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Aella
@Aella_Girl
Also, the word 'nonharmful' is lifting a lot of weight. Everyone will say yeah, nonharmful things are fine! yet find ways of explaining how the things they don't like are harmful, actually. e.g., anti-gay people are very concerned about the harm to the 'fabric of society.' 1/
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
If someone has some controversial, nonharmful preference, "how did you get that preference" shouldn't be relevant. If it is, it means we're viewing the preference as an unfortunate mistake that we only accept when we see the person as a sufficiently helpless victim.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
People almost never decouple their concept of 'harm' from their concept of 'what they judge and exclude'. By definition, if you judge and exclude a thing, it's *because* you believe it's harmful. So the real question becomes, how do we evaluate our concept of harm? 2/
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
1. if the harm is abstracted (e.g., damage to society! confusion around natural roles!) 2. if it's based on horror or disgust to others ("they're fucked up in the head!") 3. if the harm is *created by the belief it's harmful* ("if they do it they'll be outcast/lowlife")
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
If your concept of harm is abstracted or driven by disgust or stigma, then there's a good chance your concept of harm isn't *really* based on harm; it's based on something else that you're subconsciously tagging as 'harm' because it's much more morally defensible.
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Dmitriy Kolesnikov 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
@NanoHydraulic
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
#3 especially irks me in the context of sex work. I see this all the time: we need to protect sex workers from reputational harm so let's be real demeaning to them! It's like saving kids from ruining their lives via pot by throwing them in jail.
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MarioMusicanova
@MMusicanova
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
There are ways in which things that are not harmful in isolation could become harmful at scale. for example, if enough were gay to make birth rate much less than replacement it would be harmful. of course its not close and never will be but the point stands that--
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Adam
@G89837993
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
What if the perceived harm is that the gay person is less likely to have children of their own? If you believe it's a form of sterility that's in the brain and therefore sth you can argue away to benefit them?
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