its-me-vixen

[its-me-vixen]

[its-me-vixen]

So what I’ve learned from the past couple months of being really loud about being a bi woman on Tumblr is: A lot of young/new LGBT+ people on this site do not understand that some of the stuff they’re saying comes across to other LGBT+ people as offensive, aggressive, or threatening. And when they actually find out the history and context, a lot of them go, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I never meant to say that.”

Like, “queer is a slur”: I get the impression that people saying this are like… oh, how I might react if I heard someone refer to all gay men as “f*gs”. Like, “Oh wow, that’s a super loaded word with a bunch of negative freight behind it, are you really sure you want to put that word on people who are still very raw and would be alarmed, upset, or offended if they heard you call them it, no matter what you intended?”

So they’re really surprised when self-described queers respond with a LOT of hostility to what feels like a well-intentioned reminder that some people might not like it. 

That’s because there’s a history of “political lesbians”, like Sheila Jeffreys, who believe that no matter their sexual orientation, women should cut off all social contact with men, who are fundamentally evil, and only date the “correct” sex, which is other women. Political lesbians claim that relationships between women, especially ones that don’t contain lust, are fundamentally pure, good, and  unproblematic. They therefore regard most of the LGBT community with deep suspicion, because its members are either way too into sex, into the wrong kind of sex, into sex with men, are men themselves, or somehow challenge the very definitions of sex and gender. 

When “queer theory” arrived in the 1980s and 1990s as an organized attempt by many diverse LGBT+ people in academia to sit down and talk about the social oppressions they face, political lesbians like Jeffreys attacked it harshly, publishing articles like “The Queer Disappearance of Lesbians”, arguing that because queer theory said it was okay to be a man or stop being a man or want to have sex with a man, it was fundamentally evil and destructive. And this attitude has echoed through the years; many LGBT+ people have experience being harshly criticized by radical feminists because being anything but a cis “gold star lesbian” (another phrase that gives me war flashbacks) was considered patriarchal, oppressive, and basically evil.

And when those arguments happened, “queer” was a good umbrella to shelter under, even when people didn’t know the intricacies of academic queer theory; people who identified as “queer” were more likely to be accepting and understanding, and “queer” was often the only label or community bisexual and nonbinary people didn’t get chased out of. If someone didn’t disagree that people got to call themselves queer, but didn’t want to be called queer themselves, they could just say “I don’t like being called queer” and that was that. Being “queer” was to being LGBT as being a “feminist” was to being a woman; it was opt-in.

But this history isn’t evident when these interactions happen. We don’t sit down and say, “Okay, so forty years ago there was this woman named Sheila, and…” Instead we queers go POP! like pufferfish, instantly on the defensive, a red haze descending over our vision, and bellow, “DO NOT TELL ME WHAT WORDS I CANNOT USE,” because we cannot find a way to say, “This word is so vital and precious to me, I wouldn’t be alive in the same way if I lost it.” And then the people who just pointed out that this word has a history, JEEZ, way to overreact, go away very confused and off-put, because they were just trying to say.

But I’ve found that once this is explained, a lot of people go, “Oh wow, okay, I did NOT mean to insinuate that, I didn’t realize that I was also saying something with a lot of painful freight to it.”

And that? That gives me hope for the future.

#this was a very fascinating deeper dive into this particular history than ive read before #i am genderqueer and bi and love being Queer so much #it means so much to me #irl i was just having a discussion with the president of our local leather league #about the two gay bars in town #and she immediately understood what i meant when i said that one was a Gay Bar and the other was a Queer Bar #because there is this significant divide unfortunately #and its well illustrated in leather terms as old guard/new guard #though those terms are less common these days. #Its so important to put your freak flag forward these days yall #Kink at Pride!! #We're here We're Queer!! #GET USED TO IT

[its-me-vixen]

Titania & Oberon

[its-me-vixen]

I dislike how clumsy it is to share Twitter threads but here is a portion from a guy I follow (for his trans porn and monster fucking content at that) echoing a sentiment that aces, traumatized people, people with low libido, etc. can fully relate to. The rest is here and it’s absolutely worth the read.

[its-me-vixen]

when i die i hope i come back as a beautiful microscopic granule of sand

[its-me-vixen]

HAAANK! THAT'S NOT ART BY THE OP HANK! OP REPOSTED IT WITHOUT CREDIT! HANK!

[its-me-vixen]

[its-me-vixen]

As a kid, when your parents are poor, you're poor. If they don't have money, that means none of you have money. But if someone's parents are rich, that doesn't necessarily mean the kid is. Sometimes rich peoples' kids aren't rich kids, they're just some rich freak's exotic pets that can talk but aren't allowed to.

[its-me-vixen]

i think rainbow dash should have a cloud tail

[its-me-vixen]

i love this character so much......i hope they get seriously injured and almost die

[its-me-vixen]

i love this character so much......i hope they get seriously injured and almost die

[its-me-vixen]

Why did someone die in my inbox

[its-me-vixen]

u ever in such a bad mood u feel urself turning evil?

[its-me-vixen]

Things I’ve Learned

- don’t drink water in the dark

- don’t look out windows at night

- if you feel it watching don’t look for it just hurry on your way, but to be safe if you feel running for some reason would insult This One then don’t

- take only dead wood from forests, fallen berries and flowers are safe too, the living things are Not For You

- NEVER stomp on the mushrooms

- stay on the animal paths

- leave an offering in the woods to be left in peace during your walks

- the hills and fields may seem open and empty but They Never Are

- listening to the wind is fine but you should never reply to it, if you feel it shift it’s time to go

- if your dog won’t go near it neither should you

- if It’s in your room then shut your eyes or otherwise don’t acknowledge It, It will eventually lose interest

- ghosts can and will lie to you

- don’t give anything your full name

- if you feel weak, don’t rest - leave

- your shadow doesn’t always belong to you

- check your seats before entering your vehicle, do not look back for ANYTHING after

- better yet keep things in your seats

- generally if you suddenly feel you shouldn’t look in a certain direction, be in a certain place, or do a certain thing then please trust your gut

[its-me-vixen]

Cross sea at Île de Ré, France. The waves of two weather systems meet and create a dangerous grid.

via

[its-me-vixen]

mom, dad… i’m…. RANDOM!! LOL XD

[its-me-vixen]

it's funny, I was talking to someone last night who didn't really know what an illustrator was. so when I introduced myself as one, he gave a speech that would've probably gone over well with a gallery artist, but which was precision-tailored to make any illustrator within a 50 mile radius go into eyes-glowing-red kill mode.

his speech was about how there is a difference between craft and art, and how people can practice craft (as in, skillfully execute a painting) without it having any artistic merit.

so I'm someone who gets paid to paint waffles for restaurant menus and dinosaurs for museums exhibits, and AHHHHHH! AHHHHHHH! you can't make art without it being something something you've made. does that make sense? like every illustrator I know has an individual way of approaching any given imagery that is informed by a lifetime of inspiration, and of passive intake of culture, and of the specific mistakes they make because of whatever their particular mass of grey matter deems as important thing to render or unimportant, just fuck it up.

I can make something that is informed by both a century of Canadian print-making and by my own particular neurosis, and it can also be commissioned commercial imagery that I regurgitate without care because I want to pay my mortgage. everything is art, nothing isn't art, art is something sticky and impossible to shake off of you.

anyway he got very wide-eyed and said "I'm sorry if I offended you," so today I feel a bit bad for having gotten so, uh.... excited.