I enjoy the new My Little Pony cartoon series. It’s pleasant, generally well-written fluff and has even managed to sell me a toy or two, which is obviously its reason to be. My girlfriend and I have even cosplayed “Equestria Girls”, the magically-transformed human version of the Ponies.
But since I do have a crowded, interesting life, I’m still watching my way through the 2012 season. When an episode showed Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie dressed in vinyl catsuits (ponysuits?) for a heist, I gleefully tweeted about PVC ponies – the implication being that I wouldn’t mind seeing Stormygoddess pink-wigged in that getup!
Shokolada: “Okay, I just saw a My Little Pony episode that IN CANON has Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie running around in black PVC catsuits. 😀 😀 :D”
Pleased with the thought, I went to bed. When I woke up this morning, this surprise waited for me:
[Name Withheld]: “@shokolada I can’t understand why people say that adult My Little Pony fans are creepy.”Now, perhaps I read too much into that; it’s easy to do on the Internet. But it sure read as though he called me a creep for writing that post: a post which to me clearly talked about outfits I enjoy seeing a real person in.
I didn’t specify, that’s true. But I refuse to preface every single 140-character Tweet with disclaimers. The population of people who want somehow to have sex with cartoon ponies is absolutely smaller than the population of people who want to have sex with other humans (often dressed provocatively). The default assumption should be that I meant that.
Role-playing provides vital creative and expressive tools to a healthy mind and lifestyle; the bedroom’s no exception. Costumes and props for sexual role-play fill sex stores, and the situations implied would often in real life be unethical at best. Nurses, maids, cheerleaders: the list is long. (Long, and too focused on the fantasies of males, but I have hopes along those lines.)
Anime fans know too well about Japan’s tendency to sexualize underage women. If I see an anime film that portrays a thirteen-year-old in a sexual situation, I’m going to be pretty unhappy about it. But if I see a grown woman at a con wearing that sexualized outfit? Well, rowr! (A polite rowr, for sure.) And it makes a huge difference! An idle bedroom fantasy about a compatible consenting adult doesn’t compare to one about an underage sex object. (Just… ew.)
And here we have my answer to the folks that say ageplay, as a specific kink, is pedophilia. A person who consistently fantasizes about having sex with a toddler has serious problems; a person who attempts to bring those fantasies to life has far worse problems, and the social and legal consequences are completely appropriate. But if you want to dress as toddlers with a consenting adult: well, knock yourself out! It’s a great opportunity to make sex silly, and we sure as heck take our sex rather too seriously these days.
Perhaps modern entertainment culture leaves viewers ill-equipped to tell the difference between a role and the people playing it. How many times have people been confused when an actor is nothing like their most famous role – or worse, becomes famous a second time for a role completely unlike the part they previously played? How many furious rants have been posted to the Internet when an author dares to take characters in an unexpected direction? Maybe someone’s created a class these folks can take, but in the meantime, I can close this in the confidence that if there’s a creep here, it’s not me. Now if you’ll excuse me, Stormygoddess and I have to settle on which one of us is wearing a maid’s dress tonight…
