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kuramirocket · 8 months

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Big Lit Meets the Mexican Americans: A Study in White Supremacy

HarperCollins tells us: “We publish content that presents a diversity of voices and speaks to the global community. We promote industry and company initiatives that represent people of all ethnicities, races, genders and gender identities, sexual orientations, ages, classes, religions, national origins and abilities.” The New York Times proclaims its dedication to building a “culture of inclusion,” while the University of Arizona’s MFA program commits itself “to proactively fostering diversity and inclusion throughout its curriculum, admissions, hiring, and day-to-day practices.”

Some of these statements may reflect actual practices while others are simply corporate boilerplate. Whether they are sincere or not, the fact remains that most books agented, sold, reviewed, and distributed are mostly written by white people and are, moreover, mostly agented, sold, reviewed, and distributed by other white people. (In fact, the term “diversity,” as used in such statements, seems to reinforce rather than confront the notion that white, cisgender people are the norm and everyone else is a big, indistinguishable mass of otherness. But that’s a different essay.)

Big Lit is virtually a whites-only country club. Everyone knows this. The lack of racial diversity among the people who populate Big Lit is an open secret. The Big Five — Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, Simon and Schuster, and HarperCollins — is still where it’s at in terms of getting maximum exposure, resources and mainstream acceptance. Big Lit can consign to near invisibility the work of entire communities of writers it decides not to take up.

This essay is a kind of case study of the Mexican-American literary community, a community whose writers Big Lit rarely takes up. But I don’t mean to offer another lecture about Big Lit’s lack of diversity (well, not entirely). Rather, I want to examine how the ideology of white supremacy works to brand an entire population of nonwhite people — here, Mexican Americans — as inherently inferior to whites, how that message is reinforced by means both legal and extra-legal, how it seeps into literary culture, and, how, ultimately, literary culture (i.e., Big Lit) consciously or unconsciously views this population through the lens of those white-supremacist beliefs.

This ingrained and complex racism can’t be ameliorated by platitudes about diversity or tokenistic representations of “diverse” populations.

Part One

When Donald Trump called Mexican immigrants “rapists” during the announcement of his 2016 presidential bid, he was strumming a very old chord in white America’s consciousness. Since the mid-19th century, the denigration of Mexicans and, by extension, Mexican Americans has been an ongoing project of white America. The pivotal point was the US invasion of 1848 and the forcible appropriation of half the territory that comprised the nascent Mexico. Then as now, Mexico saw the war for what it was: an unprovoked and unprincipled land grab. As a Mexican newspaper at the time thundered: “A government […] that starts a war without a legitimate motive is responsible for all its evils and horrors. The bloodshed, the grief of families, the pillaging, the destruction. […] Such is the case of the U.S. Government, for having initiated the unjust war it is waging against us today.”

Fueled by the almost religious conviction that the United States was destined to occupy the entire North American continent, Anglo America embarked on the near extermination of indigenous people and the conquest of Mexico. From the outset, Manifest Destiny was a racialist doctrine.

As one historian observes:

By 1850 the emphasis was on the American Anglo-Saxons as a separate, innately superior people who were destined to bring good government, commercial prosperity, and Christianity to the American continents and to the world. This was a superior race, and inferior races were doomed to subordinate status or extinction.

America’s true motives were laid bare in a contemporary North American periodical, the American Whig Review: “Mexico was poor, distracted, in anarchy and almost in ruins — what could she do to stay the hand of our power, to impede the march of our greatness? We were Anglo-Saxon Americans; it was our ‘destiny’ to possess and to rule this continent — we were bound to it.” (Mid-19th-century Mexico was a troubled, unstable polity but still: If your neighbor’s house is on fire, is the morally appropriate response to break in and steal everything of value you can lay your hands on?)

At the end of the war, over 100,000 Mexicans were trapped on what was now the American side of the border. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guaranteed that these captive people would become naturalized American citizens, with all the rights and privileges thereof, and that their property rights would be respected. Those promises evaporated almost as soon as the ink was dry on the treaty. The promised enfranchisement, it turned out, was only federal, not state citizenship. This ploy allowed the states that were carved out of annexed territory to limit citizenship to something called “white Mexicans.” As for the property right guarantee, Mexican property owners became bankrupt in American courts when fighting off American predators and squatters who would trespass and forcefully stay on their private property.

Arising at the same time was Western genre fiction, emerging first in the form of dime novels. This genre provided the most popular and widely distributed representations of Mexicans and Mexican Americans from the mid-19th century well into the 20th. Its practitioners included writers like Zane Gray, O. Henry, and Stephen Crane, as well as countless pulp writers. Film and, later, television perpetuated these representations and gave them even wider currency. Central to the Western genre was the theme of Mexican racial inferiority, which these narratives used to justify the invasion and conquest of Mexico; indeed one author called it, "conquest fiction."

Much of early Western fiction originated or was set in Texas, always a hotbed of particularly virulent anti-Mexican sentiment. Mexico had initially welcomed Anglo settlement in Texas, but the Anglos who arrived tended to be slave-owning Southerners with reactionary views about the purported inferiority of darker-skinned people. Mexico abolished slavery in 1829. This contributed to the Anglo-led secession of Texas from Mexico and the founding of the Texas Republic; basically, the white Texans wanted to maintain slavery.

Their attitudes toward their erstwhile Mexican hosts was summed up by Texas patriot Stephan Austin, who on one occasion described Mexicans as a “mongrel Spanish-Indian and negro race,” and on another as “degraded and vile; the unfortunate race of Spaniard, Indian, and African is so blended that the worst qualities of each predominate.”

Antebellum pulp Westerns with titles like Mexico versus Texas, Bernard Lile: An Historical Romance, and Piney Woods Tavern; or, Sam Slick in Texas created a set of Mexican stereotypes that prevailed well into the 20th century, among them the lazy peon, the evil bandido, and the licentious señorita. In these works most Mexican males are “segregated into two distinctly inferior types: peon servants and mestizo bandidos. As “half-breeds,” the mestizo bandidos are “a cut above the peons,” but “have no moral scruples. […] When the American heroes finally ‘unmask’ these poseur gentlemen and expose their wickedness, they either kill them or hurl them back across the color line into ‘brownness’ and disgrace.” The distaff side is represented by “Mexican woman […] graced with voluptuous figures but burdened by loose moral principles.”

Higher-brow publications like The Atlantic and Scribner’s Magazine were no less derogatory. An 1899 article in The Atlantic entitled “The Greaser” portrayed its Mexican-American subject as “the mestizo, the Greaser, half-blood offspring of the marriage of antiquity and modernity.” A travel piece in an 1894 issue of Scribner’s Magazine described the borderland between Texas and Mexico as “The American Congo”; the piece is a veritable encyclopedia of racist stereotyping, including this Trumpian observation: “The Rio Grande Mexican is not a law-breaker in the American sense of the term; he has never known what law was and he does not care to learn; that’s all there is to it.”

These caricatures of Mexican Americans were amplified and even more widely distributed as early moviemakers discovered the appeal of Westerns. Mexicans were, once again, cast as the dark-skinned foils to upright Anglo heroes as summarized by an author:

[F]ilm titles and advertising made open use of the word greaser, at least up to the 1920’s: The Greaser’s Gauntlet, The Girl and the Greaser, Broncho Bill and the Greaser, The Greaser’s Revenge, Guns and Greasers, or, bluntly, The Greasers. The artistic and cultural sensitivity of these films match their titles. If adventure stories, they feature no-holds-barred struggles between good Americans and bad Mexicans. The cause of the conflict is often vaguely defined. Some greasers meet their fate because they are greasers. Others are on the wrong side of the law. Others violate Saxon moral codes. All of them rob, assault, kidnap, and murder with the same wild abandon as their dime-novel counterparts.

These silent-era representations continued into the talkies.

Brownness, stupidity, laziness, cowardice, lawlessness, and sexual immortality: these became the signifiers of Mexicans in white America’s consciousness, reinforcing the notion that Mexicans are inferior to white people. This inferiority was race-based — that is, Mexicans were presumed to be inherently and in some inchoate sense biologically less intelligent, capable, and moral than white people.So deeply embedded are these cultural images that, after the death of the Western as a popular genre in books, movies, and TV, they simply shape-shifted into more contemporary versions.

Instead of the bandidos of yore, Mexican-American men transformed into gangbangers and drug dealers; the lazy peons became grocery-cart-pushing homeless people and hapless drug addicts; the flashing-eyed señoritas now tottered around suggestively on Fuck Me Pumps uttering heavily accented malapropisms. Often, however, these stereotypes don’t speak at all. In movies and on TV, you see brown people silently pushing laundry carts, pruning rose bushes, or stacking dishes into an industrial dishwasher, a sepia background against which the whiteness — and, thus, the superiority — of the real heroes and heroines gleams all the more brightly.

Part Two

Before Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, there was Mendez v. Westminster in 1946, the first federal court decision striking down school segregation. Let me explain.

California’s Orange County had set up “Mexican schools,” which all children of Mexican descent were required to attend from first to fourth grade. The ostensible reason was that they couldn’t speak English, but all Mexican-American children were forced into these schools regardless of their fluency. By the time the Mendez and five other families sued, these schools had 5,000 students. In the then-prevalent racial binary of black versus white, Mexicans were grudgingly considered “white.” This meant the plaintiffs couldn’t allege racial discrimination. Instead, they argued that the segregation of public schools impermissibly discriminated against their children based on ancestry and presumptive language deficiency.

In short, Orange Country’s segregation scheme wasn’t authorized by state law; thus, by extension, neither were other forms of segregation imposed on Mexican Americans in California by a comprehensive set of statewide Jim Crow–like laws. To summarize the situation: By the 1920s, many Southern California communities had established ‘Mexican schools’ along with segregated public swimming pools, movie theaters, and restaurants.” (On a personal note, I can testify that my mother remembers being turned away from a Sacramento public swimming pool sometime in the late 1940s because she was — and is — undeniably mestiza in appearance.)

From the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries, whites used a combination of discriminatory legal and terroristic extra-legal tactics against Mexican Americans. Mexican Americans were disenfranchised, faced residential and education segregation, were denied the use of public facilities, and were in danger of being lynched. Yes, lynched — 571 ethnic Mexicans were lynched between 1848 and 1928; in addition, the Texas Rangers summarily executed at least another 500 Mexicans without trial.

As has repeatedly been the case, these discriminatory legal measures and extra-judicial assaults corresponded to high tides of Mexican immigration. In this time of history, Mexican immigration was between 1900 and 1930 - many, like my great-grandparents, refugees. Nativist whites such as Madison Grant, author of the influential The Passing of the Great Race, deplored this invasion by a “mongrel race.” White America’s attitudes toward Mexican immigration have always been both exploitative and ambivalent. On the one hand, these immigrants are useful because they serve as a cheap source of agricultural labor in the West; however, because they are members of an inferior “mongrel race,” they have to be closely monitored and firmly kept in place.

The ease with which bare tolerance could shift to active hostility was dramatically illustrated during the Great Depression. During this period, an estimated 400,000 Mexican Americans, 60 percent of them American citizens by birth or by naturalization, were forcibly repatriated to Mexico. The pretexts given were that Mexican Americans were taking scarce jobs away from white Americans and were a drain on government relief assistance. (Sound familiar?)

In a frenzy of anti-Mexican hysteria, wholesale punitive measures were proposed and taken by government officials at the federal, state, and local levels. Laws were passed depriving Mexicans of jobs in the public and private sectors. Immigration and deportation laws were enacted to restrict emigration and hasten the departure of those already here. Contributing to the brutalizing experience were the mass deportation roundups and reparation drives. […] An incessant cry of “get rid of the Mexicans” swept the country.

Mexican Americans never passively consented to their victimization by white Americans. Following the end of the Mexican-American War, they fought the unlawful seizure of lands guaranteed to them under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in American courts many being unsuccessful and losing their private property and homes to Americans who illegally squatted on their land and protested the decisions by California, Texas, and Arizona to limit citizenship to “white Mexicans.” In the 1930s, long before the establishment of the United Farm Workers, Mexican agricultural workers organized themselves into unions and went on strike in California, Arizona, Idaho, Washington, and Colorado; they were met with brutal suppression. “[w]ith scarcely an exception, every strike in which Mexicans participated in the borderlands in the thirties was broken by the use of violence and followed by deportations. In most of these strikes, Mexican workers stood alone, that is, they were not supported by organized labor.”

The 1960s and ’70s saw the birth of the Chicano Movement — emphasizing racial pride and resistance to racism. That movement also gave birth to a body of literature that is now acknowledged to contain many of the ur-texts that form the basis of Chicano/a and Latinx studies programs.

And now? Who are these Mexican Americans? While their numbers continued to be greatest in the western states, there are Mexican-American communities in every state in the union, with a significant presence in the Midwest and a growing presence in the South. In contrast to the aging white population, a 2007 survey revealed only six percent of “Hispanic Americans” to be 65 or older; the comparable percentage for whites was 15 percent. Thus, a brown workforce increasingly supports white retirees.

Contrary to the stereotype that most Americans of Mexican descent are recent immigrants, the majority of Mexican Americans are native-born. That percentage will only increase because Mexican immigration — even before Obama’s massive deportations and Trump’s war against immigrants — has been steadily decreasing, as a 2015 Pew Research Poll shows. That poll also dispels another stereotype, showing that almost 90 percent of native-born Mexican Americans are proficient in English. Moreover, Pew Research has also established that 83 percent of all Latinos and 91 percent of Latino millennials (including, of course, Mexican Americans) get their news in English.

The Department of Education reported a 126 percent jump in Latino students entering college between 2000 and 2015.

In short, Mexican Americans comprise a youthful, increasingly well-educated, largely native-born and English-proficient, aspirational community.

Yet, despite all this, Mexican-American representation in mainstream American culture, when it appears at all, remains either tokenistic, stereotypical, or both. In film, television, and books this emergent community is still largely ignored.

Part Thee

As part of my research for this essay, I looked at the course syllabi for a half-dozen courses in Latinx or Chicano literature from colleges across the nation, in order to see which Mexican-American works and writers scholars deem canonical. This is the list I came up with (virtually all these books were taught at more than one school):

Americo Paredes, George Washington Gómez (written in mid-’30s; published 1990)

Tomás Rivera, … y no se lo tragó la tierra/and the earth did not devour him (1971)

Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima (1972)

Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street (1984)

Arturo Islas, The Rain God (1984)

Ana Castillo, The Mixquiahuala Letters (1986)

Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987)

Alejandro Morales, The Rag Doll Plagues (1991)

Helena Maria Viramontes, Under the Feet of Jesus (1995)

Norma Elia Cantú, Canícula (1995)

Reyna Grande, Across a Hundred Mountains (2006)

What most of these books have in common is that, with two exceptions, none were published by the Big Five or their predecessors; instead, almost all were originally published by small presses. While some were later picked up by Big Five publishers for paperback editions, most are still being kept in print by independent or university presses. Even The House on Mango Street, now generally recognized as a classic work of American fiction was originally published by Arte Público Press.

What this illustrates is Big Lit’s long history of ignorance or indifference to Mexican-American writers and the Mexican-American experience in this country. Yet to read any of these books is to experience a vision of America at once unique and familiar, for each in its own way tells a quintessentially American story. It’s just not a white American story. Yet very few Mexican-American writers find a place in Big Lit.

Big Lit is a very, very white place. White people overwhelmingly populate the Big Five; as the now-famous publishing diversity study by Lee & Low Books reported, 79 percent of people employed in the industry in 2015 were white and only six percent Latino.

A 2019 salary survey of the publishing industry undertaken by Publishers Weekly put the percentage of white employees at 84 percent.

Librarians, who are crucial to the sale and dissemination of literary texts, are also overwhelmingly white. A February 2013 editorial in The Library Journal entitled “Diversity Never Happens” observed that “Hispanics are some of the strongest supporters of libraries, and yet they continue to be thinly represented among the ranks of librarians.” ”The editorial cites statistics showing that, while Latinos/as are more likely to use libraries on a monthly basis than whites, only eight percent of the 118,666 credentialled librarians were Latino/a. A 2017 statistical study reports that “89 percent of librarians in leadership or administration roles were white and non-Hispanic.”

Similar demographic information for other realms of Big Lit appears to be unavailable. No one seems to be keeping any record of what percentage of the writers who are reviewed — or the reviewers who review — in The New York Times Book Review, Publishers Weekly, or Booklist, for example, are white. In a 2012 study of book reviews published by The New York Times, it was found that 90 percent of the books reviewed in 2011 were by white writers. White writers are vastly and disproportionately overrepresented both as reviewers and subjects of reviews in comparison to writers of color.

There are over 1,300 literary agents in the United States, most of them in New York, but I could find no statistics about their racial demographics. I did find an anecdotal study from the late 1990s, in an article called “Dearth of Hispanic Literary Agents Frustrates Writers.” The asserted that neither the literary agencies canvassed in The Literary Market Place nor the roster of agents in the Association of Authors’ Representatives listed a single Latino/a agent. The number is now likely greater than zero, but I have no doubt that the profession remains at least as white as publishing.

Similarly, there are, to my knowledge, no statistics about the racial composition of students and faculty at the many MFA programs around the country. There are, however, plenty of anecdotal accounts of how students of color are received in these programs. The essay “The Student of Color in the Typical MFA Program” powerfully summarizes these experiences. According to the essay, if a student of color objects to a racist depiction in a work by a white student, she or he risks being accused of censorship, or else the objection is dismissed as a political argument outside the bounds of literary analysis. Moreover, the student’s objection often triggers guilt or anger in white students and teachers because it challenges their cherished beliefs that they are not racist, and so they respond by branding their colleague a troublemaker.

The whiteness of Big Lit has practical consequences for Mexican-American writers. If virtually every agent, editor, book reviewer, and librarian is white, then such writers will have a much harder time finding representation, getting published, being reviewed and recommended. Therefore, there will be fewer Mexican-American voices in the literary culture. And this, in turn, means that there will be fewer counterbalances to the racist depictions of Mexican Americans in mainstream culture — portrayals that allow Trump and other white supremacists to continue to vilify a large segment of the American population.

White progressives in Big Lit may lament this situation, but they take no responsibility for the perpetuation of white privilege, if not white supremacy, in literary culture. Why? Because that privilege benefits them.

Part Four

The obvious issue is this: the white people who make up Big Lit live in a culture whose history and practice enshrines the belief that Mexican Americans are inherently inferior to whites, and fundamentally they’re okay with that.

The standard American university education continues to emphasize the primacy of white writers and their experience. To achieve a literary culture that truly reflects America’s multiracial society first requires an acknowledgment that Big Lit’s views regarding the putative universality of white experience are rooted in the ideology of white supremacy.

Other commentators have noted that the Big Five apply a double standard when acquiring and retaining writers of color. Writers of color aren’t allowed to fail the same way white writers are allowed to. If one book by a white author doesn’t sell, no one at the publishing house says they shouldn’t acquire any books by white authors the next season. But if a book by a Mexican, for example, doesn’t sell, the publisher may take its sweet time in “taking a risk” on another.

But aren’t disappointing sales a good reason to not continue publishing a particular writer or kind of book? That would be an acceptable explanation if the same standard applied across the board. To amplify the point above, however, if a white novelist from Brooklyn fails to make back her advance, that doesn’t mean her publisher won’t acquire other white Brooklyn novelists or even refuse to publish that particular author’s next book. Moreover, and here’s where the argument really falls apart, most books fail to make money, at least initially. The editor-in-chief at One World noted at the LARB/USC publishing workshop in July 2019 that 10 percent of books published by the Big Five support the remaining 90 percent. If most books are a risk, why is that risk disproportionately attributed to work by writers of color?

“Hispanics don’t read.” Whether a Big Five editor ever actually uttered those words, it is widely believed by the Latino/a community to be a sentiment Big Lit harbors about us. According to a nationally syndicated columnist after a day or two after a book's release, she got a call from a New York Times reporter asking her how well the book would sell. The reporter jumped in to the first question: ‘Why don’t Latinos read?’”

The Big Five, like the larger media culture, are not representative of the U.S. but of the limited tastes of the elite of Manhattan and certain areas of Brooklyn. These cultural gatekeepers — publishers, editors, agents — are simply unfamiliar with Latinos. A bias seeps into their decision making, based again on the unwarranted assumption that Latinos don’t read.

The notion that Mexican Americans and other Latinos/as don’t read is clearly rooted in assumptions of racial inferiority — e.g., immigrant, poor, less educated, less intelligent.

In short, the ideology of white supremacy is at the root of Big Lit’s “diversity problem.” The reason Big Lit doesn’t seek out, encourage, publish, and promote Mexican-Americans writers is because the people who work in it don’t really believe that Mexican Americans are the intellectual or creative equals of — or that their stories have the same value as those of — white writers.

Hey Big Lit: You think the Mexican-American experience can be expressed in a handful of stereotypes, most of which emphasize the intellectual and moral inferiority of Mexican Americans. While we’ve had to figure out white people, you’ve never had to think past your stereotypes of us. While we’ve been paddling upstream against the current of your white-supremacist assumptions, you’ve been lazily drifting along in them. You know nothing of our historical experience, while all of us have had the false narrative of white American triumphalism forced down our throats. And while you mouth your support for “diversity,” any such initiatives that you control will be, at best, tokenistic. Indeed, the concept of “diversity” itself may simply be an attempt on your part to deflect attention away from white-supremacist assumptions by turning the issue of race into a discussion about mere representation.

There can be no real diversity without a real and meaningful redistribution of power.

It’s almost impossible to imagine that the white people who compose somewhere north of 79 percent of Big Lit would ever voluntarily and actively agree to — and work toward — an industry where their percentage slipped below 50 percent. When it comes right down to it, Big Lit, you’re much more invested in maintaining your privilege, and passing it down to your white heirs, than in helping to create a literary culture that genuinely represents the fullness of the American project — warts, near-genocides, invasions, lynchings, and all.

Of course, we’ll keep on calling you out, because you do respond sometimes — out of guilt, if nothing else. Maybe you’ll publish a few more Mexican-American writers, review a book or two about the Mexican-Americans experience, hire a Mexican-American writer to teach in your MFA program, highlight the works of Mexican Americans in your bookstore when it’s not “Hispanic Heritage Month.” We will also will continue to remind you that you will find yourself listed among the collaborators, right up there with the Scribner’s Magazine editor who commissioned “The American Congo.”

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high-quality-tiktoks · 2 years

Video

The Texas GOP liked the 1950′s for all the wronf reasons.

#video #tiktok #tiktoks #politics #usa #united states #united states of america #roe v wade #roe vs wade #texas #segregation #racism #racist #wtf #tizzyent

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asquareinverona · 2 years

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If anyone supports the ruling of the Supreme Court on overturning Roe v Wade, please make yourself known so I can block you and make a note never to associate with you again. I do not care how long I have know you. You will no longer be a part of my life. I hope that is clear enough for everyone.

If you support removing the protection of people's rights to a safe and legal abortion, then you are complicite in the deaths of everyone who is forced to seek out unsafe methods. You are complicite in the suffering and the deaths of women, of people with a uterus. You are complicite in the deaths and the pain of people whose pregnancies are hurting them and killing them and will no longer be able receive the medical care that would save them. You are complicite in the victims of rape and incest being forced to bear the results to term.

You are complicite in every child who is brought into a world where they are unwanted or where their parent cannot provide for them.

This decision will not stop abortion. It will prevent people from accessing safe abortion. It will cause death and suffering and it is only the beginning.

I continue to be appaled by everyone who supports this decision. By everyone who supported and/or still supports Trump. I am appaled by those who think that guns deserve more rights that people. I am appaled by everyone who thinks that mass shootings and school shootings are a price they are willing to let others pay for their right to own a gun.

For anyone who still thinks that American is the greatest, that it is the best, that is the land of the free, what world are you seeing? Because it is not the same one as me.

#roe vs wade #roe v wade #human rights #right to abortion #abortion #us politics #reproductive rights #abortion rights #usa #united states #i grew up and lived most of my life in texas #this is not up for debate #this is wrong

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aalt-ctrl-del · 2 years

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The HIPPA thing for women is scary as fuck too. I see a lot of posts encouraging those with periods to delete tracking apps (had no idea this was a thing). And it reminds me of the one texas women last year who was prosecuted for “murder” because she had a miscarriage and sought medical aid for a related issue.

Sometimes material needs to be removed, or antibiotics for reabsorption if something minor has gone septic - for ref why some people - especially texas woman - would need medical aid after a natural miscarriage.

Right now the data for period tracking (I don’t know how this works so bear with me) can be used to incriminate women of a potential miscarriage. Irregular periods or missed periods in hormonal issues, may be used or viewed as potential homicide in red states.

And that is the whole privacy issue. The fact that red states will seek prosecution of any woman for a missed blood cycle, because the body works perfectly and obviously people with uteruses will use contraceptives and day after pills to murder children. The state will basically be scrutinizing data that should be private, and especially whatever medical history a person with a period has with the doctor, in the event the body yeets genetic material. Or not.

Since the red states and all elected officials failed biology, the purest belief is that all wanted pregnancies and all periods work PERFECTLY, and miscarriages never happen, and all women GLOW during the full 9 month period. As well, all wanted children born premature at 4 months come out of the womb perfectly formed, and can go home within a week.

But heaven forbid you have an irregular cycle, you wich. You’re killing babies with your lack of after marriage passionate hugging. Put that clown car to work.

#roe v wade #roe versus wade #roe vr wade #zygotes still be creepy as all hell #premature babies #actually in some states IT DOES depend on socioeconomic status on whether or not a premature baby born at 4-5 months will survive #because insurance #so dont be (if it screams and cries its a baby)#doctors dont care #they're not putting that in the nicu unit #yeh good doctors will have no borders but not all doctors are ethical or hippa friendly #and if your body does a fucking baby yeet at 4-5 months and the doctor cant save the baby (or cant be fucking bothered)#then mom gets investigated #because how tf dare you not carry to term you winch #and dont be (oh that won't happen because doctors and science and logic) grow tf up #a teacher in texas was going to be prosecuted for not shutting a fucking door #but a dozen and ten cops standing around in larp gear not storming a classroom to save kiddos #chef kiss

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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BY JOE PATRICE

In United States v. Rahimi, the Fifth Circuit ruled that a guy who voluntarily agreed to a court order — entered to resolve a domestic violence claim — barring him from owning guns cannot be criminally convicted for violating a court order prohibiting him from owning guns because of the Second Amendment. In doing so, the court reasoned — as we’ve seen before — that since domestic violence existed in the 18th century and the Framers didn’t punish abusers for having guns then, it can never pass a law to do it now.

No, seriously, that’s the logic. See Rahimi at 11.

But there’s a lot being written about the majority opinion. Let’s focus on the concurrence because that’s where Judge James Ho shines. And by “shines,” we mean turns in shoddy research that would get a first-year associate fired.

As a recap, here are the facts of the case:

Between December 2020 and January 2021, Rahimi was involved in five shootings in and around Arlington, Texas. On December 1, after selling narcotics to an individual, he fired multiple shots into that individual’s residence. The following day, Rahimi was involved in a car accident. He exited his vehicle, shot at the other driver, and fled the scene. He returned to the scene in a different vehicle and shot at the other driver’s car. On December 22, Rahimi shot at a constable’s vehicle. On January 7, Rahimi fired multiple shots in the air after his friend’s credit card was declined at a Whataburger restaurant.

That’s not a fact-pattern, that’s 15 minutes in GTA Online.

The spree resulted in law enforcement searching his home and finding firearms. However, Rahimi had voluntarily agreed to a court order barring him from possessing firearms to settle a domestic violence claim lodged by his ex-girlfriend. Having been found with guns despite a court order (again, an order that he agreed to) prohibiting him from having guns, a grand jury indicted Rahimi under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8). He would then plead guilty because he was, you know, guilty. Then he realized that he lived within the Fifth Circuit and launched a broadside against the constitutionality of his conviction, which the court approved.

Now to the concurrence.

Judge James Ho, thirsty as a lost wanderer in the Mojave for any opportunity to ingratiate himself to any future Republican administration that might elevate him to the Supreme Court, writes separately:

The right to keep and bear arms has long been recognized as a fundamental civil right. See, e.g., Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763, 784 (1950) (describing the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments as the “civil-rights Amendments”); Konigsberg v. State Bar of Cal., 366 U.S. 36, 49–50 n.10 (1961).

It’s always difficult for conservative judges to find support for their “deeply historical” analysis of the Second Amendment since it doesn’t exist. Even the majority opinion explicitly notes that, “In Emerson, we held that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms—the first circuit expressly to do so.” Since Emerson was decided in 2001, this is just letting pride get in the way of Originalist gaslighting. Come on, Fifth Circuit! You can’t go around admitting that the individual right to gun possession is barely old enough to drink.

So kudos to Judge Ho for trying to build a historical case! Unfortunately, neither of these cited opinions have much to do with the Second Amendment.

And they both… prove the opposite of what he’s arguing.

Eisentrager is about federal jurisdiction over Nazi war criminals. The Second Amendment does come up, but in a very particular way. Eisentrager concludes that war criminals held in Germany, who have never been inside the US, do not have access to US constitutional rights. By way of analogy, Justice Jackson explains that extending rights in this way would justify giving guerrilla fighters unchecked access to guns.

If the Fifth Amendment confers it rights on all the world except Americans engaged in defending it, the same must be true of the companion civil rights Amendments, for none of them is limited by its express terms, territorially or as to persons. Such a construction would mean that, during military occupation, irreconcilable enemy elements, guerrilla fighters, and “were-wolves” could require the American Judiciary to assure them freedoms of speech, press, and assembly as in the First Amendment, right to bear arms as in the Second, security against “unreasonable” searches and seizures as in the Fourth, as well as rights to jury trial as in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.

The Court’s point here is to highlight the absurdity of extending these rights to foreign combatants to prevent the military from blanket disarming enemy troops. It’s a stretch to extend this to support the claim that the Court thought that the Second Amendment doesn’t countenance regulations that would bar criminals from having guns within the United States. Indeed, several of the Justices on this opinion were on the Miller opinion that directly laid out that this was not the meaning of the Second Amendment.

But as bad as that citation may be, Konigsberg is somehow worse.

Konigsberg is about swearing that you aren’t a communist to get admitted to the bar (maybe that’s what we need to deal with all these woke Biglaw lawyers!). But the funny part of this citation is that the specific footnote Ho points to… reaches the opposite conclusion. While the case is about the First Amendment, Justice Harlan ends this footnote with the sentence, “In this connection, also compare the equally unqualified command of the Second Amendment: ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'” This ignores the whole “well regulated” part, which is dictionary definition of a qualification, but set that aside.

Judge Ho appears to have seen “unqualified command of the Second Amendment” and called it a day. EXCEPT that’s the antithesis of the whole footnote.

The sentence attached to the footnote is: “At the outset, we reject the view that freedom of speech and association, as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, are ‘absolutes,’ not only in the undoubted sense that, where the constitutional protection exists it must prevail, but also in the sense that the scope of that protection must be gathered solely from a literal reading of the First Amendment.” Footnote 10 in full:

That view, which, of course, cannot be reconciled with the law relating to libel, slander, misrepresentation, obscenity, perjury, false advertising, solicitation of crime, complicity by encouragement, conspiracy, and the like, is said to be compelled by the fact that the commands of the First Amendment are stated in unqualified terms: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble. . . .” But as Mr. Justice Holmes once said:

“[T]he provisions of the Constitution are not mathematical formulas having their essence in their form; they are organic living institutions transplanted from English soil. Their significance is vital, not formal; it is to be gathered not simply by taking the words and a dictionary, but by considering their origin and the line of their growth.”

Gompers v. United States, 233 U. S. 604, 233 U. S. 610. In this connection, also compare the equally unqualified command of the Second Amendment: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” And see United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174.

Justice Harlan contends here that just because the First Amendment reads as “unqualified,” it doesn’t mean that the law treats it as such. He then throws in the Second Amendment specifically for the purpose of underscoring this point. It’s included to convey: “See, this is written to be unqualified too and literally no one is stupid enough to think the Constitution intends to create an unfettered individual right to guns.”

How did something so sloppy end up in an appellate opinion? Obviously, there’s a dearth of historical precedent for the proposition that the Second Amendment affords an individual right to gun ownership, but armed with AI-facilitated caselaw search tools all he could come up with for pre-2001 support is an opinion from 1961 that concludes the opposite way?!?!

This guy needs to stop boycotting elite law school clerks, because he needs some serious research help.

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incorrect-web-novels · 2 years

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Happy Pride, y'all!

I probably won't have the time or energy to go through and make or reblog content for pride month, considering the state of the US rn, but y'all are all so cool and wonderful, and I love all y'alls' works. Have a safe and happy pride ❤🧡💛💚💙💜

Pride - the Trevor Project, Pride Foundation, ACLU

Gun Violence (US) - Wear Orange and March for Our Lives; Uvalde Fund

Abortion Rights (US) - ACLU, Planned Parenthood, I Need an A

#trying to keep this positive but I just watched Don't Look Up and it's a little too true rn #gun mention #firearm mention #gun violence #us #united states #america #pride #personal #abortion #like. what I've seen so far is amazing but I literally Can't #how the fuck am I supposed to focus on anything else rn yanno?#if you haven't been keeping up. a Texas elementary school was shot up and a bunch of 9 and 10 year olds were killed + 2(?) teachers #*Robb Elementary School in Uvalde Texas specificially #before that a grocery store was shot up in Buffalo and since the elementary school we've been having mass shootings pretty much every day #plus sometime in may a draft opinion of the supreme court was leaked and revealed that they plan to overturn Roe v. Wade #(which protects abortion rights)#child death tw #child death #shooting mention #school shooting tw #ask to tag #not a quote #pregnancy

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yeollie-plz · 3 months

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Light The Flame

mbf! Joel Miller x F! Reader

Part 2

Synopsis: Your mom moves the two of you back to Texas and attempts to reignite an old flame. What will happen when she learns his candle now burns for you?

Genre: fluff, angst, and smut! the trifecta!

Warnings: divorced parents, mentions of cheating, no Sarah, no outbreak, drinking, age gap (reader is said to be in college but Joel's exact age isn't stated), Tommy is a bit of a sleaze, kissing, 18+ content, p in v sex, protected sex!, lots of different sexual acts, cursing

Gif credits to owners!

Inspired by this post from @deathsholywaterr ! I hope I did your idea justice!!

Also this shit is long so buckle up!

It had been about three months since your parents' divorce was officially finalized. Your dad had moved out long ago and with no other ties keeping her in California, she decided to move back to her hometown in Texas. And although you would miss your friends and the life you had in LA, you couldn't shake the feeling that you needed (and deserved) a change. Plus, you had just found out your boyfriend was sleeping with your so called best friend. So, yeah, you wanted to get out as soon as possible.

All of your stuff was packed into a moving van and moved across the United States. You knew Texas would be super different, but a welcome change. Not to mention a chance to reinvent yourself. Taking college classes and finding your path in life, that was the goal. But, of course, a girl still needs to have a bit of fun and you and you had heard Texas nightlife was very fun!

That's how you found yourself, perched on a barstool, at a downtown Austin bar, listening to drunk people sing karaoke only hours after unpacking your clothes. You giggled lightly to yourself as a very drunk man hit a way too high note. Rotating the barstool around to place your now empty glass on the counter and just as you were about to motion the bar tender over to order another a man settled in next to you. He leaned against the counter, a bit closer to you than you would've liked.

"Hello gorgeous, how 'bout you let me get you a drink?" His words slurred together as the smell of the beer on his breath wafted towards you. Your nose scrunched in disgust.

"How about no?" Your tone was sweet, but your words were not as you batted your eyelashes at the man. He was cute, but you weren't exactly in the mood for flirting especially with someone as intoxicated as him.

"Come on, one drink. We don't even gotta have a conversation, just wanna know your name. I'm Tommy by the way." He held out his hand, with how close he was it almost hit you in the face. You recoiled.

That's when a different man appeared next to the two of you, he grabbed Tommy by the bicep and yanked his hand back. Then pulled his body a few feet away from you, finally giving you the space you had been wanting the whole time.

"I'm sorry about him, sugar. My brother is an idiot and I'm an idiot for thinking he'd be okay alone for five minutes." He turns to Tommy. "Can't even let me pee, without causing me problems, can you?"

Trying to hold back your smile, you flattened out your skirt, getting rid of the imaginary wrinkles in it. The brother's eyes lock onto your hands, seemingly just now taking you in. He gulps as his eyes glaze over, then clears his throat.

"I really am sorry about him. Here, let me buy you a drink." He says and you almost giggle at how badly the two brothers want to buy you alcohol.

"Don't worry about it! Sadly, I am used to drunk men coming up to me. I appreciate it though, but honestly I should get home." He looks lost in thought, like he's debating offering to drive you home. But just as he opens his mouth Tommy slips and falls, almost taking his brother down with him. Then, who you're assuming is the older one tries to get him back to his feet.

He continues to struggle to get Tommy up, as you stand from your seat after placing a few dollars onto the bar for tip. Tommy drops to the floor again and he sighs. Ruffling through his pocket he pulls out his card and hands it to you.

With a quick, "If you ever want that drink." Before getting Tommy to his feet and pushing him back to where they must have been sitting. You glance at the card wanting to know his name.

Joel

A few days later, you found yourself at the grocery store. You wandered aimlessly through the aisles. Half in an attempt to orientate yourself with the new areas and half just looking for what sounded good. You wanted snacks, just weren't sure what exactly. As you pushed your now pretty full cart down the wine aisle, you saw a familiar face at the other end.

You tracked him with your eyes for a second before his met yours. A smile graced his lips, eyebrows raising in surprise. Honestly you were surprised yourself. Not only did he recognize you, but he was happy to see you.

Making his way towards you, he offered you a small wave, which you returned. Your cheeks heated up slightly, you remembered he was attractive, but now in the bright florescence it showed even more. Glancing down at your outfit, you cursed yourself for not putting in just a bit more effort this morning.

"Hello again." Joel said when he finally made it over to you.

"Hello again," You mirrored his words, "Wasn't sure you would recognize me just now." You cursed yourself at the words you let slip out. Insecurities on full display.

"Of course I would recognize that beautiful face again." He says nonchalantly, like he didn't just openly call you beautiful. Like he didn't just openly flirt with you!

Cheeks flushed, you cleared your throat, "Did...uh...did you and Tommy get home alright?" He smiles like you've said something funny.

"We did, you?" Awkwardly, you shift your weight.

"I did."

He looks at you with the same smile from before, something mischievous now playing in his eyes. Cocking his head at you, he looks like he is trying to get you to say more.

"You never called, don't want that drink, sugar?" Now you are adorning a playful look back. He was scared you weren't going to call him?

"I was getting to it." You say, simply. Not wanting to come off too desperate, but also not letting his hopes get dashed.

"I was really looking forward to seeing you again." Joel takes a step closer to you.

"I might be at the bar sometime this weekend, maybe you will." At your words his eyes darken slightly. He knows you are toying with him.

Taking one more step towards you he leans down, his lips ghosting the shell of your ear, "Maybe I will." And he's trying to play back. He smirks at you before offering you another wave and walking off into the depths of the store.

You are left there, blinking and blushing at his retreating figure.

That weekend, you were doing your makeup oh so precisely. The dress you had picked out hugged your figure perfectly. You wore your best heels. Your hair was meticulous. Now to just hope Joel showed.

It's not like the two of you picked a specific day or time so what if he wasn't there? You couldn't think like that, you could only hope for the best and look your best too.

As you pushed open the door of the same bar you had first met Joel at the cool air washed over you, causing you to shiver. That's when your eyes met with his. It was almost like he had his eyes trained onto the door, just waiting for you to arrive. It looked like he chuckled at your shiver as he stood and made his way over to you.

"Cold princess?" His head cocked at you in amusement.

You crossed your arms, "Actually I'm just fine." And with a nod you saunter past him and towards the bar to order a drink.

He follows closely behind him and you just know he's smirking at your response. Joel lets you attempt, and fail, to gain the bartenders attention. Before he places a hand lightly on your shoulder and nods as if to say "watch this".

Bringing his fingers to his lips he blows out a loud whistle, your eyes widen in shock. He smirks down at you before making eye contact with the bar tender who is now staring incredulously at Joel.

"Joe, think you can get my girl here a drink?" My girl? He didn't mean it like that, he couldn't have.

"Only since she's so pretty. But you? I've told you about doing that, Miller. So annoying." The bartender, Joe, mumbles the last part more to himself but both you and Joel hear it. Joel laughs behind you, you feel the rumble of his chest against your back. A shiver runs down your spine.

He leans down, talking into your ear, "Sure you aren't cold?"

You roll your eyes, he knows what he's doing. Actually, he's doing it on purpose. Letting out a scoff, you readjust your position on the stool allowing your body to graze against Joel's a bit more. His hand reaches out to grip the edge of the bar. You can feel his eyes boring into you, his knuckles are turning white. Yep, you know what you're doing as well.

And just as Joel was about to say something else to you, Joe comes back with two drinks in hand. He passes a smaller glass to Joel, with what you assume is scotch in it. Then he passes a taller glass with a mixed drink in it to you. Its the same drink you got the other night you came in and you wonder how Joe remembered. But you brush it off as good customer service and take a sip of your fruity drink.

Joel smirks down at you as you are obviously enjoying your drink ad sips his as well. The ice clinks in his glass when he sits down the half empty vessel next to you.

Once again, he speaks into your ear, "Why don't we find a booth?" Nodding in response, he holds his hand out to you to help you off of the stool. You can't help the blush that rises to your cheeks at how much of a gentleman he is.

The two of you sat and talked for hours. Subtle flirts, learning about each other, anything and everything. Although you weren't sure you were ready for a relationship after the train wreck that was your last one, you enjoyed Joel's company and it seemed like he enjoyed yours. Plus, it didn't hurt to just have a strictly physical relationship, did it?

Thats how you found yourself agreeing to another date with Joel. Thats how you found yourself moving your hips into his on the dance floor. And thats how you found yourself in his bed later that night.

Currently he was sitting on the edge of the bed, your legs straddling his as you kissed fervently. Your hips moved seemingly on their own, grinding your clothed core down onto his jean clad member. He groans into your mouth when you grind down even rougher. Big hands grip onto your hips, stilling your movements.

"Careful princess." His voice is deep as he mutters into your lips before catching them in a deep kiss again. This causes you to now let out a moan. Damnit if you weren't the most turned on you've ever been.

Joel seems to catch onto the faster movements of your hips, knowing you need more. His lips trial down your neck to the juncture of your shoulder, he bits you lightly before licking over the marks. You gasp, bucking your hips forward at the feeling. He smirks against your skin and moves his lips down your exposed chest. Silently thanking yourself for wearing such a low cut top.

Lips ghost against the skin of your breast before he pulls your shirt aside to let one boob out of its constraints. He sucks your nipple into his mouth and that's when you fully loose yourself into the pleasure. If you weren't fucked before, you sure were now. Well...you were going to be soon hopefully.

Pulling off of your bud, his breath fans over the sensitive skin causing a shiver to run down your spine. Something flashes in his eyes as a smirk graces his lips.

"Either you're always cold or I really have an effect on you." He says, craning his neck back towards your lips. You roll your eyes before he's meeting lips with your own and flipping you over to lay on the bed.

Your head lands all but gracefully on the plush surface, his lips never leaving yours. The hands that were on your hips, now explored your body leaving goosebumps in their wake. One massaged your still covered breast, the other slowly made its way up the inside of your thigh. His fingers tentatively crossed over your core and up to the buttons of your pants. Your need to have him inside of you grew stronger as you lifted your hips involuntarily, trying to urge him to take of your pants.

"So desperate." Is all Joel says before he is popping open the first button. Then the next. Then the next. Slowly he unbuttons them all and pulls your pants just as slowly down your legs. The pace makes you whimper out.

He was right, you were desperate. But with how slow he was going, who wouldn't be?

"I want to taste that pretty pussy." Joel says as he finally makes eye contact with your lacy underwear.

"Please, I just want you inside me." He gives you a look at your words, like he wasn't sure you meant it. Or he wasn't sure you were that ready?

"Next time, please Joel just fuck me already."

He seems to contemplate this for a second, but ultimately agrees, "Your wish is my command."

He slips out of his own shirt and quickly slides his jeans off too. Standing there in just his underwear, you swear you could pass out from the view alone. But your head was too cloudy to say anything. Joel seemed to see the lust in your eyes and just shook his head before grabbing a condom from the nightstand.

"Take your shirt off for me, sugar." Its a bit more of a request than a command but you follow it like it was an order. You had to admit it was a bit sexy to be told what to do.

"Good girl, let me see how wet you are." He stands over you while stroking his hardening dick through his underwear. You watch in awe before following his instructions and pull your own panties off of you.

Spreading your legs, you display your pussy to him and he groans at the sight. He strokes himself a bit faster as you slide your fingers through your soaked folds. Fingers dip into your opening and you hold back your reaction, keeping your eyes locked onto his. When your fingers are thoroughly coated in your juice, you trail them up your torso to your mouth. Sucking your fingers in and licking them clean.

Darkness fills Joel's eyes as he decides this is the last straw and he is on top of you in a instant. Pulling your fingers out of your mouth he shoves them into his own, swirling his tongue around your digits.

Quickly he pushes off of you just to take off his underwear and slip the condom onto his painfully hard penis. You gulp at the sight, mouth watering like you've been in a desert for days. You make a note that next time you must also taste him.

But, these thoughts leave your head as quickly as they came because Joel is pushing his member into you. As the tip breaches your entrance, you are gasping and gripping onto his arms for support. You feel his muscles tensing under your fingertips as he begrudgingly paces himself, trying to let you adjust

You almost giggle at the pained look on his face. Wrapping your legs around his waist, you hook your ankles together and pull him the rest of the way inside of you. He has to catch himself from falling on top of you from both a mixture of shock and the forceful nature of your movement.

Eyes meet yours with a shocked look. You just give him a smirk and a shrug in return. Regaining his composure, he pulls out of almost completely. So painfully slowly that you almost keel over. You know its your punishment for what you had done and you were feeling the full force of your actions.

But, the punishing doesn't last long as he enters you again. He thrusts out to his tip again only quicker and rougher. Continuing this action of thrusting in and out of you picking up a tempo.

After letting out another moan when he slams into you particularly hard, you crane you neck slightly to see the look on his face. He seems to have fully lost himself in the pleasure. The teasing is all lost and he is now fully focused on getting you both to your orgasms.

Joel is now fucking into you with no more reservations. He reaches a hand between the two of you, using his thumb to rub your clit. He rubs the bud in circles, trying to work you towards your peak.

"Cum for me, princess." He says with a grunt, gripping your hips roughly. His hips snap into yours roughly.

You feel the beginnings of your orgasm. The coil in your stomach begins to tighten. Your hips buck up at the feeling, needing to orgasm.

"Joel!" You gasp out as you are pushed over the edge. You clench around his cock, pussy urging him to cum as well.

Working you through your orgasm, he continues his motions on your clit. He thrusts are getting a bit out of rhythm as he is also reaching his own peak. Leaning over you he reattaches his lips to yours, pushing his tongue into your mouth.

As his hips stutter into yours he is thrusting into you one last time before spilling his load into the condom. Joel moans into your mouth as he works himself through his orgasm. Hips slow down as his orgasm ends and Joel is plopping down next to you. Wrapping you in his arms as his member is still inside of you.

All that is heard in the room is heavy breathing for a minute as Joel's sweaty body surrounds yours. You look up at him and his eyes meet yours. A smile graces his lips before he is pecking your nose and bringing you even closer to him.

Eventually, he pulls out of you and ties of the condom. Moving to toss it in the en suite before returning just to wrap you back into his warm embrace.

After the first time you and Joel hooked up, the two of you hung out at least three times a week. You would go to the bar, get a few drinks, talk a bit, laugh a bit. But you would always end up back at Joel's place. In his bed. In his arms.

Your mom was also starting to catch onto something going on with you. With you coming home late, giggling on your phone, smiling randomly at the thought of Joel. Not to mention, you were acting a bit shady. Even your friend noticed a change when she called you the other day.

But it was nothing but physical, right? Right...

Pushing open the door as silently as you could, you slightly stumbled into the dark house. Still a little tipsy as well as a bit of jelly legs from your earlier activities. Slipping off your shoes and picking them up so your heels wouldn't echo, you tried to reach the stairs to your room.

The minute your hand grabbed the banister, the lights in the living room flipped on like some movie scene. Your mom sat on the couch, arms crossed staring at you.

Jumping you tried to calmly greet her, "Hey mom."

"Don't 'hey mom' me, where have you been?" She was never this serious, so it scared you slightly.

"Out, I found a bar in town and I've been hanging out there." You didn't want to mention Joel just yet. One because how did you explain to your mom that you had a fuck buddy. And two that that fuck buddy was almost twice your age.

"By yourself?" Shit, she saw right through you.

"I mean, I talk to a few people there. Made friends with the bar tender. Well sort of, he's a bit serious and-"

She held up her hand to stop your rambling. You snapped your mouth shut.

"Who drove you home?" Joel had been driving you home from his house almost every time you guys hung out. He didn't like you taking a taxi that late.

You gulped, "I got a taxi."

"I know that's not true, Y/N. You're seeing someone. I can tell. You're different since we moved here and I think it has to do with someone." Your eyebrows furrow at her confession. Was she mad at you for staying out or mad at you for keeping secrets from her?

"Okay, maybe I am. I'm an adult!" You really weren't sure what she wanted to hear at this moment.

"You are, but I just want to make sure you are responsible."

Now you were rolling your eyes and crossing your arms back at her.

"Responsible? I can assure you I am." What did she think? That you were going around sleeping with randos and not using protection?

"Good," She stood up now and made her way over to you, "I just want to make sure you're okay, sweetie. After all that happened before..." She trailed off when she saw the hurt on your face at the mention of your ex.

She continued, "Anyways, I can see you're happy, so I won't pester you much about it anymore. But, can you at least try to come home earlier. You know I worry." She places a kiss on your forehead and moves past you up the stairs a bit, only turning back to hear your reply.

"I will, I'm sorry you were worried." You smile at her, she returns that smile.

Making her way to her room she shouts back one more thing before closing herself in her room, "And I wanna meet him sometime!"

This has you gulping, breathing cut short, body rigid. How were you going to get out of this one?

The next morning as you sluggishly made your way to the kitchen, you were greeted by your overly excited mother.

"Morning sweetie!" You almost cringe at her loud voice, feeling the effects of your late night.

"Morning." You grumble out, before making your way to the pantry to find something to eat.

She's humming to herself as she cooks some eggs on the stove. At first you don't think much of it, until you notice her almost bouncing on the balls of her feet. It makes you take a pause, she was excited about something and she definitely wanted to tell you about it.

"Why are you so happy?" You ask with a smile in your voice. Leaning against the pantry door, you make eye contact with her. She blushes, smiles, and then looks back down at her eggs.

"Remember how I told you I went out with a group of friends from high school the other night?" You nod recalling how she animatedly told you about that night and all the nostalgia.

"Well, we are all hanging out again tonight. I'm just excited." Now you nod in acknowledgement. But she did seem a bit more excited than just a hang out, eh whatever.

You went back to looking for your cereal, grabbing it and a bowl. While pouring your cereal into your bowl, your mom speaks again.

"Plus, I might have a man too." Jumping slightly at her confession, you almost spill your cereal. You weren't sure you were ready for her to date again. It seemed weird after your parents had just divorced. You'd never seen either of them with anyone else, just strange.

She continues without you saying anything, "We went to school together. Used to have a bit of crush on him back then, but never worked out. Anyway, he was with us that other night and when I tell you he aged well!"

Almost laughing at how your mom was acting like one of your friends. Cute little crush and everything! You still felt a bit weird about hearing something like this from her. First of all, ew! Second of all, was she ready?

"Oh, that's nice." Is all you can manage to say, before taking a bite of your cereal, that you had just finished pouring milk into.

"'That's nice.'" She repeats, setting her spatula down and not making eye contact with you.

"Yeah, mom, that's nice. It will be nice for you, after dad..." You trail off, not sure if this is a sore subject or not. The two of you didn't talk much about the divorce anymore. So you thought it better to tread lightly.

"I think so too." She says, a bit more happier now as she resumes her eggs.

Yep, it will be nice.

After your awkward breakfast with your mom, you returned to your room to text Joel. If your mom was going out, you might as well too, right?

A few minutes later, your phone buzzed with a message. Quickly dropping whatever you were previously doing you crashed down onto your stomach on your bed. Kicking your feet as you unlocked your phone to read the message.

Joel: Sorry, sugar but I have plans tonight. Tomorrow?

You sigh, guess everyone was busy tonight.

You: No worries! See you tomorrow!

Sighing, you flipped onto your back, staring at your ceiling trying to think of what was going to keep you occupied tonight.

You decided to take the time for a self care night. Painted your nails, did a face mask, read a bit, before ultimately ending up in the bath.

The soak felt nice and after weeks of not focusing on yourself enough, it also felt nice to just relax. Plus, if you were glowing the next time you saw Joel, he probably wouldn't be able to keep his hands off of you.

That's how you found yourself, wrapped up in your soft robe propped up at your vanity. Hair wrapped in a towel while you rubbed lotion into your legs.

Just as you were finishing up, the doorbell rang downstairs. Sighing, not really wanting an interruption, but needing to answer it nonetheless. You pushed up from your seat and made your way downstairs. Not even bothering to change out of your robe.

And you would have never expected what you were about to see on the other side of the door as you swung it open.

There stood Joel and another lady, trying to hold up your very drunk mother. Eye immediately lock onto Joel's, an apologetic look on his face as he wasn't sure what to say.

Your mother however saw you and tried to rush at you to hug you. Slurring about this and that. How much fun she had, how pretty you were, anything and everything that came to her inebriated mind.

Joel and the lady held her back, trying to keep her on her feet and off of you. After the initial shock of the moment, you finally realized they were probably trying to get you to let them inside.

"Oh! Um, come in. I'm sorry about her, uh maybe just put her on the couch?" You gesture towards the living room and move aside to let all three of them through. Joel glances back at you as you close the door, eyes also trained onto him.

They try to place your mother onto the couch as carefully as they can, but she falls to the side anyways. You are almost horrified at the situation. Joel, here. Your mom, drunk. Joel with your drunk mom.

Joel clears his throat while the lady is busying herself with your mom, "As you can see, she's a bit tipsy." He states the obvious, you bite your lip as he shuffles from foot to foot nervously.

"A bit." You conclude.

"Yeah, uh, it might have been my idea to play a drinking game. Sorry!" The lady on the couch calls over her shoulder, returning to your mom.

Your eyes never leave Joel's. As the shock subsides, you finally put some pieces together. Your mom was going to see some high school friends. Joel was one of your mom's high school friends. You were hooking up with your mom's friend. Fuck!

Joel tries to read your face, you can see how he wants to go over to you. Wants to apologize properly or explain himself. Anything to make you feel better.

"Sug-Uh, Y/N right?" He almost lets his pet name for you out. You nod, like he doesn't moan out your name nightly.

"'m Joel and that's Linda." You nod again. What then fuck is happening right now?

"Do you think we should take her upstairs?" The lady, Linda, finally turns to look at you. She scans you and you only just now realize what you are wearing. Or lack of what you are wearing. Eyes shift to Joel, who is seemingly now taking in your appearance as well. You notice his Adam's apple bob a bit as he tries to wet his now very dry mouth.

"I mean, she will probably be fine there. One night on the couch isn't so bad." You try to joke but Linda's face stays stern.

"I'll take her up, can you bring her some water?" She looks to you and you nod again, now gulping at how serious she is.

Linda grabs your mom off the couch and surprisingly easily takes your mom up the stairs.

"The door on the left." You call out, realizing you never told her. Linda grunts in acknowledgement before taking your mom into your room. The second the door closes, Joel speaks.

"Linda's a bit serious."

"A bit serious? I was gonna say scary." He laughs at your statement.

"She is, isn't she?" He laughs again, before stopping as his eyes latch onto yours.

"Baby..." He trails off, not sure what to say.

"So, you're friends with my mom?" He nods. You open your mouth once, twice, before closing it again. Also not sure what to say.

"Obviously, I didn't know until she gave me the address tonight. Then I didn't know what I was going to say to you. I couldn't act like I knew you and-" He stops his rambling as you step towards him, placing a hand on his chest.

"It's okay, I know you didn't know. I know you wouldn't keep something like that from me." His hand engulfs yours, pulling it up to his mouth to peck your palm.

"You're so good to me." Taking a step closer, his forehead rests on yours.

You giggle, "You're so good to me."

The two of you sit there in silence for a second before he speaks again.

"You look so pretty right now, angel. I wish I could kiss you."

"You could." You confirm, bringing your face closer to his.

And right as he is about to attach his lips to yours, something crashes up stairs. you jump back from Joel at the sound before the two of you rush upstairs. Just to find Linda and your mom on the floor, laughing. You sigh in relief before noticing the pile of book knocked off the bookshelf.

"What happened?" You ask.

"She fell while trying to put her pants on. Knocked over all these books and me." Linda replies in between laughs. Only a bit shocked by her switch in emotions, you sign again.

"It's okay, you guys have done enough. I'll put her to bed now and clean that up in the morning. Thank you for everything." Linda nods, stands, and dusts herself off. Before looking to Joel who just gestures for her to go first.

Joel glances back at you once last time. Almost taking a step towards you, before shaking his head and following behind Linda.

The front door closes down stairs and your attention returns to your mom who is still sitting on the floor. Her head is slumped over and her breathing is even, like she has fallen asleep just like that.

"Come on, mom, let's get you to bed." You reach under her arms to lift her up. She doesn't help but falls into another giggling fit. Trying so hard not to laugh to you push her down under her seats, tucking her in just like she used to when you were little.

"That was him." She says all of a sudden.

"That was who?" You reply, not fully listening as you pick up one of the books.

"The guy I was telling you about. The one that grew up well. He's hot right?" You stop mid movement of picking up another book. What?

But before you can even say anything else soft snores come from the bed. You stand up and place the book back onto their shelf. Leaving the room silently.

You lean against the door once you shut it, stomach tying into knots.

The guy your mom is interested in is the guy that you are currently seeing. What the fuck?

The next morning it was your mom's turn to come into the kitchen groaning. Holding her head she sits at one of the barstools at the island.

"Morning sunshine." You greet her with a laugh while sipping your coffee.

She just grunts in response, you laugh again. Turning to make her her own mug of coffee, knowing that's exactly what she wants right now.

You slide it over to her, her eyes widen for only a second before lifting the mug to her lips. As soon as the liquid touches her tongue she is smiling into the brim of it.

"Thank you." She says as she places it back onto the counter. You raise your own mug to her in a "you're welcome" gesture. She sighs.

"Did I embarrass myself last night?" Groaning again while rubbing her temples.

You laugh, "Only a little." Holding up a pinching gesture with the hand not holding your coffee.

You take a sip while your mom speaks again, "Oh! But you met Joel right? What do you think?" And that's when you choke. You were kind of hoping she didn't bring up Joel.

"That bad?" Your mom chuckles while you try to recover from your coughing fit.

"Uh...um he didn't seem too bad." You finally say as you recover just enough to let the words out.

Your mom only nods, taking your short answer as enough.

What were you going to do?

You had sent a text earlier in the day to confirm with Joel that the two of you were still on for tonight. Although, you were a bit confused by the whole situation currently. You knew how you felt about Joel and honestly you were tired of hiding it from not only yourself but also him.

Now you could only hope he felt the same. That hope, however, came fully to fruition when the you showed up to Joe's bar and Joel was standing there waiting for you, bouquet in hand. You almost teared up at the gesture.

When you crossed the bar to him, he wrapped an arm around your waist pulling your body into his. He placed a kiss on the top of your head before handing the flowers to you.

"Sorry again about last night." You hit his chest at his statement. He backs up in shock, mouth wide open. His dramatics make you laugh.

"Stop saying sorry, it isn't your fault. My mom should be apologizing to you!"

"Still I should've at least warned you we were coming." Dramatics dropped as he looks down at his feet.

"While you were driving? Joel Miller!" Now you are the one being overdramatic and it makes him laugh like it had made you laugh.

"Fine, but I still feel bad."

You sigh, "Fine, but you're not sitting in this corner all night! Dance with me!" You grab his hand and pull him onto the dance floor.

When you start dancing he is only swaying his hips a bit, not fully into it. But you aren't having any of that, you grab his arms and slide his hands down your sides. Flipping around so your ass makes contact with his crotch. This seems to make him react as he grabs your hips in almost a warning.

Although, of course, this only eggs you on to continue your teasing. Grinding your hips back into his like that very first night the two of you hooked up. You spin back around, hands moving up his stomach and chest finally resting latched behind his neck. Your head is tossed back as you continue to move your hips dangerously close to his own. Neck is on full display for Joel and he takes this as an opportunity to crane down and place a soft kiss there.

His head now rests on your shoulder using his hands to help move your hips in time with his. You smile, he must be feeling a bit better now. So when he raises his head out of the crook of your neck you raise your own to meet eyes.

But you don't see lust there, you see something else. Love? It makes you gulp, goosebumps raising on your skin as he leans down to bring his lips to yours.

And when he pulls away, "I want you." He says, but it isn't in the lustful way he usually says it. Not sure how to reply, you smirk teasingly.

"Then take me."

"Not like that, baby. I-I want you. I-" Words seem to stop at the top of his throat, fearing that they will topple over.

Still unsure, you say the first thing that comes to mind, "You have me. I've been yours for a while, Joel." The look in his eyes sparks almost unnoticeably.

"You're mine?" You nod. "Promise?" Another nod.

"Come home with me?" Instead of answering, you attach your lips to him.

Waking up in Joel's arms felt so much different than all the times you had been in his bed and in his arms before. Something about the intimacy of your conversation from the night before and the intimacy of being in his bed now. You were just so serene. It felt right. There was no other way to describe it.

Obviously, after leaving Joe's you ended up at Joel's place once again. Although this time you had told your mom so she wouldn't worry and you had also, at Joel's request, told her that you weren't going to come home at all tonight.

Of course, like all the nights before Joel and you had ended up fucking, but last night felt different. It was slower, it was intimate, it was like he was making love to you. If you had asked Joel he would tell you that's exactly what he was doing.

Glancing over at Joel, you see that he is still asleep. You try to carefully let yourself out of grip to get out of bed but his strong arms keep you there.

As you try again, he just grips you tighter letting out a groan. He opens his eyes slowly.

"Don't leave me." He says while still waking up.

"I'm not leaving, Joel, I-" He cuts you off by pulling you roughly into his side.

"Joel-" you warn with a squeak as he pushes on your stomach with the heel of hi hand. "-I need to pee."

He still doesn't let you up. Just nuzzles his face into your hair. His breath tickles your neck.

"If you don't let me go, I'll end up peeing in your bed." You try to warn him again and finally he lets you go with a sigh.

But before you can make it fully into the bathroom he is calling out behind you.

"You're mine?" Your eyes roll.

"Yes."

"Promise?"

"Joel." Another warning tone.

"Promise." This time it wasn't a question.

"I promise. Now let me go pee!"

After peeing, you returned to Joel who was still sprawled out in bed. He brought you back into his arms as quickly as he could. The two of you stayed like that for a while, just bathing it each other's warmth.

Until Joel's hands started wandering. First it started with rubbing soothing circles onto your back. Then the circles moved to your thighs. The circles becoming less soothing and more whimper inducing. Then they moved to just above the waistband of your pants (boxers you had borrowed from Joel). Only for them to dip past that waistband just a second later. Now teasing your already dripping slit.

Whimpering out, Joel caught your sound with his lips. Letting his tongue taste yours. The kiss was slow, passionate. No matter how much he wanted you, he was taking it slow.

His fingers continued teasing your pussy lips, collecting your juices before slipping just the tip of fingers past your folds. Gasping, you bit down on his lip, causing him to groan into your mouth. The shock made him loose himself for a second but he recovered quickly and continued teasing you.

He did this for a minute or two never letting his lips leave yours. Bringing his fingers to your clit he rubbed the bud a few times before slipping his hand out of pants. You whined at the loss.

"I need to be inside of you. Can't wait any longer." He says before pushing you to turn around so he was now behind you.

You heard Joel rustling through his nightstand for a second before tearing open a package. Shifting away from your warmth for only a second to slide his underwear down and slip the condom on.

As quickly as he can he is returning to touching you, hand moving up under your shirt. Lips are on your neck nipping and sucking lightly at the sensitive skin.

The hand in your shirt moves up to tease your boob, massaging both of them. The other hand is moving back to the waistband of your pants, slipping them down your legs as much as he can in the position that you are in. You help him by lifting your hips a bit.

Joel slides his dick into you from behind, it being easy from till being a bit stretched out from last night. Not to mention all the teasing and the amount of wetness that is almost dripping down your thighs at this point.

You don't even need to adjust to the stretch, "Please Joel." You breath out. He continues fucking into behind and kissing at your neck.

Hand is still in your shirt, just holding onto your tit. The other is holding your hip in place, like he thinks you'll slip away from him. He is fully seated inside of you when he slowly pulls out of you to hi tip, before fucking back into all the way to the hilt.

He continues his slow and steady pace, just taking his time with your body. Needing to feel all of you. Needing you.

Thrusting his dick in and out of you. Working both of you towards your release. Morning sex with Joel was definitely different than any of the sex you've ever had with him before but you were loving it. You loved how he was taking his time. He didn't want either of you to get overstimulated.

The hand that was on your hip wrapped around to tease your clit. The strokes were as slow as his thrusts. But he strokes once particularly roughly and you are moaning, turning your head to try and meet lips with Joel. He obliges and connects your lips.

This is what sends you hurtling towards your end. The softness of the kiss, the circles on your clit, and the slow yet perfect thrusts. It crashes over you unexpectedly and has you moaning out loudly disconnecting your lips just so you can catch your breath.

And the feeling of your walls clenching onto his member has him closer to his peak quickly as well. He's usually very sensitive in the morning so he isn't very surprised. So when you seemed to have caught your breath and you no longer are jerking with your orgasm, Joel is placing his lips back on yours. Kissing you deeply as he swallows your breathy moans from the overstimulation.

This causes him to reach his peak, cumming into the condom with a throaty moan. Thrusting roughly into you a few times to work himself through his orgasm. When he is finished he is pulling out of you and using your shoulder to turn you back to face him.

He pulls your head into his chest. Breathing is still a bit labored as the two of you just feel the other person. Appreciating the comfort. Breathing in each other's scents, content.

Later that day after a shower, with Joel, he drove you back to your house to drop you off. You didn't have any clothes with you after all, so you at least had to change and because you didn't exactly want to leave Joel yet, when you didn't see your mom's car in the driveway you convinced Joel to come up with you.

He didn't protest much after you promised him your mom would not be returning any time soon. So he followed you through the house and into your room. You ushered him in and watched as he took it all in. Shutting the door behind you two, you made your way across the room to Joel.

Wrapping your arms around him from behind as he looked at some pictures on your desk. You hadn't realized until now but Joel had never seen the way you lived and it was comforting to finally have him in your space.

"That's when I was seven." You said as he picked up a picture of you with a soccer ball in hand, blue jersey hanging on your little torso. "I begged my dad to sign me up for soccer and only did it for about three weeks before I decided I hated it." You laugh at the memory.

He laughs too and places it down, now picking up a picture of you and your friend from prom.

"That feels like ages ago." You muse, "There used to be another girl in this picture but she uh she fucked my boyfriend so I cut her out." You nod into his back before disconnecting your arms and moving across the room to sit on your bed. Playing with your hands, he places the photo down and moves to sit with you.

"I'd never do that to you." He says after a beat of silence.

"Fuck my boyfriend? I hope not." You try to joke but it doesn't fully reach your voice.

Joel grabs your hands, "Cheat on you." He says the thing you weren't sure you wanted to hear. You open your mouth but aren't sure what to say.

So he speaks instead, "You deserve the world and I want you to know that I'm prepared to give it to you." You smile, finally bringing your eyes to his.

"You sound so old!" You jest as you hit his chest. He grabs your wrist using it pull you forward into him. You fall into his chest, Joel uses that as an opportunity to stable you by a hand on your hip.

"If I really was that old, I don't think I could fuck you the way I do." He tone is laced with seduction as he brings his lips to ghost yours. Breath fans over your face, causing you to shiver. He smirks almost bringing up the inside joke of you being cold all the time. But throws this away to instead attach his lips to yours.

The kiss is fiery, not like the ones from this morning that were filled with passion, this one was like he needed to prove something. Prove he would always be yours and you would always be his.

His lips and his hands have you so much in a trance that neither of you hear a car pulling into the driveway. Or the front door opening. Or your mom calling out your name. Or climbing up the stairs. Or opening your door.

But you do hear the gasp and the sound of bags dropping to the floor as your mom sees the two of you. Pulling away quickly both you and Joel jump away from each other like a fire was just lit between you. Your head snaps to look at your mom and then back to Joel and notice she is doing the same thing with the both of you.

"Mom, I-" You try to explain but loose your words and good thing too because they would be falling on deaf ears anyways. With her blinking twice and rushing out of the room, back down the stairs, out of the house, and driving away.

You look back to Joel who has a mortified look on his face, then back to the doorway your mom was just in.

"Shit."

Part 2 !!!!!!!

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