Post by Amee on Oct 23, 2019 11:09:04 GMT -5
Sorry for the confusion blindLeap I know it sounds a bit contradictory the way I wrote it (and maybe it is, haha).
I'll try to explain it more clearly:
I think a preference in attraction is
(a) something very personal. Everyone has them and I think it's perfectly fine and normal for people to keep some of them to themselves and share them only with close friends or intimate partners (or no one at all, if they prefer). I don't think it's something that generally needs to be advertised - although it's obviously fine to talk about it
(b) not something that intrinsically and in itself impacts our daily lives in society. This is where, for example, it differs hugely from PWDs. It's important that people/society are aware of PWDs and their needs, because accessibility is necessary for PWDs to partake fully in society. Visibility and positive representation is also necessary, so people learn not to act like weird idiots in interactions with and make ridiculous assumptions about PWDs.
For these two reasons, I don't think dev visibility in the sense of "advertising its existence" in broader society is necessary. Sure, for a young dev first realizing their attraction, being able to find something on the Internet like PD is great! And I think it's absolutely fantastic that PD exists!
But I don't really mind, if the vast majority of people don't know about it. I think for broader society, as propheticstature said, just normalizing the sexuality of PWDs would be fine and help devs to feel less weird, too!
That was my starting point And then comes the big BUT:
Drawing from my own experience here: I think what really sent me into a deep abyss of guilt, shame and feeling like a freak wasn't so much the realization that I had a rare and unusual attraction, but all the negativity I found about it.
So, because that negativity exists and because people who do know about devs (PWDs mostly) unfortunately usually know of them from negative examples, I concluded that positive representation is important after all. Just to counteract the negativity. So it's probably sensible to target it at those specific groups, like writing comments to negative articles or offering an alternative view, where a negative view is stated. A couple more books out there representing the dev experience positively would also be helpful, just because you could point the misinformed, prejudiced people to them.
But I don't think we need mass-market Hollywood movies about devs Which is something I do think we need more of with PWDs. Preferably hot PWDs doing cool shit (and not tragic people wanting to die). Solely in the name of social change, of course! Not for my own personal enjoyment.
I'll try to explain it more clearly:
I think a preference in attraction is
(a) something very personal. Everyone has them and I think it's perfectly fine and normal for people to keep some of them to themselves and share them only with close friends or intimate partners (or no one at all, if they prefer). I don't think it's something that generally needs to be advertised - although it's obviously fine to talk about it
(b) not something that intrinsically and in itself impacts our daily lives in society. This is where, for example, it differs hugely from PWDs. It's important that people/society are aware of PWDs and their needs, because accessibility is necessary for PWDs to partake fully in society. Visibility and positive representation is also necessary, so people learn not to act like weird idiots in interactions with and make ridiculous assumptions about PWDs.
For these two reasons, I don't think dev visibility in the sense of "advertising its existence" in broader society is necessary. Sure, for a young dev first realizing their attraction, being able to find something on the Internet like PD is great! And I think it's absolutely fantastic that PD exists!
But I don't really mind, if the vast majority of people don't know about it. I think for broader society, as propheticstature said, just normalizing the sexuality of PWDs would be fine and help devs to feel less weird, too!
That was my starting point And then comes the big BUT:
Drawing from my own experience here: I think what really sent me into a deep abyss of guilt, shame and feeling like a freak wasn't so much the realization that I had a rare and unusual attraction, but all the negativity I found about it.
So, because that negativity exists and because people who do know about devs (PWDs mostly) unfortunately usually know of them from negative examples, I concluded that positive representation is important after all. Just to counteract the negativity. So it's probably sensible to target it at those specific groups, like writing comments to negative articles or offering an alternative view, where a negative view is stated. A couple more books out there representing the dev experience positively would also be helpful, just because you could point the misinformed, prejudiced people to them.
But I don't think we need mass-market Hollywood movies about devs Which is something I do think we need more of with PWDs. Preferably hot PWDs doing cool shit (and not tragic people wanting to die). Solely in the name of social change, of course! Not for my own personal enjoyment.