author-lapis-lazuli writes: “We are not Perverts”
At some point in the very recent past, there was a twitter conversation between the show’s creators with some disdain over the sudden creation of Maud R34, in which a member of the fandom termed everyone who created such work “Perverts.”
No one corrected him.
After seeing that, I felt the need to say something.
We are not ‘perverts’
We are creators ourselves. We write, we sing, we act, we draw, we create art, we breathe life into characters.. We do these things because they bring joy and happiness into peoples lives. We do them for money, or for the challenge, or just for fun. Because they make people laugh, or cry, or think and look at the world in a whole new light. Because sometimes, they give someone a moment of pleasure in a world all too devoid of such things.
And many of us like ponies.
Why do we like them? We like the way they look and the way they move. We like female characters who are smart, interesting, and complex. We admire them for their courage, and we love them for how we relate to them in so many different ways.
We love to make stories about them struggling and succeeding. We love to make stories about them falling in love with one another. We love to make stories with them having relationships and conflicts and emotions. We love to give them a society with a rich, detailed, holistic world, and then make them live in it.
And some of us like to imagine them experiencing intimacy. We like to treat them like the ‘adult’ people they seem to be, and to wonder about what that portion of their world might be like.
I put my work behind the appropriate age walls. I make it clear that adult activities are going on, right from the outset. I do not make my work available easily to those whom society deems ‘too young’ to see it. I abide by the rules. I keep things honest. I try my best to do right within the rules that society has established.
And so do many other creators like me. We tag our pictures NSFW and our fan fictions “Mature”. We create these things for other adults like us. To create a kind of art that expresses our innermost emotions, be they profound or primal. And yet, we are all too often lumped in with the bad seeds. We are all too often called a lot of very nasty things, simply by virtue of the art we create.
But people forget that that’s what art is about, pushing the limits and going beyond the every day and the ordinary. It’s about taking something we all know about and giving it a new vision. Something like the night sky, or a scene of people standing around a park, or a mother and her child, or a cartoon pony, and we create something of them from the emotions and feelings within us all. So much of art explores that most ancient and deep of human emotions we call sex and intimacy. We have applied those emotions to mythical beings, to gods, to angels, to demons, and to so much more. Yet when we apply it to something new or youthful, we are called ‘perverts.’
I cannot claim to speak for the other creators like me. But I am sick and tired of this fandom treating me like a leper because I dare to be an adult and see these characters in that light. Because I dare to look at the world of MLP and say ‘I can create an amazing story from this world.” Because I dare to think these characters could stand to be treated like people, and not like plaster idols sitting on a shelf.
We are ‘perverts’ because we dare to suggest the stork doesn’t bring babies. We are ‘perverts’ because we dare to suggest that these women might be unconventionally sexual like many real world women are. We are ‘perverts’ because we see love, and we treat it with maturity and respect instead of some kind of puritan ideal.
I wrote this because there are too many people in this fandom and outside of it who judge people like me because we dare to express myself artistically in this way. And frankly, I’m tired of it. I am tired of being the whipping boy for the rest of the fandom to offer up as a sacrifice so that the meanies who don’t like them liking ponies will go away.
We like to say that we oppose bullying, and yet far too many of us are content to play the bully ourselves. Far too many of us are happy to point at someone else and laugh about “How creepy those clop-artists act.” and “What a bunch of neckbeard perverts with their love pillows! They’ll never have girlfriends!” or ‘We like ponies, but we’re not like those FREAKS! Go judge them instead of us!”
So next time you come across an artist who wants to write or draw or sing about a less than chaste love, I hope you take a moment. The next time you want to sneer or gasp in horror at those of us who make more adult oriented works, I want you to stop and think for a second.
We’re humans, just like you. We have desires, and hopes, and dreams, just like you. We’re artists, just like many of you. Most of us are decent people. Most of us do the best we can to abide by the rules. And just like you, some of us are bad apples who like to flaunt the rules, because they can. That’s part of being human too, and so many people seem to forget that.
The only thing you do when you target us with hatred, bile, and insults is you increase the number of us who stop being good, decent people. Because when you treat people like garbage for long enough, they’re going to become exactly the thing you treat them as. Garbage.
My name is Lapis-Lazuli.
And I am not a pervert.
I’m a Brony, an artist, and a person.
Can we get a standing ovation for this post?! It’s freaking perfect.
“Pervert” is often equated with “freak” (as demonstrated by the OP). But “pervert” is a perfectly legitimate term to use to describe us. Something is “perverted” when it is outside the norm, which this clearly is.