So, just to be clear, if one person isn't offended, there is no possibility that anyone could be offended?
Weeb revolt over trap censorship
- Thread starter Specter Von Baren
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I don't know how you got that from what I said. Could you explain your logic, preferably step by step?
Maybe I shouldn't had said anything. I actually do understand that the term can be offensive. Its just that I'm just saying I don't know what to call myself. I do keep this stuff to myself mind you because I understand that. Its the same issue if someone were to call me an egg so I would respect anyone else by not calling anyone by anything unless I know its ok with them.
I do appreciate you standing up for me but I'm ultimately in the wrong. I'd hate the thought if anyone were to be offended by a term for existing so I don't mind not using it. Being a crossdresser has its own issues by itself; People don't like my existence because its "wrong" or insist I'm gay or trans when I'm doing it for the aesthetic and it happens surprisingly a lot.
I guess the big take away is that everyone should be treated how they want to be treated and with respect because of who they are. I'm sorry if anyone is/was offended so I'll keep things in mind for the future.
I think it was less offense and more that the term "trap" itself carries a fair bit of baggage. Especially considering its origins as straight guy "bait". It is by its nature devaluing. It has nothing to do with what you enjoy (crossdressing), but rather the (insidious) relation of what you enjoy has to do with straight men (trick them into finding you hot only to reveal you are a guy). I think that is what Terminal was going for when they were talking about self-respect (and I would ask that they forgive me if I got it wrong.)
There also seems to be no shortage of people who project their insecurities onto what others say about stuff they like.
In general, it's not necessary to qualify these things with "not all anime" each time it's mentioned. Normie acceptance of weebs isn't hung up on r/animemes. "It's normal in Japan" doesn't make it immune to criticism and it doesn't make Japanese culture immune to criticism and it doesn't make the fan interpretation of Japanese culture immune to criticism. Why that last one? Because a huge number fans are on the spectrum and the industry's affinity to pander to every quirky fan out there seriously undermines claims of consuming "culture" instead of a cynical product. There's nothing wrong with liking stuff that's made by fans for fans, but if one needs to get defensive and look for excuses how others supposedly get the wrong idea they are just being pathetic.
It's the trap (hehee) of saying you're respectful towards everyone's feelings while liking and sharing jokes that some people find offensive. Very similar to the issues around cultural appropriation. I often find it oversensitive.
See, there's a critical lack of understanding here.
The butt of the joke is not the trap, it's the guy. Also, the trap is almost NEVER actually trying to trick anyone, they're just being themselves. It is the guy who projects onto them what he wishes to see.
When there's a joke about a trap, it never demeans the trap, it's always about the guy being dense. If there's any malice at all, it's more on the part of the artist or author who wants to troll their audience (in the cases where they're not just into it themselves and are just having fun) so again, the actual character isn't really scheming or plotting to make people gay because they got a boner at him or anything of the sort.
People are just super duper ignorant here. Hell, I'm not even into this sort of thing and I know this much cause I'm into anime fandom. The ones complaining have to by definition not even be into it either and maybe not into anime at all in the first place and just want to complain about stuff.
But when one tries to criticize a cultural tradition, say, Islamic or African cultures, people are quick to jump at the accusation of phobia-isms and proclaim that it is colonial oppressive thought to try to tell them what's right and what isn't based on our uniquely westerner concepts that stem from whiteness, concepts such as politeness and math.
Why are you trying to colonize Japan?
By the capacity of someone to not be offended, it is proven that the term isn't offensive by itself. It doesn't cause offense automatically as a natural course. It is based on the reciever's point of view and feelings whether offense will be caused or not. Hence, it is their responsibility that they are offended by the term, it is they the ones that need to work on themselves so as to be unaffected by this thing that some others are indeed unaffected by. It is not the work of the strong to weaken themselves so that they can understand the weaklings, it is their responsibility to strengthen themselves, so that their being will be similarly unaffected by these terms.
If you wanna ask why, the simple response is that people will be happier that way than in the reverse way. Yes, even when some people fail to strengthen themselves. The ones that do succeed will still amount to greater happiness than if you just stifle the ones who are already strong and don't push the weak to improve, because the world will NEVER be one which doesn't require spiritual and mental fortitude to be happy in.
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I was around 4chan when trap threads first appeared, you're talking shit about ignorance. Were you around when people were posting pics of transfolk and calling them traps as an insult? Before every braindead newfag started throwing the word around casually on /a/? By what you are saying, it seems not. And congrats on missing the point. It doesn't matter that the joke's on the straight guy, it's still a joke on the expense of the crossdresser/transperson. It is demeaning, if only by the fact that it has nothing to do with the "trap" itself, but its relation to the one getting "trapped". And I am sure you are aware of how many insecure masculoids are absolutely terrified of going on a date with a person like that. It's at best casual transphobia.
There is a difference between criticizing aspects of a culture and making sweeping generalizations about. Most of the people "criticizing" "Islamic" "culture" are dubbing Islam as a violent, barbaric religion, making sweeping generalizations. Islamic practice is different across the world, and has multiple denominations. Only certain cultures that also practice Islam practice female genital mutilation, for example, but you'll scarce find people defending that or child marriage when having such talks.
Colonial oppression, since you decided to bring the term up, refers to the exploitation of the native population for profit from colonial overlords. The overlord's "mission to civilize" was never intended to help those "poor savages" become "civilized", but to get land, get cheap labour, extract the land's natural resources and make a tidy profit. If you think Belgium cutting the legs off poor african slaves for collapsing after working 18 hours a day to reach their colonial master's quota, the British Empire's calculated famines upon the Indian population to keep them subservient, the near genocide of native indochinese by the Dutch, or the apartheid state of South Africa were attempts to bring them "politeness" and "math", not only are you ignorant of history and the term "colonial oppression", you are illiterate of it.
Trap is just the translation for "otoko no ko" which is not something from 4chan but rather 2chan in Japan. It doesn't matter what the westerner 4chanizens did with the term once they adopted it, the actual meaning of it is what I describe. And no, the otoko no ko is neither a trans person nor even necessarily a crossdresser a lot of the time. A crossdresser is aware of themselves crossdressing. The trap is just...dressing, that's just what kinda clothes and behaviors they gravitate towards. They can be just very very very feminine and behave like a girl while still identifying as males.
If anything, this serves to normalize them, because it doesn't treat their mode of dress as deviant, and it makes fun of the guy who is treating another guy who is dressing in a perfectly normal way as though they're not a guy, because of their own biases and hangups.
Again, this is trying to colonize Japanese cultural depiction of this type of fictional character with our moral mores.
Putting a lot of words in my mouth here haha. The math and politeness bit was taken from a Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture pamphlet that was defining "whiteness", so I guess that lady was illiterate. Good to know.
Just going to make sure that you know that the N word came from a different language. And most people think it DOES matter that westerner did with it once they adopted it.
Also, why not just use 'otoko no ko' then?
No, it isn't.
男の娘 (otoko no ko; literally 'male daughter' or 'male girl') is a play on words on 男の子 (otoko no ko, "boy", literally as "male child"), replacing the kanji 子 (child) with the kanji 娘 (daughter, girl). Tho you are right that its meaning is simply of a very feminine boy. Which makes "trap" a poor translation, since it has at best an implicit meaning of feminine boy, as opposed to explicitly in 男の娘. While not truly ideal either, "femboy" or "tomgirl" would be a more apt translation.
Too late, that already happened when Westerners decided to translate 男の娘 with "trap", a word that puts a heavy connotation of deception or ambush at the forefront in a way that isn't present in Japanese.
Indeed, weebs have adopted a whole bunch of Japanese terms into their vernacular anyway, why not this one?
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Both inaccurate and irrelevant, but other posters have beat me to it.
You are right, I thought when you threw terms around you had an idea of what you were talking about, but as a general trend it seems quite the opposite is true. My apologies for putting words in your mouth, though.
Not gonna lie, though, that pamphlet sounds funny as shit.
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I guess since people are taking this seriously instead of shitposting I probably should say something,
So I'm very sexually ambiguous and I have been accused by my friends of being a trap even though I don't crossdress, I just have really long hair and my face and mannerisms are kinda girly, so anyway while it doesn't offend me because I have pretty thick skin it's not a term that I particularly like, I feel like it implies I'm trying to trick men into sleeping with me, which isn't really accurate as I definitely don't want to do that and even if we assume it's just trying to trick them that I'm a woman that's also inaccurate, I just like the idea of looking pretty more than I like the idea of looking handsome or rugged and that's it.
In any case I don't think it's the most offensive term ever, but while it doesn't make me upset I don't really like it when people refer to me as one, so like I'm fine if people get rid of that, also the term comes from the misconception that Trans Women dress like girls because they want to trick men into sleeping with them which isn't like the greatest origin for a word ever, like even if in the anime community it's used more as a translation of the japanese term Otoko No Ko as mentioned above that's not really where the word comes from and as such not really what it means, like it or not the terminology was supposed to imply that pre-op trans-women are rapists which really isn't like a great.
And I do get that people think it's these people being delicate but like if we think about it, what's at stake here for the anime community? Just like changing a word, that's pretty easy and costs practically nothing, and what's at stake for the trans community? Well let's keep in mind that a lot of transphobes use the normality of such a word to disguise their bigoted beliefs while actively using it precisely for that bigoted purpose, like it would remove the camouflage for those people, so you know something of actual value to be gained for them.
So I'm very sexually ambiguous and I have been accused by my friends of being a trap even though I don't crossdress, I just have really long hair and my face and mannerisms are kinda girly, so anyway while it doesn't offend me because I have pretty thick skin it's not a term that I particularly like, I feel like it implies I'm trying to trick men into sleeping with me, which isn't really accurate as I definitely don't want to do that and even if we assume it's just trying to trick them that I'm a woman that's also inaccurate, I just like the idea of looking pretty more than I like the idea of looking handsome or rugged and that's it.
In any case I don't think it's the most offensive term ever, but while it doesn't make me upset I don't really like it when people refer to me as one, so like I'm fine if people get rid of that, also the term comes from the misconception that Trans Women dress like girls because they want to trick men into sleeping with them which isn't like the greatest origin for a word ever, like even if in the anime community it's used more as a translation of the japanese term Otoko No Ko as mentioned above that's not really where the word comes from and as such not really what it means, like it or not the terminology was supposed to imply that pre-op trans-women are rapists which really isn't like a great.
And I do get that people think it's these people being delicate but like if we think about it, what's at stake here for the anime community? Just like changing a word, that's pretty easy and costs practically nothing, and what's at stake for the trans community? Well let's keep in mind that a lot of transphobes use the normality of such a word to disguise their bigoted beliefs while actively using it precisely for that bigoted purpose, like it would remove the camouflage for those people, so you know something of actual value to be gained for them.
Nothing. Just a few butt holes that want to act like they have the final word on anything when they don't. I find this ironic coming from Reddit, because they sure as hell don't have the high moral ground. I'm mainly talking about the mods. I remember talking to a user from the Devil May Cry formum, and he used to be part of the DMC Reddit. That particular forum became a nightmare. After the controversy with the reboot and things finally settled down, it was a cool place to go to. When Devil May Cry 5 was announced and the forum was doing great. When the game released things were fine for a time, but then assholes started showing up and just wanted to post shitpost and a whole bunch of dumb memes instead of talking about anything character story related to the series. What was a real kick in the groin was that the modders would encourage bad behavior like this. Any positive thoughts or meaningful discussions was routed out or punished. Like the GameFAQs forums, the mods were encouraging people to act like assholes. That is why I am glad I never joined Reddit. It was as I suspected when I first heard about it back in my early twenties; a place founded by assholes for assholes.
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No brother! Return to the shitposting side!
Edit: More seriously. I think the term "trap" is fine so long as it is being used in jest and small doses, there's nothing wrong with people ribbing each other or making a joke so long as no one goes overboard and makes it a problem. I'm autistic and people often use it as a negative description of something but I don't mind it and can laugh at it myself so long as it is being used for things that it is actually relevant for (If it just becomes shorthand for "bad" then I have a problem with it) and not all the time then I think that is fine too.
The more difficult thing is to use words with responsibility. Just allowing outright hateful words to be said with no recourse or banning words entirely are both the easy way out and extremes that I feel are the wrong route.
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Negro is just black in Spanish or something right? That's not really the N word lol. That's less a translation with the best word in your language and more just using the word and saying it differently. You can't sit here and tell me it's the same word or it makes sense to treat them the same. That'd be like them using something like "otokays" or something.
I do say otoko no ko when I feel the person I'm speaking to is familiar with Japanese or the anime fandom enough to get my meaning. It's kinda like using specialist vernacular, not something to generally use with your random laymen.
Not sure what you're refuting by saying what I just did.
Substituting in the musume kanji is the thing they came up with in 2ch as a witty way of describing these chars.
Yeah it was hilarious, here:
And no, I know what I'm talking about, I don't agree with it personally but I am told we ought to be conducting ourselves with that foundation so I decided to give it a go haha. Sure learned my lesson.
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