#oneaday Day 266: Getting People Talking

You hopefully know me by now, dear reader; I have no particular desire to be any form of "famous", be it "Internet famous" or "actually famous". In fact, the prospect brings me a great deal of anxiety — especially given the "cancel culture" we presently live in.

There are times, though, that I'm glad I have a platform, and I'm glad I have the opportunity to use it to actually do something good. That has very much been the case in the last week since I published my article We Need To Get Better At Talking About Sex.

Those who have been following me for a while will know that I've long been dissatisfied with the way the mainstream games press treats Japanese games with sexual content, be that content fully explicit or simply fanservice. I've expressed those frustrations on numerous occasions, but no time I've attempted this has hit home as well as my article last week.

This time around, though, something's been different. People have been listening. People outside of the particular subculture who are continually concerned and annoyed by this have been listening, too. And there's a lot of agreement; moreover, there's a lot of people thinking that I'm somehow brave or otherwise doing something remarkable for speaking up about this.

One such example is Liana Kerzner's video which I've linked above. Liana, if you're unfamiliar, is a sex-positive feminist commentator who has, over the course of her career, worked in television, the commercial games press and YouTube. Her current YouTube work is particularly interested in, in her words, "improving the dialogue around video games" — something sorely needed — and explores a variety of topics, including politics and mental health, among other things, as they relate to both gaming and feminism.

Liana was kind enough to devote an entire video to my article, as she found it worthwhile and noteworthy. She praised me for having the courage to speak up about something like this, and reassured me that the things I said had value.

I won't lie, I'm both flattered and incredibly moved (I may have had a little cry earlier) that someone with a way bigger following than I do would do something like this for an article mostly written out of frustration. But more than that, I'm glad it's got people talking — and people outside of "preaching to the choir" territory, too, as will be abundantly clear from how Liana doesn't know how to pronounce "eroge", bless her!

I find it particularly noteworthy that in the week since I published this piece, I haven't had any negative or unpleasant comments, either — and I was expecting some, believe me. But no; I've had one just plain weird comment that I still don't really understand, and a parade of supportive and grateful comments from people who have been similarly frustrated about this topic, but felt, for whatever reason, unable or unwilling to speak up.

I just want to share one comment I received today as an example:

 

“the fact that emotional intimacy often brings with it the desire to be physically intimate, too. And, I can’t emphasise this enough, that is very much OKAY!”

This bit honestly moved me to tears. I’ve been so confused for my whole life about the validity of physical intimacy (thanks Catholicism), and while I’d kinda grasped at this idea earlier, I’m so happy to know that my feelings are normal.

I successfully touched someone with my writing, reassured them that something which had clearly worried them for a long time was, in fact, normal, healthy and perfectly okay, and seemingly generally made their day a bit better. That… feels pretty good.

I hasten to add that I don't wish to come across as if I'm bragging here; I genuinely think this stuff is important, and I'm glad that, for once, I've had the opportunity to make a difference, however small it might be in the grand scheme of things. But I got people talking. And that's good.

Thank you to everyone who has been kind enough to support my work in general and this piece specifically; it really means a lot.