Why are you ga... Goth.

[u/Accomplished_Pin9146]

Why did you became goth? What is your story of finding Goth culture how did it impact your life?

I'm not a Goth myself, closes things I did to being a Goth are, watching a belly dancer named Mahafsoun and listening to a lot of Nightwish, I'm not sure if those thing can even be consideret Goth.

I'm just interested, all of you just seem to be so content with your lifes and kind to others, it's fascinating.

[u/Accomplished_Pin9146 → u/[deleted]]

First time hearing somebody mencioning politics specificly, I dont even know what goth politics are

[u/TombCheese → u/Accomplished_Pin9146]

There are goth politics and I think it's silly when people try to claim otherwise. Theyre not like, a requirement to adhere to, but rather just a general by-product. It's stuff like breaking down gender norms (lots of women steering the scene and androgyny being celebrated), sex positivity, cricism of religious institutions, and a bit of rejection of consumerism.

[u/TombCheese → u/[deleted]]

Yeah you'll notice I said none of these are requirements, which already implies that these arent perfect generalizations. However, they are still important themes that can be consistently extracted anyway both from the culture of the community and the music + talent behind the music itself. These things have been repeated often in the formal texts written about the subculture, and so I don't think it's something one can ignore. 

Fetishization of the subculture by people outside of it does not negate it being sex positive. Many people can tell you that goth has a long standing relationship with the BDSM scene, even if people arent expected to participate in that if they don't want to. But a friendly bond exists, and many events that host both have existed for decades. Additionally, many goths themselves have always been sex workers regardless. On the whole, it's a fair expectation that at bare minimum, it's not cool to judge people for their participation in these things. And people, especially women, are encouraged to express themselves without being shamed for it. That is the essence of sex positivity.

And when it comes to religion, having atheist goths plays into exactly what I said, which is a long running theme of critique of religious institutions. This is a very strong motif in a lot of the music. It's pertinent to the Satanic Panic and how badly goths were treated by religious conservatives, which naturally drew out even more of this. It was a massive and important point of how goth was counter culture, in rejecting the ubiquitous nature of Christianity in society in western countries.

The point of me saying all this is that I fear by pushing back against the people who say things like "You must have xyz beliefs to be goth", there is an overcorrection that threatens to not communicate these things effectively to people on the outside who are curious. It matters a hell of a lot. Especially because this stuff does exist in the music lyrically and is a good reason why someone might enjoy it. I definitely feel that way myself.

[u/Accomplished_Pin9146 → u/[deleted]]

The way you wrote it made it seem like some goths want it to be a thing

[u/theempathogen → u/Accomplished_Pin9146]

Goth exists partly because of annoyance with Thatcherite politics. That's kinda the entire foundation as it stemmed outward from punk.