- Nov 20, 2018
- 11,258
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I'm not sure I agree with you, I often daydream about killing my boss... sometimes in ways that would make a Bond villain blush... but after all these years he is still alive and as annoying as ever (I've never so much as punched him! but I guess I fall in to the mostly sane category.... what a distressing thought).
Though I guess the crux of your post is the part where you note "people who actually struggle to distinguish dark fantasy from reality" ... to that I'd say
- It seems unlikely to me that anyone that has this problem would be able to self diagnose, so it's fairly moot IMO.
&- I stand by my belief that any specific material will not "turn" them into "monsters"... They might fixate on a specific source material and claim it as a catalyst, but deny them that and I have no doubt they will simply develop another. You can't censor thoughts.
I only pointed out Dahmer as an example to say that a blanket "nobody" statement, which seemed to me to be what was implied in the first place, is false. The effect of content on people varies greatly from person to person. I also very specifically said I was not talking about anyone in particular on this site. I have been referring to a very tiny group of people in the world who actually have mental disorders in the vein of things like psychopathy and sociopathy. I have no idea where anyone is getting the idea that I said dark content causes a mental illness. In fact, I said specifically that it does not cause that. (Jeffry Dahmer even says exactly that: claims like "pornography caused it" are only excuses.) What I stated was that it could act as a trigger, potentially influencing someone who already has a mental illness of that type to act on an existing weakness.No, you didn't ramble, clear answers and gave me what I was seeking!
We seem to share quite a few favorites
Yeah. I cringe when I see people fighting, I can't stand it. I get a pit in my stomach when I read news stories about rape & sexual assault.. it's always disturbed me to my core.
But people are so much more complicated than that. Yeah, I have darker fantasies. So do a lot of people, too; including women, who have to repeatedly insist that their fantasies do not reflect their true desires. It's perfectly normal it seems. My fantasies sometimes are the very things I hate to see or read about (though, of course, I have plenty of fantasies that never go there). I can't explain why those darker ones occupy my thoughts from time to time. But I do know that the idea of hurting someone for real is so repulsive & disgusting to me. That's the real psychopath test, right? Not about consequences. If consequences, like getting caught and arrested, is the only thing stopping someone, well they're almost definitely just a high functioning psychopath. But if someone sees other people's suffering itself as the reason they don't do it, well that sounds like a perfectly normal and moral person, regardless of their fantasies.
I do understand people who fear this kind of content, though. Because on the surface, you just can't know whether someone is normal w/ dark fantasies, or whether they're that crazy evil mfer they hear about on the news every so often. It's a scary fucking world for sure. But the normal ppl who dip into the darker content far outnumber the real threats by a huge margin. And that should provide substantial comfort, imo.
And yeah, agreed that the insane ones will find any outlet regardless. Though I'm no expert, so I'm willing to be wrong on that front.
I mean, I think I get what you're saying, but it's a wildly insufficient comparison and tbh probably needlessly insulting to all the normal dark path enjoyers. Which I'm sure wasn't your intent. But, one has to make an effort not to read that implication from your comment
Dahmer is clearly incapable of valuing other people as moral agents. He's a cold-blooded psychopath. On the other hand, I imagine most people playing the dark route don't fall into that camp, though those people are clearly out there. Can't be helped, unfortunately. Most of us consume this content like we do other video games that let you do fucked up shit, like murder civilians, destroy buildings, etc. We wouldn't do it in rl, but having a virtual world completely devoid of any real morality or consequences gives a safe space to explore some of those darker thoughts. And it can be a lot of fun, which I know a lot of people don't want to hear. But it's simply true, and it's 100% innocent for most of us.
No need to be rude or confrontational towards someone who themselves is just having a mild discussion/disagreement.
I chose the word trigger very intentionally, and the content absolutely can be a trigger. Just like some people have a genetic weakness to become an alcoholic or similar, so some people with dark thoughts can be more predisposed toward psychological influence through content they consume. I also don't believe the content creates a mental disorder, but it absolutely exacerbates it if it already exists.
Anyway, I wasn't saying the dark content shouldn't exist or that anyone who enjoys that is bad in some way. I didn't mean to cause a big off-topic tangent on the thread. I'm obviously not going to change your minds, and you're not going to change mine. So, agree to disagree, I suppose.
