My problem with pony haters

So, most of this might be pretty obvious to anyone who reads my blog, but I'm still going to put it up here because it bothers me.

People are being confused, even upset, by the My Little Pony fandom. At first glance, the accusations seem to (sort of) make sense: When grown men watch childrens' cartoons, isn't that a little strange? Grown men should enjoy things for grown men, children should enjoy things for children. Simple.

However, the thing is, nobody seriously applies this principle in a broad sense. Few people really bat an eyelash if a grown man owns Finding Nemo on DVD, or if he has a bunch of Superman* comics, or if he owns a few collectible Transformers. Sure, people might roll their eyes and call him a nerd, but most people still seem to grasp the basic idea: Boys will be boys. It's not strange if a grown man wants to regress to being a little boy from time to time - even your most stuck-up, snobby banker can admit to enjoying some childish activity from time to time.

So the moral outrage and confusion clearly doesn't stem from the idea of grown-ups enjoying something for children. Instead, I think, it's rooted in a deeply anti-feminist statement, which is this: Nobody seriously wants to be a girl.

I'm not saying that pony fans are all transsexual, of course. It's just that we, culturally, still have some idea of "cooties". It's by no means explicit; it's a very subtle idea that we seem to have, that doing or liking feminine things is like a sickness. It's basically the same as fear of "catching the gay". So exposing yourself to something girly (like say, My Little Pony) means that you might turn into a "girl" (very important quote marks there): Effeminate, ornamental, helpless, and so on. Why would anyone want that?

So this contradiction appears in peoples' minds, a contradiction that pits two entirely false ideas against each other: "Girls are worthless" and "Guys who do feminine things become girly". Neither is in any way true. If you believed only one to be true, the behaviour wouldn't seem strange: If you believe, for instance, that it's just fine and peachy to be as much of a girly-girl as you like irrespective of your biological sex, then it won't at all be strange for a guy to wear pink hairbows and giggle and watch My Little Pony. On the other hand, if you believe that being "a girl" is "bad" (irrespective of biological sex), but not that say, wearing pink transforms you into "a girl", then logically you should be fine with anyone wearing pink as well - it's just a color, it has nothing to do with the undesirable qualities of being pretty and helpless.

The strangeness only occurs if you believe both statements to be true. And, as it turns out, both of them are absolute bullshit.

*This example is out of date, admittedly. Comic books are today mostly written for adults. During the Silver Age, though, they were written predominantly for children, and the reason there was a demographic shift was that adults started reading them anyway.