thegalacticpope:

Pedophiles, Predators, and Perverts, Oh My!

My name is CJ. I am a teacher. I’m currently 20 years old. This summer, I’m working with what we call the 4s and 5s. The little ones. And boy, do I love my job. I’m great at it too. I’m going to brag a little, but the kids love me. Every time they see me they cheer and shout “Ms. CJ! Ms. CJ!”

Well, I can’t believe it’s gotten to this point, but here I am. Here it is. The Batman fandom on tumblr has become a safe haven for pedophilia, and honestly, I can’t take it anymore. There’s only so much I can do. I block people, block the tags. But the dangerous content has permeated the fandom, to the point where you can’t even peruse the neutral tags without being bombarded with sexual content. Don’t even get me started on Ao3.

Depending on where you are in the comics, Damian is between 10-13 years old. Damian Wayne is a child. Barely a teenager, if even. Damian Wayne should not even be shipped with anyone. Remember how tumblr likes to make fun of things like the gender binary and forced heteronormativity? Guess what you’re doing when you put Damian in a relationship with anybody, even someone the appropriate age? He’s a child. He deserves time to figure out for himself who he is. 

There’s a little boy in my class who I’m gonna call Q. Q has a crush on me. He told me so. He likes to hold my hand when we go to the playground. He picks me flowers. He told me he wanted to marry me one day. He even got very upset on my behalf when another little boy called me ugly. Q cried for close to 10 minutes, and I had to struggle not to smile. “You’re not ugly, Ms. CJ. I think you’re very pretty.” And I looked him right in the face, struggling to keep a serious expression. “Thank you, Q. Sometimes people say mean things they don’t mean. But he apologized. I know I’m not ugly. Thank you for standing up for me, Q. Can I have a hug?” And he gave me a teary-eyed hug while I dried his eyes and he went to go play. 

The most popular problematic and honestly disgusting ship is DickDami. But I’ve seen others too: TimDami, JayDami, and (I’m getting nauseous) BruDami. What is wrong with this fandom? Since when is this okay?

Damian is 13 years old. And you want to pair him romantically with a 28 year old, a 23 year old, a 20 year old, or god forbid his own father? 

There is a 15 year age difference between Dick and Damian. Fifteen years. That is a longer time than Damian has been alive. Dick is more than double Damian’s age. This is called pedophilia. 

That should make you uncomfortable. That should make you uneasy. You are being a pedophile when you ship this. 

I am 20 years old. Q is 5 years old. There are 15 years in-between us. It makes me physically ill to look at Q and know that there are people in the Batman fandom who are okay with me being (this is hard for me to even write) in a romantic relationship with Q, now or in the future. They don’t understand. I’ve wiped up Q’s snot. I’ve put him in time-out because he wasn’t sharing. I have watched him learn and grow. And I love that little guy with all my heart. But there is no way in hell I could ever even think about being anything other than his teacher or friend even 15 years from now. Because he was a kid when I met him, and I am an adult. It is my job, and all of our collective responsibilities to care for our children. 

You need to take responsibility for your actions. You are a pedophile when you ship Dick Grayson with Damian Wayne. When you want and adult and a child to be in a romantic relationship together, that’s what it’s called. Pedophilia. If that makes you uncomfortable, and honestly it should, then you should stop. 

Q is a child. He’s allowed to have a crush on me. He’s allowed to hold my hand and pick me flowers. He’s even told his mom that he wants to marry Ms. CJ. And I smile at her and she smiles at me, because he’s just a kid. He can’t differentiate between the different types of love. He knows that he loves me and that I love him, and he doesn’t see the difference between our love and, for example, how his parents love each other. And that’s okay. Because it’s my job as an adult, as his friend, and his teacher to let Q feel loved, but to also allow him to have a safe place to be a kid and to love me, without having his innocence be tainted by the outside world. 

Now there are people who say, “Well what if we ‘age-up’ Damian? It’s not pedophilia then!”

You’re wrong. That’s still pedophilia. You watched a child and an adult have an interaction, and you interpreted that as romantic. You watched Dick and Damian reunite in Grayson #12 and thought their reaction was a romantic one. You watched Q pick me flowers and you thought it was okay for me to love him like I loved my boyfriend. That is called pedophilia and it’s wrong. Especially when I see so many parallels. I am Q’s teacher. I’m his friend. I love him very much. He’s so precious to me. Dick is Damian’s mentor, his teacher. They are adoptive brothers. They love each other very much. How can you not see how wrong that is?

I’m even uncomfortable with shipping children with each other. Maps, Colin, Maya, Damian. They’re just kids. It’s like me watching them play on a playground and saying “I want Q and L to date. They’d be super cute together.” That’s wrong. They’re kids. Let them be kids. Let them grow up. 

What’s wrong with platonic love? Since when has sex become the ultimate step in a relationship? Why do you see the deep connection that Dick and Damian have, and the love that they have and want to interpret it as a sexual one? And this is completely ignoring the fact that Damian is a child.

Not only is Damian Wayne a child, he’s a child of trauma. I’ve dealt with trauma kids before, it’s my specialty. Kids of trauma often withhold any sort of affection, both physical and verbal until they feel they know you and are safe around you. Once that level of safety is reached, often then comes a rush of too much physical affection. They want cuddles, and snuggles and to feel safe. I see so many signs of trauma in Damian’s character it’s not even funny. And then I see him find someone who will love him and support him unconditionally, Dick Grayson. And he’s finally safe. But then, some pedophiles have to go and fill up those safe spaces with sex and lust. And that’s just so wrong, on so many levels.

Listen, this is all fiction. But fiction reflects reality. You are allowed to ship any adults you want together. Have at it. Porn is a good thing. Let your freak flag fly. But for the love of god–no–for the love of children. For all the children, all the happy ones, the healthy ones, the traumatized ones, the ones who are grown up now and have to deal with childhood trauma, all of them. Please for the sake of the children, keep children out of unhealthy relationships.

Don’t be the type of person Batman despises. Don’t be the type of person Batman hunts down at night. 

Take a stand. Stop normalizing pedophilia.