Yeah, I was too flippant. They are vulnerable in many ways and they have been abused or catfished or taken advantage of. And RPF always has a baseline value of creepiness tbh. But a 20-something year old making cutsey buddy-buddy primers of publically available pictures and life history that has no overt sexual content is fairly inoffensive. They aren't as bad as that Seguin one, for example, if I remember alright.
Even aside from the pedophilia stuff, the rhetoric in that post is just kinda off mark and wrong-headed. I don't think that many people are writing fic about these players solely BECAUSE they are young "barely legal" hockey players. Instead people are Canadian and are really engaged with their local team and really like the league and the way their faves play hockey, or they liked the McJesus draft class narrative. And those players happen to be young. So why call it fetishistic? Just to be outraged?
The way they treat sex is also not good in my opinion. Sex is not an inherently bad or dirty thing. Obvi. Healthy sexual exploration is fine. Calling people "barely legal" like it should have scare quotes around it or acting like an 18 year old is pure and virtuous and should be protected from horny 21 year olds is just roll eyes, without even taking into account the demographic we're talking about.
Re: Fandom Venting
Even aside from the pedophilia stuff, the rhetoric in that post is just kinda off mark and wrong-headed. I don't think that many people are writing fic about these players solely BECAUSE they are young "barely legal" hockey players. Instead people are Canadian and are really engaged with their local team and really like the league and the way their faves play hockey, or they liked the McJesus draft class narrative. And those players happen to be young. So why call it fetishistic? Just to be outraged?
The way they treat sex is also not good in my opinion. Sex is not an inherently bad or dirty thing. Obvi. Healthy sexual exploration is fine. Calling people "barely legal" like it should have scare quotes around it or acting like an 18 year old is pure and virtuous and should be protected from horny 21 year olds is just roll eyes, without even taking into account the demographic we're talking about.