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Discussion: "You're Sexualizing a Little Girls' Show About Cartoon Horses!"

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This is a statement sometimes made to criticize the “darker” (that is, more sexual) part of the fanbase surrounding “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” (“bronies”) and the fan content it produces.

First things first. Heard of Rule 34? Rule 34 is a “Rule of the Internet” that states: “There is porn of it. No exceptions.” (Phrasing may vary.) You probably have heard of it, but I want to clarify this because xkcd seems to apply Rule 34 as: “There is porn of anything you can think of.” However, currently Rule 34 is generally applied as: “There is porn of any existing fictional character.” Kinky porn that isn’t based on any existing character isn’t really considered an application of Rule 34, nor is porn of celebrities (real people). So when I refer to Rule 34, I am referring to sexual content of pre-existing fictional characters.

I get it. A lot people don’t like seeing sexual content of stories and characters they enjoy. But some (myself included) do, so Rule 34 rings true, for ponies as it does for everything else.

About this content being exposed to those who don’t want to see or shouldn’t be seeing it: This is a problem of Rule 34 in general. I think people are doing a fairly good job of preventing this from happening, but I haven’t looked into this much.

It’s a show (mainly) for little girls. That’s true, but this argument fails in pretty much the same way as it does for bronies themselves: People can enjoy things that weren’t originally intended for them.

They’re horses, not people! Okay, okay. But you only have to look to the furry fandom for a counterargument. Some furry fans/“furries” create sexual content involving animal characters. Sure, “Friendship is Magic” characters aren’t anthropomorphic like most furry characters, but they have the same sort of intelligence that makes them human-relatable characters. (Plus, there are plenty of anthropomorphic ponies to go around.)

TL;DR: Yeah, it’s disturbing for a lot of people. But it’s Rule 34. What did you expect?