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divagonzo · 3 years

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Little bit of Ace History***

... for those who are doing headcanons for Pride month.

*** History being from the last generation. So... recent history.

***************

While Asexual was in the grad school text books, it was, as a queer orientation, on the fringes for considerably longer than Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Trans. It wasn’t spoken of except in queer spaces and even then, it was more of an after-thought. Like the Mesopotamians (and Mayans independently) - people couldn’t and, somewhat, can’t fathom those who don’t feel sexual attraction (or those who don’t feel romantic attraction or some who have no attraction romantically or sexually.)

Since society is built on populations, the presumption that everyone wants sex or engages in it and those who don’t are aberrant - is a hindrance to those of us who don’t feel it (or, like some, like the idea in theory but not in practice, or those who it’s once in a lifetime (my spouse) or those who have to know someone for a long period of time before thinking, “Would I consider getting physical with them?” (aka Me!) or those who have sexual repulsion - and they are as valid as anyone else under the Asexual spectrum umbrella.)

Asexual was, originally, under the Bisexual umbrella - and like many Bi people of the earlier eras (and sadly still happening) being told they aren’t queer enough for A) The community and B) not Gay enough to be included. (Hence my absolute loathing to gatekeepers for having gone through it back in the early 90s!) Toss in the derision towards bi/pan people who “are selfish/greedy/can’t make up their mind / teases / etc” and you have a boiling pot of potential gatekeeping, especially for those who could really use some informational resources so they know that they aren’t broken & nothing is wrong with how they are.

Yes, Asexual was listed on the fringes but it wasn’t until the early Naughts that the word even made it to notice - much less being more accepted openly. But the biggest kicker is that while being Gay was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Model (what is used by American Psychiatry for diagnosing not normal behavior) in 1973..... being Asexual wasn’t removed until 2013.

Yes, you read that right. 2013. The first published college text on Asexuality wasn’t published until 2012 - and written from a heterosexual white male perspective (and it’s a bit rubbish by comparison to casual anecdotes from those in the community and on AVEN. I know. I bought the book and read it.) While the elderly spinster dowager is more socially acceptable, being a man/male and being Ace in a society that says that men have to be hypersexual.... is harmful to them, too, especially when they are too hindered to be able to come out and say, “I don’t feel sexual attraction to anyone.”

Having no sexual attraction to others was considered aberrant behaviors. And for some, it still is, especially those who think that Ace people (and Aros too, y’all aren’t being forgotten!) should be sexually available to anyone and everyone - and some sods think that the attitude of “You’ve not met the right one” or “I’ll f* you to fix you” is helpful and not actively oppressive or harmful.

Obviously (insert professional quality eyeroll here) people need medications because they don’t want to f* every walking human who passes by - which is toxic even in a hypersexual society. There must be something wrong with them if they aren’t out at a bar looking for a casual hook-up / one night stand.

Why do I bring this up?

I read a posting and it mentioned a fictional character being out as AroAce in 1994.

Jessica Rabbit was a thing back in 1988. But the terms for her besides the negative ones weren’t there ‘til a decade later, if not longer.

While I love the idea that this knowledge was available in the era, I have to take Umbridge (while not detracting from their post) that this is vastly incorrect and harmful to those of us who lived through this era and struggled for decades (yes, I said decades) to know that being Ace is fine and dandy. It’s hard to research harder when you don’t even know a starting point to go look this information up - especially when it was mostly limited to just blooming Queer studies courses in colleges and everything was either published journals or hidden inside academic speak of graduate schools. (I took a couple of undergrad psychology classes and I went back and looked and the terms weren’t even in the books. This was 1995, for those in Rio Linda and Blackpool.)

There’s plenty of my peers who are just now coming to understand that the feelings of dissociation, loathing, guilt, apathy aren’t because they are with the wrong person. It’s performative behavior towards others and personally harmful. It’s letting people f* you so they are content when it’s personally harmful (especially if consent isn’t completely clear.

What would have been said in 1994 was that “he must be gay” even if he was dating a girl and nothing was happening physically. “She must be his beard” would have been said too if performative behaviors weren’t happening. Why? Because being Asexual wasn’t a thing in the era AT ALL. It wasn’t even considered.

Hell, even now there are people*** who will not believe you when you say that you don’t want to have sex - as men or women or non-binary. No, they must fix you by non-consenting means & their warped logic for the resultant trauma will magically make you want to have sex with people.

Ewwww. Hell no.

I have someone I know who has been repeatedly subjected to their consent being violated when they said no - because they are Ace and people (both of the binary for this person) refused to take No for an answer and.... well, you can fill in the blanks.

Or the not funny bits of “Oh you must be a potato” and other derision of you not being potentially sexually available for other people. This especially goes for those who are Heteroromantic Ace people - like family I have.

I was the first one they came out to, because I’ve been pretty loud about it in SM spaces. They felt safe to say such to me, especially with an, “OK. Cool” reply to it.

I didn’t want them to struggle mentally and emotionally (when they were already neurodivergent) thinking something was wrong with them by not wanting to have icky squicky physical relationships. But by being there, armed with knowledge now it saved them decades of grief and emotional turmoil.

My radical kindness is being the space the baby aces need so they can have a human resource for them, so they know they aren’t broken, that they are valid and accepted, and that they don’t have to behave in certain ways to feel accepted - especially in the queer community.

So yeah, sex might be cool but how about acceptance of people who lived in the era who didn't have the world at their fingertips to know themselves, much less the language to even have a label that fit.

#Ace discourse #Ace History #cw:#cw: generic mentions of non-consenting behaviors #I didn't wish to detract from the Cho post #but I couldn't let it slide either #it rankles me that some think that the knowledge has always been widely know #and accepted #when that's a load of rubbish

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writcraft · 4 years

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Ay Writ, here's something I've wanted to fire past you. I've been thinking about making a colorful "So You've Just Come Out Bisexual" congratulations and welcome kit post, addressing the misinformation about bisexuality so abysmally prevalent on Tumblr, and including links to essential bi history. If such a post were assembled, what would you want to see in it? What information needs to be known more widely?

Hello love. Firstly, wow, wow, WOW. Please do this you incredible, wonderful human being. I adore this idea and I would love, with your permission when it’s ready, to share what you produce with my friends at places like Bi Community News (BCN) and the biactivists working in the UK. I’m taking this ask very seriously but also know you are super aware of the misnomers and ‘missing bits’ of history, so I don’t want to write a lecture paper. On that basis I’ve limited myself to 6 key points and very happy to chat specific resources if useful.

I’ve also put this under a cut because I waffled I’M SORRY. You know all of this, I just wanted to set it out properly for my own benefit.

Our Place in Queer History. I’m not convinced our place in history is widely known because it’s been erased in queer literature, memoir, historical accounts, celebrity, film and queer theory. I’m also not convinced that the way ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ have been used and historically is always clear, both in the context of bisexuality and trans activism. Like the way ‘Gay Lib’ was an umbrella term for what we might now call the LGBTQ+ movement. It doesn’t mean the T and the B weren’t there, or even at the forefront. Anything that highlights our place in queer history would be terrific.

Gender and Bisexuality. How bisexuality intersects with gender (the fact it is not trans exclusionary) is the hill I will die on. Also on gender, the different ways men and women get viewed as being ‘on the way to gay town’ (men) or ‘experimenting’ (women) feels important.

HIV/AIDS. The way bisexual men were vilified during the AIDS pandemic is something I’m not sure gets talked about enough. This obviously isn’t just a bisexual point, there’s a huge issue with gender and race here too as black and latinx people and transgender communities have also been overlooked in accounts of the AIDS pandemic. However, to deal specifically with the bi focus highlighting how bisexuality was talked about and demonised during that time is something I think is important.

Bisexuality in Pop Culture. I don’t know how you handle this in a quick snapshot but pop culture is relevant because it involves been seen (or not seen). Some of the television shows that were incredibly affirming for other queer people (yep, I’m looking at ‘The ‘L’ Word) actually made bisexual people feel more invisible. Today, I do feel pop culture rep is better even if it’s not perfect. It would be interesting to see a couple of examples of film, music, television or other pop culture stuff that seems to be doing bisexuality a good service (Brooklyn 99, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and others).

Queer Gatekeeping/’Gold Star Gay’/The Double Closet. Access to queer space for bisexual people. A lot of the above ties into whether bisexual people feel comfortable / are welcomed in queer space. The fact you have potentially this double closet that forces you into the gay / straight binary is a unique and challenging issue for bisexual people. I think anything that illuminates the fact there is potentially not one - but two - closets to deal with, is something I would like to see on anything addressing bisexuality. This also links back to the point about queer history and (the second hill I will die on) whether bisexuals can call themselves butch, femme etc. (yes, of course they can and they have throughout history).

Violence/Mental Health/Socio-Economics. A somewhat depressing one. It might be worth highlighting however how statistically more likely bisexual people are to experience domestic violence, poor mental health and/or economic hardship. There’s a bunch of studies about these separate issues, and I think sometimes in the narrative that being bisexual is somehow an easy ‘choice’ or you get to ‘play straight’ and all of that nonsense, these studies are critical to remember, because no.

You’re a wonder, Jules. Thank you. I can’t wait to see what you produce and always around for a chat.

#feeling chatty #bisexuality #julcheninred

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destroyyourbinder · 5 years

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two articles on psychiatric medication

I'm planning on writing a bigger psychiatry-critical piece soon about how the overwhelming majority of both leftists and trans people that I know believe themselves to be necessarily reliant on either psychiatric medication or therapy or both, and permit themselves (rather, semi-deliberately evacuate themselves of agency in identification with those harming them, I do not wish to victim blame) to be extensively abused by the psychological-psychiatric medical system in a fruitless search of validation for their malaise in some horrible cycle of iatrogenic dependence.

In particular, I know at least two transgender people personally (one male, one female) who are so heavily medicated that I have few compunctions about calling what is being done to them a kind of chemical lobotomy. They have both been left minimally functional and dramatically changed in personality by their "treatments", but both still seek out psychiatry to endorse their transgender interpretation of themselves, despite the fact their doctors are brutally and with little humanity "re-adjusting" them out of inconvenient behavior through repeated hospitalization, high and probably inappropriate doses of lithium alongside multiple other medications, and of course their whole gender treatment paradigm.

So I am continually startled by not only the distinct lack of modern leftist criticism of psychiatric medical institutions but outright collaboration with these institutions. Many people in the broader community-- whether radical queers or lesbian feminists-- purport to value self-reliance and peer support networks, distrusting well-funded and politically undermining officially-sanctioned institutions, but I am not sure I know a single gay person in my everyday life who is not regularly attending counseling sessions of some variety or another or who is not taking psychiatric medications-- prescribed by a psychiatrist that they see monthly or sooner-- that they believe they cannot live without.

One of the reasons I am so critical is that I was once one of these people: I have been on at least fourteen different psychiatric medications in various combinations throughout my life, and both I and many of my doctors believed that I was so critically ill that I could not live a meaningful or even minimally functional life without them. I, or my depression-- we were coextensive, inseparable, my personhood was inconvenient to assessment, I suppose-- was considered so deeply treatment resistant that I had multiple psychiatrists tell me to my face that it might not be possible to help me (of course, while still holding the prescription pad). I was lucky to never have been on lithium or Lamictal, nor subjected to electroshock, but all were floated as an unfortunate but potentially necessary part of my treatment plan. I was indeed considered such a hopeless case that I was actually approved for disability payments for mental illness, without appeal, an extreme rarity in the United States, especially at such a young age (23). I do not know for sure or not whether I could have set the grounds to get my shit together without the intervention of psychiatry-- I did survive long enough to leave an abusive home, after all-- but I do not consider it a coincidence that I did not get my shit together until I stopped having a therapist whispering in my ear and stopped having these substances in my body.

I don't think you can understand the modern transgender movement-- whether the push to identify various gender-distressed people as having a disorder or just niche lifestyle in need of medicalized affirmation, or the ideology that demands we believe that gender identity is an essential characteristic of human beings-- without understanding the history of psychiatry as a coercive practice attempting to normalize the socially abnormal, often in service to extremely oppressive interests, and the history of therapy as inherently individualizing and anti-political, an authority-laden substitute for discernment and appropriate and healthy social feedback.

In any case, I want to keep it short today, and it's with this context I want to share with you two articles, one from the New Yorker and the other from NPR.

The first article, by the amazing writer Rachel Aviv, who has previously covered dense and thorny ethical issues regarding psychiatric treatment and the construction of mental illness, is a critical article about how many modern psychiatric patients come to take consecutive strings of multiple psychiatric medications, coming to have and then losing faith in their doctors and medications to fix their ills. It follows a woman who decided to withdraw from her medications and the people she meets as she must build her own support network during her process of withdrawal, given her unhealthy dependence on the psychiatric network treating her and the psychiatric industry's public denial that medication discontinuation symptoms even occur, nonetheless can have severe and life-disrupting effects. Aviv gives a contextual history and science of the use of several classes of modern psychiatric medications, including their incredible limitations given psychiatry's practice and value system; in a description that will read eerily familiar to any detransitioned woman, she states that "there are almost no studies on how or when to go off psychiatric medications, a situation that has created what he [Allen Frances, chair of the DSM-4 committee] calls a 'national public-health experiment.'"

An important excerpt relevant to both general psychiatry and the practice of transgender medicine and health care:

A decade after the invention of antidepressants, randomized clinical studies emerged as the most trusted form of medical knowledge, supplanting the authority of individual case studies. By necessity, clinical studies cannot capture fluctuations in mood that may be meaningful to the patient but do not fit into the study’s categories. This methodology has led to a far more reliable body of evidence, but it also subtly changed our conception of mental health, which has become synonymous with the absence of symptoms, rather than with a return to a patient’s baseline of functioning, her mood or personality before and between episodes of illness. “Once you abandon the idea of the personal baseline, it becomes possible to think of emotional suffering as relapse—instead of something to be expected from an individual’s way of being in the world,” Deshauer told me. For adolescents who go on medications when they are still trying to define themselves, they may never know if they have a baseline, or what it is. “It’s not so much a question of Does the technology deliver?” Deshauer said. “It’s a question of What are we asking of it?”

The second article, which also contains a longer-form audio interview with the author, is about a new book by Harvard historian of science Anne Harrington called Mind Fixers: Psychiatry's Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness. What I found particularly striking about her interview is Harrington's assertions about the state of psychiatry and psychiatric pharmaceutical research now-- she claims that the psychiatric medication market has stalled because of research finding that many common antidepressant medications work no better than placebo versions, and that pharmaceutical companies therefore are de-investing from psychiatric medication research and development because they can no longer use their previous strategy of slightly tweaking the chemical components of previously monetizeable drugs. She states there have been very few innovations in finding new classes of antidepressant medications in particular (the most easily marketed psychiatric drugs, for whom the target population can easily be expanded).

I think her points here are crucial to understanding exactly why pharmaceutical companies and psychiatry have become increasingly invested in transgender health care and in expanding the market for hormones and transgender-related surgeries through promoting interventions like HRT and "top surgery" as elective procedures suggested as ways to "affirm a patient's identity" rather than "treat a disorder". The gender critical blogger Brie Jontry, a mother of a formerly trans-identified female teen, calls this practice and ideology "identity medicine", a term I find useful to describe the unholy conglomeration that is the individualized medicalization of gender-related distress and the advertising of medical treatments (particularly those provided by cosmetic surgeons) as ways to facilitate self-expression and authenticity. Given increasing attempts by gender doctors to create patients permanently dependent on exogenous hormones (those children left with non-functional gonads after treatment with GnRH agonists like Lupron and cross-sex hormones, or those transgender people who have had theirs removed) or to convince patients that gender dysphoria is a life-long, inescapable condition that they had already failed in not treating/affirming earlier (because you Always Were A Boy), I have to note parallels with psychiatric medicine's anti-recovery, anti-patient-autonomy assertions about other recently marketed drugs such as atypical antipsychotics, on which patients are also purportedly permanently dependent, or antidepressants (as above) where withdrawal symptoms purportedly prove that a patient is doomed to relapse should she cease psychiatric treatment. "Informed consent" and the formation of transgender resources outside a "gatekeeping" paradigm, where patients need not seek insurance approval nor the opinions of several doctors of different specialties for transgender medical interventions, nor wait a set period of time prior to transitioning, is often lauded as progressive and anti-institution by radical transgender activists, who can rightly see issue with a psychiatry put in charge of policing the intimate personal beliefs, coping mechanisms for misogyny or homophobia, and individual gender expression of its patients. However, I can't but see this as part of a new and terrifying medical strategy regarding transgenderism, where a loss of patient agency is replaced with the false sense of consumer choice; we have seen this in other realms of psychiatry, where forms of psychiatric incarceration were rebranded as the choice to take a break or "finally" seek help after self-negatingly denying it for so long, where tranquilizing drugs were rebranded as assistive devices for women struggling to have it all, and where high-risk, heavily sedating antipsychotic medications were rebranded as ways to give other psychiatric medications a "boost" should you still experience unhelpful emotions after complying with psychiatric treatment. "Gender dysphoria" is increasingly nebulous, something you might have had all along if you experienced various forms of generic malaise or failed to have your suffering sufficiently validated and thereby dissipated by psychiatry; funny that we've seen this before with other conditions and their treatments, and psychiatry somehow always comes up with a money-making solution for its own problems.

#medcrit45 #writings

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williamsockner · 6 years

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LGBT+ Identity in the Time of Mindless Self Indulgence

Mindless Self Indulgence isn’t an act that could have flourished at any other time. The emo/pop punk wave was gathering steam; hip hop was still a novelty one could distinguish themselves from the flock by cribbing. “Random” Invader Zim-style humor was in the decline, while “edgy” no-limits humor was skyrocketing. Nerds hadn’t become the dominant force they are today, but due to the internet and the rise in manga and anime sales in the United States, they were able to access nerdy content much more easily. Youtube was taking off, music piracy was booming, and reliance on both radio and local record-store gatekeepers was at a low for young music fans.

Perhaps most critically, our national understanding of politics and identity at the time, particularly LGBT+ identities, was in a different stage of development than it is today. “Punching up” vs. “punching down” was not a concept that most people considered in their comedy. “It’s just a joke” was more widely accepted as an excuse for transgressive entertainment than it is today. “I’m an equal opportunity hater” was a common refrain.

Early in their career, the band released multiple tracks where Jimmy Urine, a man who was certainly not black, used the n-word. The “Pantyshot” cassingle was a treasured possession among MSI fans, featuring an early song that supposedly lost them a record deal due to being about lusting over a 5 year-old. Little Jimmy Urine sold kisses for a dollar to fans after shows, including to the teenagers. As a whole, the band made punchlines of racial and sexual slurs, rape and child abuse, school shootings, prostitution, drug use, incest, and just about every other taboo under the sun.

The understanding was that none of it was real and that none of it had any real consequences. Calling someone a faggot didn’t matter if we were all in on the joke, that homophobia was stupid. Words were just words. The identity of the speaker didn’t matter so long as their ideology was clear. It was something of an inversion of the way we publicly navigate comedy now, in that their identity determines where on the ladder they are to punch up or down, and the contents of their ideology is of minimal consequence compared to the text of their words. The context of a joke is not a matter of what the audience believes, but of the many complexities of hierarchy that society as a whole believes.

“Who cares?” asks 2008. “It’s just words.”

“How could it not matter?” answers 2018. “Words create culture.”

So LGBT+ identity in the era of Mindless Self Indulgence.

Describing the difference between 2005 and 2018 to young queer people is a source of anxiety for me, because I feel like the old woman talking about how she walked uphill both ways to the library if she wanted to read a book. It’s difficult, however, to put in perspective how quickly the culture around LGBT+ identities has changed. As dangerous as it is for queer kids today, they have much freer access to information about their resources and history than we did, and far greater representation in all forms of media.

When I was a teenager, I was the first person openly LGBT at my school, and my only point of reference for LGBT identities were Rosie O’Donnell and Elton John. There was no “Born This Way” yet, no Halsey and Hayley Kiyoko and Ellen Page, no Troye Sivan and Adam Lambert and Frank Ocean, no Miley Cyrus, no Laverne Cox. There were no empowerment ballads.

Which was fine, because I didn’t want empowerment ballads anyway. I felt disgusting. In reckoning with my LGBT+ identity, I felt small, broken, repulsive, confused, discarded and doomed. I was sickened in my own skin and filled with self-loathing because of my sexual orientation. Sometimes I still am. When I was 15, I drew a map of my heart, and in between the “fields of sexual insecurity” and “possibly irreparable damage” I had written “guilt!” several times and underlined it.

“You’re beautiful” didn’t only feel false, it felt invalidating. I was fiercely defensive of my self-hatred. I was working so hard at it, spending so much time and energy convincing myself I deserved the beating I was giving myself. To this day the barriers I’ve put up against generic bromides persist, and songs like “Scars to Your Beautiful” or “Roar” make me cringe. Maybe someone gets something out of them, but I can only think of the teenagers like me who used that sort of sentiment as fuel for their own self-abuse. I remember once bursting into tears at a “Jesus Loves You” sticker because it served as proof that the whole world was playing a joke on me, telling me that someone so unlovable should have some hope.

It was impossible to internalize that queerness was not dirty, unnatural and loathsome. Any attempt to break that association was drown out by the rest of the messaging we were receiving and our own tried-and-true mental gymnastics. Reassurance could not reach us at the bottom of the well.

At the time, I was obsessed with Mindless Self Indulgence with the kind of all-consuming adoration that only teenagers can possess. I aped frontman Little Jimmy Urine’s fashion, writing slogans across my coats with white tape. “What Do They Know” and “Cocaine and Toupees” were my ringtones, much to my mother’s chagrin. I had catalogues of bootlegs, lovingly sorted and pressed to CD. Mindless Self Indulgence populated my artwork, both in classroom doodles and in art pieces for my portfolio that I labored on for weeks. They were the subject of my college application essay. I met my first love on an MSI forum (which I moderated) and lost a few romantic relationships over my inability to talk about anything else. I owned every shirt. When I was hired on at Barnes & Noble’s music section, I would nominate Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy for the staff recommendation shelf every single week, and whenever it inevitably got recalled to the warehouse for lack of sales, I’d order it right back.

Sometimes my friends and I would go to the mall parking lot at night and blast Mindless Self Indulgence from my car, dancing around the empty lot with our striped stockings, fingerless gloves and Hot Topic trip pants.

This band kept me from killing myself.

“I’m filthy, disgusting, horrible, irredeemable,” we’d say. “People tell us we’re beautiful and we know they’re lying. I’m a freak.”

“Yeah, you’re fucking ugly,” the music said. “So what? So’s everything else. Have some fun with it.”

Despite the fact that Jimmy Urine has never publicly labeled himself with an LGBT identity, we young LGBT MSI fans claimed him as our own. We enshrined the article where he described being sexually attracted to anyone regardless of gender. We imitated and revered his gender fuckery onstage, the skirts, the pink suits and tutus, the eyeliner, his yelping falsetto leaping up from the masculine shouting, the way he danced. We pored over lyrics - that we transcribed ourselves in many cases, through multiple listens and endless debate - for those nuggets of same-sex attraction and gender ambiguity.

“I make a good girl but I make a terrible boy,” went one song. “These things in my pants that we’re all waiting for, I never really knew what that thing down there was used for,” went another. And the most sacred text of all was “Faggot”, off Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy, the most beloved record of the vast majority of hardcore MSI fans.

“I played that shit straight / blowing suckas to the side hopin' I get laid / now everybody knows / no way in hell I can ever live it down”.

Shit was a revelation.

Kitty, the drummer of Mindless Self Indulgence, once said of the band’s LGBT fans that listening to MSI’s music was like vomiting: it hurts at the time, but then you feel better. You got it out. And the band always cultivated their relationship with their LGBT fans. Gay marriage was one of the few political issues they openly took a stance on, in a time when states like my own were amending constitutions to protect themselves from Massachusetts’ same-sex marriages.

Thus, we had a place where we felt simultaneously seen and valued by the band, and unseen amongst the chaos surrounding us. The irreverent humor of the band created a safe space where homosexuality could be disgusting, but so was everything else. There was no shame at an MSI concert. You were listening to a man famed for drinking his own urine sing about whipping his meat out, who cared if you liked to kiss girls? That’s old news. We’re all freaks down here at the bottom of the well.

I’m 28 now, and I don’t know if the kids these days have an equivalent band. I don’t know if there’s a market for it anymore; I’m sure there will always be queer kids who have internalized the awful message that they are inherently unlovable, but I’m not sure if they can’t find more accessible and more inherently positive panaceas. I see mutations of the same style of humor in Willam from RuPaul’s Drag Race and in some of the undercurrents of Tumblr’s teen humor. “We’re goblins, trash, garbage babies.”

“Yeah,” my inner child says. “I fucking feel that.”

The paradigm of humor has changed since 2008, at least in my circles, and the reasons for that are manifold, political, social, capitalistic. In many ways, it’s been a good thing: bigotry can be exposed rather than cloaked in excuses. A basic understanding of social inequality is presumed of most audiences. People are responsible for the impact of their words, not the intent. “Equal opportunity hater” is seem for what it is: intellectually lazy and blinkered, the refuge of white guys who don’t want to own up to the fact that some jokes aren’t funny.

But I’ll always have a place in my heart for comedy that meets people where they’re at. Where we’re at isn’t always beautiful or acceptable or healthy, but sometimes it’s the place where we need the laugh most.

#music #personal #lgbt stuff #humor #mindless self indulgence #jimmy urine #sorry guys i can't figure out how to text break

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 5 years

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How VR porn can change the way we masturbate for the better

May is National Masturbation Month, and we're celebrating with Feeling Yourself, a series exploring the finer points of self-pleasure.

When VR was tech's pie in the sky years ago, people's minds ran wild imagining all the new ways it could get us off. But then VR actually came, and largely, there wasn't all that much to cum about.

Instead of opening us up to new, previously unimaginable forms of self-pleasure, for the most part its nascent existence has been little more than an extension of the clichés we've come to expect from Tube sites. Whether it's the rote 360 3D VR porn made most accessible through sites like Pornhub, or the more interactive adult VR games about customizing your own virtual sex doll — many criticize VR porn for being even more limited to the cis, heteronormative male gaze than regular porn.

But that's finally beginning to change.

youtube

"In the early days there was a concern that, if there's only a handful of people making content, they'll only make content that appeals to them or who they envision their consumers to be," said Ela Darling, a pioneer in the VR porn space as a performer as well as CMO of adult-only VR platform PVR and its IRIS headset. "But now there are more and more newcomers making diverse content, because the tech's finally making it more accessible to create."

As it turns out, there are untold, untapped possibilities for VR to transform the way we masturbate. And while the same problems from years ago remain, a new swath of VR porn is delivering on the medium's greatest promises, allowing for more intimacy between player and porn viewer, embodied experiences, better storytelling, and virtual explorations of kink.

From the impressive furry VR game Yiffalicious or innovatively kinky Dominatrix Simulator, some of the most popular virtual reality adult games are being made by small teams of indie designers sustained through niche, yet dedicated, Patreon communities. In the realm of live-action performances, PVR is about to launch a novel series of ASMR VR porn, with a gender-neutral design focused on sensorial experiences.

"What's most important to creating engaging adult content in VR is not a perfect pair of boobs you can play with. It's about erotica, creating experiences through storytelling," said Ana Valens, a game designer and Daily Dot columnist covering trans experiences, sexuality, and VR porn. (Note: The author of this article knows Valens socially.)

VR porn needs to move past the infantile stage of pure gimmick or odd sex toy to become relevant.

"And that's the direction the industry seems to be heading towards as people realize, OK, this isn't enough," she said.

The virtual reality porn gap

The current issues keeping VR porn from reaching more innovative, varied, and inclusive heights are reflective of the regular porn industry it grew from. But in VR porn, the issues of inclusivity are only exacerbated by the additional gatekeepers of tech, cost, and access.

Most mainstream VR porn is exclusively heteronormative and cis-gendered, assuming the user is male and excluding trans identities. This is likely driven by who has the resources, not only to have VR but to also make it. While the diversity of audiences is increasing through niche communities, the prevailing consumer base remains cis men.

VR can be more than a virtual sex doll for men.

Image: bob al-greene / mashable art team

"Many VR porn creators seem less focused on exploration and possibly self-discovery, and more on simply getting off. That's fine. It's just not what we're all about," said Devilish Domina, who is the mind and voice behind the Dominatrix Simulator. "It seems like developers in this space are more opportunistic than seeing it as an art form. And because it tends to be a more taboo area, it likely doesn't attract as many experienced developers."

How the indie scene can save VR porn

While the norms of regular porn define the offerings of bigger, more traditional VR porn publishers like Naughty America, creators like Dominatrix Simulator's Deviant Tech are carving out their own space with their own growing audience.

Unlike many other VR games (erotic or otherwise) that assume you're male, Dominatrix Simulator gives you the option between two genders — and is currently working on adding non-binary options due to fan requests.

Worship her — or just take the headset off if it becomes too much.

Image: deviant tech

But that's not all that makes Dominatrix Simulator a beacon of innovation and sexual exploration in VR porn games.

In the game, a femme-dom (who comes in four different varieties) tells you what to do. While you get some dialogue options to communicate consent, the idea is that the dominatrix basically inhabits the role of the player, while the person wearing the headset becomes her game as a submissive, flipping the traditional adult video script of the player being in control. She knows whether or not you've obeyed, too, since the motion controls can detect whether you're kneeling like she commanded, for example.

SEE ALSO: Naughty America is betting big on VR porn at SXSW

"It's no longer just about your alone time at night getting off," Valens said. "It allows you to explore what it means to be a submissive, or in a BDSM relationship. What does it mean to play an adult game when you are not the one in charge? VR is perfect for that kind of question because BDSM is such an embodied experience."

While Dominatrix Simulator delivers an immersive BDSM simulation, it's also a tool for dipping your toes in BDSM rather than trying it first IRL.

"One of the things we've been most excited about with creating a VR submission experience for players is how safe it can be for new people to delve into kinky experiences, experiment being controlled in a really safe way, and enjoy themselves in the privacy of their own homes," said Devilish Domina. "Submitting isn't always easy. Being kinky or queer isn't always easy."

But in VR porn, you can let loose in ways you wouldn't imagine doing in real life. Also, unlike healthy BDSM relationships IRL, you can quit the virtual session whenever you want without needing to go through the usual steps with a partner, like aftercare (the term used for the check in stage after the roleplay is done).

"With our game, people are gaining confidence in their bodies and their interests. Many of them are taking risks and talking on our server, asking the 'newbie' questions, and venturing out to find others in the real world," said Devilish Domina. "And we hope to keep offering this kind of sex-positive space."

Much like a dominatrix, the simulator, "gives players the chance to experiment with letting go, giving in, and, ultimately, giving themselves permission to enjoy their bodies and their pleasure," she said. "We tell players to get naked. To show off. To touch themselves. To orgasm. We give them permission to let go."

As with many indie adult VR games of its kind, the Patreon community around Dominatrix Simulator is not only integral to funding their work but also to creating the diversity of content that VR porn deserves.

Who knows, maybe you're into being a furry? No harm in trying.

Image: Yiffalicious, Craket

"The fan community is absolutely critical for the indie and non-mainstream VR porn scene," said Devilish Domina, pointing to others like Yiffalicious and Virt-a-mate. "Fans with VR rigs know how small the market is to them for games, let alone VR porn, so they are a generous bunch who want to help fund new projects."

Aside from exploration, though, there's also an educational element to the best kind of VR porn.

Darling saw the potential for adult-themed VR as a form of social learning. She helped create a VR dating simulator of sorts, set in a rainy cafe where the viewer would get to talk to a holographic capture of herself and other performers.

There wasn't any actual porn involved, but if the player handled the situation well, they could get more forward and sexual with her. Their ability to broach the topic, though, was reliant on an invisible point system that accounted for whether the player chose to first engage in polite conversation rather than immediately jump into inappropriate or even mean behavior.

"If you said anything like that before you had established a rapport with this holographic person, she'd be like, 'You know what, I'm going to go.' We even put in a functionality where it would detect where your gaze was focused, so if you're staring at my tits my holograph would be like, 'Excuse me, my eyes are up here," she said.

The erotica of embodiment, environment, and intimacy

For a long time, Darling dominated the camgirl VR scene because she emphasized intimacy with the viewer.

"What works best in VR isn't these, you know, Olympic-style sexual scenes of extreme, graphic aggression. It's the ones that feel the most intimate and personal," Darling said.

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New job, who dis? I’m officially the Chief Marketing Officer of PVR, an awesome adult VR headset/technology company!

A post shared by Ela Darling (@eladarling) on Jul 26, 2018 at 9:37am PDT

When it came to the new ASMR series, establishing that relationship was the central direction director Anna Lee gave all their performers. ASMR is already intimate itself, but VR brings a whole new level of closeness. "Incorporating the really cerebral aspects of ASMR with the visceral VR experience deepens and heightens that connection," said Darling..

That's true for the more game-ified adult VR experiences as well, though obviously in a more fantastical context.

"World-building is really important to creating arousing experiences. Mainstream porn has set a low bar for what is possible," Devilish Domina said. "But with this kind of immersive playground, we can make all fantasies into realities. We can let our players be someone they are not, like how people swap genders in games all the time ... We have had so many requests for experiences players just cannot have in real life."

And for sex columnist Ana Valens those possibilities are also in a way what makes VR potentially so valuable to the queer community.

While the world of VR is still severely lacking in queer content, some queer women have taken to adult games like Honey Select, which allows them to customize every minute detail of a virtual woman. But it still assumes the player is male, and that both participants are cis.

vimeo

"One thing that's bummed me out a lot about these adult VR games is that there's just no bodies like mine. It's just not there. I'm not gonna find it. It's just not what the priority is because, again, VR porn is mostly made for men," Valens said.

That's a particular shame, too, since VR as a medium is defined by its capacity to let you inhabit other bodies. That's an invaluable experience for someone who has never felt at home in their real-life body.

VR porn has come a long way since its earliest days of being just Tube porn on a Google Cardboard headset. But somehow, we're more ready to explore hardcore fantastical furry sex before approaching experiences grounded in the actual realities of trans people's embodied experiences.

"I don't know when we're going to see more queer VR games," Valens lamented. "We do see some, but adult queer VR probably won't happen for a while."

The good, the bad, and the future of getting off in VR

VR porn is far from having reached the height of its potential, with too many practical issues (like availability) to address before it possibly ever could. But some creators and a willing audience seem equally invested in seeing its freak flag fly. It feels like we've never felt closer to watching adult-themed VR flourish into something great.

The Deviant Tech team is already looking into how to implement remote controlled toys tied to Dominatrix Simulator's game controls ("think buttplug.io," Devilish Domina said.)

"We hope that our game kicks off a whole new niche in VR of self-loving, self-empowering porn — where, in the privacy of their own mind, people can experience their fantasies and explore new ones," she said.

But she is also cautious of certain aspects of VR porn, particularly its incredible power to allow users to lose themselves in those fantasies.

"The more immersive and realistic a game is — the more it makes a player feel — and the more addicting it can become. Porn is already a very addicting medium and many people find their relationships challenged when one partner is compulsive in their porn usage," she cautioned.

Similarly, Valens notes that VR porn will be defined by the ethics of the people wielding that tool.

"As the technology gets better, it becomes a tool, and a tool can be good and a tool can be bad. Tools that enter the hands of bigots or people that hate women are going to be used horribly," she said. As an example, she pointed to Studio FOW, a notorious hyper-realistic form of animated porn known for its extremely brutal, horrifyingly graphic, and unbelievably popular content.

There's another worry, too, that this burgeoning indie adult VR game scene will be squeezed out by big developers who limit the tech.

"Inevitably, VR porn will mainstream VR in general. And then VR companies will want to move to a closed garden format, like Android or iPhone," said Valens. "That would mean that the kind of resources needed to make VR porn would stay in the hands of these really privileged developers rather than being shared with marginalized people."

A towering, giant VR Dominatrix shows VR porn's potential.

Image: deviant tech

But Darling is confident in VR porn's mainstay power among fans, who seem more than willing to pay to ensure it addresses various kinks and desires.

At its worst, VR porn can be just more of the same — if not even worse at objectifying women by turning them into literal objects to be manipulated and controlled by presumably male players. But at its best, VR porn is beginning to open doors to an endless possibility of new and progressive spank bank material.

"The world is changing. People want bodily autonomy. Sexual autonomy. And we want to see VR porn and adult experiences encourage this," said Devilish Domina. "There is so much potential for educating people about their bodies, letting them try different relationship styles, be different people, and give them the chance to discover more about themselves in a safe, non-judgmental environment."

WATCH: VR is helping amputees feel their prosthetics as if they belonged to their bodies

#_author:Jess Joho #_category:yct:001000002 #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_uuid:02d69e2a-4b12-31de-97a6-310501dd39cc #_revsp:news.mashable

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transgenderteensurvivalguide · 6 years

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Does dysphoria always mean that a person is transgender? For example, could a cis woman experience physical & social dysphoria, but still be a woman? I thought I was ftm for a few years, but being called a man felt off too. Then I started playing with genderqueer labels, but lately I've been wondering if I'm just a dysphoric cis woman. Is that a thing?

Lee says:

Identifying as trans is what makes someone trans. I actually recently read a book on gender dysphoria that said “Not everyone who is transgender experiences gender dysphoria, and not everyone who experiences gender dysphoria is transgender.”

Some cis people may experience dysphoria but not identify as trans, which seems to be more common with women and especially lesbians. Gay men also seem to have a higher rate of gender dysphoria than straight men, but they don’t seem to be able to be as open about it because of toxic masculinity.

A cis lesbian woman who got top surgery

The second question in this post is a cis gay man who wants bottom surgery

Is transitioning the only cure for gender dysphoria?

Can cis people have body dysphoria?

cisgender female who’d be happier without boobs

What are some examples of cis people experiencing gender dysphoria?

Cis With Dysphoria

Can cisgender people experience genital dysphoria?

Of course dysphoria is more commonly experienced by trans people than it is with cis people, and it’s experienced by many (and maybe even most) trans folk. But some trans people may not experience dysphoria, or label what they’re experiencing as dysphoria, so you don’t need dysphoria to be trans.

Non-dysphoric trans people are still trans

More about non-dysphoric trans people

Non-dysphoric trans people

Gender euphoria

Do I have to have Dysphoria to be Trans?

I think it’s really invalidating and gatekeeper-y for someone to insist they know someone else’s gender better than they do.

If someone has questioned their gender and explored the trans community but ultimately decide that they’re cis but have dysphoria, who are we to say that’s invalid?

I think that it’s always best to believe someone when they state who they are, instead of trying to impose rules on their identity and claim they have to fit within certain guidelines to identity as either trans or cis.

If it isn’t okay to tell a trans person that they’re actually cis and in denial, it isn’t okay to tell cis people they’re actually trans and in denial.

So in the end, having dysphoria not having dysphoria doesn’t automatically make anyone trans or cis. Basically, yes, it’s possible to identify as a dysphoric cis woman or whatever makes you most comfortable.

Ren says:

There’s a lot of discussion about this (not all of it nice, or trans-inclusive). When it comes down to it, though, I’m not really sure that anybody can tell you what the answer is for you in particular.

A lot of people will say that it’s common for women to feel uncomfortable about their gender, because of misogyny, and also because a lot of womanhood is built on things that are inherently discomfiting (like sexualization and objectification). I can see where that argument is coming from, but I think it’s taking a lot of things for granted (like gender essentialism, i.e. the belief that gender is a static, unchangeable, unquestionable fact; a “universal female experience”, which simply does not exist; and the fact that being trans and otherwise queer can look and feel and be an infinite number of ways).

Generally, I would say that if your gender doesn’t feel right, it’s for a reason, and you should listen to that reason, and try to follow it. It sounds like that’s what you’ve been doing, which is great - but also that your journey thus far hasn’t been very fulfilling or productive for you, and it makes sense that it’s been a frustrating experience because of that.

Here is the advice I would offer. Let’s say that you can be a dysphoric cis woman. If that’s the case, what does being a cis woman mean to you? Likewise, what does your dysphoria mean to you? What are the changes you want to make in order to reduce that dysphoria, if any, and what do those changes mean to you?

A butch lesbian can consider herself a cis woman, experience dysphoria, and make changes to alleviate it - maybe the same changes that a genderqueer person or trans man would make. What would make that person trans is the decision to use the word.

If you find comfort and community and fulfillment in the word trans, then I would encourage you to keep exploring nonbinary identity - there is more out there than genderqueer. You may also consider looking into different ways that traditionally cis, but otherwise queer women experience gender: butch women, lesbians, and bi women have a rich history of expressing and understanding gender in very different ways from the traditional cis non-queer woman. It may be there that your journey takes you, and that is okay.

Here’s some resources that might give you some insight into other nonbinary identities and other queer gender experiences:

Non-binary resources

NB Flowchart

What am I?

Harper says:

I’m going to add on something a little contrary to your advice Ren, but I’d absolutely second the latter half of your advice: if a transgender embodiment is right for you, absolutely go ahead and embrace that, it is nothing to be ashamed of or shy away from if it is for you.

However, I’d absolutely say some cis women experience dysphoria, and I’d also say this is a point that can be made (and something that can be felt) without being gender essentialist at all.

Although dysphoria is often the grounding experience for a lot of trans people, and it is often the reason that many trans people seek medical assistance with their transitions.

However, if we’re going to talk about dysphoria, we need to first approach it from a wider approach. We are all living in the same world and so are subject to the same material and social forces. Each of these forces will impact us and affect us in different ways. These forces can be understood largely in terms of oppressive forces that systematically benefit the ruling class: rich, white, straight, cis men. In such a world, misogyny is a force that dictates which bodies are allowed to exist, and for what purpose.

I won’t make any rulings on what is and isn’t dysphoria, but an appreciation of dysphoria rooted in being non-consensually gendered (at birth: ”It’s a boy!”, “It’s a girl!”) can be a way forward. This notion always then reflects back onto constructions of gender that uphold cis heterosexuality: certain bodies are made to be girls, or women; and girls and women are aspects of a class that is made to always and only reflect back onto men for their advantage.

This is a violent and non-consensual state of affairs, and it is not one that will come with any comfort for anyone who doesn’t benefit from it: LGBT people, women, and so on. It doesn’t surprise me, at all, that a dysphoric experience can be attributed to an individual’s experiences within womanhood, and also to an individual’s experiences being otherwise gendered.

For example, as a trans lesbian, I experience dysphoria given the world’s instance that I should not be a woman (the “usual” dysphoria that comes with being trans). I also experience dysphoria when I dress in a way that makes me look “straight”. If I don’t dress in a way considered gay, or lesbian, etc., I get distressed, dysphoric. This latter dysphoria is completely within the axis of being a woman and the pressures that comes with to make myself available and centered around men: through the way I act and the way I dress.

I also know several cis women (admittedly all lesbians, so perhaps that limits the scope of my argument here), who experience dysphoria. Being cis doesn’t mean you can’t have a troubled relationship to gendered forces, and it doesn’t mean you can’t question them. It also doesn’t mean that you can’t, at any point, and for any reason, re-analyse your position to gender: to consider a transgender identity, or to re-consider your identification in sexuality.

I think, therefore, that the notion that “dysphoria means you’re trans” can be unhelpful; diverting women from a way of conceptualizing their profound discomfort to a world that aggressively sexualises and oppresses them. It can also divert attempts at solidarity within a community of trans and cis women, and between women and trans people as a whole. Dysphoria, and conversations about our lived experiences, can then be used to form a more cohesive (and less lonely) class appreciation of what it’s like to live under white heteropatriarchy.

In the meantime, see our dysphoria page, and the above links. Hope this helps somewhat!

#lee says #ren says #anonymous #harper says #dysphoria #questioning #caps #queer #q word #what is dysphoria #what is gender #transgenderteensurvivalguide #trans #transgender

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agnesgoesadventuring-blog · 6 years

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I just don't get why there's so much exclusion of bi, ace, and trans people in the lgbtq community. Aren't these people who know what it's like to be excluded? So shouldn't they not want to do that to other people? I don't get it, what harm do they think letting them into the community would do?

You would think, and hope, that people who have experienced marginalization, prejudice, harassment, etc. would want to be careful about never doing that to other people. Unfortunately, that's often (perhaps even more often than not) not the way it works.

It's not something that's unique to the queer community. People who are part of a group that's marginalized, or even just put down in some way, will often find themselves in a position to gatekeep in the communities that they feel safe in. It's like with men who are considered "geeks" and "nerds", who like things that aren't considered traditionally masculine and who are bullied throughout their childhoods for it. So often people like this will find a safe community in groups like comic, video game, and other such fandoms. And rather than remembering what it felt like to be bullied and pushed down and working to make sure that same thing doesn't happen, they then take on that role of bully and gatekeeper, trying to keep everyone from women to queer people to people of color to even just other men who they don't think are geeky or nerdy enough out of the community.

There are multiple reasons that this happens. Perhaps the most obvious one is that years of being pushed down and made to feel invalid have led to a need to sort of prove one's validity, and when one finds themselves being part of a higher power structure within a group, or they want to try to put themselves on a higher level of power, they will often use that to try to prove that they're more valid than other people by keeping people who don't fit a certain set of criteria out.

That's also a mentality that lead people to this thought process that there are limited resources in and for their community. Sometimes that's a mindset based on fact, and sometimes it's not. By keeping out certain groups or types of people, they feel like they're keeping more for themselves. And when it comes to situations where there are finite resources, people decide that this means they need to decide who deserves those resources and who doesn't.

Sometimes it comes from a need to actually fit in more with what's considered the "norm" by excluding people that they think will make it harder for their community to fit into the mainstream, and when it comes to the queer community, that means trying to align the community with more traditional gender and heteronormative ideas.

There's also the unfortunate fact that, no matter how different a person is from what is considered the "norm", sometimes people just don't like people they perceive as being different from them.

There's all kinds of gatekeeping in the queer community besides just the way ace, bi, pan, and other groups are treated. People are criticized for not being "masculine" enough, or for being too "feminine", or basically just "not being gay in the right way". And there's so, so much more. The really sad thing is that a lot of the gatekeeping that happens in the community is based on things like traditional gender roles and heteronormativity.

It's a sad thing, but it does mean that those in the community who are welcoming to all, who take the knowledge of what it feels like to be discriminated against, harassed, and kept down and use to do what they can to make it so nobody else ever has to feel that way are all the more valuable.

#my metas #Anonymous

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glitterwurst · 7 years

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[Image description: Announcement for call submissions for zine, All in Your Head features an illustration of a femme presenting cyborg, seated near futuristic white and blue orbs. Cords are connected to the cyborg's mechanical skull as they look towards a starry sky.] Text reads: 'All in Your Head: Queerness, Neurodivergence, and Disability Zine. Call for Submissions! Queer Crip Futures. Deadline: December 1st, 2017.'] Call for Submissions! All in Your Head is a queer/feminist traditional cut-and-paste style zine with a focus on LGBTQIA neurodivergent and disabled activists, zinesters, artists, and authors. Our zine operates on the following *principles: 1.) social inequality and injustice exists [racism, classism, ableism, heterosexism, cissexism to name a few]; 2.) disability, neurodiversity can be understood as a viable form of human difference that intersects with/is shaped by systems of dominance; 3.) claims that there is a “normal” bodymind can have damaging and harmful effects (physically/emotionally/spiritually) and are partly shaped by current social/cultural values and white western colonial histories; 4.) neuroatypical people and people with disabilities must navigate cultural taboos, move among complex institutions and systems of care and negotiate conflicting ideas of “wellness/illness,“ “silence/disclosure,” “visibility/invisibility;” “dis/ability” and more 5.) most importantly, our stories matter. (*this list is by no means exhaustive) We are seeking submissions for issue #7 of All in Your Head. The theme for this issue is: QUEER CRIP FUTURES. We accept many kinds of submissions including: short stories, essays, poetry, rants, manifestos, music playlists, book reviews, doodles, drawings, resource lists, opinion pieces, photography, collage (and more!) that address this theme. If you don't see your idea here, send it anyway! It may just be the thing we’re looking for! Keep in mind that you do not need to be a “good writer/artist/poet” (whatever that means!) to participate. We want to deconstruct and dismantle elitist gatekeeping and restricting access to publishing for disabled, neuroqueer folks. Possible themes/topics for this issue: -Visions for social, cultural, and systemic change from the perspective of queer, disabled, chronically ill, and/or neurodivergent people -Accessible technologies -The future of disability activism -Bio-medical ethics and technological developments -Eugenics, disability, and the rhetoric of futurity -Science fiction and disability, gender, race, class, sexuality etc -Activist/artist projects that address the theme Crip Futures as it relates to queer disabled, neurodiverse communities for our activist spotlight column. Send all submissions to: [email protected] Deadline: December 1st, 2017. Word limit: Please try to keep submissions around 1500 words or less. This is to ensure that all folks who submit have a good chance of getting published. Please send with your submission: Bio (optional), descriptions of any images you sent (high res please!), and any links to your work and artistry (optional). All contributors will receive a free copy and are free to publish elsewhere (we do not own your work!).

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perpetuallyfive · 7 years

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gayjesstestor replied to your post “Your response to my ask is so fucking stupid. Grow up. Not wanting to...”

So stupid is a slur but if someone doesn't want to be called queer they're a fascist... O fucking kay

It really feels like there’s no point in responding to this, because you guys keep demonstrating you’re really bad at understanding nuanced thinking.

This isn’t a huge surprise, though, since a real quick browse of your tumblr shows you’re also one of those people whose understanding of language and meaning is so vast that you insist on calling people who don’t experience heterosexual attraction “cishets” so that you can participate in that very gatekeeping I talked about. It’s funny how that assumes heterosexuality as default and “normal” to the point that even a lack of attraction at all is still somehow reset to default heterosexual.

It really makes a whole lot of fucking sense and clearly isn’t based on no evidence whatsoever.

But hey, conjecture is something you’re really good at. Like I never said you, person I have never met, are a fascist for not using a word. I said that fascists agree with you. I said you actively make it easier for fascists to divide and conquer vulnerable people, just so you can feel a little more special and righteous. I said there are certainly fascists and terfs infiltrating tumblr social justice and feminists circles. I said that people who engage in the behavior you’re engaging in -- that post to be clear, not self-identification -- are hateful fucks with a limited understanding of the English language or how communities function. But I never called you specifically a fascist!

It’s like how when I say “queer community,” I’m for sure not talking about you or anyone like you. You’re not in my community. Your hateful ass isn’t fucking invited.

You’re probably not too much fun at parties, for one thing.

Because seriously: “the cishet ppl who are literally infiltrating our communities and trying to take resources away from us” -- What are you even fucking talking about??? What finite resources are you so concerned about and who are they going to? Who should they be going to? What fear mongering fox news shit is this? You worried they’re going to use your bathrooms next? What, did they mine all the progress from that sexual identity vein and now there won’t be any left for the lesbians? The fuck is this.

“telling young LGBT ppl that gay people aren’t oppressed anymore or even that just being gay is problematic or some shit.” - Jesus christ. I need some receipts on these tales from your ass, kiddo, or I’m going to have to take this as further confirmation that you guys are stupidly naive and really will believe whatever made up horror stories you see spread around on tumblr like you’re my fucking aunt forwarding a chain email in the 90s.

Again: thanks for making my fucking point for me.

Because this nebulous “I heard the ASEXUALS were going to TAKE THINGS from us and I don’t know WHAT or WHO, but they’re DOING it” shit is what I fucking meant. Compare that with any right wing think piece on any vulnerable group you DO happen to like and respect, then tell me why you’re supposedly a vastly better person than they are.

#gayjesstestor #that's some low key biphobic shit too isn't it #''just being gay is problematic'' lmfao okay hon #i was not going to respond because i'm like no #no don't pick on a kid #but you're fucking TWENTY SIX AHAHAHA WHAT #long post for ts

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