. I don’t know, personally, how to really write stories that navigate a space with that kind of content anymore. The few things I have written along those themes before just kind of make me feel sick now, honestly. 

It just isn’t what I want to write. If that’s what you want to read, there are plenty of other writers here on tumblr to fill in the gap for you.

I fell pretty neutral on bodybuilders as a general concept, and skinheads are–well, they’re a bit difficult to read and write at the moment, honestly, with rising tides of fascism. Not all skinheads are fascists and nazis, obviously, but it becomes a bit difficult to see where one ends and the other begins with some folks on here, and that makes me hesitant to utilize them. But I cross lines in my stories all the time, of course–that’s why I consider them, primarily, horror fiction before I really think of them as erotica. But it’s…exhausting, honestly, trying to find all the boundaries (both my personal ones, and larger social ones) between irony, fantasy, authenticity, the taboo, and the fetishization of forces that want to kill us at the end of the day, is such a painful task, and one that can hurt me, and others, if done wrong.

Because I don’t want these stories to hurt people. Make them horny? Of course. Make uncomfortable? Sure. Scare and terrify? Sure. But hurt and injure? Not what I’m aiming for, and so I’m going to avoid those things that I don’t feel like I have a good enough grip on to walk that line.

I struggle with other areas too–redneck and rural stereotypes, for instance, are becoming difficult for me to deal with in some ways. I don’t know if I can go so far as to say it’s “bad” to write this or that, because I’m pretty sure that, at the end of the day, most of what I write is “bad”, but for me, it’s also necessary to write it, for reasons that I can certainly rationalize, but which don’t lie within the realm of rational thought (if that makes sense). I can only write what I know, and what I enjoy–and at the moment, there’s a growing list of things I just don’t enjoy writing anymore, because I kind of makes me feel a bit sick. Skinheads are at the border of that. Racial change is definitely in that category. I can’t pretend those are universal “No’s” for everyone, just for me, personally.

Will I make stories about them again? Probably. I’ll certainly write something about it for someone’s commission, I just might not publish it.

I have, on occasion, used pics from people I know in stories, either by accident (before I became friends with them) or after, either as the very occasional gift, or commission. I’m hesitant to share the reference stories though, without their permission, because most of them weren’t advertised as them. That said, if we’re in the same networks, you might recognize a few folks in photo captions here, or over on my now defunct side blog, @brackenousjunk. 

There is, also, one picture of me on this blog, in a rather compromising situation, taken by a good friend of mine, also on tumblr. Consider it an easter egg, if you know me well, and know what I like irl, you can probably guess.

Well first of all, congratulations!

And second of all, I could certainly do that, if you’re interested. Maybe it could even come true, lol.

I’m pretty sure this one was related to Remembrances, either Episode 1 or 2–so thanks! It has been a fun one to work on, and there *should* be one more episode coming at some point to round out the ending.