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#because they do express Black gender roles they express Black male gender roles
lemon-penguinn · 2 months
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I'm nonbinary. People, in general, do not tend to see me as a trans person, even though I identify as one.
Everyone usually thinks of me as a girl. A cis girl who has decided to pass herself off as a nonbinary person, or a trans boy, simply because she thinks it's "trendy". A cis girl who wants to be part of a community because she feels lonely. And that's because, by many people's standards, I just "don't look trans", whatever that means. I guess it's simply because my gender expression is not rigid. It changes.
Deep down, I feel like a stereotype: a teenager with a female body who claims to be a boy but occasionally wears dresses and skirts comfortably. In the eyes of others, perhaps, I am nothing more than a cis girl infiltrating trans spaces. I'll be honest: I've cried over this very situation many times, because, what am I to do about it?
Do I have to change and stick to the gender role that is expected of someone like me? Do I really have to change the way I show myself just because I'm not a girl, but I also don't perceive myself fully as a boy?
I think that's ridiculous.
In the end, saying that "if you are nonbinary you have to be androgynous" is something that perpetuates stereotypes and gender roles. It's like telling a trans girl that, to be a real girl, she has to wear a skirt - it makes no sense. Do all girls only ever wear skirts and dresses? Do all boys only ever wear black, loose tank tops?
Of course they don't.
My expression, my tastes, my clothes, my voice, and the way I act do NOT determine my gender identity at all, just like my private parts. Because I believe that gender is a part of us. Not a part of our body, our clothes or our personality. It's true, though, that our gender identity can influence those other things. I think that's why certain actions or concepts make us dysphoric or euphoric: because our gender influences whether we perceive positively or negatively those things that affect us.
But, until the day most of society can understand that gender isn't a rigid set of rules, nonbinary people will remain generally perceived as no more than "girls who want attention" (if we live in a female body) and "weird boys" (if we live in a male body). We do not exist. Breaking out of binarism is seen as a phase that will end once we grow up. Because, apparently, many people think that being nonbinary is something that doesn't exist in the adult world.
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lgbtqiamuslimpedia · 8 months
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Boyah
Boyah (plural: Boyat) was subcultural identity of AFAB non-binary,tomboy,demi girl & trans-masculine folks of Persian Gulf. Boyat are asigned female at birth,but express gender atypical behaviour. The origin of this queer subculture is unclear, some boyat claimed that it was started through online forums & groups. [citation needed]
Boyah subculture was more visible in Gulf states (including Kuwait,Oman,Saudi Arabia,UAE,Bahrain). Boyah identity may fall under the modern Transgender and Non-binary umbrella. However some people may considered them as people of forth gender.
Sexuality
Boyat folk's sexuality can be confusing in various cultural contexts. Most of the Boyat had intimate and romantic relationships with cis-girls in their past life, but they do not consider themselves as homosexual.
The term Boyah itself does not mean lesbian in arabic.In later life many Boyat had to pursue a heterosexual marriage & had children.Because marriage is a obligatory in local arabic customs.In addition to this, some boyah were androsexual & interested in boys only.
Culture & Lifestyle
Trans-masculine/tomboys/AFAB non-binary/AFAB genderpunk took the “Boyah” cultural identity in their early adolescence. On the otherhand, some boyat took the male role to challenge societal gender norms and stereotypes in Arabic Gulf States.
In general, a boyah is characterized by no make-up, no feminine expressions, no feminine name,feminine pronouns.In boyah subculture, Boyat community may use a massive masculine watches.Boyat people worn loose-fitting male cloth with a touch of the military, vibrantly coloured dresses,shirts and boyah jeans(which are baggy with big prints all over them). Since the age of internet Arab's boyat community started informal groups,online forums.
Most of the boyat have to lead double lives because gulf states has strict cultural gender roles especially for womxn.Many of them are forced to get married.In general Boyah phenomena is considered a disgrace to an arab family's honour.Additionally atypical gender expression is seems to be indecent and deviant in GCC states.Many boyat face stigma for not adhering with rigid patriarchal gender roles.
After leaving home, many undergo a radical transformation,changing their clothes at school/college or a friend's house.While in transition ,they run no real risk of being caught because,while in public, Emirates women are required to wear the national dress - a long black over-garment called an abaya, which makes it easier to switch roles without drawing attention.
Media
In general, Gulf media portrays queerness in negetive ways. A Boyah named Abeer appeared on the Saudi TV Show “Ya Hala” where he/ze said that he/ze was attracted to women while still at school. He/Ze had a complete love relationship with a classmate for a long time. Another person named Hamood joined a show of Radio Sawa where he/ze explained ze was rebelling against social (gender) norms and his/zee family’s restrictions through this boyah phenomena.
On a national television of UAE, a boyah named Bandar openly spoke about his queer relationship with another girl and expressed the desire to marry her and have children with her through IVF. His statement on Abu Dhabi's national television shocked the whole nation.
Decline of Boyah Culture
In the Persian Gulf region, boyah identity became very controversial since 2007. In 2007, the Kuwaiti parliament amended Article 198 of the country’s penal code so that anyone “imitating the opposite sex in any way” could face up to a year in jail and/or a fine of 1,000 dinars ($3,500). A further problem was that the law made no attempt to define “imitating the opposite sex” So it was basically left to the discretion of the police. Within a couple of weeks at least 14 people had been arrested in Kuwait City & thrown into prison. Boyat made their debut as a public concern in 2008 when Dubai police denounced cross-dressing - its chief, Dahi Khalfan Tamim, called on the Ministry of Social Affairs to find out how widespread the practice is and what causes it.
In 2009, Dubai launched a public campaign under the slogan "Excuse Me, I am a Girl", which cautioned against “masculine” behaviour among AFAB queers & tomboys and aimed to steer them towards "femininity". The impetus for this was a moral panic which swept through several Gulf states at that time, regarding the Boyah phenomena. 2 months after announcing the campaign the police persecuted 40 people (for their gender atypical expression), imprisoned them for 3 years in jail.In addition, trans-masculine/trans males,trans women,gender-queers were also shamed & abused by the UAE's police team.
Public Attitudes
Many conservative patriarchal arab people see a greater danger in the Boyah subcultural practices; they fear it can become permanent and cause great distress for the women and their families.
Psychiatrist Yousef Abou Allaban says, "It can go extreme, where they change their sex and have an operation.'' Saudi journalist Yousef Al-Qafari said in an interview on Radio Sawa that family disintegration and lack of true love have led women to act like a man. Al-Qafari said education was the best way to tackle this phenomenon.He called on the Ministry of Education to take up this role.
Social worker Nadia Naseer said, “Families play an essential role in such cases. Families should monitor their female members, especially when they start acting like men by cutting their hair short, wearing men’s clothing, or refusing to wear women’s accessories”. She also said, when a girl or woman does this,she is looking for attention & sending a message that she is a boyah.
Saudi writer Randa Alsheikh, in one of her columns, said that she attended a social gathering where she saw a group of females who appeared almost completely like men.“I would not be exaggerating if I say I could not tell the difference between them and men,” she wrote.She said that they looked, talked and walked like men & “even worse” some appeared to be in their 40s. We need to quickly address this phenomenon to contain these girls so that they are able to build good families and a healthy society,”
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animentality · 11 months
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"periods are a universal woman experience that trans women could never relate to-"
Except not all women have periods frequently or at all, due to a cavalcade of medical issues or simply age. Are women in menopause just not women anymore?
"having a uterus is what makes a woman a woman-"
except women get hysterectomies. For a million medical reasons. Are they not women if they develop ovarian cancer?
"being pregnant/giving birth makes a person female-"
A lot of women don't do this or want to do this. Some women get c sections and some have natural births. Some miscarry, some get abortions. You don't get to decide what they call themselves, based on how you define your own female experience.
"a woman is someone who grew up with misogyny and the male gaze. a trans person could never understand-"
You don't understand because you're an idiot.
Different women experience different forms of misogyny. Black women experience harsher forms of misogyny based on their gender and their race. White women don't know the lived experiences of latinas and their relationship to womanhood. Chinese women live different versions of womanhood from Korean women or Cambodian women.
Some women experience blatant misogyny such as being outright forbidden from leaving the home or the country without male guardians.
Others experience more subtle misogyny, being discouraged from sports, expected to take on the role of mother even if they're working full time and their husbands just expect them to still be a housewife.
Womanhood has never been universal.
You are not born a woman. No one is.
You become a woman.
Just as you become whatever society teaches you to be.
A student, a laborer, a wife, a mother.
None of these things are biological facts. They are cultural.
They are the things we taught one another. But they are not immutable law, and your world is frightening and strange and nothing is as controlled as you'd like to think.
So choose now to stop being a fucking moron and think.
These people claim to be feminists but then turn around and insist they can label and brand real women and not women.
That is because these people are not progressives, but fascists who want to limit personal expression and civil freedoms.
You tell me that you don't think trans people should be able to choose what they do with their own bodies and then turn around and insist you're prochoice and pro women's rights and pro bodily autonomy?
You raging buffoon. you absolute joke.
The path you've chosen trails downward.
You have no other recourse, you're just too dumb to see which way you're going.
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No, Amazon’s Rings of Power is not “woke”
It annoys me so much when people complain about Rings of Power being “woke.” First of all, because of the way they overuse the word, woke has become a next-to-meaningless term that can be applied to anything conservatives don’t like. Second, Rings of Power is only progressive in the most surface-level way; underneath that it is in fact extremely regressive. People who whine about Rings of Power being woke are not only annoying, they’re also just plain wrong.
Ever since the casting was announced, right-wing idiots have been shrieking about Black actors being cast in Rings of Power. These trolls have made all kinds of dumb statements about how Middle-earth = Europe, but they seem willfully ignorant of the fact that Europe has never been exclusively white, and there is no reason to exclude people of color from the cast of any Tolkien adaptation. Still, this didn’t make the show progressive in its casting (which was tokenistic) or its writing (which ranges from bad to horrible).
For instance, the only storyline Amazon writers could apparently think of to introduce Arondir was literally him being enslaved. I mean, really? Is that really the best plotline to go with? To be clear, I’m not criticizing the actor, I’m criticizing the writing. In addition, Amazon cast actors of color overwhelmingly in parts invented for the show—rather than as actual Tolkien characters—which more easily allows them to be sidelined by the narrative, and the casting overall was in no way diverse enough. So I find it bizarre that people criticize the show for its so-called wokeness, when very little effort was made from a diversity and inclusion standpoint.
Right-wing nutjobs also threw a fit about Amazon portraying Galadriel as a warrior, to the point where they started calling her “Guyladriel.” They whined about Galadriel being too feminist and too masculine in the show, but that’s the opposite of what happened and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of Galadriel as a character. First of all, she fought at Alqualondë in one version of the story, so no one should have a problem with her wielding a sword. What IS a problem is everything else about her portrayal.
Amazon’s writers took one of Tolkien’s most interesting characters and stripped her of her power, her authority, her gravitas, her wisdom, and her ambition. They had Gil-galad, her younger cousin, order her around. They had Elendil compare her to his children, even though she’s older than the sun and moon. And they made her a petty, naïve, incompetent brat whose entire first season involves being manipulated by Sauron, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, having a bizarre will-they-won’t-they relationship with him. In addition, Galadriel is canonically tall and strong, and one of her names means “man-maiden,” but they made her short and waif-like instead.
Galadriel in Amazon’s show doesn’t even resemble the character Tolkien wrote—the character named Nerwen, who never trusted Annatar, who certainly never had some creepy Reylo thing with him, who was powerful and wise and authoritative, who had a marvelous gift of insight into the minds of others—not a quippy, rude, annoying idiot who is constantly being controlled by the men around her. I don’t know why anyone would look at Rings of Power and think this portrayal is progressive. It’s actually a failure of imagination: Amazon’s writers literally cannot conceive of a powerful woman even when all of the work of imagining her has been done for them. In addition to the faux-feminist-and-actually-sexist portrayal of Galadriel, Rings of Power is also on the whole weirdly regressive from the standpoint of gender roles and gender expression. Tolkien’s Elves are canonically tall, beautiful, and long-haired, regardless of gender. Tolkien’s Dwarves all have beards. So what did Amazon do? They gave most of their male Elves short hair, while the female Elves still have long hair, and they did away with female Dwarves’ beards. They patted themselves on the back for “letting” Galadriel fight, but don’t show other female warriors—in battle scenes, for instance, why are all the soldiers male? In general, they made their characters adhere to conservative gender roles and gender expression, which is especially glaring because it contradicts what Tolkien actually wrote.
On top of all this, they decided to throw in some anti-Irish stereotypes with a side of classism, just for fun. They had the ragged, dirty, primitive Harfoots speaking in Irish accents, while the regal, ethereal, advanced Elves speak with English accents. None of the actors playing the Harfoots are Irish themselves, to my knowledge, which makes the choice to have them speak this way especially questionable. Seriously, who thought this was a good idea?
All in all, it makes absolutely no fucking sense to criticize Rings of Power for being woke. It may look progressive on the surface because there’s a Black Elf and a woman with a sword, but that’s as far as it goes. The show isn’t particularly diverse to begin with, and it treats its characters of color poorly. Galadriel’s portrayal is disgustingly regressive, as is the show’s overarching take on gender. This is to say nothing of the caliber of the writing in general, which is unsurprisingly low. There is so much to criticize—like the nonsense about mithril, or the fact that Celebrimbor of all people doesn’t understand alloys, or the fact that you can apparently swim across the Sundering Seas now—which makes complaining about the show’s supposed wokeness especially irrational.
I also have to wonder if the people still whining about wokeness know anything about Tolkien’s works. Do they know that the crown of Gondor was based on the crown of the Pharaohs of Egypt? Do they know that Tolkien considered Byzantium the basis for Minas Tirith? Do they know that female warriors already exist in Tolkien’s books? Do they know when they rant about how much they hate “Guyladriel” that Amazon’s portrayal is actually too feminine? Ultimately, people who complain about wokeness in Rings of Power—or any Tolkien adaptation—are just betraying their own idiocy. I honestly think if Tolkien’s books were published now conservatives would scream that they’re woke too.
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attollogame · 3 months
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hi! i went to look for physical descriptions of the ROs but the link isn’t working. is there an alternative link?
No but I can help you here!
Pariah
Pariah is 5’5” with an athletic build to their body, mostly honed from all of the physical exertion their night job requires. Most often they wear riding gear (leather jacket, cargo pants, biker boots; basically attire appropriate for someone who rides high-speeds on a motorcycle) with a black motorcycle helmet that has red lights within it. The helmet is modified to allow Pariah to discern things at night, and also to withstand Pariah’s own powered abilities. Pariah also carries two sickles strapped at their waist. Their powered ability is shadow manipulation.
Without the helmet, they have short cut curly brown hair, tanned skin, brown eyes, and a scar on their chin. Here’s an excellent visual of them drawn by the talented @phanosis !
Vasilisa
Vasilisa stands at about 5’11” with another athletic build to her body, again honed by her career as a detective for the C.A.P.D. She usually wears a white dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves, black jeans, timberland boots (closest I can describe them) and on occasion will have a black blazer on. Very often seen with a coffee in hand because her sleep schedule is as atrocious as anyone’s in Attollo. Her powered ability is emotion manipulation. 
Vasilisa has blonde hair she keeps tied back, pale skin, and blue eyes. She has a beauty spot under her one eye. Here’s an excellent visual of her drawn by the talented @exotic-inquiry !
Suha
Suha stands at 5’8” with a softer build. Her employment as a judge for the Crowes Court and her role in her own fashion business often keeps her quite preoccupied and on the go. Suha is a Muslim, and therefore wears a hijab. Her role in fashion means she dresses incredibly well, often preferring higher-brand clothes lines that are both comfortable and befitting of her personality. She prefers lighter colored clothes, as it contrasts the gloom of Attollo, even though her personality itself is quite serious. Suha’s powered ability is botakinesis, or plant manipulation. 
Suha wears cat-eyed glasses and has dark skin and brown eyes. Here’s a stunning drawing of her done by the talented @artsyaprilmr !
Operator
Operator stands at 5’7” and has a very lean build coming from his amazing ability to forget to eat half the time. He’s rarely seen without his black face mask and blue tech glasses, which enable him to see the ongoing of the city even when mobile. He usually wears a black turtleneck and black jeans, as well as sneakers that should really be changed in at some point. He does wear gloves as well when outside of his dwelling in the Under City. Operator’s powered ability is tech manipulation… among other things.
He has auburn curly hair and blue eyes beneath the glasses, as well as pale skin. @exotic-inquiry also did some lovely art of him (he is a little guy) !
Sysba
Because Sysba is gender selectable, their appearance does tend to change depending on which you select, although not by much. Overall, though, Sysba is a very flamboyant being that dresses in a way they feel expresses themself best. They stand at 6’ all forms, with a toned form they somehow managed to retain despite their disastrous eating habits. They prefer colours like red, black, or white for what they wear, and they prefer fabrics like satin, velvet, or silk. Sysba often wears heels for the benefit of standing an extra few inches above everyone else. They also indulge with a lot of jewellery, including necklaces, earrings, nose rings, etc. Because they are an entity, their powers extend far beyond what most do; shape shifting, manipulation, and power absorption are a few of their abilities. If they could get out of Attollo, they would be travelling quite swiftly too. 
In all forms, their hair is black, their eyes are black, and their skin is a very sickly pale color. In male form, Sysba has short cut hair, in female form it comes in the form of a bob cut, and in the non binary form it’s short cut as well. The very talented @retconomics has art of them here, @phanosis was generous enough to draw them in their more ‘natural’ form, and @redjack even kindly made a 3d model!
DW
Standing at 6’4” with a more built tone, one could say, due to his line of work (you don’t run a criminal organization without some intimidation on the side). Dreamwalker dresses very business-like in all aspects of his arrival, including in the dreams (although he did play dress up for those because it was fun for him). He prefers dark dress shirts, dress pants, and well-polished dress shoes. He wears a signet ring on his right hand. His powered ability includes dream manipulation and an ability to directly harm a sleeping individual through their dream, as seen with MC. He usually warps his features in dreams to make him indiscernible. On occasion, he wears a red scarf when not wearing a high collared shirt. 
Dreamwalker has dark brown, almost black hair with a slight curl to it. His eyes are a glowing gold with no discernible pupil unless you’re very close, in which case you will see it as a darker yellow color. He has a notable scar on his neck from a knife wound, and dark skin. The talented @bleruh drew art of him here (check out their operator as well!), as did @retconomics here and @/kill-a13 here among many others :)
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romantic-musings · 4 months
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How are trans men real men, and how are trans women real women?
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before i answer i'd like to mention that i have a degree in biology, so i know what i'm talking about.
sex and gender are two different things. biological sex is not as cut-and-dry as many people think. sex is determined by both genotypic (chromosomes) and phenotypic (genitalia) expressions. most people with XX chromosomes have internal and external female genitalia, and most people with XY chromosomes have internal and external male genitalia. but there is not an insignificant number of people who don't fall into either camp. it's estimated that about 1% of the population is intersex, but we don't have an exact number because so many intersex conditions are purely genotypic. many people aren't even aware that they're intersex. there are XX people with internal and external female genitalia who have a genetic mutation that causes them to produce higher levels of male hormones, there are XX people with female genitalia who have the SRY gene (typically only found on the Y chromosome) who have small testes, there are X people with internal and external female genitalia who are missing a chromosome and have limited development during puberty, there are XY people with penises and testes who have a genetic mutation that results in them also having a uterus and ovaries, there are XY people who have a genetic mutation that causes low dihydrotestosterone which can result in either male internal and external genitalia or female external and male internal genitalia, there are XXY people who have an extra chromosome and present along a spectrum of male and female genitalia. here's a diagram that shows just how complicated biological sex really is:
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(to read the article this is from and zoom in on the diagram click here).
and that's just sex! we haven't even touched on gender yet! gender is a combination of personal identity, expression, and cultural norms. many things you would consider to be exclusively feminine or masculine traits are unique to western (or just anglican) culture. in many cultures hair length has nothing to do with gender. men all over the world wear what some would consider dresses. in ancient and modern tribal societies all around the globe, child care is everyone's duty, not just women's. everyone hunts, not just men. men are expected to dress extravagantly and paint their faces to impress women. cooking, cleaning, and other domestic chores are done communally. in hunter-gatherer societies, both ancient and modern, gendered division of labor depends on latitude-- the closer to the equator, the more there is to forage, so everyone gathers, not just women. the idea that there are inherent biological traits (such as tendency for violence or care giving) that each gender has comes straight from white supremacy and their racist belief that the more civilized the society, the more pronounced eurocentric gender roles are. this is why women of color, especially black women, have their womanhood questioned and scrutinized, and why they're often characterized as brutish, violent, and mannish. it's why black female athletes are far more likely to be singled out for transphobic accusations and "gender confirmation" tests. and, by the way, there's no such thing as a male brain or female brain.
so to answer your question: trans men are real men and trans women are real women because sex =/= gender, and gender is not as rigid or well-defined as you think. neither is biological sex, for that matter. and before someone says "but 1% is so small, why should we count them?" australia holds only 0.33% of the world's population, but they still matter.
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pumpumdemsugah · 12 days
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I think where at this point where everyone needs to stop being so deeply dishonest about Black womanhood and transphobia because it doesn't seem anything we experience is an expression of racism or misogyny but people trying to force solidarity without understanding what they're talking about and ending up causing problems like furthering the historical problem of racism and misogyny not being seen as something Black women experience or when we experience it, it's distraction from actual racism and sexism ( how black men and white women experience sexism and race )
Black womanhood being seen as the opposite of white beauty and femininity isn't transphobia but the legacy of slavery, we had to be the opposite of whiteness to justify us being made for slavery. People don't talk about the masculisation of black women as something done to abuse and rape but as a biological fact of our bodies and this vague expression of transphobia because you want it to mirror the issues around transphobia and ends up doing race science when you talk about Black women's bodies.
Now people are pretending Black women as a group have interchangeable issues as trans women. My body is hypersexualised and desexualised, people do not question my gender. A big chunk of why people talk about Megan the stallion that way is because a stallion is a male horse and people love to ask questions about beautiful women they think is disrespectful, her being a tall thick Black woman makes reaching for disrespect more natural.
Being masculinised to be abused or treated harshly ( the way Megan is treated ) isn't transphobia that's racism. Something very similar happens to Black men because they are Black. Blackness is seen as rough, animalistic and masculine because of slavery.
Why am I being encouraged to internalised something that isn't my issue ? Why encourage Othering Black womanhood more? That's not how you build authentic solidarity.
Men can say I'm not treated like a man and we understand he's talking about gender roles but everyone is pretending for Black women we're not expressing the same fucking thing ? So now white trans women regularly overstep when talking about Black women like we're best buds. There's a reason some Black women are doing on a Femininity journey and not a gender one. The issue is the perception of femininity ( and internalising racist stereotypes), it's not searching for a new gender identity. These women are not confused about being women but they want to swap misogynior with the sexist experiences wealthy typically white women by embodying what they see as a Femininity that will allow them to move up social class and get married . It's very much a class issue and the legacy of slavery but some of you are very very liberal with what you mean by gender to the point of obscuring the main issue
If you lot keep talking about Black women in this way you're going to lose them and with the uptick in Black femininity, you are ( I've seen many of those women point to this as why they're disenchanted with this discussion )because sure, maybe for some there's an issue of hatred but fundamentally you're not actually talking about them or our history anymore. People do not like being talked past , even if they can't express why. Someone knows what they have experienced
When femininity is linked to softness or protection and Black women have such a high femicide, rape and domestic violence figures, some will come to the conclusion they need to embody a femininity that will save them from the brutality of black womanhood. At its core, these women do not want to be hurt anymore. They want to be seen as valuable.
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dumbdomb · 6 months
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brown marxist feminist here, you are seriously brainwashed if you think critique of gender is comparable to naziism, an ideology which killed millions IRL.
putting a naziism aside, here's a quote that explains the difference between feminist critiques of gender and the far rights insistence on traditional gender roles:
gender critical feminist: "sex is a material reality. gender is constructed to oppress and control females. there is no requirement for a link between male and female and masculine and feminine. indeed, gender should be eliminated."
far right, conservative: "strict association between sex and gender. men are masculine, women are feminine. departures from this are morally deviant expressions. inferior gender roles for females inevitable."
many gender critical feminists were trans identified at one point, including myself. hope this helps!
do i need to add "feminists dni" to my pinned? as a black, queer, womanist who has received much harassment from "gender critical feminists" who don't recognize intersex people and nonbinary genders, or even non-western gender roles for men and women... this ask is only adding more affirmation and positivity to conservatives. being trans doesn't mean you are incapable of being transphobic. we all have our own personal journey with unlearning the misinformation and propaganda we've been taught, just like we have to relearn Our history from HIStory. if you think being gender critical is not in alignment with actual third reich research and conservative ideology, please expand your approach to learning about eugenics, hegemony in society, and the benefits of functional gender criticism. learn intersex history. broaden your studies on queer history among non-white people. can you explain how this ask moves away from serving, or aiding, conservative goals and intentions of actual nazis throughout history? what is your intention in sending a message like this to a fellow trans person?
i'm tired of seeing gender critical, transphobic, feminists recruiting teens and young women into this hatred fueled culture of discourse. i don't send hate to anyone. i don't send messages like this to people who may think differently than me. why are you actively contacting me? for what purpose?
are you upset that many feminists are in complete agreement with nazi ideology? why is this a matter to message Me about??? do you think fascist leaning feminism will not take away all of our rights? do you think feminism, in all it's white-washed conservative glory, is not responsible for contributing to the loss of many people who would still be here otherwise?
because this sounds exactly like the hate and harassment i get from conservatives, yet you claim to believe in the rights of all women- including women like me.
if you wanted to have a serious and honest conversation, you wouldn't have opened with name-calling me "brainwashed". you began with a level of immaturity and disrespect, showing your narrow mindedness in discussing big topics in a healthy, responsible, and mature way. if people have approached you and said things to make you feel bad about certain issues, please go to a public library and ask for someone there to help you learn more about how political propaganda and recruitment for their movements to push an agenda works. this is not how adults speak to each other.
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hadeantaiga · 2 years
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A message to Radfems:
You need to take a hard line stance against transphobia RIGHT FUCKING NOW. And not just "right now" but every day hereafter. Your pro-trans status needs to be loud and clear.
Why?
Firstly, because right now, "Radfem" is a synonym for transphobe. People do not differentiate between "radical feminism", "trans exclusionary radical feminism", and "gender critical feminism". Two of those are explicitly transphobic.
Secondly, it's inherently anti-feminist to be transphobic.
It's anti-bodily autonomy, it's anti-choice, it's anti everything feminism is supposed to be about. You want to liberate women - no, just females? But yet they can't control their own bodies?
Linking "woman" and "female" is anti-feminist and bioessentialist and it's especially contradictory if you claim to be gender critical. You shouldn't be calling anyone a woman if you're GC.
You cannot claim females are equal to males while simultaneously claiming you are so fragile you need to be kept separate from males. You cannot have it both ways: if females are not inherently weak, then males are not inherently dangerous. Period. The belief in one must include the belief in the other; either you believe in bioessentialism or you don't. I suggest you don't.
And that means trans women are not a risk to you. And it means trans men aren't "betraying" anyone. If you truly believe males and females are biologically equals, then trans people are no risk whatsoever.
What's left is society. Dismantling the links between sex, gender, and gender expression, and eliminating gendered stereotypes should be some of the ultimate goals for sex and gender liberation. A society where personal choice defines who you are, and you are not assigned roles or genders based on your genitals. And it is an integrated society, not one segregated by sex.
But sex segregation is what I see so many radfems fighting for! A sharp separation between male and female that is thrown into bleak contrast when they openly detest personal choice, and break everything down into sex and define humans solely by their genitals and chromosomes at birth. Black and white. No crossover whatsoever. You are male or female. You cannot and should not try to change this.
Bioessentialism.
There is no win-state for this belief system. The choices are female separatism from male society, continuing to live under the patriarchy that exists because males are inherently superior and females cannot possibly win against, females becoming the rulers of society and by necessity oppressing males so they cannot take back over, or the genocide of all males. There is no happy ending where males and females live side by side in a world where bioessentialism is real. You cannot create a fair society if one sex is superior to the other, or one sex is weaker than the other.
And that's why bioessentialism is a dead-end belief system, one that you need to discard if you claim to be a radical feminist.
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natandacat · 9 months
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“Claiming homosexual tags and forging local queer nomenclature
Analysis of the demographic profiles of 320 individuals reveals multiple labels for same-sex-loving people in the local Ugandan context. Because many urban-based interviews were conducted in the English language, several individuals distinctly identified as homosexual: ‘I am a homo’ was a common response to the open-ended questions ‘How do you identify sexually?’ and ‘What is your sexual identity?’ Contrary to arguments in the literature that the label ‘homosexual’ is loaded with historical baggage, Westernised, stigmatised, disparaged and shunned by same-sex-loving individuals living outside Europe and America, many research participants reclaimed and appropriated it for themselves. Conversations or speeches predominantly in the Luganda language were interspersed with this English label or, indeed, its shortened form. I commonly encountered the expression ‘Nze ndi homo!’ – meaning ‘I am a homo!’ During gatherings, spokespersons variously stated: ‘Ffe ba homo...’ – meaning ‘For us, homosexuals...’. It was a solidarity- enforcing label appropriated by insiders when in homo-friendly company or safe spaces.
‘Lesbian’ and ‘gay’ were also common labels of individuals’ sexual identity. ‘Bisexual identity’ was less common, although bisexual practise was often reported, even when referring to oneself (see also Oloka-Onyango 2012, 28). There were localised variants to being either lesbian or gay. These included ‘straight lesbian’, ‘lesbian man’, ‘gay lesbian’, ‘gay heterosexual’, ‘gay man’, ‘top’ for the insertive partner during sex, ‘bottom’ for the recipient partner during sex, ‘chapati’ – or ‘versatile’ for one who played both insertive and recipient roles during sex, ‘gay homo’, ‘trans f-to-m’ for individuals born female but expressed a masculine gender, ‘trans m-to-f’ for those born male but expressing feminine gender, ‘ bi-lesbian’, ‘heterosexual with gay feelings’, ‘accidental heterosexual’, ‘gay but want to have children’, ‘transgender man’ and ‘dyke’. Gender expression sometimes featured as an integral component of individual sexual identities (see also Nagadya and Morgan 2005; Nannyonga-Tamusuza 2009, 366– 368).
A localised label – kuchu – is colloquially employed to refer to same-sex-loving individuals. It is an identity label employed by political advocates for sexual minority rights. Largely an urban label, kuchu is centralised to Kampala city and its immediate environs. Kuchu belongs to the nomenclature of the local sexual minority rights movement, with public discourse embracing it. For example, one refers to kuchu-friendly programmes, kuchu-safe spaces, kuchu-bars, kuchu-businesses or kuchu-subcultures (e.g. Tamale 2007a, 20). Support organisations appropriated the label, such as the first HIV/AIDS-support organisation for sexual minorities called Kuchus Living with HIV/AIDS (KULHAS) and a youth organisation called Kuchu Love Uganda (KLUG). Popular culture productions employ the label, such as documentaries about early struggles of the Ugandan sexual minority rights movement entitled ‘Kuchus of Uganda’ and ‘Call me Kuchu’. Oloka-Onyango (2012) explains that kuchu ‘ ... as a political statement represents the attempt by the LGBTI [lesbian gay bisexual transgender and intersex] community to assert its own handprint on how it wants to be viewed and characterized’. Similarly for the label hungochani, Epprecht (2004, 2) explains that the evident African-ness of the word validates the integrity of black Africans who come out as homosexual. However, despite its wide circulation as the preferred label for sexual minorities in Uganda, I also encountered same-sex-loving individuals who strongly disassociated from the label kuchu because it was highly politicised, connotated militant activism or radical ‘in-your-face’ advocacy for sexual minority right […]
Objections to the popular colloquial label also focused on its overly sexual innuendo and the conquest imbued in localised meanings of kuchu. However, only a few participants objected to being referred to as kuchu. Generally, most research participants preferred kuchu to the alternative Luganda expression abali b’ebisiyazi or abasiyazi (literally meaning ‘eaters of rubbish’), which was blatantly derogatory and restricted to connoting anal sex/sodomy. Nannyonga-Tamusuza (2005, 215) analyses the etymological evolution of okulya ebisiyaga (meaning ‘to eat rubbish’) – the derivative verb that derogatorily refers to homosexuality. A less known colloquial label common among homosexual inhabitants of peri-urban slums in Kampala was abaana b’omu Ndeeba (meaning ‘children from Ndeeba’).”
- Stella Nyanzi (2013) “Dismantling reified African culture through localised homosexualities” in Uganda, Culture, Health & Sexuality, 15:8, 952-967
(emphasis my own)
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unohanabbygirl · 4 months
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the aemond should bottom because aemond is the consort ask is strange as though women didn't take on male consorts or people in power can't prefer bottoming. weird
I see where you’re coming from because your point is extremely valid since how much power someone does or doesn’t have means little to nothing when it comes to sexual interests, however I have to disagree.
I think the previous anon’s question of why Aemond didn’t bottom since he’s the consort while Luke is Lord mostly has to do with the misogynistic/homophobic ideals ingrained into Westerossi society. All the while Targaryen’s are a race of people who don’t naturally abide by these standards. Having to change themselves and hide many of their culture’s traditions such as not assigning their children a gender identity from birth for a semblance of acceptance to come about. Gender and gender expression has so many different forms it takes on for Targs, meanwhile the faith has Westeros by its balls.
It would make sense in such a world for the faith to see Aemond as the person meant to submit and birth children in their marriage since he’s technically taking on the role with less power, and their eyes the “woman” of the relationship will naturally have less power/influence. But considering that both Luke and Aemond are intersex, assigning which of these predetermined roles either man should fall into is complicated. Luke is more gender fluid/feminine in his outward expression but still identifies as being male while also having the position of power that comes with standing over the Tides. In such a situation like their bedding and who’s expected to “submit”, from an outsiders viewpoint Aemond would be that person beneath Luke rather than the other way around.
And also adding in the factor of the blacks being weary of Aemond going out of his way to hurt Luke sexually during the ceremony while Ottos more than likely schemes about how he can get Hightower green onto Diftmarks sigil, it’s a good question as to why Luke decided to still bottom.
I hope I worded that right 😭
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finalgirlincollege · 2 years
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The Black Phone and Male vs. Female Representation
While watching The Black Phone a couple of weeks ago and after having seen several good reviews about it, between other opinions I had of the film more in relation with a review (you can check here if interested) of the story and characters, the contrast of female vs. male protagonists in horror movies stayed at the forefront of my mind.
Though not strictly a Slasher, The Black Phone brought to my mind an article I had read by Jeremy Maron where the author questioned the necessity of the existence of the specifically female term of Final Girl in recent years, arguing that it renders insufficient for the diversity of characters that can be a protagonist in Slasher films, for which he proposes the more inclusive term of Final Subject. Nevertheless, as I explore Finney Shaw’s (Mason Thames) hero’s journey and the difference in which female protagonist are represented in horror films, in this essay I propose the importance of maintaining the female specific term of Final Girl. 
Spoilers ahead.
Explaining he doesn’t want to undermine Clover’s text on Slasher movies and her construction of the archetype of a Final Girl, Maron sees this usually female figure more as a concept than a specific character, rendering its sex unimportant because, as films like Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (Jack Sholder, 1985) have shown us, a male subject can fulfill the role of a Final Girl.
Before continuing, let’s remember that when Carol Clover proposed the figure of Final Girl in 1987, the Slasher catalogue was nowhere near as varied as it became years later; so of course her primary sources were limited which resulted in guidelines to what made both a Slasher film and a Final Girl quite simple but strict at the same time; therefore, though I do agree that what we should question the characteristics that make not only this archetype but the whole Slasher genre as a whole—specially with the diversity that in recent years has been able to slowly reach mass media—, I disagree with Maron who proposes the idea of the neutral gender Final Subject.
Firstly, because sex and gender are not the same thing, it’s imperative I briefly explain each concept. While sex is determined at birth and encompasses the physical attributes of either a woman or a man, ie. female or male reproductive systems; gender is constructed throughout an individual’s life and is affected by the context in which each person exists, for it depends of every aspect used by them to construct they way they present themselves to other. 
Unlike sex—which depends on a clear difference between a penis and a vulva and deals with more tangible aspects—, gender is conditioned by the meanings society assigns to things outside of the body that at the same time influence it by adding certain values to it. Take fashion for example, on todays occidental society, heels are still linked with women, even though they have been historically used by men before; therefore, heels are thought in relation with femininity and womanhood, or queerness when a male body uses them.
Though clothing seems to be the most obvious example of what helps construct gender, there are other elements that have been assigned meaning as traditionally male or female, for example, crying or screaming in fear being related with women, values that are clearly represented in the horror genre as the concept of the Scream Queens shows. 
As Clover herself explains in “Carrie and the boys”—her introduction to Men, Women and Chainsaws—, “Sex, in this universe [horror movies], proceeds from gender, not the other way around. A figure does not cry and cower because she is a woman; she is a woman because she cries and cowers.” (Clover, 2015, p.13) In other words, what makes a character a figurative woman or man is the femininity or masculinity that characterizes each of them, meaning, even if a figure has a male body, if they express more elements akin to what is considered  traditionally feminine, they will be read as a female character. [1]
Nevertheless, being perceived as a woman isn’t the only way—nor the main one—to justify the validity of the specifically female term of Final Girl. 
Based on a short story penned by Joe Hill—son of Stephen King—The Black Phone (Scott Derrickson, 2022) tells the story of a Denver suburb being terrorized by a child abductor nicknamed The Grabber. After several other disappearances, The Grabber finally kidnaps our protagonist Finney Shaw, who day by day receives phone calls on a mysterious disconnected phone that hangs on one of the walls of the basement he’s being kept in; all the while, Finney’s sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) tries helping the authorities find her brother with information she somehow receives via her dreams.
In this calls, Finney is able to talk with the spirits of the previous victims (killed by the antagonist) who give him tips, and tell him what to do and what not to in order to survive as well as different options to possibly escape his imprisonment. To Finney’s misfortune, said tips end up being mostly unsuccessful until the last previous victim (a friend of him) who lift his spirits up and manages to teach him how to throw a punch from the grave, which makes him able to defend himself and kill The Grabber, allowing him to exit the basement.
As Clover explains, one characteristic of the Final Girl is being resourceful and inventive to figure a way to defend herself on her own, and though it’s not unusual for protagonists to receive help, said help mostly ends up being inconsequential as they still have to rely on their own to survive. For example, Ginny Field (Amy Steel) from Friday the 13th II (Steve Miner, 1981).
In comparison, Finney’s courses of action are planned by the other victims while he simply follows their lead and when they fail, he seems to wait for the next call to tell him what to do. Then, as the climax of the movie ends, while the detectives and police are seen recovering the bodies of the deceased children from the basement of a house Gwen saw in her dreams, Finney comes out of the house on the other side of the small road, letting the authorities know The Grabber had two houses the whole time, one were he kept his victim still alive and the other where he burried the bodies.
When Finney sees his sister sitting in the grass in front of the house she discovered, she sees him as well, leading her to rise and run towards her brother to embrace him, and action repeated by his father moments later after he arrives to the crime scene, where he apologized over and over again to his children before there’s a cut to the final scene, where presumably days later, Finney returns to school with everyone staring at him in awe as he walks with new found confidence through the corridor towards his biology class where her lab partner and love interest greets him before ending the film with him asking her to now call him Finn, a representation of his new and more mature personality, presenting a character to development that seems to undermine the trauma a child would’ve gone through as they present him as a hero with a new found confidence.
In a similar fashion, while The Babysitter: Killer Queen (McG, 2020) is a horror comedy unlike The Black Phone, it also shows the male protagonist (Cole, played by Judah Lewis) at the end of the movie as a more mature version of himself as he begins to successfully grow from a boy into adulthood due to his experiences as a victim, ending up with the girl (Phoebe, played by Jenna Ortega) and even being happy as he retells the whole ordeal to the nurse/counselor.
In contrast, in movies like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974), after finally managing to escape, the protagonist Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) is clearly seen extremely distressed after enduring the abuse and violence at the hands of the Sawyer family, and even as she manages to get in the cargo bed of a passing pick up truck who drives her away to safety, as she laughs manically it becomes blatantly obvious she has lost her mind as a result of the whole ordeal, prohibiting or at least limiting—specially as we take into account the fact that this movie was made in the 70s—her “entrance into the symbolic” aka an adequate insertion into society.  
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Sally Hardesty escaping in the cargo bed of a pick up truck, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Tobe Hooper, 1974.
As Klaus Rieser explains, the female protagonist “… barely wins anything, most of the time only barely surviving her ordeals, sometimes even loosing her mind in the process. In difference to a typical male initiation story, she does not gain entrance into the symbolic, she does not get social approval in the form of ‘getting’ a boy.” (Rieser, 2001, p.13) As such, there’s a clear contrast in the way male and female characters are presented at he end of horror films as survivors; while a boy has grown and mature into what society thinks of a successful young man, the girl has lost her innocence and her mind, making us questions what part of her remains after her survival.
Finally, I’d like to add that as horror movies have a history of showing societal fears and problems—though I don’t reside in the USA—, ignoring what is going on at the moment with the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade would be ignorant of my part at best and would minimize the situation at worst; therefore, I’d like to express the importance of specifically female representation in media, specially when products like Slasher movies show the horrors of womanhood at the hands of a patriarchal society. As Catriona Miller says:
For young females, in particular, the outward reality they encounter is likely to be patriarchal in tone. As they move from childhood to adolescence, they must come to terms with changing bodies and emotions; but they must also come to terms with society’s changing responses to them. It may come in the form of a father’s altered attitude, unable to accept their little girl becoming a woman. It may come in the form of a freshly urgent note of jealousy and competition among friends and potential boyfriends. It may come in the form of male strangers in the street accosting them, or passing comment on their appearance, as even a brief glance at the entries on the Everyday Sexism Project website (Everyday Sexism Project, n.d.) makes clear. Despite several decades of feminist campaigning, it appears that sexuality still spells potential danger for young women.
Thus it may be looking at the phenomenon from the wrong perspective to insist that the films depict a repressive violence against women; rather, they may be a particularly stark representation of what it feels like to be female within a patriarchal society… (Miller, 2014, p.9)
In essence, though I fear I have drifted from what was supposed to be the main focus of this text, The Black Phone exemplifies the difference with which a male protagonist is treated in horror movies in contrast with how a woman or girl would’ve been treated if we take into consideration the history of Final Girls to date; for, though I don’t want to undermine the trauma Finney suffers at the hands of The Grabber, he is given a metaphorical manual on how to survive, while characters like Sally have been left to their own devices and lost their minds as payment for her survival. Therefore, I conclude not only the validity but also the importance of maintaining the use of the female specific Final Girl term to name the female protagonists that time and time again have to endure patriarchally justified violence.
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[1]  I’d like to add that though I do think this categorization of what is feminine and what’s masculine perpetuates  binary views that as time continues are becoming outdated, it’s not something I’ll tackle in this text as its main objective is demonstrating the validity and importance of the Final Girl figure rather than the proposal of new guidelines for her existence.
Sources:
-Clover, Carol J., Men, Women and Chain Saws. Gender in the Modern Horror Film, Princeton University Press, 2015, 260p.
-Maron, Jeremy. “When the Final Girl is Not a Final Girl: Reconsidering the Gender Binary in the Slasher Film.” Off Screen, vol. 19, no. 1, January 2015.  
-Miller, Catriona, “You can't escape: inside and outside the ‘slasher’ movie”, International Journal of Jungian Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2014, p.108-119. 
-Klaus, Rieser, “Masculinity and Monstrosity Characterization and Identification in the Slasher Film”, Men and Masculinities, Vol. 3, No. 4, 2001, p.370-392.
-Image taken from here
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daegeseag · 7 months
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idk who else remembers this, but a few years ago a black trans man posted a video about him deciding to not pursue medical transition. part of his argument was that he was faithful and he didn't think it was right to alter the body god gave him. at the time it was controversial because of the predominance of trans medicalism especially on tumblr, where the modern expectation of medical intervention in the "treatment" of trans gender status was the default.
he ended up with a ton of hate especially because of his faithful basis, of course now many trans mascs online are converted to catholiciam or judaism or whatever for some reason but atheism was more the norm online then. many people clearly thought he was stupid to deny the "obvious solution" of changing his body to resolve the conflict he had about the gendered expectations others had for his role in society and his body&mind.
his race is important here because it betrays the depths of hatred that white people feel about the bodies of people of color, and that everybody has about the bodily autonomy of black women. everyone was very upset that he declared his control over his body.
in contrast, that article that came out a few years ago was met with a very different response despite the identical conclusion of anti-transition, which even at the time i found incomprehensible. it's society's fault, of course, that you will never be accepted as your preferred gender because you weren't allowed to play with dolls as a child. thusly pursuing transition is pointless because you will never achieve the physical manifestation of your interpretation of your gendered role in society.
i'm not trying to make an argument here, idk what logical end there is to this, but it's obviously something i think about as someone who did not end up pursuing transitioning despite trying hormones. idk what "cis" people think about these kinds of things, but these circumstances always horrify me despite trying to have an open mind.
edit: fyi, trans do men act in the problems of the latter in large proportion to those who don't. these are the kinds of people who are like "minecraft turned me male". they're potential detransitioners. the first case scenario he is avoiding the middle step. the second scenario she knows she will be disappointed with the reality of being trans in the current pro-medicalism movement. they're both being smart here by avoiding potentially negatively changing their bodies in the case it really IS just an expression of their emotional distress. being gnc and being trans are not the same thing.
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aalberich · 1 year
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IC NSFW QUESTIONNAIRE.
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[ OO1 > introduction. ]
name? kaeya alberich. age? 21. gender? cis male. orientation? he'd consider himself bisexual with a moderate male preference in terms of sexual attraction; in terms of romantic attraction, it's about equal.
[ OO2 > basic. ] dominant, submissive, both? it depends. on the whole, kaeya is more comfortable with being in the dominant role, as he is someone who craves being in control of situations. that being said, with someone he truly loves and trusts, he can be quite submissive; it's a rare side of him that very few would ever get to see. promiscuous or subdued? while kaeya benefits from having a reputation as being promiscuous, in reality, he actually isn't. he'll gladly lead people on if that's what it takes to get valuable information, but he doesn't sleep with them; there are certain levels to which he refuses to stoop, for the sake of his own sanity. he certainly has a healthy sex drive with the people he loves, but on the whole, he'd actually skew towards subdued. quiet or loud? quiet, actually. kaeya detests dirty talk, and he also refuses to fake it when he's with someone he truly cares for. you can get some truly exquisite sounds out of him, but they'll never be loud. traditional or experimental? both. kaeya's natural inclination is probably to be fairly traditional, but over the years he's developed some ... kinks ... and with curious partners ( or partners who are into things he's never tried ), he can be quite experimental, willing to go along with most things when he trusts and is deeply bonded with his partner. fast or slow? slow. quickies or all-nighters? all-nighters, unless time constraints force the former. kaeya likes to savor his partner and take his sweet time making them feel loved; he's an exceedingly thoughtful, caring, and devoted partner. rough or soft? kaeya himself tends to be soft, but he can be rough if his partner wants / enjoys it --- and he's happy to be on the receiving end of roughness. it's all about trust. romantic or dirty? he can be raunchy if he wants to get a rise out of his partner ( if he knows they'll enjoy it ), but kaeya's quite the romantic at heart. partially clothed or nude? both !
[ OO3 > in depth. ]
what’s their “type”? someone who's strong yet gentle; someone who's kinky yet also a consummate romantic. someone who'll seduce him but also love him; someone who wants all of him --- body, mind, and soul, for better and for worse, and in spite of all his baggage. someone he can devour wholly in every way; someone he can become two halves of a whole with. someone who's not put off by the intensity of how he loves. how do they view sex? when he's initiating it ? it's an expression of love. his views in general ? it means whatever the people doing it want it to mean: it can mean everything or nothing at all, a means to find pleasure, a way to manipulate, or a way to foster a deeper connection. it's all in the eye of the beholder.. do they kinkshame? no, because that would be the pot calling the kettle black. over the years, kaeya has developed some very strange ( to him ... and admittedly probably also to anybody who ever learned about them sdfdk ) kinks that are deeply tied to the people he's in love / infatuated with. whatever you do, don't ask him about his vulnerability complex. preferences? wholly partner-dependent. favorite toys / extras? not into it unless his partner is. are they physically flexible? yes. when did they lose their virginity? decline to comment. ( but yes, he has lost it. ) how long can they go without sex? as long as he has to. if the person he loves / is infatuated with isn't around, or isn't interested, kaeya can hold out for an extremely protracted period of time. on the other hand, when his partner is around and willing, he has a very high sex drive and will try and woo them whenever he can. thoughts on foreplay? he's very, very into it, and would take it as a compliment of the highest order if he could make his partner get very close to finishing before he's even gotten them into the bedroom. he's a menace about it and he thoroughly enjoys every second of driving his person the best sort of wild. how often do they masturbate? only when he's busy hating himself, so he can cry about it after. are they vocal (words) during sex? his partner's name, perhaps some quiet words of praise, maybe even an 'i love you' or two, but by and large, he's quiet during. do they like to keep music on? nope. a sexual secret they’ve never shared? he does have a few sexual secrets, but they're some of his most closely-guarded secrets, and they'd have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of him. some things are better off left in the past, so proceed with extreme caution if you ever try to get kaeya to share his.
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tolkien-feels · 2 years
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Okay so I've been thinking about Tolkien... and I'm not 100% sure how to express my Thoughts but I wanted to dump them on you because I feel like even if I communicate it awkwardly you might understand what I'm trying to say and help refine what I'm saying.
So there are various criticisms of Tolkien wrt his ratio of male to female characters and how he's just not progressive enough, but I feel like a lot of people who use this to insult Tolkien and claim that he was a Bad Person and thus nothing he did was good (or if it was good, it was only accidentally so) don't even realize the much-more-relevant-to-his-era statement he was making about class!
LOTR is the best example of this, because literally all of the Company is royalty or akin to royalty or high class except for Sam. And while each one of them plays an important role in the story, the inarguably Highest Class character (Aragorn) in the most important part of the story is nothing but a distraction, and it's the inarguably Lowest Class character (Sam) who emerges as the most important part of the puzzle, the Real Hero. They are all heroes - Frodo is no less of a hero because he fails in his task, Boromir is no less of a hero because he temporarily falls under the thralldom of the ring, Aragorn is no less of a hero just because in the end he's not much more than a distraction so the Real Heroes can do their thing - but it's Sam, the lowest class one of them all, who is THE hero of the story. And while there are important discussions to be had and to tell in various stories that do include race and gender, I feel like it's disingenuous to ignore the important discussion Tolkien was having about class when talking about important discussions to be had.
And frankly, class is extremely important, and the fact that it's often overlooked in these conversations is very frustrating. To give the most extreme example of this: A black, female, lgbtq, Hollywood celebrity is going to be much less disadvantaged in life than a straight white man who lives on the streets and depends on free food pantries, soup kitchens, and charity to survive. And to say that the straight white man is privileged compared to her is stripping all of the complexity related to class out of that comparison. So I think that Tolkien's statements about class are extremely important conversation points, but which... largely get ignored just because that is the conversation that he was having (which I feel is much more relevant to his era) than conversations that people insist we should be having about him/his work.
And idk... maybe I'm just tired of people calling Tolkien a bad person when he clearly wasn't. He was at worst a product of his times, and even then while he didn't write a ton of stories about women it's clear that he respected women through the stories he told about them. And his infamous replies when Germany asked if he was Aryan proves something similar to his opinions on racism and antisemitism. And since he intentionally was writing a legendarium for his own country, to say that he was racist for essentially saying "the poc are the ones who live far away from where the main story is taking place" and thus were far away from the elves and the gods and things that were Good and so unfortunately were easily manipulated down a dark path by Evil is... well, it's disingenuous. Especially when you consider the important conversation topic he was addressing and was trying to talk about.
I do get what you mean! And I have so many thoughts on this, but I don’t want to share them lol
You see, there is a lot to be said about Tolkien’s social views - both in praise and in condemnation. But critical literary analysis of 20th century literature is an actual academic field, and there’s a reason for that. You need a lot of knowledge and a lot of hard work to be able to accurately, fairly assess a single work - let alone an author’s entire corpus. I, a random person on the internet without that background, am simply not qualified to make that kind of analysis.
Can I have opinions? Sure! I’ve had them since I first encountered Tolkien, and I’ve been refining them ever since! But these are personal and I don’t want the responsibility of holding up my ideas as Good Takes, because I’m very aware of my limitations. For things like “Hey do you have an opinion on this obscure character?” I’m thrilled to share all my opinions, but for things that are (rightfully!) considered such serious subjects because they affect real life people, I feel like the only thing I can do is take a step back and admit I probably don’t have particularly good answers.
Can you probably guess that I think Tolkien does some things right and some things wrong, just by reading through this blog? Absolutely, but that’s the nature of interacting with any kind of art. But to go out of my way to present A Unified Opinion is more than I am prepared to do.
I do think you make a very valid point, and I agree with much, though not necessarily all, of it, but to quote LotR, this would need “a week’s answer, or none.” As I’m not comfortable with sharing a week’s answer for the reasons above, I’ll just have to go with none, even though I very much get where you’re coming from with this!
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roughentumble · 8 months
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the thing is that i do think lestat is very fem mommy stepmom-that-resents-child tries-to-take-on-the-role-of-spurned-lover, but i think that people also dont recognize the ways that louis can also be very fem/female coded/the narrative role he's placed in sometimes, because people subconciously view being black and being fem as contradictory. like i think they both are in roles that have layers of gender fuckery, and you'd have to be blind to miss lestat's.... *waves hand* All That, but i think louis gets left behind in those readings sometimes, which leads to this feeling of "how could you miss that louis is OBVIOUSLY the woman in this archetype, he's the beaten wife in a narrative sense, look at these thematic parallels! how could you ever say lestat is the woman!" which is kind of reductive i think. also just saying one of them is "the woman" without meaning like, narrative tropes and structures being alluded to in order to construct a compelling story, just feels like. reducing the relationship between two queer men that have their own ways of sortve queering being cis men(because of the, gay part. which is pretty common, to have your gender expression influenced by your sexuality). like gay(male) relationships dont have A Woman, thats the point. but also they are both the women, because of like they are both angry mistresses of an abusive man(each other). they are so weird and fucked up in there and louis wears sexy temptress bright red and lestat prances about like a show pony with the limpest wrists. and then they hatefuck about it
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