this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
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Collective Shout claim it’s about harm reduction, but then push an agenda that functionally amounts to moral panic.
Their approach is identical in logic to the “GTA causes school shootings” hysteria: loud, pearl-clutching, and utterly unmoored from data.
If Collective Shout want to argue these games cause harm, then show us the harm. Not correlation. Not outrage. Not hypothetical downstream consequences. Show causation. Peer-reviewed. Reproducible.
Otherwise, they’re just moralizing bullies using the banking system as a cudgel.
On top of this, they might actually be harming their own cause. The catharsis hypothesis poses that sexual fantasy enactment might reduce risk of real world harm.
The logic is simple: suppressing a compulsion doesn't eliminate it. It just bottles up until it explodes. Redirect it into a safe outlet, and it becomes manageable.
The only reason this research isn't cited more often is because it's politically radioactive. Nobody wants to admit that it's better to let a gooners jerk off, than to escalate under repression.
The burden of proof SHOULD be on Collective Shout to provide a reasonable argument which supports their claim that censorship will reduce real world harm.
Current working theory in psychology: it doesn't. Emerging theory suggests: they're shooting themselves (and potential rape victims) in the foot.
The real solution to real-world harm involves empathy, autonomy and education.
Furthermore...
Their decision to target the payment processors - not the developers, or itch.io, or steam, is some of the most cowardly and authoritarian things I've ever seen in the gaming space.
It's economic coercion; a playbook used by religious bigots and authoritarians for decades. Financial censorship by proxy. IMO: they should fuck off.
Even Furthermore...
Wanna censor it? Good fucking idea /s
Shoving that shit into the shadows doesn’t make it go away, it just makes it untraceable, unmoderated, and unaccountable.
If you care even remotely about preventing harm, you don’t force taboo communities off the grid. You keep them where they can be seen, tracked, and contained... preferably behind legal firewalls, age gates, and content filters.
If you push them into the dark web... then congratulations... you’ve just built a Petri dish for escalation, radicalization, and actual predation.
They are religious nutjobs, they don't care about causation.
I thought they were a feminist group
TERFs are as feminist as Nazis are socialist and North Korea is democratic. It's in the acronym; that's it.
I believe they're a religious group under the guise of feminism and child protection. If you look at their affiliate page, they list quite a few religious groups.
Feminism isn't a religion?
In what way is Feminism a religion? Do feminists pray to Lilith? Is there a Woman Church? Is International Women's Day the Christmas of this religion?
Think before you say silly things.
Feminism increasingly displays an in-group out-group dynamic characteristic of religions.
They're increasingly dogmatic with their teachings, a feminist will spout party lines without thinking about them precisely the way a christian will.
A god hasn't emerged yet afaik but a canon of saints is emerging, to include Marie Curie and Amelia Earhart.
Unironically yes, who else has any use for International Women's Day.
They've even got unhinged extremists, like these assholes in Australia.
We have examples today of the real harm of this, like in Afghanistan. It’s interesting that western societies are overall less religious as ever, yet religion keeps getting shoved down our throats… and winning.
If I'm not mistaken it's not a religious group doing it because Jesus, it's a feminist group doing it because they blame porn for the existence of transpeople
Porn and prostitution do have historical correlation with the existence of trans people. Namely that when we're kept from all other means of making money these industries help us continue to afford food and shelter.
That's one of the things that pisses me off most about all this. By calling us pornographic they're calling for us to be forced back into an exploitative relationship with the porn and sex industries.