this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2025
74 points (95.1% liked)

news

24150 readers
534 users here now

Welcome to c/news! Please read the Hexbear Code of Conduct and remember... we're all comrades here.

Rules:

-- PLEASE KEEP POST TITLES INFORMATIVE --

-- Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed. --

-- All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. --

-- If you are citing a twitter post as news please include not just the twitter.com in your links but also nitter.net (or another Nitter instance). There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/libredirect/ or archive them as you would any other reactionary source using e.g. https://archive.today/ . Twitter screenshots still need to be sourced or they will be removed --

-- Mass tagging comm moderators across multiple posts like a broken markov chain bot will result in a comm ban--

-- Repeated consecutive posting of reactionary sources, fake news, misleading / outdated news, false alarms over ghoul deaths, and/or shitposts will result in a comm ban.--

-- Neglecting to use content warnings or NSFW when dealing with disturbing content will be removed until in compliance. Users who are consecutively reported due to failing to use content warnings or NSFW tags when commenting on or posting disturbing content will result in the user being banned. --

-- Using April 1st as an excuse to post fake headlines, like the resurrection of Kissinger while he is still fortunately dead, will result in the poster being thrown in the gamer gulag and be sentenced to play and beat trashy mobile games like 'Raid: Shadow Legends' in order to be rehabilitated back into general society. --

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

cringe

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 39 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (26 children)

If this is actually happening and isn't just Western media making shit up, I have to wonder if these online publishers aren't registering their businesses correctly or aren't paying taxes or something. If they're just self publishing and collecting """donations""" for their work, they're sidestepping legal business practices to make extra cash.

Wild speculation, of course, but that's my first instinct.

[–] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml 25 points 6 days ago (21 children)

While the making of lewd content is legal in China, profiting off of it is very heavily criminalized. And erotic books, as absurd as it may seem, are categorized the same as pornography. So by selling or profiting off of these works, these authors were breaking the law.

[–] darkcalling@hexbear.net 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (4 children)

While the making of lewd content is legal in China, profiting off of it is very heavily criminalized.

That is how it should be. Sexuality for enjoyment not profit. I don't have a problem with this. Now if any of these people were not making money off this and just publishing it for free and got in trouble yes that would be something I'd be against and think it an area of improvement China needs to work on but also an understandable one given how rapidly Chinese society has progressed in just the last half century. I am confident that with time and effort by good comrades inside China that any such problems will in time be rectified. (Also I suppose I do have mixed feelings given the amount of capitalist exploitation China allows to disallow women to make money in this way which is relatively harmless and given they probably don't have great financial means... an imperfect situation all around)

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 26 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

That is how it should be. Sexuality for enjoyment not profit. I don't have a problem with this.

You don't have a problem with sentencing people to 10 years in prison for writing and selling gay smut? brow

[–] BeamBrain@hexbear.net 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

"Porn is inherently fascist" is a sentiment that has been both expressed and significantly upvoted here on Hexbear before the mods got it for SWERFism.

[–] CharlieTheOctopus@hexbear.net 8 points 6 days ago

Porn is not inherently fascist, though. The way that pornography exists as an industry in our current time is exploitative and fascist, because we live in a fascist/capitalist society.

Im of the belief that pornography for the purpose of sexual gratification has basically always existed in some form or another. Fascist country creates fascist porn.

[–] darkcalling@hexbear.net 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I do think 10 years is quite excessive but I also think western media would lie about that so I'm going to assume that with good behavior and reform they'd probably actually be out in much less than half that.

Secondly I don't presume that this was per se special punishment because of the orientation, non-hetero nature of the works and that the law provides for the same for straight works. I admit there are likely problems with selective enforcement as with any law like this that runs into existing societal biases and prejudices so I think that would be another argument in favor of leniency but again I don't really believe that sentencing is necessarily accurate or the whole story.

Thirdly we don't know all the details about the ages of the characters or any aggravating factors about the content or the nature of payments or whatever.

[–] Mari@hexbear.net 4 points 5 days ago

Even half a year in prison for something that small is absolutely barbaric

[–] Kumikommunism@hexbear.net 24 points 6 days ago (1 children)

"Making art shouldn't provide a living if it doesn't fit my sensibilities"

[–] BanSwitch2Buyers@hexbear.net 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

We shouldn't be trying to restore profitability to art. Not taking a side either way concerning the porn stuff, but it's extremely bourgeois to think the problem with art under capitalism is importantly that the artists aren't getting enough money to do it.

[–] CharlieTheOctopus@hexbear.net 9 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I’m sorry but I think this take is ridiculous. Producing art is labor, and every laborer should be entitled to a living. That idea gets scoffed at a lot, but art has the potential to be an incredible expression of human experience. I’d argue that authors and songwriters are in the same boat, using a form of expression to appeal to other people. Obviously if your art sucks people wont want it, you are mostly at the whims of your audience if you are lucky enough to have one.

[–] BanSwitch2Buyers@hexbear.net 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Producing art is labor

That doesn't really mean anything. Marxism is about social labour, not just work. It's more important that people are able to survive and do art outside capitalist production than it is to try to make art profitable for workers in capitalism. All you're doing is creating/sustaining labour aristocrats and petite-bourgeois sentiments in society. Especially when we're talking about fucking explicitly-pulp smut literature here, which is definitely not something we need or want the state to be funding.

Notice Cuba, DPRK, etc. aren't funding that.

[–] BanSwitch2Buyers@hexbear.net 8 points 6 days ago

DPRK film director:

load more comments (16 replies)
load more comments (20 replies)