so, a summary: censorship is bullshit, in all its forms.

but let's go deeper than that.

i believe with my whole heart that anything is okay - anything should be allowed - as long as no one is being hurt. and even then, if they consent to being hurt, well, more power to them? i'm not here to shit on kinks. but honestly - art, in all its forms, even the ones people find offensive or upsetting, should be allowed to exist. tagged and warned for? absolutely. behind a cut? please. but let it EXIST.

i hate family guy with my whole being. i think everything about it is ugly, offensive, and rude. but i will defend until my dying breath its right to exist. why? because it's an expression of creativity. it's someone's thoughts made into pictures and words. it's art. and yeah, it hurts my soul to call family guy art, but it is. shitty art though it may be.

and when someone posts art or fic or meta about something that squicks me out, or even downright triggers me - i'll defend that too. it has every right to exist.

we've built up this great culture for art and consumers to coexist, where subversive things are behind tags and warnings so no one stumbles upon them accidentally. but that's not enough for some people! some people will click anyway, then get mad that it exists at all, because it personally offends them. they try to censor it because "think of the children". fuck that. what they're really saying is "i don't like it, so no one can".

worried about children? educate them. and for fuck's sake, hold their parents responsible. it's not my fault some neonate stumbled across my heavily tagged shota. it's the fault of their parents for letting them on the goddamn internet without telling them what it was about or restricting their access to it - but even then, i think kids should know this stuff exists. they don't need to be flooded by it, they don't even necessarily need to see it; just know about it. know enough that if they see the tag "shota", they don't click because they don't think they want to see. or they do, because they're curious, realize they don't like it, and never click again. problem solved.

i mean, do you know how much of my early internet experience was clicking on shit, realizing i didn't like it, and avoiding it from there on out? and i'm not the only one. all gen xers and millenials went through some form of learning about the internet. at some point, you see some shit, and decide whether or not you want to see it again. not the end of the world.

it's not the fault of the artist that you don't like something. the art does not need to be censored because it upset you. it should be tagged, it should have a warning, those things are fair - especially on the internet, where we've built upon a culture of tags and warnings. but it doesn't need to not exist.

even baraag has sensitive media filtering. you know, baraag, the mastodon instance where anything goes except explicitly illegal things? you can hide your images, and even your text, from immediate view. because subversive artists don't just exist to offend. they just want to draw their shit, my guy.

curate your experiences to your liking, but don't expect everyone to want their experiences curated the same way. don't censor artists.

and, disclaimer: free speech isn't a free pass to being an asshole. i'll say it again; anything goes as long as no one is being hurt. stick and stones my ass, words can hurt. art can hurt, even. and if it's not a constructive hurt, if it has no artistic value, well... i don't support it.

but i still support its right to exist.

fuck censorship.