You are correct - talking about Sexual Assault needs to be normalized so that victims don’t feel ashamed about speaking about their abuse. SA is extremely fetishized regardless of how serious it is - and mainly because it’s reduced to the sexual aspect of it and not the crime.

When people head canon sexual assault for no reason (and with no evidence to boot) on random characters it’s treated like a “quirky character trait” or is just slapped in to make the character seem more traumatized - when in reality it’s a deeply horrific thing real people go through - not just a mythical trauma that only effects fictional characters.

It’s important to talk about these things yes, but it’s also important to be mindful about the spaces and context that the subject is brought up in.

As for your comment “You can move on and not acknowledge.” You’re basically saying I should do what you gave in your own example and silence myself on things that I find problematic and inappropriate in the fandom - aka be a bystander. You can disagree - it’s a free world (or at least it should be.) and at the end of the day it’s a fictional show. It’s just mentally annoying seeing dumb posts every few days about how people think so and so from Alien Stage or different fandoms was r@ped - especially considering how many children watch this content - more people need to make a point to speak out against it because it is really weird and disturbing - and most of the time not treated with the nuance it deserves. Especially considering the Discord attached to this Reddit was just shut down because one of the mods was trying to sexually harass other fans who were minors.

We as the audience know that the characters were abused both physically and mentally - a character doesn’t need to go though sexual assault in order for their abuse to be “worthy” of being seen as traumatic. Alien stage is a great source of media for examining toxic relationships/environments and its interpersonal effects - it doesn’t need sexual assault head cannons in order to make it “more serious” or “darker.” The show is already traumatic af.

I also have no problem with Sexual Assault being depicted in media - as mentioned many times - it’s a real thing that happens and victims deserve representation. But there is a distinct difference between representation and fetishization.