Thank you for this follow up. The ‘coldness’ in the original piece could both be, as you say, an emotional reaction to not wanting to process that someone close to you is a pedophile and also an issue with language.
"If I can't convince you of it, I'll say this: the writing is interesting on its own. Even if it is fiction, that doesn't mean there's no value in it—as a piece of literature and as a discussion piece."
I agree. I was a heck of a read. Possible questions about the reliability of the narrator simply made the piece more interesting and the horror more intriguing.
this story made me feel nothing, other than that it was probably completely made up by a white woman mad at a liberal redditor dude ignoring her in favor of anime and asian women, trying to soothe herself by imagining his downward spiral into cringe and further emasculation, in an attempt to lower him beneath her own self-evaluation
its possible some readers here might be into that though, roleplaying that they were as bad as the guy so that they can enjoy being stepped on
I would hope I would try to get someone some help if I became aware of what she became aware of over time. It would be difficult to try to face it that way, but just abandoning someone to go further into sickness seems wrong…but she sounds like she was fairly young during the marriage and turning away is your natural instinct to something like that
Do you think we always have a responsibility to help people? Feel like this is one of those questions that is more challenging than it seems on its face.
…“I would hope I would try to get someone some help.” I see now that could be interpreted as being said emphatically/sanctimoniously:) but I meant it in a considered, careful way. I don’t think I would’ve in my 20’s, but therapy/getting help is more common knowledge now than it was then. I still think it might take a degree of maturity even with that. So I consider the whole thing sad. To answer your question, short answer, if you’re married yes you have a responsibility to try, even if it’s as you’re leaving. If only because you’re a person they might listen to
I'm so glad you write about these things. I've never been into hentai but I did linger in online anime-centric fanfiction spaces for way too long, into my 20s.
Things you've written here and in comments really resonated when it comes to things like loneliness, relating to others. It makes me glad I fell away from it and have made a concentrated effort to be less online (if anyone reading this wants encouragement that kicking an internet addiction is possible, I firmly believe it is, though obviously having hentai or porn or whatever as an element to that makes it more complicated).
"Even though, in reality, it’s abuse, in the shipper’s mind’s eye, it is a distillation of closeness that only a terminally lonely person could long for. These ships are appealing for the same reason yaoi and slash are often appealing. It’s symbolic of the closeness only a person who’s never experienced intimacy could want." This strikes me as incredibly astute and perhaps helps give a more sympathetic framing of the high levels of autistic individuals within these communities [as a teacher I find that it's the autistic kids who are bullied the most - especially those who are into anime or give the impression of being furries or might identify as otherkin].
Do you think bullying still functions as an overall net social good helping delineate beneficial norms and rebuke anti-social/dysfunctional behaviors like otherkin and furries or has the balance shifted sometime recently into being a net harm?
I think overall it's a net harm, but then I was bullied quite a lot at school for behaviours that resulted from OCD so I'm biased. Most bullying involves ostracisation and I think a lot of people respond to ostracisation by either doubling down on behaviour or getting really bitter. I think peer disapproval can be effective, but after someone has been shamed there need to be a way back into the fold.
I think mostkids who identify as otherkin or furries do grow out of it - ultimately I think kids having IRL friends is preferable to them just having online friends so if two awkward girls at school are going around wearing tails or cat ears at lunch time it's likely something that by 18 they'll be cringing over in retrospect. I also think as teachers we can guard certain standards and rules without being dickish about it.
Furrydom is, as far as I can see, massively complicated. I wouldn't allow any kid to go to a furry convention because, frankly, the boundaries between sexual and non-sexual identifications seem fuzzy at best. Personally I see it as a pretty degraded aesthetic form... but I'd say the same about Family Guy and Marvel too - of which I'm sure there's a whole bulk of atrocious fan-fiction.
As for anime more broadly... ultimately it's a medium. Most anime is trash just as most videogames are trash. It's entirely possible to do create worthwhile art or entertainment within the medium.
P.S. For context, my school is in an economically deprived area here in the UK - there are very few woke kids and many are cheerfully offensive - I think some of the trends you've identified around teens are much more prevalent amongst the middle and upper-classes (plus, cultural trends def manifest differently in the UK to the US - we're very different countries despite the amount of UK politicians who seem to think otherwise).
The part about this kind of thing becoming who you are and defining your sexuality is why I’m personally against free for all sexuality. The people who promote (or at the very least sit passively by giving a silent co-sign) do so under the premise that the average person con self regulate when it comes to addictive substances. The obesity, porn, and soon to come sports gambling rates tell a different story.
Upon reading and still now I do deeply empathize with A. I have found myself in difficult situations and as a form of emotional protection spoke in 3rd person or on a matter of fact way to distance myself. Honestly the writing style made me think A actually had a technical job of anything. I’m quite animated and jovial in person but my written word defaults to a mundane and overly frank tone (IMO).
Anyone can say what is or isn’t the “right thing to do”. The internet is littered with these people. But when you log off and look around how many people do you know personally (besides yourself) that you’d truly say is capable of doing the right thing in the face of grave personal detriment? How many friends or family members can anyone count on to be a whistleblower of any kind? Besides myself I can think of one or maybe two people. Most I wouldn’t bet my life on. I’d people were that good they would be no Jeff Epstein, R Kelly, of Diddy’s to speak of. Does this realization absolve A or anyone else? No but sheds a realistic light on human nature and the fit for self preservation.
An aside but NGL. I found it weird that a few people were more triggered by her immigration status than the pedophilia and incest. That honestly says a lot about the ability for people to equivocate their pet political/cultural positions with things that are objectively evil.
I had a partner who was a normal guy. He had friends he hung out with a lot, he had a job, he played video games in his free time. We moved states and he refused to make new friends. He stayed inside and played video games 16 hours a day. I would get him a job but he would stop going if I didn’t drive him and make him go. He had a completely different life. I even had friends over to the house and they wouldn’t even know he was there because he stayed in his computer room. I did all the cooking and cleaning and served him food while he played. One time I asked him to eat dinner at the table with me and he hit me. I didn’t ask him again. He even stopped going to the bathroom and peed in cups. I finally bought him a car and sent him home and basically paid him to leave willingly. He also threatened to hurt himself. He would later join antifa.
In light of such a story, can we at the very least begin to consider seriously that digital communities/sub-cultures are maladjusted enclosures breeding graduating pathology? I’m not saying condemn all under such judgement but can we at the very least begin to protect youth with this notion in mind?
what happens when this people run into people who have a healthy partition with URL?
I think online subcultures are usually damaging, though, because their activities are unmoored from physical reality and they don't have to deal with the rest of the world in their space. The most toxic physical-world subcultures I can think of are cults and they usually try to dissuade relationships outside of the cult precisely so the group is only influenced from the inside. Online spaces can have the same effect of eliminating outside influence because moderation can be extremely effective in enforcing a consensus.
I got a reality check when on a popular fan fiction website I saw a huge and well liked fiction on how to kill and torture one popular female writer, and when I complained to the abuse team they said it's fine, cause it's fiction! Makes me sick years after the fact!
oh no way! he is your intellectual relative. his work in the book Playing and Reality should be in the DF canon since I’ve seen you also stress the importance of play, but what I’ve called the Winnicott problem stresses that as oriented positively to the object, and thus the environment(outer world) more generally. the initial paper that the book expounds upon is up your alley too.
I think he elucidates what I see in the distinction between irl sub-cultures and url digital enclosures, but I think your comment about graduating to the larger culture, which is essentially becoming whatever is defined as well adjusted, is sound.
So there are some parts to the original story that were conspicuously missing. I wish the followup would have touched on these:
-How well did she know him when they decided to get married? It sounds like they didn't date for too long and her English wasn't very good- is it possible that he was always like this and she just didn't realize until after they got married? What "geographic restrictions"- did they move countries? Did he just suddenly snap when he stopped playing sports?
-You mentioned in a comment that they're both now independantly wealthy, but in her original piece she was working hard while struggling to pay for driving lessons. Sounds like something changed there. Did she get a large divorce settlement from him?
-At some point he came out to her as trans. Did he transition? If so- any thoughts on this? Was he really trans or just pretending so he could get close to underage girls? Is that a freak occurance or a common problem in the trans community?
- What happened at the end? This story isn't over just because she got a divorce and green card! She says she got "different answers from legal professionals." Was he ever arrested, or did the police just ignore and he's still out there doing whatever he wants? If he's as bad as she says he is, is she doing anything to try and protect underage girls from this predator? Or, if the police looked at everything she presented and declined to press charges, does that cause her to rethink anything about her situation?
-How well did she know him when they decided to get married? It sounds like they didn't date for too long and her English wasn't very good- is it possible that he was always like this and she just didn't realize until after they got married? What "geographic restrictions"- did they move countries? Did he just suddenly snap when he stopped playing sports?
>> I believe 4ish years.
>> Cities?
>> He became gradually more withdrawn.
- You mentioned in a comment that they're both now independantly wealthy, but in her original piece she was working hard while struggling to pay for driving lessons. Sounds like something changed there. Did she get a large divorce settlement from him?
>> I don't know for sure but they probably had a joint account. I don't think she cheated him though.
-At some point he came out to her as trans. Did he transition? If so- any thoughts on this? Was he really trans or just pretending so he could get close to underage girls? Is that a freak occurance or a common problem in the trans community?
- What happened at the end? This story isn't over just because she got a divorce and green card! She says she got "different answers from legal professionals." Was he ever arrested, or did the police just ignore and he's still out there doing whatever he wants? If he's as bad as she says he is, is she doing anything to try and protect underage girls from this predator? Or, if the police looked at everything she presented and declined to press charges, does that cause her to rethink anything about her situation?
Hmm. I'm not sure if your formatting got messed up here, or if this is a direct quote from her? Either way, you can see how this doesn't really answer my questions, right?
I think it's fair to wonder, as I did, why A didn't go to the police right away. We also know it's her—naturally distorted— version of events that we're getting. But it's human, and that's what makes it, true or not, a good story.
When I say it's fair to wonder or question though I don't mean it's fair to condemn. You're a fool if you think you can even approximate the thoughts/emotions/dyspepsia whirring through this poor woman's system on a loop. Even if it was all to stay in America (who says we're not great anymore?), I can't judge her.
I also thought the writing/tone worked really well for the story, fwiw.
My guess would be she wanted to secure her status in the US first (her #1 goal this whole time) and then deal with him. He was probably always going to be a green card marriage (I am sure she could tell how autistic he was from day one), but he was a lot worse than she ever expected him to be. I do feel bad for her, certainly, though I question her decision making insofar as she decided to marry this man she definitely knew she didn't like (for good reasons that became better reasons over time)
Yeah, she obviously compromised a lot in service of a green card. But again I don't know what her circumstances were prior to coming here. Pretty gross situation overall.
I found the tenor of many of the comments utterly bizarre. It's like on the one hand conservatives think women are overemotional and hysterical but then rush to punish a woman for not being hysterical enough. No matter what women do they cannot win.
I think part of it is that people are primed to reflexively disagree. I've noticed myself doing this, too. I had to have a talk with myself at some point and assess what I really believed.
Even if the story's false, the themes ring 100% true. Severe porn addiction spiraling into a pit of depravity is absolutely out there and probably far more common than most people could imagine. We are failing as a culture by allowing such evil to fester and refusing to properly stigmatize it. It's really quite disgusting how many liberals don't want to talk about this because they are attached to the idea of porn as some kind of win over conservatives and religious people.
I think a root cause is, that as a society, there's a strong message that you deserve to fulfill all your desires.
Couple that with things like crazy porn and "kink acceptance" and you have a world that stokes weird fantasies and tells people that they have a "right" to fulfill them. Not a good mix.
We have lost sight of making cultural and moral guidelines that promote the common good without overly restricting individualism. So now people think it’s okay to unleashed and indulge in every desire rather than think about the end result, reason backwards then take actions the facilitate the desired end. People don’t think anymore. We act more like animals than ever before.
Another issue. The taste makers who promote this thinking are reasonably intelligent and never worked a job interacted socially with the Everyman/woman. They make police and culture recommendations for people like themselves who know how to self regulate better than the average person.
Thank you for this follow up. The ‘coldness’ in the original piece could both be, as you say, an emotional reaction to not wanting to process that someone close to you is a pedophile and also an issue with language.
I think we underrated the difficulty of processing things. And the digital can act as a crutch
Yes - for sure. Great job getting this out there; for your courage.
"If I can't convince you of it, I'll say this: the writing is interesting on its own. Even if it is fiction, that doesn't mean there's no value in it—as a piece of literature and as a discussion piece."
I agree. I was a heck of a read. Possible questions about the reliability of the narrator simply made the piece more interesting and the horror more intriguing.
this story made me feel nothing, other than that it was probably completely made up by a white woman mad at a liberal redditor dude ignoring her in favor of anime and asian women, trying to soothe herself by imagining his downward spiral into cringe and further emasculation, in an attempt to lower him beneath her own self-evaluation
its possible some readers here might be into that though, roleplaying that they were as bad as the guy so that they can enjoy being stepped on
>>its possible some readers here might be into that though, roleplaying that they were as bad as the guy so that they can enjoy being stepped on
this is an interesting point, though not literally true. No way to prove it w/o doxing the writer, but I did my best to verify her claims.
I would hope I would try to get someone some help if I became aware of what she became aware of over time. It would be difficult to try to face it that way, but just abandoning someone to go further into sickness seems wrong…but she sounds like she was fairly young during the marriage and turning away is your natural instinct to something like that
Do you think we always have a responsibility to help people? Feel like this is one of those questions that is more challenging than it seems on its face.
No, there are things that can't be helped.
…“I would hope I would try to get someone some help.” I see now that could be interpreted as being said emphatically/sanctimoniously:) but I meant it in a considered, careful way. I don’t think I would’ve in my 20’s, but therapy/getting help is more common knowledge now than it was then. I still think it might take a degree of maturity even with that. So I consider the whole thing sad. To answer your question, short answer, if you’re married yes you have a responsibility to try, even if it’s as you’re leaving. If only because you’re a person they might listen to
I'm so glad you write about these things. I've never been into hentai but I did linger in online anime-centric fanfiction spaces for way too long, into my 20s.
Things you've written here and in comments really resonated when it comes to things like loneliness, relating to others. It makes me glad I fell away from it and have made a concentrated effort to be less online (if anyone reading this wants encouragement that kicking an internet addiction is possible, I firmly believe it is, though obviously having hentai or porn or whatever as an element to that makes it more complicated).
Yes! We are very plastic. You can recover at any age.
"Even though, in reality, it’s abuse, in the shipper’s mind’s eye, it is a distillation of closeness that only a terminally lonely person could long for. These ships are appealing for the same reason yaoi and slash are often appealing. It’s symbolic of the closeness only a person who’s never experienced intimacy could want." This strikes me as incredibly astute and perhaps helps give a more sympathetic framing of the high levels of autistic individuals within these communities [as a teacher I find that it's the autistic kids who are bullied the most - especially those who are into anime or give the impression of being furries or might identify as otherkin].
Do you think bullying still functions as an overall net social good helping delineate beneficial norms and rebuke anti-social/dysfunctional behaviors like otherkin and furries or has the balance shifted sometime recently into being a net harm?
I think overall it's a net harm, but then I was bullied quite a lot at school for behaviours that resulted from OCD so I'm biased. Most bullying involves ostracisation and I think a lot of people respond to ostracisation by either doubling down on behaviour or getting really bitter. I think peer disapproval can be effective, but after someone has been shamed there need to be a way back into the fold.
I think mostkids who identify as otherkin or furries do grow out of it - ultimately I think kids having IRL friends is preferable to them just having online friends so if two awkward girls at school are going around wearing tails or cat ears at lunch time it's likely something that by 18 they'll be cringing over in retrospect. I also think as teachers we can guard certain standards and rules without being dickish about it.
Furrydom is, as far as I can see, massively complicated. I wouldn't allow any kid to go to a furry convention because, frankly, the boundaries between sexual and non-sexual identifications seem fuzzy at best. Personally I see it as a pretty degraded aesthetic form... but I'd say the same about Family Guy and Marvel too - of which I'm sure there's a whole bulk of atrocious fan-fiction.
As for anime more broadly... ultimately it's a medium. Most anime is trash just as most videogames are trash. It's entirely possible to do create worthwhile art or entertainment within the medium.
P.S. For context, my school is in an economically deprived area here in the UK - there are very few woke kids and many are cheerfully offensive - I think some of the trends you've identified around teens are much more prevalent amongst the middle and upper-classes (plus, cultural trends def manifest differently in the UK to the US - we're very different countries despite the amount of UK politicians who seem to think otherwise).
I have nothing to say except to thank you for always presenting these very personal stories with dignity and respect.
I'm glad (and relieved) you think so.
The part about this kind of thing becoming who you are and defining your sexuality is why I’m personally against free for all sexuality. The people who promote (or at the very least sit passively by giving a silent co-sign) do so under the premise that the average person con self regulate when it comes to addictive substances. The obesity, porn, and soon to come sports gambling rates tell a different story.
Upon reading and still now I do deeply empathize with A. I have found myself in difficult situations and as a form of emotional protection spoke in 3rd person or on a matter of fact way to distance myself. Honestly the writing style made me think A actually had a technical job of anything. I’m quite animated and jovial in person but my written word defaults to a mundane and overly frank tone (IMO).
Anyone can say what is or isn’t the “right thing to do”. The internet is littered with these people. But when you log off and look around how many people do you know personally (besides yourself) that you’d truly say is capable of doing the right thing in the face of grave personal detriment? How many friends or family members can anyone count on to be a whistleblower of any kind? Besides myself I can think of one or maybe two people. Most I wouldn’t bet my life on. I’d people were that good they would be no Jeff Epstein, R Kelly, of Diddy’s to speak of. Does this realization absolve A or anyone else? No but sheds a realistic light on human nature and the fit for self preservation.
An aside but NGL. I found it weird that a few people were more triggered by her immigration status than the pedophilia and incest. That honestly says a lot about the ability for people to equivocate their pet political/cultural positions with things that are objectively evil.
Sorry typos because vacation multitasking with food and drink.
I had a partner who was a normal guy. He had friends he hung out with a lot, he had a job, he played video games in his free time. We moved states and he refused to make new friends. He stayed inside and played video games 16 hours a day. I would get him a job but he would stop going if I didn’t drive him and make him go. He had a completely different life. I even had friends over to the house and they wouldn’t even know he was there because he stayed in his computer room. I did all the cooking and cleaning and served him food while he played. One time I asked him to eat dinner at the table with me and he hit me. I didn’t ask him again. He even stopped going to the bathroom and peed in cups. I finally bought him a car and sent him home and basically paid him to leave willingly. He also threatened to hurt himself. He would later join antifa.
the partner's name was albert eisenhower
No. But I’m sure there’s many such cases.
In light of such a story, can we at the very least begin to consider seriously that digital communities/sub-cultures are maladjusted enclosures breeding graduating pathology? I’m not saying condemn all under such judgement but can we at the very least begin to protect youth with this notion in mind?
what happens when this people run into people who have a healthy partition with URL?
This is probably true of all subcultures. Teens should "graduate" from them into broader society. Or so I suspect.
I think online subcultures are usually damaging, though, because their activities are unmoored from physical reality and they don't have to deal with the rest of the world in their space. The most toxic physical-world subcultures I can think of are cults and they usually try to dissuade relationships outside of the cult precisely so the group is only influenced from the inside. Online spaces can have the same effect of eliminating outside influence because moderation can be extremely effective in enforcing a consensus.
I got a reality check when on a popular fan fiction website I saw a huge and well liked fiction on how to kill and torture one popular female writer, and when I complained to the abuse team they said it's fine, cause it's fiction! Makes me sick years after the fact!
also, still catching up but are you familiar with Donald Winnicott?
the husband seems like a textbook case of what’s called the Winnicott problem.
I am now
oh no way! he is your intellectual relative. his work in the book Playing and Reality should be in the DF canon since I’ve seen you also stress the importance of play, but what I’ve called the Winnicott problem stresses that as oriented positively to the object, and thus the environment(outer world) more generally. the initial paper that the book expounds upon is up your alley too.
I think he elucidates what I see in the distinction between irl sub-cultures and url digital enclosures, but I think your comment about graduating to the larger culture, which is essentially becoming whatever is defined as well adjusted, is sound.
So there are some parts to the original story that were conspicuously missing. I wish the followup would have touched on these:
-How well did she know him when they decided to get married? It sounds like they didn't date for too long and her English wasn't very good- is it possible that he was always like this and she just didn't realize until after they got married? What "geographic restrictions"- did they move countries? Did he just suddenly snap when he stopped playing sports?
-You mentioned in a comment that they're both now independantly wealthy, but in her original piece she was working hard while struggling to pay for driving lessons. Sounds like something changed there. Did she get a large divorce settlement from him?
-At some point he came out to her as trans. Did he transition? If so- any thoughts on this? Was he really trans or just pretending so he could get close to underage girls? Is that a freak occurance or a common problem in the trans community?
- What happened at the end? This story isn't over just because she got a divorce and green card! She says she got "different answers from legal professionals." Was he ever arrested, or did the police just ignore and he's still out there doing whatever he wants? If he's as bad as she says he is, is she doing anything to try and protect underage girls from this predator? Or, if the police looked at everything she presented and declined to press charges, does that cause her to rethink anything about her situation?
-How well did she know him when they decided to get married? It sounds like they didn't date for too long and her English wasn't very good- is it possible that he was always like this and she just didn't realize until after they got married? What "geographic restrictions"- did they move countries? Did he just suddenly snap when he stopped playing sports?
>> I believe 4ish years.
>> Cities?
>> He became gradually more withdrawn.
- You mentioned in a comment that they're both now independantly wealthy, but in her original piece she was working hard while struggling to pay for driving lessons. Sounds like something changed there. Did she get a large divorce settlement from him?
>> I don't know for sure but they probably had a joint account. I don't think she cheated him though.
-At some point he came out to her as trans. Did he transition? If so- any thoughts on this? Was he really trans or just pretending so he could get close to underage girls? Is that a freak occurance or a common problem in the trans community?
- What happened at the end? This story isn't over just because she got a divorce and green card! She says she got "different answers from legal professionals." Was he ever arrested, or did the police just ignore and he's still out there doing whatever he wants? If he's as bad as she says he is, is she doing anything to try and protect underage girls from this predator? Or, if the police looked at everything she presented and declined to press charges, does that cause her to rethink anything about her situation?
Hmm. I'm not sure if your formatting got messed up here, or if this is a direct quote from her? Either way, you can see how this doesn't really answer my questions, right?
Sorry I got distracted and forgot to finish responding #momlife
Not damaging enough
WDYM?
ima piggyback on da fool because yay piggyback.
of course this story freached me when it came out.
and, as Teacher Teach says, "if you read it, it for you (foo)"
hence, a take.
op was failing at her part of the deal.
so, like a man, her partner took things into his own hands (p.int.?)
and did the only right thing he found within his power:
he took steps to become the kind of woman that he found to be missing in the world.
the rest, as they say, is whatsisname, Id something.
ah, Id Eology.
i had a cousin named that
I think it's fair to wonder, as I did, why A didn't go to the police right away. We also know it's her—naturally distorted— version of events that we're getting. But it's human, and that's what makes it, true or not, a good story.
When I say it's fair to wonder or question though I don't mean it's fair to condemn. You're a fool if you think you can even approximate the thoughts/emotions/dyspepsia whirring through this poor woman's system on a loop. Even if it was all to stay in America (who says we're not great anymore?), I can't judge her.
I also thought the writing/tone worked really well for the story, fwiw.
My guess would be she wanted to secure her status in the US first (her #1 goal this whole time) and then deal with him. He was probably always going to be a green card marriage (I am sure she could tell how autistic he was from day one), but he was a lot worse than she ever expected him to be. I do feel bad for her, certainly, though I question her decision making insofar as she decided to marry this man she definitely knew she didn't like (for good reasons that became better reasons over time)
Yeah, she obviously compromised a lot in service of a green card. But again I don't know what her circumstances were prior to coming here. Pretty gross situation overall.
No question there, it's a gross situation no matter how you slice it.
I found the tenor of many of the comments utterly bizarre. It's like on the one hand conservatives think women are overemotional and hysterical but then rush to punish a woman for not being hysterical enough. No matter what women do they cannot win.
I think part of it is that people are primed to reflexively disagree. I've noticed myself doing this, too. I had to have a talk with myself at some point and assess what I really believed.
Even if the story's false, the themes ring 100% true. Severe porn addiction spiraling into a pit of depravity is absolutely out there and probably far more common than most people could imagine. We are failing as a culture by allowing such evil to fester and refusing to properly stigmatize it. It's really quite disgusting how many liberals don't want to talk about this because they are attached to the idea of porn as some kind of win over conservatives and religious people.
I think a root cause is, that as a society, there's a strong message that you deserve to fulfill all your desires.
Couple that with things like crazy porn and "kink acceptance" and you have a world that stokes weird fantasies and tells people that they have a "right" to fulfill them. Not a good mix.
We have lost sight of making cultural and moral guidelines that promote the common good without overly restricting individualism. So now people think it’s okay to unleashed and indulge in every desire rather than think about the end result, reason backwards then take actions the facilitate the desired end. People don’t think anymore. We act more like animals than ever before.
Another issue. The taste makers who promote this thinking are reasonably intelligent and never worked a job interacted socially with the Everyman/woman. They make police and culture recommendations for people like themselves who know how to self regulate better than the average person.
Horrifying jolt into the fact that demons exist and they can possess humans.