But when it comes to art and entertainment, I’m very wary of anything that amounts to a call for censorship. Criticism is fine, and Dom Lawson is doing his job as a rock critic here. But too much of the culture wars I’ve seen play out in the science fiction and tabletop RPG worlds go beyond that. It’s reached the point where “social justice” has become associated with censorship and witch-hunts.

Good art should provoke and challenge, and needs to be free to be controversal. A culture of knee-jerk outrage creates a climate of fear, and you end up with situations like that Banksy mural getting destroyed because some ignoramus thought it was racist.

Moderator’s note – Corrected Will’s original post and deleted the follow-ups)

I do think the video is tacky, tasteless and offensive, and doesn’t do a lot for Mastodon’s reputation. But it’s not as if anyone is being forced to watch it.

Of course we need to listen to women. We need to listen a lot more. But the fact that one or two people don’t see a problem doesn’t mean there isn’t one, whether they be men or women. It isn’t only men who contribute to the patriarchal society that we live in.

And we really need to call out and challenge misogyny wherever and wherever we see it. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. It’s not that we need to defend women – they are perfectly capable of defending themselves. But doing what we think is right is perfectly OK.