Or, ’how NOT to wade into the comments section of your comic and then react really badly to the perfectly reasonable criticism therein’…
OMG STORMS-IN-TEA-CUPS.COM
[Content note: general discussions around how one should talk about sexual assault/rape.]
There’s an obscure wee lesbian comic illustrated in an old-fashioned girls’ magazine style that I (Mo here) have read off-and-on since it started - in that way that when you’re a lesbian you get an itch to read about other lesbians sometimes and just about anything will do. It’s been nice watching the writer mature and improve as they go, and though their storytelling remains pretty hokey it’s still a comic I would’ve recommended as a guilty pleasure coming-of-age style piece.
They’ve had some slightly problematic material in the past, but nothing that I would consider harmful. When a recent page featured a sexual assault, though, I read the comments with interest, because that is apparently who I am now, and sure enough, there were some folk defending the actions of the offending party on the basis that in spite of her clear request to stop, the protagonist was obviously into it, was clearly aroused, hadn’t said ‘no’ clearly enough, and had been leading up to that moment all day. (And also that it was probably a dream, which in fairness was entirely plausible and indeed true, but also completely beside the point.) That might have been that except that one of the people using said problematic language was the author themself.
Naturally I waded in (as you do, well, as I do) to observe politely that the language being used in the comments sections was basically a bingo card of stuff people say to minimise rape and sexual assault, and, well, 'brick wall’ pretty much covers it. Anyway, eventually the author had a wee fit to themself and took down that page and the one following it, citing myself and another commenter’s 'shock and distress’ as the reason, at which point I commented to reiterate that I was neither shocked nor distressed by the comic itself and that my objections had been squarely focussed on the problematic commentary. They took my name off the toys-out-of-pram message, but then I checked this evening to see if anything else had been said, and they’ve put both pages back and *drumroll* removed almost all critical commentary, even stuff that didn’t start any debates, from the post.
Edited to add: I should note that the author (hadn’t noticed 'til now) actually did also change some of the dialogue. The line “No, I don’t” after “Do you really want me to stop?” was added in (though of course she still says 'stop’ in the previous panel), and her expression of approval in the last panel made less ambiguous. Which still kind of misses the whole thrust (so to speak!) of the comments conversation (since the protagonist’s true feelings were never in question) but does mitigate the dream-character’s misdeed to an extent. Anyway, really not the point, but it’s something.
Let me tell you, readers, there are few things on this earth I hate more than people who delete reasonable, polite comments. Shutting them down, sure - we all get saddle-sore (well, not me but y'know), but deleting polite, non-abusive, reasoned commentary? Not. On. I personally screen new commenters on Manfeels Park and let every single non-spam comment through, even the ones that are so ignorant they make my little brain hurt, my belief in freedom to air your terrible terrible views is so strong.
Fortunately, I have been on the intertubes long enough that I have a radar for people who are likely to blow their top and go on a delete-button rampage, so I had saved it right after my final comment on the post.
And so here, for posterity, is the conversation in question:
And here, for completeness, is the original (now heavily pruned) post:
(And feel free to take this as… er, well, I can hardly call it a 'rec’ now I suppose, but y'know. You know where that comic lives now if you want some escapism.)
The Moral of the Story
It made me think a bit about my own policy on commenting on Manfeels. I often wondered in the past how authors avoid wading into the comments sections on their own articles, but actually now that I have a comments section to police I find that I very rarely want to comment, even in reply to stuff that, if I saw it on someone else’s post, I would probably be all over like a rash. Is it a desire to maintain some sort of Creator Mystique? Or is it simply that I’m much more paranoid about looking daft in my own comments section?
Either way, it’s probably smart as an author to maintain a safe distance from one’s own detractors, reading along but not engaging with them - perhaps even if one thinks said commenters have a point. For the author of Simply Sarah it wasn’t their comic that made them look bad and lost them readers; it was the fact that they exposed their ignorance in a knee-jerk reaction to criticism. Had they stayed silent, readers would never have known that they didn’t believe that it isn’t assault if you say 'stop’ but secretly want it. Depticting a character’s rape fantasy isn’t problematic (though it could probably use a content note). Characterising their imaginary abuser’s behaviour as acceptable most certainly is.
So in short, as much as I love the Mary Beards and Diane Abbotts of this world for their preparadness to meet their detractors head-on, I am not presently inclined to join them in wading through their own comments sections picking a fight. I think I’ll stick to other peoples!
Anyway, I’m sure the author will remove my link to my cached copy of the discussion, and then ban me, my IP or if that can’t be done simply lock-down comments on that thread. But at least you, dear readers, know the truth!