I'm Brian Joseph Johns, aka Shhhh! Digital Media.
I wanted to discuss another issue, and one that might make some people uncomfortable. I seem to excel at doing so, while confronting the kinds of things that most people don't want to face, or believe they have a grasp of, only to find out that they don't truly understand that into which they delve.
The politics of writing fantasy fiction that involves other worldly cultures can sometimes be quite aggressive, and have a very vicious dynamic. Though I try to keep those aspects from my writing, and rarely use my writing as a personal vent, when it comes down to everything, my words are mostly what I have. They're based upon nearly sixty years of life experience, from near the top at one time, to right near the bottom at another time, and everywhere in between.
I'm not part of any religion that discards one's life once they convert, and then cannabilizes their history and hands that history out to other members of the religion. So, for instance, I was suddenly born in 2022, or at some other fictitious point that others assume that I converted to any such religion, because I never did. I've steadily been dedicated to the road of agnostic secular atheism and leaning toward Budhism and Taoism since around late 2005. At that time, or any time before, I did not lose the entirety of my history to anyone else. So my memories and experiences, are still in tact and part of my life, and despite what most people seem to believe, if you don't have your experiences recorded on video, that doesn't mean that they never happened. If that was the case, then everyone's ancestry would essentially disappear, because how many people before 1930 are on film? Still or moving pictures? I just wanted to touch upon that, as it would explain a lot of how I know what I know. I've lived nearly an entire life.
Secondly, writing a story that bridges worldly cultural tradition with modern day fantasy, sci-fi or action can be challenging. Even daunting, especially when dealing with the movement toward authenticity, which unfortunately is more and more becoming a weapon against expression. In all truth, if it were fully enforced, there would be no books at all, or none that explored ideas that didn't already exist, and that only included aspects of the author's environment and identity. Women could only write books with women characters, and male authors about male characters. I doubt fiction would even continue to exist. We'd lose the better part of an artistic inspiration that has connections to every single human achievement there was ever been, while some of the greatest achievements arose from the minds of truly creative and imaginative scientists, whose minds were not restrained by ideas like authenticity.
Thirdly, and this has to do with a person's private life, especially those of authors or content creators, and especially with regard to their intimacy and sexuality. There are groups out there, many of them criminal in nature, though most that I've encountered are zealous bigots or political opportunists who simply use a person's sexual secrets as weapons against them, and to implore others away from such persons.
As I've stated, my love interest is Southeast Asian, and my last girlfriend is Korean, a short but serious relationship and before that, I was seriously involved with a Chinese woman. In both cases, they were stalked by other citizens as a means to keep them away from me, on the basis of my being a light-skinned Canadian Welsh person. A particularly racist relgious ideology was against my being romantically involved in that direction, and the same group still has their tendrils in many situations with regard to my life in that matter. Something I'm currently dealing with in via legal means.
From a political standpoint, the members of this and other connected ideologies have been trying to paint me as if I'm a cultural rapist of sorts, because of my intimate appreciation of Southeast Asian women, and quite often content that celebrates that and one of the greatest joys of our existence. Our sexuality.
Information like this about a person is a great weapon when used out of context and without the complete picture of what is actually going on. For instance, these groups who collect such information and perhaps some form of monitoring of my devices, which I don't really feel the need to hide, though it only reveals to me how voyeuristic some religious ideologies actually are. I wouldn't put their motivations beyond yoyeurism. Its voyeurism, that uses the information gathered about a person as a political weapon against them, and in order to turn the very cultures they depict and protect against them, because such groups now see the political merit in maintaining strong cultural ties throughout the globe, though I've found these groups who do this purely for that sort of gain, to really not give a sh#t about the cultures they're trying to loop into their ploy.
Imagine you're part of a culture whose history goes back thousands of years. You've setup a mostly isolated civilization on a large island just off of one of the largest continents. Through millennia, you've developed your own unique and distinct culture, that embraces many extremes, that other cultures either speak about in hushed tones, or outright sweep under the carpet in denial if ever confronted with such ideas.
A thousand years later, and that culture in terms of identity, is one of the strongest and most recognizable througout the world, and I hope with all my heart, unapologetically so. Then, a group on the other side of the world decide that your ways go entirely against their morality and their religion. They start a secretive movement to alter those sorts of activities in other countries that violate their religious ideas, and they attract a lot of people of a similar inclination, who grew up believing that they understood the true nature of innocence, when in fact, they're truly the destroyers thereof.
They show up on the shores of this country in the day and age of social media, and social video sites, and begin behaving like idiots in public in this country of thousands of years of continous history, cutting them down about all of their aspects, and secretly taking jabs at aspects of their very forward thinking and progressing attitudes toward sexuality. A subject rarely spoken about, but fiercely defended as it is and has been a very big aspect of their culture and their social bonding. Discretion first, however, while in the face of these tourist invaders of their culture, these people turn it into a circus much to the embarrassment and chagrin of that thousands of years old culture.
A few years of that sort of treatment and behaviour arising from the ignorance of these people who essentially want to tell everyone else how to live, outside of their own borders, but don't want to hear how to live with regard to their own borders. A few years of that, and many embarrassing and purposely spiteful videos mocking their culture, and they decide to close the doors, especially as they realize that aspects related to their culture are under direct attack from zealots, who are mostly disgusted with everyone else, and the greatest gift they ever got for free: the wonder of the human body. They waste that wonder destroying ideas and aspects of another culture with thousands of years of continuous history, and the culture who is facing them on this is barely a few hundred years. Has a monstrous problem with sex trafficking linked to naroctics, and horrible exploitation of women therein. And they decide they're going to pack up and go to this other country, and mock them, and anyone who sides with them, or anyone who understands that one of the greatest joys of being alive, is our capacity for intimacy. Not at the cost of exploitation, but certain the freedom to choose how adults enjoy this aspect of their life. There is no weapon that any religion has ever wielded that has more weight and power than sexuality. When its wielded as a weapon, women's rights to self determination suffer.
Now, you might think that I'm biased. I'm sticking up (forgive the pun) for that which allows me the greatest pleasure, but I'd have to say that is not the case at all. I'm sticking up for that culture on the grounds that nobody else will, because the way things work most often is that people who stand on the assumely right side of that issue, are the ones who are just, when in fact I'd say that is not the case at all. Just is a woman's right to self determination, and that's coming from someone who has some pretty kinky fantasies about control. My point is that we should never be denied the right to think as we choose, and women should never lose their right of self determination with regard to their own body.
If you want to clean up the world and protect innocence. Real innocence. Then take your credit card processing empire, and start cracking down on all of the delivery services that are now doubling as credit card doors for narcotics motivated prostitution, instead of attacking a culture for whom intimacy has been an integral part of their history. Now you've embarrassingly brought it to the forefront, and embarrassed a thousands of years old culture in the process, though I know they aren't. They have honour and dignity enough to outlast the worst of the likes of ignorant zeal.
If any of those cultures of Southeast Asia ever chooses to abandon me or Shhhh! Digital Media, I have to say that I don't own them. They are my friends because they choose to be, not because I am some manipulative tyrant in a political armwrestle with them. They'll always have my loyalty and for good reasons. My life was saved by women from that part of the world, who accepted me as I was, when I had absolutely nothing. Real innocence, is when you look into the eyes of a woman (or man as the case may be), and regardless of their misgivings, and in celebration of their best moments, you can look past it all and without judgement or remorse. Especially with regard to aspects of their life that were purely about play.
If you think that in my writing, I don't celebrate, or bring value to their culture, you're obviously not reading it. Most of the readers that keep coming back, know that for everyone and everywhere I write about, there's almost always something represented about those places that is inspiring, and insightful as to their culture and history. Including those I've written about Canadian culture across the board.
If you're upset that MissGvious is angry at the current point in Butterfly Dragon Reimagined, then remember all of the times that the other characters experience suffering of some form, if you believe my writing to be racially motivated.
One piece of advice I have for you out there. Never deal with any cult that removes you identity, and replaces it with another. If you do, deal with them legally. Either a cease and desist, or a summons.
Brian Joseph Johns
CEO/Author
Shhhh! Digital Media
