There Is Nothing Wrong With Fandoms, Fanfiction, Archive of Our Own, Tumblr & Wattpad In And Of Themselves 

I'd never thought I'd write a blog post addressing the fact that there is nothing wrong with fandoms, fanfiction, Archive of Our Own, Tumblr, & Wattpad in and of themselves.

 
But after watching a video from Pints With Aquinas with guest Rachel Killackey, founder and leader of Magdala Ministries, it became clear from the comments section that people need a reminder. Rachel's apostolate, Magdala Ministries, supports women who struggle with addiction to porn. And don't leave comments on this blog post, saying, "I didn't know women struggle with porn addiction," or "Women don't struggle with porn addiction." It's hurtful and offensive to women who struggle with porn addiction. Fortunately, I do not struggle with porn addiction or consumption. In the video, Rachel advised women who are recovering from porn consumption and addiction to not watch rom-coms. Rom-com is short for romantic comedy. Rom-com mostly refers to a genre of movies, not literature. But several people in the comments brought up fanfiction, Tumblr, AO3 (Archive of Our Own), and Wattpad as a gateway to porn addiction. Rachel also mentioned romantic literature and fanfiction. While there are smutty fanfiction and gay and lesbian ships, not everyone supports gay and lesbian ships and writes smutty fanfiction. As someone who used Wattpad for a long time before switching over to Belletristica, I made an effort to not read smutty fanfiction and I was good about only reading clean fanfiction. Wattpad and AO3 could definitely do better about separating the clean and innocent fanfiction from the smutty fanfiction. Belletristica is really good about separating sexually explicit books from clean books. Belletristica warns you when the rating on the book is 16+. That's enough to deter me from reading a book with sexually explicit content so I click "No, scroll away."I highly recommend Belletristica for this reason. It is also a relatively new writing and reading website so we could use lots more fanfiction on there. Some fandoms have very little or no fanfiction on Belletristica. For example, there is very little Phantom of the Opera fanfiction and the small amount of Phantom fanfiction on there is written and published by yours truly. There is also very little James Bond fanfiction on Belletristica. Last time I checked, there are only two Belletristica users who write and publish 007 fanfiction: myself and one other user. The other user's 007 fanfiction revolves around 00Q (James Bond 007 x Q). Not only is 00Q a gay ship, but it is also not canon. Bond is attracted to women, not men, and since SPECTRE (2015), he has had eyes only for Dr. Madeleine Swann. Q, on the other hand, is revealed to be gay in No Time To Die, but he is not romantically interested in Bond.

I would be very happy to see more clean, non-smutty fanfiction on Belletristica. And so would another Belletristica user I know of. I would be very happy to see more fanfiction without gay and lesbian ships on Belletristica.Don't get me wrong: Belletristica has lots of clean, non-smutty fanfiction. Belletristica has lots of fanfiction that don't revolve around gay and lesbian ships.It's a slap in the face to fanfiction authors like me who write smut-and-lemon-free fanfiction and stay the heck away from supporting gay and lesbian ships when people blanket-condemn fandom, fanfiction, Tumblr, A03, and Wattpad as all bad.
Yes, there is romance in my fanfiction. But there is no smut in my fanfiction.Matt Fradd, the host of Pints with Aquinas, has talked about porn on Catholic Answers radio, and one time, a caller asked him about romantic literature and fanfiction in relation to porn, specifically mentioning 50 Shades of Grey. In his answer, Matt said that there is nothing wrong with fanfiction in and of itself. But he said that "50 Shades of Stupid," which is his name for 50 Shades of Grey, is definitely pornographic literature.

Not only is that trilogy pornographic, but it also romanticizes an abusive relationship and perpetuates the dangerous lie that abusive men can be changed by a woman's love and obedience.

 
Before you call me a hypocrite for shipping Reylo and Eristine/Phanstine, I ship Reylo after Kylo/Ben redeems himself. I ship Eristine/Phanstine after Christine kisses the Phantom and he lets her go. In other words, both Kylo/Ben & Erik/The Phantom have had to redeem themselves, whether in canon or in my fanfiction (or both), before I started shipping them with Rey and Christine respectively. Besides shipping Eristine/Phanstine, I also ship Raoulstine (Raoul x Christine). Most people will agree that Raoul & Christine's relationship is far more healthier than the Phantom & Christine's relationship.Lately, I have been writing and publishing fanfiction more than I have been reading fanfiction written and published by other people.As for Tumblr, avoiding sexually explicit content in your feed is super easy. You can just go into your Tumblr settings and add "NSFW" and "18+" to the tags you want to filter out of your feed and add "NSFW" and "18+" to the post content that you want to filter out of your feed.

I also recommend Canopy Internet Filtering. Canopy does not only block porn websites like Pornhub. It also allows you to visit websites with a mix of good and bad content while simultaneously keeping the good content for you to view and seamlessly filtering out the bad content. So you don't have to do all or nothing when exploring online. Want to scroll through social media for a few minutes? Now you can do so without any worries because with Canopy, you'll only see the good stuff. Wanna read a James Bond fanfic? Now you can read and enjoy that thrilling Bond adventure fanfic with all the fluff, suspense, and action and none of the smut and lemon scenes because Canopy has seamlessly filtered those pesky smut and lemon scenes out. That's pretty neat in my opinion! But if fanfiction, Tumblr, AO3, and Wattpad are a trigger or a gateway to porn and other sexual sins for you, then by all means, avoid them.But please do not blanket-label fanfiction, fandom, A03, Wattpad, and Tumblr as all bad. Please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, folks.In the Pints With Aquinas video, Matt and Rachel rejected a more nuanced view when it comes to entertainment for not just sexual sin, but other kinds of sin. They used the analogy, "You wouldn't eat a brownie with arsenic in it, would you?"

 
OK, Matt didn't say arsenic. He said something else, but I prefer to use the "brownie with arsenic" analogy instead of what he used, which I will not say what it was.Deacon Steven D. Greydanus, who reviews movies through a Christian lens, and I both reject this analogy and this rigorous approach when it comes to entertainment. And so does Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin.I watch movies and TV shows, read books, and listen to music. Most of the movies and shows I watch have the potential to lead me to sin. But they don't put me in a near occasion of sin. When it comes to sexual sin, the James Bond movies can certainly lead one down the road to sin. But they don't for me because I mostly watch three of the Daniel Craig ones, which only imply sexual activity through brief, non-explicit scenes. I have developed the habit of skipping those scenes.

 
Some of the books I read also have the potential to lead me to sin, but they don't put me in a near occasion of sin.Some of the music I listen to has the potential to lead me to sin. But it doesn't lead me to sin. And while Jimmy Akin advises avoiding music that puts you in a near occasion of sin, he also warns against taking an overly rigorist approach against music with sexually explicit lyrics, especially when an explicit love song, the Song of Solomon, is in the pages of the Bible. So I can listen to Elton John's Can You Feel The Love Tonight and I'll be just fine. I can listen to All I Ask of You from The Phantom of the Opera and I'll be just fine. I can even listen to The Music of the Night from Phantom, which has a few sensual lyrics, and I'll be in no danger of putting myself in a near occasion of sin.On the other hand, I don't listen to The Point of No Return from Phantom because compared to The Music of the Night, the lyrics in The Point of No Return are too racy for my taste. For me, the sensual lyrics in The Music of the Night are really tame compared to the racy lyrics in The Point of No Return. But this does not mean I'm perfect. On the contrary, I'm far from perfect.What may be a near occasion of sin for others may not be a near occasion of sin for me and that is why I embrace a more nuanced view and approach to entertainment than "you wouldn't eat a brownie with arsenic in it, would you?"

 
But if certain pieces of entertainment are near occasions of sin for you, then by all means, avoid them.