Don’t Write That

Even Davies

The art of social censorship

Censorship. It’s one of the dirtiest words in the English language. At least, I can’t think of many words dirtier. It’s nasty, silencing and, to some, a lie. I don’t know if it’s a lie — unless the failure to say something is a lie.

In his book, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, former war correspondent Chris Hedges writes a lot about censorship. He tells of children being shot in Gaza by silenced firearms after being lured to the border by soldiers with promises of candy. The populace doesn’t speak out; they are terrified and fearful for their lives. And when people do speak out, others don’t always want to listen, since there are strong opinions on Israel and Gaza. They are censored by fear, but also by the world at large.

In his CBC Massey Lecture (later published as The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative), Dr. Thomas King, a Professor of English at the University of Guelph, spoke about the time he was interviewed for student scholarships. First Nations students are able to attend post-secondary institutions for free. During the interview, the panel judged, questioned, and demanded that he prove his ancestry. Much to his amusement, after his Massey lecture, Dr. King often received apologies for those interrogations from white men — think white guilt. The joke, it turns out, is that those who judged him were native. He was almost censored by his own people.

I read Hedges’s book and King’s lecture in August, 2014. Both informed me what censorship really means and made a hard choice even harder.

I wanted to write a book on a fandom I’m a part of: Bronies are fans of the animated TV show My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. There are about ten million of us world wide, and the sun never sets on the fandom, if the numbers are to be believed. The first book of its kind, I planned to call it Bronies: An Introduction. I had wanted to create something for the fandom for a while, and this project seemed easier than animation.

But one serious issue caused me a great deal of strife.

Adult Material.

It is exactly what you think it is: erotic images, and erotic stories. About ponies. Since I had to plan this chapter, I took a look at my fair share of everything. The vast majority of it was consensual, made with a genuine love of the work, and took the animated characters’ personalities and had fun with them. Drawn and written by both men and women, such material usually focused on being cute, yet erotic. There is also a large amount of it. According to rule34.paheal.net, which sources and ranks such material, erotic pony art is the second largest collection on the Internet — projected to surpass the largest, Pokémon, at some point.

Erotica is a dirty word to many people, and everyone has their own ingrained opinion. Bronies aren’t much different. The fandom responded so poorly to a song done by one prominent Brony musician who wrote erotica, that it singlehandedly ended his career in pony music. It’s not an easy line to walk, but erotica is a vital part of the Brony story. Aside from sheer quantity, such erotica predates the word ‘Brony’ itself. To leave it out would be like not saying why Europeans came to the Americas — you can do it, but you shouldn’t, if only for reasons of accuracy.

Hence my civil war, which consisted mostly of short nights spent pacing the house and in walks around the local area lasting several hours. Could I rightly cover it? Could I join the ranks of the terrified? I’ve been online. One wrong move and I’m the next Chris Crocker — the young man who became famous online for his passionate support for Britney Spears and, as a result, the laughing stock of the Internet. I wouldn’t need to kick a large hornets’ nest before I’d be getting hate mail like I was Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist with controversial views on religion.

Trying to decide what to do, I started questioning people, including a pastor who’d never heard of the fandom.

We met at a local cafe. I pulled out a little plush — a grey horse with blonde hair, only slightly bigger than my hand. It looked like it was sleeping.

“Be careful,” I said. “I don’t want to tell you how much I spent on that.”

I offered him a ten-minute crash course on the fandom, and explained my dilemma: to include a chapter on the adult material, or not.

“So long as you’re respectful and not defending it,” he said, “I think you should be okay. Why are so serious about it?” he asked in a calm and collected tone, carefully choosing his words for this task. He was clearly censoring himself from a freak-out over the topic, but was also trying to be respectful. Censorship isn’t always a bad thing, it seemed — hiding oneself and one’s deepest point to get a task done.

But why?

That was always the question. Why did it mean it so much to me? In my attempt to understand the extent of the adult material, I’d done research. In my hunting, I’d found a book — always a book, this one called A Billion Weird Thoughts — that discussed human sexuality. With some online interviews with those who enjoy the material, I’d figured my nightmare out. To spare the details, it came down to little more than an optical illusion, in a similar way to how Edward Cullen from ‘Twilight’ has the love of a plethora of women.

“I can explain it,” I said to him. “I can say what’s at work.”

“Do you think they will understand?” He asked the question, not as if he wished for an actual answer, but thinking aloud. It didn’t matter. This question was the root of everything: beyond the ethics and social taboos.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You’d react well to this kind of information?”

“I don’t know. I have so far, haven’t I?”

He was right. But he’s not everyone. Most people got squeamish or cold feet or tried to change the topic when I brought it up.

Self-censorship. All because we don’t think the other side will understand. I don’t blame them. I was dealing with the same issues.

As we left, he picked up the little plush.

“So, tell me,” he said. “How much did you pay for it?”

I told him. His eyes shot open and he looked at me, mouth open wide, jaw dropped.

“Don’t write that,” he said. “It’s a bit much.”

I didn’t tell him I got it at a great price.

I decided not to include the chapter on adult material. At over 22,000 words long, the book didn’t need it. Ultimately, other stories about the Bronies — those with real talent in the fandom — were more important than the adult material. The distance between music and art would never be sufficient to explain why the adult material existed; no matter how big the separation between erotica and the arts, it wouldn’t be enough to avoid staining the fandom.

I still don’t think I made the right decision. Censorship is censorship; it silences things. But to tell the story, it might be needed. I don’t like it, but it works.

Censorship worked for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who managed to be elected four times to the highest office in the land without most Americans or world leaders knowing he’d been confined to a wheelchair since 1929. Thanks to censorship, it wasn’t revealed till he was dead. As his Office of Censorship motto reads, “Silence speeds victory.” The civil war may be over, but only thanks to censorship — not much of a reconstruction.