Chapter Text
Allow me to start with a story.
I was in 8th grade. Today, a group of high schoolers has come in to talk to us, as my teacher put it. On the table in front of them were plastic cups of water with pieces of paper taped to them. Myself, another girl, and two boys were selected to participate in whatever activity has been set up. The four of us are asked to drink the water, swish it, and then spit it back into the cups. Then, we're asked to pour water into the other's cup, followed by halving the total amount of water between the two cups.
It is then that one of the high schoolers explains that what we have done is simulate sex. We, the volentold-ers, were then asked to remove the pieces of paper. The guy across from me had Chlamydia, when then spread to me in our faux replication of sexual intercourse. My cup said "Virgin."
The rest of class was then a lecture, teen to teen, about the dangers of having sex. How abstinence was the best course of action to prevent unwanted pregnancy. How women need to not dress so provocatively. Don't show off your cleavage or butt, even if it's unintentional and due to how your clothes fit. (Later in high school I found out most of the people in this group smoked weed and had sex. Most did it as a way to skip class.)
Purity culture is a phenomena associated with Christian religious groups, often involving emphasis on gender roles and virginity. Often, it is framed as women protecting themselves from unrighteous men. That be adhering to these values, they will find the good, Godly men. Not adhering to these values means inviting all that begets them. Daring to associate with these bad women also contaminates you, the good, Godly, righteous person reading this.
Echos of this rhetoric can be found outside of these groups. BookTok, while worthy of some critique, is often women sharing their latest sexy romantasy read to their followers. Yet, without fail, (usually) men will stitch a video of a woman sharing a dark romance book and pearl clutch more than my grandmother. These women, who are often reading again for the first time in years, are being told that what they enjoy is bad, sinful, shameful, immoral. That anyone who associates with these wicked books and women is just as deplorable.
BookTok is not the only online space to see this type behavior. Fandom, and specifically fan fiction, has been the subject of puritans' ire since the dawn of the internet. From copyright issues to amateur writing to the portrayal of men having sex with other men, many, many things associated with fan fiction has come under scrutiny time and time again.
Recently, however, there has been a shift. More often than not, these critiques were lobbed by people not into the transformative part of fandom. They would gawk at what us little fanfic cretins would cook up with disgust. Now, it feels like the call is coming from inside the house. What used to be "don't like, don't read" and "your kink is not my kink" has turned into a smorgasbord of callouts and dnis. An undo sense of righteousness and purity has crept into fandom, hellbent on posting a twitlonger to call out every author who dares to post a kink that's "too outlandish." What used to be a little space of the internet carved out for the freaks and weirdos feels like a sex panopticon that'll get you if you dare to post the "wrong" kink. It's frustrating at best and tiring at worst.
How did fandom get this police-like? Was it secretly always like this? And, more importantly, can it be fixed?