On Pornography and the Yaoi Bans (Edit)EDIT: Not a day after submitting this, my picture "MelloxMatt: Scandalous" was hit with deletion. How funny.
The community here on DeviantART is one I've called an online extended family for over five years of my life. I came here off of a site called Elfwood, and found DA to be far more accepting and free than Elfwood was. Though there have been some scattered annoying instances of art deletions of friends of mine on the site, I could let it slide. No community of this size is going to be without corruption.
What's happening now, however, is ridiculous.
The yaoi fan-base is one that has a large garnering of members and advocates, and just as large a garnering of enemies. The issue at hand concerning this fan-base came to my attention first through the Mello/Matt community of which I am an active part. Overnight, it seemed, my friends who support Mello/Matt began to get art deleted. Many began to be banned or suspended. Not long after, I learned that it wasn't just this group being targeted, but yaoi in general. It was a banning wave of epic proportions. The Mello/Matt community, alone, has had over 30 members hit with bans, suspensions, or art removals since the wave began. I've been lucky enough not to be hit, yet. I have a feeling that may change after this journal, and I continue to post as I have been, knowing that I may be targeted in the future. There are people here that enjoy my art, and I still call this site home, though there are some…family disagreements, it seems.
Most of the "offenders" in question were those hit because of "pornographic content", and while some of the art and fanfiction that triggered the action was very mature in nature, there is an inconsistency in the negative action against "pornography" in other parts of the site not related to the coupling of two males. It is very, very often that a poem, photograph, or drawing containing at least one woman will slide past the radar, be protected from ban, or even be chosen as Daily Deviation, even though the content is as much or more provocative as much of the yaoi work being taken down. It isn't the removals, themselves, that I am against, but the hypocrisy surrounding them.
The contract signed when all of us as members here joined DeviantART does pose an interesting problem, and does mean that any complaint I have is, technically, not viable. It clearly states that the moderators may deem something pornographic or inappropriate based on their own discretion. However, that doesn't make it right.
One of the things that confuses me is that the site claims itself a family environment (which is the primary reason for not allowing pornography in the first place), and yet has galleries that are, in themselves, not child-friendly, including a fetish photography gallery, and an erotic literature gallery. Fetish photography on DeviantART is usually pertaining to the psychological definition of "Fetish", which is an object or situation that arouses one sexually. "Erotic", as well, is a word that in itself, is indicative of sex. At the same time, however, DeviantART supposedly does not allow sexual "art" to be submitted to the site.
The other issue that I find puzzling is the Mature Content filter. DeviantART's main reason for not allowing pornographic content is because it may be offensive to minors. However, the system of DeviantART's Mature Content filters makes it so that 1.) Innocent non-members who are here for a visit cannot view any Mature Content, and 2.) Any member with an age under 18 cannot view heavy Mature Content. I find this fascinating, since 18 is the legal age required to view pornography, so in actuality, any pornography would be invisible, and thus harmless (ignorance is bliss) to the audience the site is trying to protect, regardless of whether or not it exists on the site in the first place or not.
(This likely brings up the argument that people can lie about their ages. Honestly, though, if they're lying about their ages to view Mature Content on here, it's just as easy to do the same in related to sites dedicated PRIMARILY to porn, and so is a moot point.)
Another main argument against pornography on DeviantART in general is that it "isn't art", and so should not be present on an art site. However, my fundamental disagreement against that idea is the final and most important point that I wish to make.
The beginnings of art as we know it were based in depicting daily life, particularly that used for survival. Because sex is one of the primary things keeping our species alive, it means that pornography is one of the oldest and most influential art forms in the world. In fact, much of the earliest art is based strictly around fertility and what the cultures at the times deemed "sexy". It is as much an anthropological look at the views of different cultures throughout history as it is an art in itself. In an age where we are possibly more sexualised than ever, due to the rise in technology that gave us, print, video, and now the internet, pornography is possibly even more important than it was in the past, because it has shifted from a necessary means to promote procreation to an art of choice and of purposely creating a reaction in its audience.
On the subject of reactions, we move to the question: What is art? While it is a documentation of culture and tradition through the ages, it is also that which is created to purposely invoke a reaction--most usually an emotional one--in its audience. The human creature can experience an extremely broad range of emotion, from great bliss, to great anguish, and can express that range--and invoke it--more eloquently and beautifully than probably any other creature on Earth. However, there are, arguably, no two emotions that stir us more deeply and primally than the feelings of disgust and lust.
Whether art is created to please or revolt us is not an issue. It is the level of emotion garnered that makes it art. Pornography could, then, be considered the most profound art form known to man, as it almost invariably will either feed into our primal carnal desires, or our most primal revulsions.
The problem with pornography today doesn't stem from the fact that it is "evil", so much as it does from the changing role of sex in society. As we live longer, and our population, worldwide, grows larger and moves farther and farther away from its basic survival instincts, sex becomes less and less about its base purpose of procreation and growing the species than it is about desire, attraction, and bonding. The farther sex grows from being simply a basic need, the more taboo it becomes.
Interestingly, however, while every other move away from our animal instincts is considered "progress" and "advancement of the species", and is generally accepted and even encouraged by society as a whole, the more "modernised" sex becomes, the more threatening. In my opinion, this is because it does dig so deeply into our primal instincts, no matter how far it strays from its animalistic intent. Religious reasons aside, that fact alone is threatening to us, I think, in a society where we are becoming increasingly more numb to our emotions in the name of evolution.
This doesn't even stray into the importance of sexuality as a means of bonding between individuals. At its purest form, sex is the near-literal combing of two people into one. We quite literally fit together like puzzle pieces to form a greater picture. When we use sex to create new life, cells containing DNA from both parties merge together to form a new being. Even without procreation involved, sexual intimacy is the source of emotional and physical stimulation that is almost unrivalled by any other experience that the human animal can have, and the more and more we explore it, the more we discover about its power to move us on all levels: Physical, emotional, and to some, even spiritual.
DeviantART, you need to make a choice. Either ban ALL pornography (That means the sexy women you moderators adore as well), or choose to allow it, and continue to censor it from those legally not allowed to view it. If I were running the site, there would simply be a level over the current highest Mature Content rating to account for the societal disapproval of pornography. Like in film, there would be moderate Mature Content (approximate to PG), heavy Mature Content (Approximate to R), and Adult Only (approximate to X). I am aware that many disagree with me fundamentally on this point, but I hope that my views will be considered as, at the least, having some viable thought behind them.
Just remember: The name of this site is "DeviantART", and what art form more fits the title than that most feared by the populace?
Eager
