#this is partially about compulsory heterosexuality btw

[inkskinned]

you have to be sexy but you have to be sexy in a way that's kind of bloody. you learn this early because you are wearing a ruffled skirt and the snow around your ankles kicks little sand particles against your calves. baby's first catcall. welcome to sexiness! welcome to the eyesore of your own body!

you have to be sexy like high heels. like sculpted eyebrows. like lean stomach and highly treated hair. you have to be sexy like youth is sexy, which means you have to be sexy like boxtox and plastic. a 30 year old can be sexy but she's not going to be bloody, and they like the bloodiness of it. a 30 year old is sexy when she is a whiskey glass and a wooden desk.

but you need to be sexy like an open mouth. you need to be sexy like a bitten apple. like plucked skin and white-knuckling the waxing kit.

so sex is a performance, not an enjoyment. for a while, you just assumed everyone else was also in on the joke - nobody actually likes sex that much, right? like, some men probably do, but why would you? it is like a gender - your gender is sexy. your gender is the performance of sex. you are thigh highs and garter belts. which, to be fair, do make you feel sexy.

part of what does make sex good is that you can tell that other people want you, which means the performance of sexiness is both bloody and wanted, which is good, which means you are winning at having a body. being wanted is the prize. being wanted is the thing you are searching for, not hope. you think you are looking for a soft grave in easy loam, but that is bloody but not sexy. to be sexy you must be bloody like a red open sign. bloody like a handprint. this will make you wanted.

any wanted or unwanted body is subject to supply and demand, which is to say that the more demand, the better you are valued. you must be highly demanded to be valued. this is stated in matter-of-fact by some men. sometimes it is a priest that says it, and sometimes it is a podcaster, and sometimes it is the 45th president of the united states of america.

(if you do not have any experience with being told your value, i want you to grab the nearest bird to you and i want you to crush it into a thin paste in your hand. spit into the center, and then hold your fingers closed tight around it for days and days, long after the rot has set in. feel bones itch inside of your fist. this is only a fraction of what it actually feels like, but it will suffice for a moment.)

good sex feels like you have earned their desperation. you have earned your own value. for a while you operated under the understanding that everyone knew about the power structure, even him. that their desire to take you - the violence of it - means that you must desire to be caught. little prince, guardian fox - you would rather have cut your own arm off. you liked the secret, cunning little voice you keep tucked into a box. you think you are fucking me. i am not even here right now. you are fucking what i conned you into perceiving. this is a painting, not a person. dominion over the body before all things.

so you bend your body like a wheat shaft and learn the steps so perfectly that it almost seems graceful. (if you do not have experience faking your own connection to your body and sexuality, cut each of your articles of clothing just a little bit incorrectly. pour fishbones into each of your meals. this way, you will experience the average noon on a tuesday.)

you have to be sexy like light spilled over a desk, but not desperate. not a noose. you can't be sexy like an electric guitar, you are the acoustic. you have to be on top of the bull but you can't have control over the animal.

okay, okay. the little rabbit of your heart went to sleep so long ago that winter has ravaged your concept of the human soul. there's something very-bad inside you, something that has taken over, a little fetid and rabid animal, angry and hurting and willing to bite first.

oh but even that's a pain that's sexy. open your mouth. be careful not to let the canines show.

#spilled ink #writeblr #warm up #the reason i tag warm up on so much is bc often i write them between me doing other things so im mostly telling myself to come back and edi #bc i rarely have time to check for typos lol #this is partially about compulsory heterosexuality btw #and why it took me so long to realize im a lesbian #i just assumed sex wasn't really supposed to be that good #been reading feminist lit and u can always tell

[cavehags]

I know you've talked/reblogued about how lesbophobia and biphobia against women are essentially the same thing (Very eye opening btw!) and I'm cujrious if you've ever talked/thought about the differences in homophobia against gay/bi men and homophobia against lesbian/Bi women! If you don't want to talk about it just ignore, but I love hearing your opinions on stuff!

yeah so just like with the “lesbophobia”/“biphobia” stuff, i think these are different manifestations of the same violent bigotry. 

homophobia is the resistance to anything that undermines the gender roles that support the patriarchy. it is an offshoot of misogyny in that way. through homophobia, both gay/bi women and gay/bi men are punished for living our lives in ways that are not prescribed by gender roles. if men and women can live happily alone or in same-gender relationships, that undermines the party line of the patriarchy that says that the sexes are opposites and need each other. in a society governed by this expectation, all men are kept straining to perform masculinity while all women must not only perform their role, but also do so while trapped in a weakened and subservient social position. 

homophobia limits and punishes gay men and gay women differently, but we’re still being disciplined for the same “crime.” the way men are steered away from forming intimate friendships with other men, even in childhood, allows internalized homophobia to root itself very deeply in men. physical violence is also normalized among men to a certain extent, from childhood bullying to gay-panic-motivated hate crimes. on the other hand, since homophobia is a function of misogyny, it hits women hard in a range of subtle and explicit ways. girls are conditioned to rely on men for validation and survival no matter what, and that can inhibit the process of self-discovery or severely limit a woman’s options if she chooses to live without a male partner. compulsory heterosexuality is maintained through the all-encompassing culture around sex and romance for girls. there is also an institutional element to this; throughout history, the social order of the patriarchy has used norms and institutions to prevent women from living without men. and like men, women are also subject to violence for deviation, with corrective rape being one example. 

significantly, since men are the dominant class, in some societies and in some limited contexts men have shown other men some degree of leniency. men living alone or with another man throughout history have at least been able to support themselves financially, while women have been denied that freedom. men throughout history also had access to the public sphere, so even a gay man married to a woman could live a whole life outside the home. life for gay men would not have been free or easy, and in many cases the punishment for being discovered would have been severe, but for gay women there is an added dimension of constraint that is obviously a function of misogyny. 

all this is to say that while the expressions of homophobia obviously differ, and the specific types of behaviors that are discouraged vary between women and men, the chief goal of homophobia in maintaining the patriarchal social order is the same.  

there’s also obviously a lot of intra-community infighting that illuminates how deeply homophobic biases are rooted even in gay people. it’s a common trend for gay and bi women to downplay the homophobia that gay and bi men experience and distance themselves from them as if repulsed. this is especially true online. just think of the memeification of the term “gay panic” or the past decade of artists trying to canonize a “lesbian flag” separate from the all-purpose rainbow flag. or consider the homophobic, serophobic stereotypes that tend to orbit any discussion of how gay men approach sex and partying compared to how lesbians do. i have personally observed many lesbian and bi women, especially those my age and younger, half-jokingly saying that cis gay men don’t deserve a voice in queer circles. while that may be partially a joke (and while i remain mystified about what “a voice in queer circles” even means), this claim reflects a lot of ignorance about what gay men have to fear from homophobic society and why they are obviously qualified to speak on gay issues. and then on the flip side, many gay men gravitate toward feminine gender expression as an act of resistance, but are unable to make sense of women who repudiate the feminine gender expression standards that were beaten into them growing up. weight-based stigma is also common in some gay male circles. lesbians who are fat or unfeminine are often the butt of the joke among gay men whose perfectly understandable concentration on their own self-image has led them to become judgmental of women’s as well. 

to be clear, i do not believe that there is an inherent animosity between gay men and lesbians, and i hope the first part of this post clearly lays out why our communities have so much in common that we should be able to find safety with each other. but our society is homophobic, and homophobic beliefs and stereotypes drive us apart. i think the ability to create hypercurated microcommunities on social media is largely to blame. it is very easy for lesbians on twitter or wherever to only hear from other lesbians and somehow come away with homophobic misunderstandings about what gay men’s lives are like. i would like to see us rally together but social media makes that very hard. we should be uplifting each other and talking to each other about our lives instead of fracturing our community and fueling the homophobia that is only going to hurt us.

#anyway this is why i have the tag “lesbian flag” blacklisted on this site lol