#anyway nobody at all gets to be ''truly'' ''ideally'' cishet; just like other inventions re the Correctest body/mind's look & behavior | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

unproduciblesmackdown · 2 years

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truly recommending the Lens of bodily autonomy in general

for example like, sexuality / gender. if you’re just kind of throwing shit at the wall to invent a more radical analysis then it gets results like: arguments that can’t have any definite conclusion about prescriptive language, the hypothetical results of which would be [???] anyways; pokemon types damage chart analysis on intracommunity issues to further [???] hypothetical results; new pitches for biphobia / transphobia every 5 min; inventing guys to get mad at (hypothetical Infiltrators / Interlopers) & other “i’m one of the real ones” other side of the coin to “i’m one of the good ones” variations; making up the theoretical qualifying Universal “True” Lgbtq Experience; etc

and, naturally, the years consumed by ppl positioning ace exclusionism as Radical while apparently the actions taken via that stance were all about like, being able to enjoy the “i could’ve been good at pwning nerds in high school too if only homophobia hadn’t made Me a nerd to pwn” amusement, since Arguments were mostly about, not asexuality directly even, but like those made up guys who’d Claim it to get to feel special or bother gays or something, just like those damn kids who get to just Say they’re not cis without getting certified by Any external assessment & validation from proper not cis people....but then the vector hasn’t even really been the “debates” about whether asexuality isn’t queer enough or whatever, it’s just been like, people discovering their I’m Thee Cyberbully penchant for how asexuals are cringe. and then really the “arguments” therein just become a nightmare of like, again reinventing some biphobia, transphobia, ableism, really connecting with all other forms of bigotry and just so happening to consistently side on the “””just common sense””” Normal Correct arguments that come in handy when you’re trying to create a border that in turn creates one group with authority and the Other group. and a classic sort of argument behind The Stance being this made up idea that all Real lgbtq people underwent some specific experience that hinges on how cishet people in their lives reacted to them & enacted some sort of violence about it. and that Nobody Cares and actually cishet parents would love it if their kid came out as Asexual, as if that lines up with what actually happens in reality (but the ace people are probably lying / exaggerating) or even In Theory

the issue of Sexuality / Gender as one of autonomy absolutely means that the matter of having gay sex is for real in essence that of not having any sex, potentially. gay sex threatening the institutions of Marriage and The Family aren’t because gay people don’t want to have partners or children, as would theoretically cut it as a counterargument otherwise, but b/c those institutions require there being one group which is Men and another group which is Women, everyone immutably belonging to said groups, and women's defining Experience being: property of men to provide children, care / labor, and sex. and men’s defining experience being that they’re the default normal ideal People who get to own the property that is A Woman. wherein it’s inherently Emasculating for women to stray from “normal” gender roles, which in itself is a manifestation of the personal power a woman would still have to Choose that if she wants, and that power disparity Is what defines that gender binary. people can exist outside of it by not “””naturally””” adhering to and maintaining Any of its tenets; attraction / desire that even Can be between the “wrong” genders is a threat, see also: bisexual people being Untrustworthy simply because of the Possibility to be attracted to someone of another gender than that of any given partner, rather than that they supposedly don’t even have that “choice.” of course being asexual doesn’t necessarily guarantee anyone has any specific experience re: whether they have ever, do ever, will ever have sex or not, their relationship with attraction / desire / sex drive / sexual arousal/stimulation/gratification, their relationships w/others & the forms of intimacy therein, etc, but looking at Sex as a matter of consent and autonomy, not as something anyone has a Right to, is threatening, so anyone having that full bodily autonomy when they make choices about sex independent of anyone else’s power & what they’re “owed,” that is threatening, and that certainly includes choosing anytime, and/or all the time, to not have sex in certain ways, or at all

of course with Formalized ways in which there’s, e.g., encoded laws validating state power to control sex, it’s going to be a lot more straightforward to forbid Acts That Occur than it is to try to forbid Acts That Never Occur, such that you know, there’s antisodomy laws. but then, naturally, that in common law women did not have the “right” to not have sex w/their husbands, such that a man would be wronged by his wife not having sex w/him, a woman would not be wronged by her husband having sex w/her b/c he wanted to. and that matters like sodomy weren’t like, really being enforced through preventing any sex acts directly like, a stakeout sting operating bursting in only when anal sex b/w men is happening like okay we have proof & etc, but being the cited justification behind like, cohabitation being effectively the issue instead. neither having sex in certain ways or not having sex in certain ways needs to be Actually Known To Be Happening at certain frequency in certain proportions or whatever, it’s about people’s Ability to exercise autonomy over sex. freely choosing not to have it is just as much about the Threat Of Actual Autonomy as happening to freely choose to have it; people who’d argue about “well it’d be okay to be gay so long as they don’t Act On It” aren’t Actually hypothetically supporting asexuals, b/c people aren’t ace because someone told them they couldn’t have sex, it’s b/c that’s who they are & that’s their relationship with themself & if they have autonomy they can be asexual. the essence of what opposes the desexualization / denial of sexual agency of a group = the essence of what supports asexuality, because it’s about Autonomy in both cases, not what the most correct prescriptive form of “how to have the best Individual Sexuality as political action” is, which is going to deny autonomy as well if you go “well i think people being trans masc aren’t fighting misogyny / supporting trans men means seeing them as misogynist & being the arbiters of whether their discussions of their experiences is correct” or “well i just don’t think cishet people are bothered enough by asexuality / i’ve decided that the most intrinsic root of homophobia is ‘people thinking gay sex acts are gross’ so ace people not wanting to have any of those sex acts? feels a little thinking emoji” or like some idea that because someone might think they’re ace for some time and then change their mind, asexuality is dangerous, b/c absolutely none of us ever thought we had a different identity than the ones we might’ve settled on now, including possible lgbtq labels we tried out, so they’re all scrapped too then? (clearly actually not, and there was never a concrete, cogent argument about ace exclusionism, just like, various What Ifs & just like, deciding it’s cringe)

all that to say that like, you don’t have to go “well okay so what, would it be better to focus on Supporting Asexuality as the helm of lgbtqosity. scoff” like, not the point to swap out a standard definition of “i’m one of the Realest ones” for another b/c that’s not The Root Of The Issue. the root isn’t “cishet ppl think certain sex acts b/w certain bodies is too nasty” though that may be a motivation & justification to be sure. the suggestion here is looking at it as a matter of autonomy vs power/control. people don’t have autonomy over sex, and that goes amongst even Cishet people of course b/c issues of sexuality & gender apply to everyone, not just people who’d be deemed to belong to, or identify as belonging to, the group that is [not cishet], not just re: any individual’s choices or wants for one’s sex life. linking together attacks on abortion access to attacks on trans people’s existence, both of which are about autonomy, and wherein even with the former limiting it to an issue for Women, which fails to account for women who would not be affected or people who would be affected who are not women, involves accepting part of the premise of what defines A Woman, which involves not only what’s prescribed to someone’s body but what is demanded of that body, that all women should have a capacity for pregnancy. versus denying that trans people can exist, should exist, shouldn’t be more vulnerable and have that vulnerability leveraged to force them to be closeted, that they even have the autonomy to describe their identity rather than having it prescribed with required gender norms & roles fulfilled, the rhyming attitudes & arguments of “but the label of asexuality is a problem b/c gay people might find it easier to be ace, but they’re really not & it’s internalized homophobia” and “but gnc girls might find it easier to be trans masc, but they’re really not & it’s internalized misogyny,” that anyone could Claim to be queer & infiltrate queer spaces just like anyone could Claim to be a woman & infiltrate women’s spaces, that oh trans/ace people just might have something wrong with them b/c that’s not normal & if you can cite individual pathology it can’t be Real or Good and oh trans/ace people might be found in higher proportions amongst autistic people so it’s something wrong on either end, an autistic person sure as hell does not have the autonomy to have their autonomy acknowledged, they don’t know their genders or their sexualities, in fact they too are probably more dangerous in their weirdness & wrongness so as to be sexual threats, rather than being more vulnerable to abuse themselves

anyways the point is how often The Consistent Thread, beyond veneers that may easily (or with more difficulty) reveal hypocrisy b/c they’re Not the actual underlying, fundamental ideology / issue, like even blaming Nature or by extension god or some other theoretical third party’s requirement, take it up with them not me, don’t shoot the violent crusading messenger, because if you shoot me i might not be able to crusade violently around, for one....anyways lmfao the consistency, the foundation, as denial of someone’s autonomy & the means & methods by which that denial is enacted, sustained, taken advantage of....who gets to define and thus delineates one group from another when the one group is the Default and thus the Ideal and the other is the Others who are deficient / defective, how is that delineation created & then maintained / enforced, which are in turn questions about analyzing power & control....who is the subject of extraction, and again, the question of power & control and how that extraction is enforced by the vulnerability of the disempowered party being leveraged, whether something so direct as like, you or your loved one at the point of a weapon, or something so supposedly neutral as someone simply being afraid of potential loneliness / rejection / isolation if they don’t do what they have to to continue participation in some interpersonal relationship. the loneliness / rejection / isolation leveraged on a state level when existing & socializing & maintaining connections easily requires money, thus likely a job/s, private transporation & housing, the forced further isolation if warehoused in various institutions including a prison, the potential compounded isolation within such an institution....all the mirrors b/w ways there can be organized state sanctioned use of force to deny autonomy as can be leveraged between individuals with a personal relationship (who nevertheless also live in a world and have perspectives on that world shaped prior, during, & afterwards by Everything outside of themselves) and plenty of intersections & overlap, and that’s its whole symposium of indefinite length

the point is like hey, looking at Any Matter re: issues of oppression on the basis of gender & sexuality, and class and race and culture and disability and what gets to be defined as the “norm” (thus the Correct & the Ideal) for physicality and behavior and other externally assessed qualities, and upon what basis is there a definition / metric for who is Lesser and thus less deserving and thus their autonomy being denied because of this justification and the power / control leveraged via strategies and systems to those people’s detriment, still justified thusly, where to accept those justifications even in part can lead nowhere like if you’re going “well. the extent of my anti misogyny analysis is that i define Being A Woman as being someone who men are shitty to. what do you mean that that effectively reinforces misogyny in the first place as men getting to be shitty to women, while i’m being feminist by focusing on how women’s individual choices can be criticized as at fault here. but only in terms of misogyny and not questions of how women in some social positions can leverage power over others as deputization in other systems of [who is property]” because the denied personhood and, as is argued, thus the denied autonomy of anyone, as an individual or as a defined group, is something that always needs active maintenance through force and the threats of that force / people’s vulnerabilities becoming compounded into greater precarity / becoming further risk and/or further realized harm, because imbalances of power and suppressed autonomy are situations that also have to be Created in the first place through someone directing the literal or figurative weapon point, regardless of intent even, no individual nt person has to Mean to be hurting anyone or consciously scheming to exert control over someone else nor think that they’re doing so in any way, but nd people generally have [trauma] in the mix even from their most “everyday” “neutral” experiences, when “norms” make nt people the Correct Default Ideal ones and validate their feelings & behaviors & judgment of others’ as likewise Normal, and disabled people’s treatment as inferior is normal and justified, see: the Personal Responsibility to totally just learn & then choose to act nt. as soon as i was in preschool i had a sense of anxiety about playing with some toys b/c i thought they’d be Too Good for me b/c if someone else wanted to play with them instead they Would inherently deserve it more than i did. my first Friend was like, a kid who decided they’d interact with me & was basically having fun by Being In Charge / i did have that sense that i always had to play by other people’s rules to interact with them & if they said i was doing it wrong, i had no recourse. also had a bit of handshake there re: gender lol.

all this about distilling things & i’m like, what’s the tl;dr? suggesting these lenses & questions rather than going like “hmm i think that first and foremost i want to feel like i’m of The Political Vanguard(tm). i also want the medium for that to be individual personal expression" like, does it seem to be the case that at the heart of any matter there’s [people’s ability to exist & act autonomously has to be undermined via these Categorities], does controlling (preventing) access to certain resources, more abstract or more concrete, facilitate control, is there exclusively afforded power to some to exert control, in what ways is it exerted and those with the greater power’s choices enacted, what’s extracted, who is dehumanized & thus their autonomy denied / their status as property/resources/tools for others asserted & justified....and as a potential like, prioritized perspective to choose, what would Facilitate and Support people’s autonomy / their ability to exercise it, how are people's greater vulnerability created and then exploited, how could they have support so as to be less vulnerable....and along the way there just might be some Clarification in how to detangle analysis of and approach to some matters, like that, for example, what would support asexual people is perfectly congruous with what would support any lgbtq people (which also happens to be what would Truly support people who can & do identify as cishet, since like. the supposed “ideals” and requirements of cishettery are bad for Everyone, they also cannot Actually be autonomous w/o threatening the systems of power as is, nothing more “natural” and “superlative” and “just how it always is, without interference” than what has to be continuously desperately obsessively demanded & enforced upon everybody with as much interference and scrutinizing and punishment as anyone can muster) because it’s autonomy vs some people’s “right” to exert power/control over others

addendum that then it’s like, what are the results of the like five year experiment there of being more Radical by being like “ace people are too cishet >:)” like, starting point, i think everyone can see that in practice it did fuckall but, at the very best, and that’s a generous phrasing, have a bunch of people spinning their wheels wasting time & thought & energy on it. rather than, idek what would be the logical “ideal” conclusion of the effort, because the actual logical conclusions sure was that of you know, more bog standard manifestations of bigotry, including to be sure intracommunity like again with the continually reinventing takes of [biphobia] and [transphobia], which is great, like weird shit about trans mascs or that Some people should just Choose to pick a side (the correct one) wrt their sexualities, i just don’t know why they wouldn’t, unless they’re shittier than me, cough....How About Thinking Of Issues Of Sexuality / Gender through that lens of everyone’s bodily autonomy vs the denial / undermining of that autonomy for the supposed (self sabotaging) benefits of wielding a power imbalance. and how the matter can be connected to other defined groups & their experiences as a matter of denied & undermined autonomy as well

i dunno, thesis statement of another Unprompted Political Monologue Hour? read it again. snapple fact as a reward for even skimming is that patti’s luposting was a fucking scourge the other day. or i guess her posting & then her turning around & getting a quick exclusive article to compound the bullshit. thanks

#long post ///#idk can always ask to tag from the four people in this echoey auditorium. ft. humorous sfx of like occasional coughs or food wrapper rustles #thanks for dropping in i will be here all day

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