#...even in the most misogynistic circumstances women do still identify with and as women... | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

molsno · 1 year ago

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Your post on transandrophobia was the first time i'd heard of it and it from just reading your post it made sense why it couldn't be real. But i didnt want to adopt a new belief against something without looking into why people are for it. Upon reading many other posts and doing a bunch of thinking i now have a few thoughts on your post id appreciate your input on as you seem understanding and extremely well-read

please correct me if i'm wrong, but your argument against transandrophobia is that transandrophobia as the combination of androphobia/misandry and transphobia (to mirror transmisogyny being a combination of misogyny and transphobia) cannot exist because androphobia/misandry does not exist

you are completely correct that misandry does not exist in the same systemic way that misogyny does, it would be idiotic to argue otherwise, but our current system of gender stereotypes/expectations does also negatively impact men. Men are seen as inherently violent, dangerous, emotionless, and too sexual. (ie. men aren't belived when victims of rape bc/they must've enjoyed it, men are more likely to be incarcerated)

Men's Rights Activists and people like them were wrong in believing they suffered more than women and that women gaining rights was the cause of their suffering, but they did correctly identify that men also suffered from the patriarchy (and im forever gonna be salty that they were so close to understanding but instead of engaging in solidarity they decided to be misogynist about it)

When combined with other forms of oppression the often excused or ignored negative associations with masculinity are viewed as horrible problems

For example black men have to constantly make themselves less threatening when near white women because it is assumed they have malicious intent. Historically many many black men have been lynched in order to 'protect' white women. Yes it was very much racism, but it wasn't a coincidence that black men were the victims far more than black women.

Lesbians have historically been seen as inherently masculine therefore dangerous and predatory. The same associations now are used to justify transwomen being banned from women's spaces because they must be inherently masculine therefore inherently sexually predatory.

There is a narrative that Testosterone should be avoided for transmascs because it will make them into ugly violent monsters.

In specifically queer spaces there is often a strong stigma against being proud to be masculine. Which makes sense as most of the groups and people who have been openly proud of their masculinity before have been actively advocating for the elimination of queer people, but masculinity in itself is not anti-queer and shouldn't be treated as such.

There are many transmasc struggles seperate from transfem struggles that could potentially be more accurately described as an intersection of misogyny and transphobia, such as the infantilization and denial of control over our bodies, but because transfem people have established transmisogyny as a term to talk about their struggles and because there are several struggles resulting from our specifically trans masculinity, transandrophobia was chosen instead to not encroach on transfem's space while still having the ability to speak about our struggles.

thank you if you actually spent the time to read this and i genuinely hope you have a great day :]

thank you for being open to criticism with these ideas but oof, there's a lot to unpack here. frankly, I find it a little hard to believe you'd never heard the word transandrophobia before, considering you're regurgitating all of its talking points. you say that misandry doesn't exist at a systemic level, but then all of these points are framed as if it does. we'll go through that, but first, some foundations:

our current gender system may negatively impact men in a few narrow circumstances, but it is ultimately self-inflicted (even if some women do uphold it), and still benefits them. men are perceived as violent, dangerous, and too sexual because they continue to perpetuate a gender system that oppresses women with sexual violence. still, to this day, marital rape is not punished with the same severity as non-marital rape. still, to this day, women stay in abusive relationships out of fear that their boyfriends/husbands will commit acts of violence against them if they try to leave.

do you understand? violence, and ESPECIALLY sexual violence, is a tool men wield to maintain power, sometimes over other men, but especially over women. they wield this tool voluntarily because it benefits them, even if it does have its drawbacks in some circumstances. violence is punishable under the law, which is why men who perpetrate violence against other men tend to be incarcerated at higher rates than men who perpetrate violence against women. after all, women aren't considered full human beings with equal rights, so violence against them isn't a severe offense. our society was structured around the premise that women are men's property with which they can do whatever they want. that's why, for instance, when men are raped by women, they aren't believed; the very concept of a woman wielding sexual power over men is unthinkable in the eyes of society.

misogyny is one of the oldest forms of oppression - it's existed since nearly the dawn of society itself, and has existed in cultures all over the world for thousands of years. as a result, it is baked into the very foundation of society. if your analysis of gendered systems doesn't begin from this basic fact, then your analysis is incorrect.

certainly, men uphold very rigid, overly-restrictive notions of masculinity which can harm them in some cases, but this "toxic masculinity" as it's come to be known is really just a means of threatening other men with transmisogyny. I've written a whole post about it here.

with all of that out of the way, let's go through the rest of your examples of supposed misandry one by one.

first, while you are correct that there is a long history of violence being enacted upon black men because they are perceived as a threat to white women, the cause of this phenomenon is just racism. as you will recall in an earlier paragraph, I stated that men are perceived as violent and dangerous because they uphold a system of sexual ownership over women. any man that may pose a threat to another man's ownership over a woman must be punished with violence. now, black people regardless of gender are seen as hypersexual in this white supremacist society, so when it comes to black men in particular, they are perceived as being more likely to threaten a white man's ownership over a white woman - hence the amount of violence they face.

now, I need to say, I'm white, and while I do my best to learn about racism and how it intersects with other forms of oppression, my understanding will always be limited by my privilege as a white person. I've never experienced racism and I never will, so I don't have the full nuance to explain this topic in particular that comes with lived experience. that being said, I find it very callous and cruel that transandrophobia truthers repeatedly use the violence black men face as "proof" of their beliefs, especially because they act like black women aren't also subjected to racist violence, which they very much are. here's a thread by two black bloggers about this topic that I think discusses this phenomenon better than I ever could - be sure to check the read more link in it.

moving on, your point about lesbians and trans women (note the space) is, frankly, extremely insulting. misandry is not a part of my oppression. people don't hate me because I'm masculine, they hate me because I'm a tranny. they hate me SPECIFICALLY because I reject manhood in its entirety. they hate me because my very existence calls into question the validity of the assumptions that 1. there are two opposite mutually exclusive genders with absolutely no overlap and 2. manhood and masculinity is inherently superior to womanhood and femininity. that's why they portray people like me as a threat to cis women. if I'm free to exist in the way that makes me happiest, then the gender system that gives men absolute unchecked power over women will crumble. lesbians are also reviled and viewed as predatory for their rejection of subservience to men and their attraction to women, which - again, threatens men's control over them.

I'm going to go out of order here and address your point about queer spaces being hostile to masculinity. it just isn't true. I've never seen a single person provide an adequate explanation for how there is a stigma in queer spaces against masculinity that wasn't just lesbophobia and transmisogyny in disguise. it always boils down to "waah lesbians and trans women are mean to men and people who like men :(", a la this post.

now, last but not least, your points about transmascs. they're discouraged from transitioning because we live in a transphobic society. there is nothing unique about that. transfems are subjected to the exact same rhetoric.

transmascs do not experience an intersection of transphobia and misogyny. they may experience both of these, but they are not intersecting, and any assertion to the contrary demonstrates an abysmal understanding of intersection, whether willfully or not. I've already written another post about this exact topic.

I hope this was helpful, but for future reference, I'm going to say this: most women are not going to be so patient and understanding when you approach them with a giant wall of text asking them to explain misogyny to you. I did not have to do any of this for you, and you shouldn't expect me to. I've already written and reblogged many posts about the topics you've brought up here, as you've seen, and you could have easily found most of them by looking through my writing and transmisogyny tags. I hope you have a good day, but please do not do this again.

#ask #avacadokin #transmisogyny #my writing

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gascon-en-exil · 4 years ago

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It's still somewhat astounding to me that a single offhand comment about trans headcanons for a Three Houses character got me a torrent of verbose anon hate, all presumably from one very loudly opinionated person. I'm not going to bother responding to those directly or any of the many that will assuredly follow - although I am old enough to be amused by the thought that the same whining the troll makes about trans headcanons contributing nothing to fandom could have been ripped right out of 2000s-era discourse, except back then it was about gay headcanons/fic - but a combination of candor and spite has nonetheless prompted me to put my current project on hold for a moment and talk a little about why I would have trans headcanons at all, and more specifically the kind that I do.

I have in the past suggested that, while I generally identify as cis, my gender has become more fluid in certain circumstances over the past half decade or so. Sexual circumstances, to be precise, to the point that I do now describe myself as "genderfluid in bed" for men who display an interest in such things. The common term for that is feminization kink, and for the men who are into that it usually manifests in little more than a desire to see me in lingerie and/or the use of associated wordplay during sex (ex. calling my hole a pussy/cunt, expressing a desire to impregnate me). I can understand why that might be appealing for some men; gay men collectively have a bunch of hangups with regard to straight men, and while that more often manifests through lewd fantasies of celebrities or watching porn where allegedly straight guys jack off for the camera I can also see in encounters with those men a desire to in essence RP as straight men fucking women. I get that from some bi men too, men who have explicitly enjoyed my natural androgyny and in some cases have even used their sexual experiences with cis women to add some extra flavor to our time together. Obviously this isn't a thing for all or even most gay/bi men - and guys who are looking for more masc partners are unlikely to start talking to me in the first place - but anecdotally speaking there are men of varying self-identified orientations who are into feminized AMAB sexual partners.

Now of course this comes to what is probably a more salient question: am I into that, or is it just one of several types of kink I'm willing to engage in because it broadens my appeal? There's no shortage of that in my sexual CV; I've let men suck on my toes, piss on me, tie me up, flog me, on occasion done all of the above to them, and more - but I'm sufficiently aware of my own interests to know that none of those things really turn me on. Feminization however I do like, so much so that I've noticed that I'm more genuinely attracted to men who treat me in what I perceive to be a feminine way, who take the lead in social situations and in intimacy and who enjoy the contrast in our bodies (these men almost always being bigger, hairier, and hopefully more well-endowed). The concept of treating me as feminine alone carries a ton of culturally specific baggage. The French are traditionally perceived as a more feminine/effete culture in the English-speaking world. Créole women like my female relatives and ancestors are notorious for the way they control their husbands, lovers, children, and (back when we had them) domestics while still constrained by the bounds of patriarchal society. It is through them that I learned most of how I conduct myself around men both in and out of bed, that the easiest way to control a man is to appear to be controlled by him while simultaneously enslaving him to his passions - passions that I intimately understand because I too have a dick. Most of my sexual partners come from backgrounds very different from that, so they have trouble understanding how I approach sex even if I'm trying to form an actual relationship with them. Still, some of them try, and I enjoy it when they do.

I've had trouble opening up about this before on my blog, not because of any trolls (although pissing off trolls is always fun) but because I've never been quite certain of how welcome talking about this would be. Most of the content and resources by, for, and about trans women online I've come across has concerned lesbian trans women, or otherwise centered around trans women's relationships (sexual or otherwise) with other women. As someone who still conceptualizes my gender identity first and foremost in relation to my sexual availability to men, those resources are unsurprisingly not going to speak to me very well. General trans content on Tumblr and other fandom spaces is similarly of little personal appeal, with the users skewing heavily AFAB and therefore more likely to feature trans men. I fully understand why that is, and on occasion I've been known to enjoy M/M porn where one character has a vagina with no explanation. God knows I've fantasized before about having an orifice that lubricates itself, doesn't need to be flushed out before sex, and is naturally built to take a cock. The philosophy behind most trans headcanons does elude me a bit though, as it seems to me like it'd be easier to keep a character's canon AGAB and change their gender identity rather than the reverse. Apparently that approach is much less common, but I can safely say that all of the handful of trans headcanons I've had involve canonically cis male characters imagined as trans female and sexually involved with cis male characters - big surprise there, right?

I get the impression that my perspective could easily be considered antiquated in several ways: that I emphasize sexual activity over the more nebulous sexual attraction when it comes to discussing orientation; that I prioritize my sexual activity over my gender identity; that I believe there exists a liminal space between fem cis gay men and straight trans women, and that there is historical precedence for such a space in pre-modern/early modern queer communities; and that to the extent that I've internalized a feminine gender identity I do so in the context of my relationships with men. Again, a lot of that comes down to culture, to the myriad ways in which queerness in New Orleans has retained its own history and character independent of other queer cultures in the English-speaking world. Maybe some of it sounds outdated, or misogynistic (I've seen that criticism lobbied at drag queens, and it would probably apply here too), or most bizarrely of all transphobic...but it's all nonetheless a part of who I am, and at the end of the day the only people whose opinions on this subject really matter to me are the men who want to take me to bed. To quote a particularly fitting verse from "Sugar Daddy" of Hedwig and the Angry Itch:

So you think only a woman Can truly love a man? Well, you buy me the dress, I'll be more woman Than a man like you can stand

Indeed.

#Pointless rambling #My sexcapades

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lesbianfeminists · 4 years ago

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“I have been dismayed and horrified to see the large numbers of gender critical radical feminist white women who are turning to racism as, apparently, their true ‘identity’, looking to the extreme religious far right to save them from what they see as the greater evil of gender identity or as they say ‘transgenderism’. (I consider ‘transgenderism’ to be a slur as no transgender people use it about themselves; we can discuss the boundaries and ideological disputes between feminism and transgender activism without denying that there are people who identify as transgender and it has a particular meaning. We do not have to, and I do not, accept the view that being transgender changes a person’s sex.) Let’s think about that for a minute.

If the transgender ideology ‘won’ and transwomen could legally identify as no different from me, female, for all purposes – if that legal fiction were to be fully and dogmatically enforced in every area of life – it would make it potentially unsafe in some circumstances for me to get health care (it being important to me to have female providers for most kinds of care, and especially gynecological care), and potentially make body searches (at the airport, or if I am under arrest or in jail or prison) even more abusive and traumatizing. It would – it already has – silenced me and deprived me of solidarity among LGBTQ communities that treat me as a pariah. It could – in London and San Francisco it has – resulted in violence against lesbians and other women who profess that ‘lesbian’ and ‘woman’ are material identities and not subject to appropriation by anyone born male.

What does the extreme far right threaten me with? Race war. Assault weapons being welcomed into our capitols without a murmur – the building of white militias tolerated with a wink as ‘free speech’. Creating a hostile climate against all LGBTQ people – all of us who are same-sex-attracted and/or gender-nonconforming – while allowing some, white, lesbians to occupy a protected space if they turn against others and join the religious fundamentalists in calling LGBTQ pride a dangerous and destructive movement. Lesbian feminists have separated ourselves from ‘LGBTQ’ or previously ‘gay rights’ when it is male-centric and misogynist, and still do. But accepting a protected berth with those who want to return women to male domination (maybe accepting de-sexed lesbianism as a kind of spinsterhood so long as it upholds and doesn’t challenged their authoritarian regime) is not just dangerous for those who do it, it implicates white privilege as fragility and lack of accountability.

For me – though apparently not for all Jewish women – being Jewish puts me emphatically in opposition to white nationalism and religious fundamentalism. Anti-semitism is in resurgence, and though we’re not the main target this time, it’s not just about ‘us’ as Jews in particular, it’s knowing what this is and needing to put ourselves in the way of it – to stop it and to give it no breathing room, no aid or comfort, not an ounce of allegiance. Being confronted with the Amy Cooper video puts it very starkly to all white women: are we going to be that, or are we going to stand with women and men of color and say ‘no more genocide in my name’?

There’s a process that any white woman has to go through, to examine her own thoughts and feelings and unpick racism from what she really needs in the world. We need to defend ourselves against violence or abuse from any man, and too often we don’t get what we need – we are overpowered and the abuse happens, the police don’t come or we choose not to put ourselves through their further abuse in case of rape, too many injustices – like forced psychiatry – aren’t even criminalized. We have a ton of injustices to confront and combat. But taking power that is the power of racism and of a racist, male supremacist state, of anti-woman and anti-gay religious fundamentalists, to bring in bigger guns against someone we have a dispute with, is only empowering what is racist, complicit with a genocidal state and misogynist religions, in ourselves – it cannot empower us as women of the world, as lesbians of the world, as dykes of the world. It doesn’t stop violence, it escalates and accelerates it.

Sally Roesch Wagner, a white second-wave feminist who has studied Haudenosaunee culture and the influence of that culture on first-wave feminism in the US, recounts that a Haudenosaunee friend commented to her that white women look at their culture and think women have significant power, but to her, it was a matter of responsibility rather than power. White women need to think about the relationship between responsibility and power, and that it might be different from our own accustomed starting point – in our lives there might have been responsibility imposed on us without power, so we focus on gaining power – but in doing so, remain within our own frame of reference which is a racist, male supremacist, capitalist one. When we start from responsibility we may think we have to give ourselves up – but we can start from inside, quietly. What are we accountable for, and how can we turn that around, show up for ourselves and others in an exercise of responsibility?

And responsibility has to turn outward to the world as it is, not to an imagined one where the white enclosure is all that matters.”

#rightwing

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years ago

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Read: Jeannette Ng's Campbell Award acceptance speech, in which she correctly identifies Campbell as a fascist and expresses solidarity with Hong Kong protesters

Last weekend, Jeanette Ng won the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the 2019 Hugo Awards at the Dublin Worldcon; Ng's acceptance speech calls Campbell, one of the field's most influential editors, a "fascist" and expresses solidarity with the Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters.

I am a past recipient of the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer (2000) as well as a recipient of the John W Campbell Memorial Award (2009). I believe I'm the only person to have won both of the Campbells, which, I think, gives me unique license to comment on Ng's remarks, which have been met with a mixed reception from the field.

I think she was right -- and seemly -- to make her remarks. There's plenty of evidence that Campbell's views were odious and deplorable. For example, Heinlein apologists like to claim (probably correctly) that his terrible, racist, authoritarian, eugenics-inflected yellow peril novel Sixth Column was effectively a commission from Campbell (Heinlein based the novel on one of Campbell's stories). This seems to have been par for the course for JWC, who liked to micro-manage his writers: Campbell also leaned hard on Tom Godwin to kill the girl in "Cold Equations" in order to turn his story into a parable about the foolishness of women and the role of men in guiding them to accept the cold, hard facts of life.

So when Ng held Campbell "responsible for setting a tone of science fiction that still haunts the genre to this day. Sterile. Male. White. Exalting in the ambitions of imperialists and colonisers, settlers and industrialists," she was factually correct.

Not just factually correct: also correct to be saying this now. Science fiction (like many other institutions) is having a reckoning with its past and its present. We're trying to figure out what to do about the long reach that the terrible ideas of flawed people (mostly men) had on our fields. We're trying to reconcile the legacies of flawed people whose good deeds and good art live alongside their cruel, damaging treatment of women. These men were not aberrations: they were following an example set from the very top and running through fandom, to the great detriment of many of the people who came to fandom for safety and sanctuary and community.

It's not a coincidence that one of the first organized manifestations of white nationalism as a cultural phenomenon was within fandom, and while fandom came together to firmly repudiate its white nationalist wing, these assholes weren't (all) entryists who showed up to stir trouble in someone else's community. The call (to hijack the Hugo award) was coming from inside the house: these guys had been around forever, and we'd let them get away with it, in the name of "tolerance" even as these guys were chasing women, queer people, and racialized people out of the field.

Those same Nazis went on to join Gamergate, then take up on /r/The_Donald, and they were part of the vanguard of the movement that put a boorish, white supremacist grifter into the White House.

The connection between the tales we tell about ourselves and our past and futures have a real, direct outcome on the future we arrive at. White supremacist folklore, including the ecofascist doctrine that says we can only avert climate change by murdering all the brown people, comes straight out of sf folklore, where it's completely standard for every disaster to be swiftly followed by an underclass mob descending on their social betters to eat and/or rape them (never mind the actual way that disasters go down).

When Ng took the mic and told the truth about his legacy, she wasn't downplaying his importance: she was acknowledging it. Campbell's odious ideas matter because he was important, a giant in the field who left an enduring mark on it. No one disagrees about that. What we want to talk about today is what that mark is, and what it means.

Scalzi points out:

There are still people in our community who knew Campbell personally, and many many others one step removed, who idolize and respect the writers Campbell took under his wing. And there are people — and once again I raise my hand — who are in the field because the way Campbell shaped it as a place where they could thrive. Many if not most of these folks know about his flaws, but even so it’s hard to see someone with no allegiance to him, either personally or professionally, point them out both forcefully and unapologetically. They see Campbell and his legacy abstractly, and also as an obstacle to be overcome. That’s deeply uncomfortable.

He's not wrong, and the people who counted Campbell as a friend are legitimately sad to confront the full meaning of his legacy. I feel for them. It's hard to reconcile the mensch who was there for you and treated his dog with kindness and doted on his kids with the guy who alienated and hurt people with his cruel dogma.

Here's the thing: neither one of those facets of Campbell cancel the other one out. Just as it's not true that any amount of good deeds done for some people can repair the harms he visited on others; it's also true that none of those harms cancel out the kindnesses he did for the people he was kind to.

Life is not a ledger. Your sins can't be paid off through good deeds. Your good deeds are not cancelled by your sins. Your sins and your good deeds live alongside one another. They coexist in superposition.

You (and I) can (and should) atone for our misdeeds. We can (and should) apologize for them to the people we've wronged. We should do those things, not because they will erase our misdeeds, but because the only thing worse than being really wrong is not learning to be better.

People are flawed vessels. The circumstances around us -- our social norms and institutions -- can be structured to bring out our worst natures or our best. We can invite Isaac Asimov to our cons to deliver a lecture on "The Power of Posterior Pinching" in which he literally advises men on how to grope the women in attendance, or we can create and enforce a Code of Conduct that would bounce anyone, up to and including the Con Chair and the Guest of Honor, who tried a stunt like that.

We, collectively, through our norms and institutions, create the circumstances that favor sociopathy or generosity. Sweeping bad conduct under the rug isn't just cruel to the people who were victimized by that conduct: it's also a disservice to the flawed vessels who are struggling with their own contradictions and base urges. Create an environment where it's normal to do things that -- in 10 or 20 years -- will result in your expulsion from your community is not a kindness to anyone.

There are shitty dudes out there today whose path to shitty dudehood got started when they watched Isaac Asimov deliver a tutorial on how to grope women without their consent and figured that the chuckling approval of all their peers meant that whatever doubts the might have had were probably misplaced. Those dudes don't get a pass because they learned from a bad example set by their community and its leaders -- but they might have been diverted from their path to shitty dudehood if they'd had better examples. They might not have scarred and hurt countless women on their way from the larval stage of shittiness to full-blown shitlord, and they themselves might have been spared their eventual fate, of being disliked and excluded from a community they joined in search of comradeship and mutual aid. The friends of those shitty dudes might not have to wrestle with their role in enabling the harm those shitty dudes wrought.

Jeannette Ng's speech was exactly the speech our field needs to hear. And the fact that she devoted the bulk of it to solidarity with the Hong Kong protesters is especially significant, because of the growing importance of Chinese audiences and fandom in sf, which exposes writers to potential career retaliation from an important translation market. There is a group of (excellent, devoted) Chinese fans who have been making noises about a Chinese Worldcon for years, and speeches like Ng's have to make you wonder: if that ever comes to pass, will she be able to get a visa to attend?

Back when the misogynist/white supremacist wing of SF started to publicly organize to purge the field of the wrong kind of fan and the wrong kind of writer, they were talking about people like Ng. I think that this is ample evidence that she is in exactly the right place, at the right time, saying the right thing.

https://boingboing.net/2019/08/20/needed-saying.html

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smokeybrandreviews · 4 years ago

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Smokey brand Movie Reviews: For the Lolz

A couple of years aback, there was this movie that sparked a ton of controversy. We were fresh off the heels o f the most contentious election in years and the whole #Metoo movement was gaining steam. In this environment of female empowerment and Social Justice Whiteknighting, f*cking Assassination Nation drops. It immediately garners all of the controversy, from staunch, third wave feminists, complaining about how the women are portrayed in this narrative, to the neckbeard misogynist complaining about the same thing, but with the dudes. I thought it as all very ridiculous and just loved the commentary of the film overall. Unfortunately, Assassination only had a limited run here and i missed it in theaters. It’s been out on streaming for a while but this is the first opportunity I've had to actually sit down and take it all in.

The Good

This movie is absolutely stunning. It’s saturated in blown-out, neon pretension and i love every second of it. Look, when a film has a very particular visual aesthetic, i gravitate toward that. I'm a sucker for style that way. If you have a very specific look to your art, there's a great chance I'm going to fanboy over it. Assassination Nation has a fantastic look, man. I love the use of color in this thing, the way it become more and more surreal as the the film progresses. The aesthetic of this movie is as much a character as the actual actors themselves.

I love the soundtrack to this thing. It fits the tone of this movie perfectly. This sh*t is Heathers with an aggressive slathering of Millennial cynicism. Since I am a Millennial, this sh*t resonates hard with me and the chosen music just pounds that despondency home. In an an upbeat, everything-is-on-fire-but-this-is-fine, sort of way.

I adore the copious amounts of sardonic social commentary in this sh*t. The presentation is definitely over the top but, living in 2020, the sh*t in this film seems like it can happen next month. Its wild to think that, two years ago, this was a salacious, neurotic take, on the modern normal but now? Now this sh*t seems tame.

Look, this film is definitely style over substance but what f*cking style! This sh*t just gleams with glittery nihilism and an acute bubble gum tragedy. I’m a sucker for that juxtaposition and Assassination Nation executes that sh*t near perfectly. It’s one of the best examples I've ever seen anyway. I can’t praise the presentation of this movie enough. It truly is a glory to watch.

The action in this thing is kind of f*cking amazing. It takes a while for it to get going, but when it does, it’s f*cking outstanding. This sh*t is a call back to those old grindhouse features chick full of sex and violence. You don’t see that nowadays and, when you due, it’s a problem. Just like this thing was back when it dropped. The thing is, that stuff never felt gratuitous in this film. I think that sh*t was the point and serviced the plot to that end. I respect the production for going all in on that stuff knowing it would be detrimental to the finished product.

The message this film so gaudily, gorily, expounds upon us, the audience, is actually pretty profound. The hypocrisy of our social structure is called out in a giddily violent way. It can be delivered a pretty heavy hand at times, that entire climactic dialogue was a little on the nose, but it is absolutely something that needed to be said. It's something that needs to be discussed. It's an important conversation that needs to be ongoing and evolve as our understanding grows. Jut because the packaging of said message is pastel panic and barbie doll battery, should ever detract from it's validity.

The Bad

This f*cker is long and you feel it. I think there are a lot of cuts that could have been made to make this run time more palatable to the average movie goer. Those change were not made and you’re left with kind of a slog.

The characters in this movie are sh*t. I couldn’t tell you who one person was over another, just vague descriptions. I think that’s because the characters are actually vague caricatures of people. They fit cliches and tropes, not personalities of actual living, breathing, people. I think, though, that’s fine because this movie is more about the circumstance than the people caught in the circumstance. Still, it's kind of hard to identify with the characters in a film if they’re not written like people, you know?

This dialogue, man, it’s the worst. People don’t talk like this. This is how movie executives think teenagers speak to each other. It’s not real and it actually sounds like a script. I don’t know if this is because the performances all seem phoned in or if it was the actual writing but, either way, it’s ridiculous to hear.

There are no performances that stand out in this move. None. They’re all mediocre, which is disheartening. With this material, with this message, you could have really made something special. Instead, it’s all window dressing for the stylized film making and over-the-top violence.

The writing in this thing reads like bad fan fiction, emphasis on the bad. It is very apparent the the narrative wright is on the way this ton eats itself but the way the POV characters are portrayed is cartoonish and wildly superficial. The plot, itself, is paper thin but it doesn’t need to be as deep as, say, Portrait of a Lady on fire, when it’s little more than an orgy of fluorescent violence, debauched circumstance, and unrealistic circumstance.

The Verdict

Assassination Nation is entertaining. It’s by no means a great film, at all, but it is a pleasure to see. The stylized presentation and scathing commentary about the country's toxic relationship with technology, is more than enough to carry you through the plodding run time, non-performances, and paper thin characters. The writing can be difficult at times but the message is definitely one worth heeding. I didn’t hate this movie but i didn’t like it all that much either. It has something to say and it says it in the most violent way possible but, at the end of the day, i don’t understand why this thing was so controversial. I do think it’s worth a watch. Like i said, i was entertained even if it’s not that great of a film.

#Smokey brand Movie Reviews #Assassination Nation

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b0x · 5 years ago

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😔 some Thoughts on the Trans Experience under the cut that i wanna vent out bc of some posts ive seen around that just kinda didnt sit right with me i guess

every time someone on here is like “trans men cannot experience eldest/only daughter trauma bc they are men and are therefore experiencing transphobic trauma” it’s like... man, gender is way too complex to be so cut & dry about a topic like this. many trans men grew up experiencing the traumas of being a daughter And being a trans man daughter, both pre-transition and post. saying that isn’t saying “trans men are actually women because they experienced this women’s trauma” it’s just recognising that many traumas overlap, regardless of gender. i know it comes from a supportive place, validating us as real men, but that should include validating our unique experiences too.

i hope this makes sense, but a trans-man-daughter is still 100% a man, still 100% a son, but is very different to and does not have the same experience as a trans-man-son. and a trans-man-daughter doesn’t mean “a trans man raised as a daughter because they didn’t know they were trans at the time”, or “a trans man raised as a daughter by a homophobic parent even after coming out and already knowing they are trans”. no, a trans-man-daughter can still also be a trans man raised as a son with 100% support, because a parent’s trauma can still pass on regardless of the circumstance, because a trans person’s relationship with themselves and their own gender and body and mind is so unique and one-of-a-kind that we were practically designed to overlap the many gendered concepts that so many gatekeep as a sense of empowerment.

and it sucks making our own posts/experience sometimes, because they never feel like “our own”? because they all come from traumas and bigotry that have already been boxed and labelled and sorted into sections, and to be someone who has bits and pieces from all those different boxes/sections? a trans person can, for example, experience misogyny one year and then transmisogyny the next and that doesnt make the misogyny the prior year “actually transmisogyny”, it was still misogyny that was experienced, even if it’s later relabeled as “transmisogyny”. if anything that just makes it TWO kinds of misogyny experienced instead of just one. it’s terribly confusing. and trust me, for every cis person confused by a trans concept, i can almost guarantee you it’s just as confusing for the trans person themselves. and this isn’t also me saying that ohh trans people have it worse because we experience Double the bigotry and trauma - no absolutely not. i just think it’s important for people to realise that there are people who will experience both misogyny And transmisogyny and that in itself creates its own new kind of bigotry/trauma experienced, if that makes sense?

of course, i don’t speak for every single trans man, but it’s a very specific kind of transphobia a lot of us experience that ties in directly with eldest/only daughter trauma, and why we relate to and connect with posts like that, even when they’re aimed specifically at those who identify primarily as women.

and on top of all that, i see quite a few of the same trans man “supporters” who say “trans men can’t experience daughter’s traumas because they’re men” do complete 180s and say that trans women can’t experience eldest/only daughter trauma bc their transphobia doesn’t correlate with “womanhood” at the source, because trauma that sons/men/male at birth experience is different to the trauma that daughters/women/female at birth experience, which is.. horrifically and bewilderingly transmisogynistic, transphobic, alienating, and just.. Shocking. shocking that these two points can be somehow made in the same breath together without any of them realising what they’re saying.

it’s like.. this weird group of people who are somehow both the opposite of and exactly the same as terfs? theyre more like... tirfs - trans Inclusionary radical feminists - the people who treat trans men like a substitute for the “effeminate cis gay best friend”, the one’s who will validate your masculinity but not entirely consider you a 100% guy, latching onto that “biological fact” of trans men being “female at birth” and therefore considering you more of a “sister” than a “brother”, regardless of them knowing and understanding that you are a man. i guess its kind of very similar to the transphobes who make awful comments that nonbinary people are just closeted lesbians/gays?

anyway, yes, many traumas are gendered due to binaries designated by society and a misogynistic and men-restricting patriarchy (and many other factors that all play parts in this whole big system such as religion and the upper class), but traumas are traumas, and honestly shouldn’t be gendered, because they all overlap regardless, and can be experienced by anyone if the exact circumstances are met. that and every single trans experience is so unique and so so complex because gender in itself is an extremely unique and complex concept that it just cannot in any way be monitored or labelled into strict rules and laws and binaries.

every time i see a post on here about womanhood and daughter traumas and cis women’s misogynistic experiences and hell even a lot of lesbian traumas/experiences, i find myself completely and entirely relating to many of them every single time even though i am 100% a trans guy, and half grew up as a son. and i guess it’s just kind of weird but not so weird because sure while some days it just feels like im not calling myself a true trans guy, most days its just me validating and relating to an experience that i had that was unique to me and doesnt necessarily mean that im a woman because of it

because womanhood and manhood are temperaments, traits we are either born with or without, traits that are ever-changing and developing as we evolve generation by generation. anyone can pick up or be born with parts of womanhood and/or manhood. like that’s what makes all of us so unique, not a single one of us are alike in any way shape or form because of that. the combinations are always unlimited. so it’s just dumb seeing stuff like that gatekeeped. you cant Own an Experience like thats... what the hell is going on. every time its always the same thing, everyone’s always tryna play god in some way, be it mastering themselves, their own emotions and life, or controlling others, dictating what they think how certain things should be etc

it’s like that one post that’s like everything would be so much simpler if everyone was bi and nothing was gendered ghadjgdkgj

idk.. just.. to gender conceptual things like gender and traits and personalities and traumas is just so... unhelpful and unopen to change and not fluid whatsoever as theyre supposed to be. i dont wanna be all “nothing is real” abt it all but labels and binaries and decided systems and set laws are literally the reason, since the beginning of time, for wars and bigotry and oppression and poverty and the whole shebang. bc Someone decided one day that being a woman means this this and that, and being trans means that and this and that, and those meanings will be the basis we will rewrite occasionally and maybe add to, instead of completely scrapping our whole outdated initial ideas about it bla bla bla.

im just tired gender is weird and stupid why are we arguing why are we so protective like just have a convo man rule with curiosity not adamancy and you’ll be sooo much happier trust me

#feel free to reblog or chat abt idk

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serphinite · 3 years ago

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Women are uniquely oppressed, and always in danger. Womanhood- or the experience of being a woman- is defined by oppression, misogyny, and Being In Danger.

not necessarily – women are uniquely oppressed on the basis of sex. but being a woman isn't defined by being oppressed, who told you that? if misogyny didn't exist, we would still be female. we're oppressed because we're female, not female because we're oppressed.

2-6 are literally just observable facts? crime statistics make it very clear that men are the biggest danger to women, socialization is a real thing that everyone experiences, and i thought even libfems agreed that coerced consent isn't real consent.

As women who deny men access to them, lesbians are The Most Oppressed and also The Most Endangered. They must be protected at all costs.

please read about the concept of intersectionality – nobody is "The Most Oppressed", but aside from the misogyny that affects all of us, we all face different kinds of oppression depending on other factors. also, yes, as 1. women, who 2. are homosexual and 3. refuse to make men an integral part of their lives, lesbians are more at risk of violence from men than some other women. but the same could be said for disabled women, woc, etc.

8-12 are also common sense.

Women are all miserable with their bodies, cursed with the pressure to reproduce and have sex with men.

this is literally what radfems are against? in our society, women are taught to hate our bodies and see them as our own enemy. radfems encourage others to love their body, especially their entire reproductive system, because it exists for us, not to work against us.

Women are all miserable with their genders, forced as they are to ensure the overwhelming and constant suffering that is patriarchy.

yes, that is called gender roles. congratulations. number 15 is half true – many women do identify as nonbinary or trans men to escape strict gender roles. but "terfs" also know that dysphoria is a thing, and there are other factors like same-sex attraction.

Some women who try to escape patriarchy are doing it out of self-interest; they are betraying women by becoming men, and contributing to their oppression. These women must be punished.

it is kind of a betrayal to assume that since you don't enjoy performing femininity, that must mean you're not a woman, and therefore all women must enjoy it. but please point me to a radfem who has ever said that those women should be punished.

Bio-essentialism: women are oppressed specifically because of their bodies and ability to reproduce. This is an inherent and defining part of womanhood. Nobody can claim womanhood without this experience, everyone who has had this experience is a woman.

just gonna leave the definition of bioessentialism here: "The belief that ‘human nature’, an individual's personality, or some specific quality (such as intelligence, creativity, masculinity, femininity, or a male propensity to aggression) is an innate and natural ‘essence’ (rather than a product of circumstances, upbringing, and culture)." notice how it says "masculinity, femininity" and not "having a vagina". sex-based oppression is, in fact, and observable fact.

Women's bodies are all beautiful and perfect because they are women's bodies. If the womanliness of them is tampered with, they become less valuable. Men's bodies are gross and undesirable symbols of patriarchy.

the belief that a woman's value has anything to do with her body and that women need to be beautiful has nothing to do with feminism.

Testosterone makes people violent, aggressive, irrational, and angry. Estrogen makes people calm, kind, and happy.

no. what?

20+21 are also just common sense? 22 is a half truth, obviously not all men are pedophiles and get off to misogyny, but many do.

"Gender" is meaningless; it's founded in misogynistic stereotypes about men and women, and when you remove the stereotypes, there's nothing left at all. Only binary "sex" is real, because that's what patriarchy (and biology) is based on.

gender is literally the sex stereotypes forced on people, so yes.

Manhood is itself a toxic, oppressive, inherently corrupting concept. Anyone who participates in manhood is corrupt and immoral; who would choose to be the oppressor?

the idea that you can choose to be or not to be part of an oppressor/oppressed group goes against everything radfems have ever said.

Masculinity is defined only by hating women, having power, and being aggressive, violent, and controlling (etc.)

not really, but that's the effect it has.

Patriarchy doesn't just target women, but femininity as a whole, for its association with women.

yet another libfem idea y'all are trying to pin on "terfs" after realizing that it's stupid LMAO💀

Patriarchy doesn't just reward men, but masculinity, as it rejects femininity. People who reject femininity and embrace masculinity are rewarded by the patriarchy.

patriarchy doesn't reject femininity, it enforces it in women and punishes it in men. masculine women are still oppressed because they're female, and punished for not conforming to femininity. masculinity is only rewarded in men. again, the idea that women are oppressed for being feminine, rather than being female, has never been promoted by radfems and is one of those embarrassing tiktok choice feminist viewpoints.

get your shit together.

It is deeply, deeply beneficial to TERFs if the only characteristic of TERF ideology you will recognize as wrong, harmful, or problematic is "they hate trans women".

TERF ideology is an expansive network of extremely toxic ideas, and the more of them we accept and normalize, the easier it becomes for them to fly under the radar and recruit new TERFs. The closer they get to turning the tide against all trans people, trans women included.

Case in point: In 2014-2015, I fell headlong into radical feminism. I did not know it was called radical feminism at the time, but I also didn't know what was wrong with radical feminism in the first place. I didn't see a problem with it.

I was a year deep into this shit when people I had been following, listening to, and looking up to finally said they didn't think trans women were women. It was only then that I unfollowed those people, specifically; but I continued to follow other TERFs-who-didn't-say-they-were-TERFs. I continued ingesting and spreading their ideas- for years after.

If TERFs "only target trans women" and "only want trans women gone", if that's the one and only problem with their ideology and if that's the only way we'll define them, we will inevitably miss a vast majority of the quiet beliefs that support their much louder hatred of trans women.

As another example: the trans community stood relatively united when TERFs and conservatives targeted our right to use the correct restroom, citing the "dangers" of trans women sharing space with cis women. But when they began targeting Lost Little Girls and Confused Lesbians and trotting detransitioners out to raise a panic about trans men, virtually the only people speaking up about it were other transmascs. Now we see a rash of anti-trans healthcare bills being passed in the US, and they're hurting every single one of us.

When you refuse to call a TERF a TERF just because they didn't specifically say they hate trans women, when you refuse to think critically about a TERF belief just because it's not directly related to trans women, you are actively helping TERFs spread their influence and build credibility.

#jesus christ #if y'all actually talked to radfems you wouldn't be so stupid

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arlingtonpark · 7 years ago

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SNK 103 Review

CONTENT WARNING: includes discussion of american politics and Donald Trump.

“There’s no need for us to worry. The battlefield is under our control now. We’re closing in on all our enemies. They decided to make their entrance using their ‘vertical maneuvering’. So they don’t have much in terms of weapons or fuel. In other words, they’re in the middle of enemy territory with no supply lines. They’re cornered rats. The Marleyan army should be surrounding this internment zone, so there’s no escape route. The Paradis forces never had the numbers to take on Marley in a proper war.”

Pieck is supposed to be the genius here, right? So if they’re saying the same things I was saying, does that mean I’m a genius, too?

As Pieck said, this is largely correct, however, that does not mean that victory is assured for Marley, as we saw in this chapter.

The Marleyans made a number of critical errors. Both Porco and Pieck let their feelings get the better of them, and they both charged rashly at the enemy without thinking, which for Pieck opened her up to a surprise attack. Porco may yet escape unscathed, but ultimately, it would’ve been better if he had strategized first before charging in. What’s more is Pieck’s inexcusable incompetence, which led to Zeke’s apparent death. She was supposed to cover his rear. That means her position is behind him, yet she foolishly repositioned herself to be in front of him, leaving Zeke wide open so Levi could kill him.

Zeke and Pieck are now both down, Armin is not far away, Eren is free again, and the Marleyans won’t be getting as much reinforcements as they thought they would. All in all, this is a definite improvement from Paradis’ perspective.

Whether or not this is the start of a more long term improvement in the situation for them depends on a couple of unknowns. Whatever the Survey Corps’ plan is, it involves the placing of lights at various places, and it involves taking out the Warhammer titan and disabling Pieck either within a certain amount of time, or by a certain time. Whatever ace they have up their sleeve could potentially win them the fight, or at least get them out of this predicament. Eren also apparently has an ace up his sleeve since he’s “not done yet.” I can’t fathom what they could be planning, but that just makes things more exciting.

Just a thought, but earlier Willy said that it was possible that Paradis was working with one of Marley’s enemies. Koyomi is apparently an ambassador of her country since she was seen at the gala rubbing elbows with other ambassadors, and she’s shown to care for the Eldians, which could be seen as a hint at her country’s general attitude towards Eldians. Perhaps the Survey Corps has reinforcements of their own coming to the fight.

That would explain why it so important to eliminate Marley’s titans as quickly as possible. Marley is the dominant world power because of their titans. That implies that no other military can match the group of titan shifters that make up the backbone of Marley’s military. But the Survey Corps specializes in killing titans, which is why they are tasked with eliminating the titan shifters in time for Hizul to arrive and mop up the remaining non-titan aspects of Marley’s military.

I had previously said that Zeke’s apparent duplicity could just be a feint on Isayama’s part, but now I’m really starting to think that it might be re-nope, just kidding, I’m still not convinced. My official stance on this is that there are too many unknowns to say beyond reasonable doubt that Zeke and Eren are in league. For example, we don’t know the exact circumstances of why Eren came to Marley in the first place, which is pretty damn important for determining if he would even want to ally with Zeke at all. However, I’m going to play devil’s advocate here and argue the opposite of what most people seem to believe because being contrarian is fun.

In the past, Zeke had said he hoped to never face an Ackermann again. Now he’s literally calling one of them out. I will acknowledge that I cannot account for this inconsistency, but I doubt that Zeke’s death is part of some grand plan on the part of the Eren or the Survey Corps. I can, however, think of some good excuses for some eyebrow raising things we see in this chapter.

Yes, Zeke flat out says that Eren isn’t his enemy, but that isn’t a hint at their being allies. It has been a consistent theme of this series that people are forced to do unsavory things due to unfortunate circumstances. Zeke cares about Eren, but him having to oppose him anyway due to the circumstances would be in line with this series’ themes. Eren is not the enemy, but he is the opposition.

And the panel where we see that Levi is keeping the time for some reason? I sure some people would interpret that as Levi timing out when to attack Zeke on the assumption that Zeke being “killed” was preplanned somehow. My explanation for that? Well, Jean has repeatedly made clear they have a schedule to keep. Clearly, time is an important component of this operation, and in that case, it makes sense that some high ranking, or perhaps even all, soldiers would have a watch on their person to track the time. And the choice to show Levi doing this when Zeke is calling him out is just part of Isayama’s ruse.

The baseball glove Eren had earlier when, in the same chapter, Zeke was also shown with one? Simple: it’s just a metaphor and nothing else. The glove is used to highlight the differences between Zeke and Eren in what was at the time the present situation. Eren had previously said he was on bad terms with his family and he was at the moment on his own in enemy territory. Thus, Eren having the glove and ball but no partner to play catch with is a metaphor for his isolation. Zeke, meanwhile, does have a partner, and that emphasizes that Zeke is not alone, that he is in familiar territory with people who care about him, or at least respect him.

I could go on all day, really, just pulling these explanations out of thin air. I am, after all, a Pieck level genius.

The final thing to talk about is, ironically, since they’re the first two people we see, Reiner and Falco.

That was some quick thinking on Reiner’s part, he deserves great credit for that. I think he’ll live. He may have said he wished to die, but the thing is that statements like that are usually spur of the moment type things. If someone says they wish they were dead, they’ll usually walk that statement back if you give them time (sometimes as little as a few seconds) to think about it some more. Beyond that, Reiner cares about Falco and confirming that he did indeed survive requires that Reiner not be dead, so that by itself should be reason enough to motivate him to heal.

This also confirms that Reiner’s suicide attempt from earlier would indeed have killed him, regardless of whatever that nervous system mumbo jumbo Isayama used to save him back in Shighanshina is.

So, can the cycle of violence be broken?

The answer is yes, in theory anyway.

Many people believe that humans are predisposed to conflict. That is a very rudimentary way of thinking. In reality, there will eventually be peace for the same reason that organized society exists at all: ultimately, cooperation is preferable to conflict. In the long run, everyone benefits more when people are working together than when everyone is trying to kill each other. Really, it’s just obvious.

Human beings are rational. This means we assess the situation and perform the action we believe will carry the most benefit. For ourselves, our loved ones, our ideals, our nation. This does not mean that the right choice is always made, but it does mean that violence is not the natural state of humanity.

The one confounding factor here that is preventing this peace from coming about is human tribalism.

Human behavior is tribal in nature, meaning that we view others that we identify with in some way as being “one of us,” and people we don’t identify with as being “one of them.” It’s a natural, human inclination.

White people identify with other white people.

Gay people with other gay people.

Floridians with Floridians.

Yankees fans.

Whovians.

Fandom itself exists because of this. Fandoms are tribes, though of course tribal instincts are weaker for fandom compared to other social group identifiers such as race.

Donald Trump is now our President because of tribalism.

The white race has always dominated American society. However, in recent years, it has become fashionable to conclude that white people will lose their dominance in the coming decades. White people are projected to no longer be the majority racial group by 2050, though they will still be a plurality of the population.

Before 2016 put a damper on things, there was much talk of “the Obama coalition,” or the “coalition of the ascendant.” The idea was that the voters who made Obama president, black people, Hispanics, women, etc. (in other words, people who aren’t white men) would form an enduring and dominant bloc of voters that would steer national politics in their favor.

At the expense, it was and is felt by many, of white people.

The thought of one’s social group, one’s tribe, losing its social standing and dominance inspired great fear in many white people, and so they voted for Trump, who promised to ��Make America Great Again.”

It would be remiss of me to not say, though, that not all Trump voters are racist. The above paragraph only applies to Trump’s core base of supporters. So in other words, about 25% of the adult population. The rest voted for Trump not because of the racism, but in spite of it, and that in itself is another example of tribalism at work.

Donald Trump is many things: a predator, a misogynist, a racist, a blowhard, a bullshit artist, a moron, a narcissist.

A Republican.

In the words of Brendan Nyhan: “Partisanship is one hell of a drug.” Many people voted for Trump simply because he was a Republican and not a Democrat.

To be sure, there was a great deal of wishful thinking involved.

“He’s not as bad as people make him out to be.”

“He’ll appoint a conservative to the Supreme Court.”

“He won’t really be calling the shots. Paul Ryan will be the power behind the throne.”

All these and more were excuses people told themselves to justify voting for Trump in spite of knowing about his more … unsavory characteristics. People will overlook (or even rationalize!) despicable behavior by their own side simply because it’s their side that’s doing it. They may even simply refuse to believe their side could do such things.

Relatedly, there is the concept of negative partisanship. This refers to the phenomenon of people rooting for one team because they hate the other. They don’t like their team either, but they hate the other, so they (half-heartedly) support it regardless. It’s the lesser of two evils taken to its logical extreme.

The point behind this looong, seemingly unrelated digression is to highlight how powerful of a force tribalism can be. It is “a hell of a drug.”

You see it most obviously in Willy’s plan. Marley is an imperialist aggressor, yet Willy was clearly banking on the world’s fear/hatred of Paradis trumping whatever reservations they have with working with Marley. It’s textbook negative partisanship.

In this war of Paradis vs the world, tribalism runs rampant.

The world hates Paradis, and if Floch’s views are indicative of anything, a sizable number of walldians probably hate the world in return.

Eren was willing to kill innocent bystanders, including children, because it was in the name of fighting for his tribe.

Floch just flat out wants to kill as many people as he can because they’re not a part of his tribe. They may not be involved in the fighting (they were, after all, civilians) but they’re still with the Marleyan tribe. The enemy.

Can we overcome this? Can we break the cycle of hatred and tribalism?

This will surprise many people, but for all the anti-immigrant talk among Trump supporters, most do not actually live near large immigrant populations. In other words, their fear of “the other,” of those who are not a part of their tribe, is most likely based on a lack of interaction with those “others”.

This is the key, and it’s a total cliché. Actually interacting with “the other” is the solution to the puzzle of tribalistic hatred.

RBA thought the walldians were vaguely defined evil entities, devils. But then they actually interacted with them, and saw them for the people they were.

The same will almost certainly be true for Floch. It was true for Eren, even if he still thought killing children was a necessary sacrifice to make on the altar of defending his tribe.

In other words, fear of “the other” can be overcome through familiarity. The tricky part is actually getting everyone to calm down and see everyone else as people. The walldians who see the outside world as just a vaguely defined threat need to rethink their worldview, and the members of the outside world (those who aren’t complete garbage like Sergeant Gross or whatever his name was) also need to look past their hatred.

I just hope that people will not read SNK and be influenced to take a cynical view of the world. It is not human nature to be violent. Those who look at others with fear can come to love and accept them. The scenario Isayama has crafted here is simply not generalizable, and it would be a mistake to apply the apparent take aways of this story to our world. Which, of course, can only be seen as a flaw in Isayama’s storytelling.

Just look at California to see what I mean.

38% of Californians are white. 39% of Californians are Hispanic. That’s right, white people are a close second behind Hispanics as the largest racial group in California, and it’s starting to show. The lower chamber in the state legislature is majority non-white. One of the state’s two Senators, Barbara Boxer, who is white, retired in 2016 and was replaced by Kamala Harris, who has a mixed Indian/Jamaican heritage.

White people still retain significant power though. The upper chamber in the legislature is overwhelmingly white, the state’s other Senator, Dianne Feinstein, is white, and the top contender to serve as Governor for the next eight years, Gavin Newsom, is also white. However, this continued dominance of positions of power is entirely vestigial and it will decline as time goes on.

The same holds true for New Mexico and Hawaii. White people are either not dominant or clearly losing dominance in these states.

And yet, I see no news reports of white Californians, New Mexicans, or Hawaiians throwing hissy-fits over their clearly diminishing dominance over society. White people are a minority in those places, and unless I’m missing something, they seem pretty chill about it.

Because tribes can coexist. It’s just a matter of opening oneself up to others.

An important thing to mention, though, is the status of black people. Black people have always been seen as “the other” and even in California, where 7% of the population is black compared to 12% of the general US population, anti-black sentiment abounds, though in subtle ways, most notably in the form of NIMBYism.

However, real progress is being made on that front in California, and in the US as a whole, there seems to be a real commitment to racial inclusiveness among the younger generation. Real progress is being made, though unfortunately a world where black people are seen as equal to white people is a long time coming.

The only thing left to do is speculate about where the series is heading. This chapter is the start of volume 26, which I assume will be the fourth of five volumes in this story arc. My guess is that the battle will continue for the remainder of volume 26 with volume 27 wrapping up this current arc before dovetailing into the next, and most likely final, arc of the series.

#shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #spoilers #snk 103

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freedom-of-fanfic · 7 years ago

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my favorite thing is when someone insists The Discourse isnt about shaming and policing women's sexuality, while at the same time using the word "fujoshi", which was coined to shame and police women's sexuality. (i forget if you said this in your post on the subject but it doesnt even refer to just BL fans, but any woman who openly expresses sexual attraction to male characters)

(here’s the post where I talked about ‘yaoi’ and ‘fujoshi’ being adopted as pejoratives in colloquial English-speaking forums.)

it’s also my favorite thing. 8)

(side note about gender stuff:

‘fujoshi’ is a gendered word in Japan that refers to women (and, though I’m not familiar with Japanese LGBTQ spaces, possibly people who don’t identify as a woman but relate to ‘fujoshi’ anyway.) positive usage of ‘fujoshi’ as a badge of honor for BL fans is specific to this gendered usage, with ‘fundashi’ being adopted by men (etc).

‘fujoshi’ as a pejorative in English-speaking spaces still carries this gendered connotation, but is aimed at anyone who isn’t able to be an mlm: literally anyone who isn’t a man, and often at anyone who isn’t a cis man. (and yes, the implication is that if you’re not a cis man, you’re a woman. and yes, that’s accidentally-on-purpose.)

b/c ‘fujoshi’ as a pejorative is aimed so widely in English-speaking fandom I’ll be using ‘non-(cis)men’ most of the time to refer to its targets in this post. however, gender is VERY complicated and I realize that this post may not properly capture all gender identities affected here. I am doing my best and am open to concrit.)

Now I get that there’s some confusion over the use of ‘fujoshi’. It didn’t really reach English-speaking spaces until Japanese fen picked the word up and turned it into a badge of honor; before that, it was a derogatory word coined by 2chan (Japan’s 4chan. 2chan inspired 4chan.) as a result, some people unironically use ‘fujoshi’ to refer to themselves/BL fans in a positive way, and I can see a positivity post using ‘fujoshi’ that way. But the use of the word ‘fujoshi’ in English-speaking spaces with a positive connotation is ironically the exact reason it’s often used in a negative way now.

If someone is making a positivity post for women or nb people or afab people (etc) that uses ‘fujoshi’ in a negative light, they’re hideously missing the point. It’s playing into the narrative that anyone who isn’t a (cis) man isn’t allowed to own their enjoyment of erotic material that involves (cis) men - even if that erotic material was created specifically for them, and without exploiting any real (cis) men, mlm or not - without feeling shame.

fandom has been fussing over whether or not non-mlm people are allowed to create or consume fictional mlm works for literal decades. Policing what non-(cis)men get hot and bothered over is an international pastime, with advocates on all sides of the political spectrum*:

conservative/purity groups are opposed to erotic/explicit material existing in the first place, especially aimed at people-they-categorize-as-women (because ‘women’ shouldn’t experience sexual desire for anyone but their husband). even mentioning sex in an educational context to people who aren’t 18 is a dangerous promotion of promiscuity. and anything that features LGBTQ content of any kind is promoting sin

misogynists/MRAs are deeply disturbed by the idea that anyone who isn’t a cis man is owning and controlling their sexual enjoyments in a way they didn’t personally condone (especially if that expression doesn’t involve actually having sex with them). they therefore deride non-cis-men who enjoy fictional mlm as ugly ‘old women’ who couldn’t get with them even if they tried

radfems are alarmed that people-radfems-categorize-as-women create, consume, and openly enjoy erotic content, as porn exploits people with vaginas (except under very narrow circumstances). it’s particularly bad when people with vaginas are sexually enjoying bodies with penises because that’s essentially sexual desire for your oppressor, which is kind like self-abuse

and now antis, who take a little from all three of the above columns, are stressed about non-(cis)men creating and consuming explicit fictional mlm content because nsfw content will make minors have sex, and it fetishizes real mlm, and non-(cis)men who like it are gross and also old people who really just want sex with young people, and it’s weird that non-mlm want to fantasize about sex that they can’t have anyway, isn’t it?

(none of these groups have clued in that non-(cis)men may have many reasons for enjoying explicit fictional mlm content other than sexual enjoyment, but hey.)

*let me set aside a note for mlm who are bothered by fictional mlm content created by non-mlm. unlike the groups above, there’s a legit claim to feeling exploited because irl bi/pan/gay men are attacked and ridiculed for their sexual orientation. Understandably, having fictional versions of mlm relationships by-non-mlm-for-non-mlm can feel particularly objectifying. (nonetheless I would argue that on the scale of objectification and harm, slash fic written by majority-LGBT/queer transformative fandom is a drop in the bucket, and there’s plenty of places on the net where fictional mlm-by-mlm-for-mlm dominates.)

anyone who isn’t a cis (straight, white - yes, as usual, race heavily intersects with all this!!) man owning their sexual interests is threatening to a status quo that put those cis-straight-white men at the top of the list of people who get to choose who to sleep with and sexualize with impunity.

there’s absolutely no reason for us to help the power structure out by attacking each other.

#in defense of fujoshi #in defense of freedom to fandom #radfems again #anti shipping

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punkrockpolitix · 4 years ago

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Strategy or Delusion?

by Mitch Maley — By the time Donald Trump returned to the White House from Walter Reed Medical Center, made a grand gesture of taking off his mask despite still being contagious, and was caught on video struggling to catch his breath right after resuming his "this is basically the flu" line, it seemed as if every one of the Trump 2020 train’s wheels had jumped the track. With only a month to go until the election, regaining momentum seemed implausible, at best. But this week’s campaign reboot suggests that the president is going into the final weeks of this election intent on doubling down on his 2016 strategy. Only time will tell, whether this is a brilliant tactic, the sad default of a malignant narcissist, or both.

Elected in 2016 with just 46 percent of the vote and on an Electoral College coalition that consisted of just 70,000 votes spread across Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Trump has been unable to hit even one 50 percent approval rating since taking office nearly four years ago, and he’s been as low as 35 percent recently. As such, it’s hard to argue that he’s not the most polarizing and divisive president in modern history, if not the entire history of our nation. That said, he’s remained among the most popular presidents in terms of his approval rating with those who identify as Republicans. Because that number has dropped to just 25 percent of voters, however, it’s still problematic from a strategic standpoint, especially since his 6 percent average approval rating from Democrats is the lowest ever recorded (for perspective, an average of 14 percent of Republicans approved of the job President Obama did over his two terms).

I think we can all agree that the first debate between Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden was a shitshow wrapped in a hot mess, tossed into a dumpster fire. However, Trump made the mistake of setting the bar so low for Biden that all he had to do was appear to be conscious and he’d exceed most expectations. For his part, Trump slipped right into his usual stick of firehosing the dialog with misinformation and then interrupting his opponent incessantly. This isn’t a terrible tactic if you hold the inferior position in terms of factual accuracy and/or your opponent is just a better debater or is more informed on the issues. There were rumors that perhaps it was a deliberate tactic to play hell with Biden’s stuttering problem and you could see the former Veep closing his eyes and steadying his mind at such times, a tactic often used in those circumstances by those who suffer from the affliction.

But while that may have allowed Trump to shift away from subjects he wanted to avoid or toward others he wanted to exploit, it did not seem like it was done with a lot of situational awareness. Right now, about 31 percent of American voters identify as Democrats. As noted, 25 percent identify Republican and 40 percent claim independence, with the rest belonging to third parties. Trump’s fragile, patch-quilt 2016 victory included success among independents and even Democrats, which made up for the fact that a sizable group of Republicans refused to support their party’s nominee.

Known as the Never Trumpers, there’s scant evidence to suggest he’s won a meaningful number of them over during his first term. Polling also suggests that many more Democrats who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary Clinton or thought that she was destined to win and that they could send the party a message or deny her a popular mandate by staying home or voting third party, are poised to vote blue no matter who after four years of Trump. That means Trump will either have to do even better with the white, upper-middle-class and affluent suburban independent voters who helped him win in 2016, or expand the voting base.

Option one has likely passed him by. White suburban voters of all stripes, but particularly women, have been hurling themselves off the Trump train for months. Any chance of wooing them went out the window with his debate strategy. While his core 30 percent "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters" bloc likely loved the schoolyard bullying tactics, female moderates and independents were revolted by what many described as petty, childish antics and a disturbing lack of basic impulse control.

Vice President Mike Pence may have been somewhat more reserved when he employed similar tactics against Senator Kamala Harris in the Veep debate, but there was a rub. While there were only three men onstage during the presidential debate, Pence was the lone male among two females. The way he constantly interrupted, spoke over and ignored both the moderator and his opponent made for a bad look and likely reminded many female voters of the worst male figures they’ve encountered—misogynistic egomaniacs who found their thoughts cute but unnecessary and were always willing to explain things so they’d better understand. If you listened closely, you could hear more bodies hitting the ground as they hurled themselves off the Trump train.

Trump’s worst polling metrics have come on both his logistic handling of the coronavirus outbreak and whether or not he’s taken the pandemic seriously, so by the time he finally went and caught the virus himself before seemingly spreading it to dozens and dozens of other people while not exercising recommended safety precautions, too many Americans were already questioning his ability to lead for a repeat of that razor thin 2016 coalition to seem plausible. I honestly thought the election was over.

But when Trump tweeted two videos from Walter Reed, things got a little weird. If you haven’t seen them, you can watch the first one here and the second one here. The president seems humbled and a bit shaken. He’s adopted grandpa pesona that’s choc-full of folksiness, along with words and body language completely out of character with the Trump we’re used to. He was an optimistic cheerleader and, for the first time in his presidency, made no effort to divide his audience. I admittedly thought to myself, if he stays in the hospital and maintains this posture through Election Day, he could definitely pull this off.

Then Gramps got ahold of the keys to the hermetically sealed SUV and decided to spread some love to supporters waiting outside the hospital—and perhaps some COVID to staff and Secret Service forced to join him on the foolish stunt that would come to rival his infamous bible photo op taken at a church near the White House, but only after hundreds of peaceful protestors were hit with tear gas to clear the way.

Whether it was the outraged response piercing his paper-thin skin or just the effects of the cocktail of expensive, experimental drugs they were pumping into his system, Trump wound up right back on twitter playing his hit list. But things really took a hard turn on Monday night when Trump gave his first post-hospital stump speech at a rally in Sanford, FL. There were few masks and no social distancing at the massive event (Governor Ron Desantis was even caught on video high-fiving a long receiving line of attendees, then rubbing his nose in what will become a classic Flori-duh moment should he test positive). Trump—presumably hopped up on his go-to trifecta of KFC, Diet Cokes and Sudafed—was bursting with energy and bragging about the possibility that he was permanently immune to a disease he continued to downplay. If you listened closely, you could hear the bodies of even more independent suburban voters throwing themselves from the train.

Clearly, Trump does not possess the discipline to stick to a strategy—any strategy. He’s only got one act and rather than reinvent himself or even work out some new material, he’s content to play to friendly audiences who just want to hear the same tired one liners: Lock her up, Build the Wall, something, something, Benghazi! For good measure, Trump even promised a post-election surprise. Fans of democracy (the ideology not the legendary Sarasota reggae band), were up in arms the week before when Trump suggested that Attorney General William Barr should have already indicted his opponent for the "greatest political crime in the history of our country."

While a sitting president calling for the arrest of an opponent he’s losing to, just weeks before an election, does stink of banana republic (the political term for a backward country with a rudimentary political system, not the retail clothing chain that sells overpriced Gap chinos to the same voters Trump is hemorrhaging), it seems he may have been seeding his pitch. During Monday’s speech, Trump promised that Biden, Clinton and many more would be indicted … after he wins the election. Now, while adhering to an actual strategy would have been much better in terms of his chances for reelection, it’s clear he can’t do that. And since the post-COVID personality transplant only seems to have lasted a single day, doubling down might actually be his best bet.

The vote of those who pay attention and participate tends to harden at this point in a contest. Given that polling shows Trump is still losing supporters, his only chance is expanding the electorate. The challenge with that is that swing states like Florida and Wisconsin have already passed their voter registration deadline for this election. Pennsylvania and Michigan voters can only register until October 19. But there are also a lot of registered voters who don’t typically cast ballots. The numbers make it clear that a majority of current American voters are even more repelled by Trump’s policies, platform and/or personality than they were in 2016. But one metric that’s been consistently impressive for Trump has been voter enthusiasm. Those who love him, do so dearly, and the strategy between now and November 3 seems to be to get everyone of those sort out to the polls, especially the ones who didn’t vote for him in 2016.

Given the massive advantage Democrats hold in vote-by-mail requests, Trump likely only has to get within 5 percent of the total votes cast to wind up ahead on the evening of November 3. Even though there will likely be millions of votes still to be counted and it looks all but certain that Biden will have most of them just because he’s not Trump, the president has already telegraphed his next move: stop counting the votes and hope Republicans in Congress and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court can find a way to keep him in office without blood being spilled in the streets and the nation devolving into something close to a civil war.

Sure, it’s entirely possible that enough people have had enough of the Trumps that Biden will win by an unexpectedly wide margin on election night and the whole thing will be over, but the prize for that will be a cadre of NeoLiberal corporatist warmongers descending on Washington while under the delusion that they’ve earned some sort of historic mandate. I know, none of them are attractive options, but given that we’re cueing up for the final act of a year that’s been nothing short of the personification of human misery, it’s the presidential election we should expect.

Dennis “Mitch” Maley has been a journalist for more than two decades. A former Army Captain, he has a degree in government from Shippensburg University and is the author of several books, which can be found here.

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eznews · 4 years ago

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In 2015, record-breaking retro game champion Rudy Ferretti made a homebrew game for the Atari 2600. It was called Pigs in the Castle. “I’m tired of all you feminists and your bullshit,” he said in a video preceding its launch. It’s understood that the pigs in the game are women.

The game’s official Facebook page describes how the purpose of the game is to “kill 100 or more pig bitches to get the boss.” He elaborates: “simple???????? Fuck no it’s my game it’s hard.” In a video of the game, preserved on the YouTube channel of “Rudy Ferretti aka the console player of the century,” Ferretti’s character navigates a pixelated castle killing “evil” pigs.

On August 10, police in Dover, New Hampshire, discovered Ferretti deceased in his bed. A firearm lay nearby. In the same apartment’s living room, police identified the body of his ex-girlfriend, Amy Molter. According to a medical examiner, Molter and Ferretti both died of gunshots to the head—Molter from homicide and Ferretti from suicide, the police suspect. The investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths remains ongoing.

Longtime members of the retro and arcade gaming scene say they warned community leaders and even police about Ferretti’s threatening behavior for years. For close to a decade, they say, Ferretti had harassed, stalked, and threatened gamers, particularly women, pushing some out of the niche gaming scene entirely. He flashed guns in tirade YouTube videos and bragged on Facebook about bringing one to an event at the Museum of Pinball in 2017.

Arcade game collector and researcher Catherine DeSpira and video game historian and storage auction buyer Patrick Scott Patterson—two of Ferretti’s most public targets—say they collectively contacted police in different states a half-dozen times to report Ferretti’s threats against themselves and others. They say those attempts ultimately had no effect. All the while, clusters of retro gamers across the country egged Ferretti on in private messages and on forums, leveraging his apparent instability and misogynist inclinations against women they didn’t want in the scene.

“You’d think anyone would look at it and go, ‘Hey, this guy’s gone, out there,’” says Patterson. “But people weren’t doing it. They were emboldening it, pushing him, giving him a support system.”

As the community processes last week’s tragedy, some described a culture of complicity in old-school gaming’s strongholds that didn’t do enough to protect women.

Forty years after the release of classic arcade games like Pac-Man and Joust, an active and enthusiastic connoisseur culture around these games still thrives at gaming conventions and online. Collectors, historians, nostalgics, and competitors share a deep love for modern gaming’s roots and its physical manifestations—blocky consoles, rare arcade cabinets. Back in 1983, a sociologist surveying arcades reported that 80 percent of players were men. Sources say that male dominance has carried through into 2020. Even though women now make up about 46 percent of all gamers, retro gaming’s conventions, online forums, and publications boast a self-reinforced culture of masculinity that, members of some communities say, abetted and allowed a vocal minority to target women.

DeSpira is one of the few remaining prominent women in the scene. It’s a miracle she stuck around; for nearly a decade, she says, a group she calls the “dog pile,” which included Ferretti, launched relentless attacks against her that, she says, changed everything about the way she lives her life—from how she walks down the street to how she makes friends.

“Rudy Ferretti from the get-go was very upset about any women getting involved in what he saw as a maniverse,” says DeSpira. In 2012, DeSpira began writing for Twin Galaxies, a go-to website for arcade-heads that encompasses a publication, forum, and verified Guinness World Records supplier of international records. On the website, competitive retro gamers like Ferretti maintained profiles where they brandished their gaming achievements—the highest score in JAWS for the Nintendo Entertainment System console, or fastest completion of the NES’ Archon: The Light and the Dark. (Ferretti set 131 world records in the course of his retro gaming career.) DeSpira says she was brought on to give Twin Galaxies a fresh coat of paint, add in some new voices.

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#EZ News

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smokeybrand · 4 years ago

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Smokey brand Movie Reviews: For the Lolz

The Good

The Bad

The Verdict

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kendrixtermina · 7 years ago

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For the Love of Socionics

First I find it important to note here that I am not necessarily promoting this concept; I just thought it was interesting to discuss.

As such, I will try both to present it as the concept as it was so you can form your own opinion but aso add my own thoughts/ comments later.

So, today’s concept: Love, as in, human attachment bonds, or depending on whom you ask, the ideal, “true” state thereof.

It’s a word that has been used to mean many things in many context and ppl spend thick lyrical volumes debating its meaning so ever since the olden days ppl have been looking in ways to characterize it futher, all the way from modern terminology desgned to describe, say, a-spec people, to the most basic stuff drawn up by the ancient greeks.

Just like they gave us one of the first personality theories (the 4 temperaments), they codified the “Four Loves” at least for the western sphere of culture.

Turns out some socionists also got in on the act, and speculated about a connection to the Funktions!

But let’s start at the beginning:

The Classical List

Eros - Romantic Love (Romantic as in “couple” not as in “poetic and idealized”)

Philia - The infamous Power of Friendship!

Storge - Family Bonds

Agape - “Spiritual”/Selfless Love

At first, this was a sharp classification of the basic kinds of bonds that humans form in their many relationships: You have your folks, partner(s) and friends and they’re distinct in a couple of ways, as is the kind of idealistic drive that might drive you to risk your life to protect a fellow vhuman being or care for the downtrodden out of charity.

For example, you generally screw your girlfriend (unless you’re ace of course), but many would find the very thought of doing that with family, longtime friends or favorite deity hugely gross; You choose your friends and partners (well, hopefully), but you’re just stuck with your family (unless you’re adopted)...

You can tell by the brackets that things are a bit more complicated than just those sharp delineations - You can, for example, be best friends with your girlfriend, regard either your lifelong friend or spouse of many decades as part of the family, and many a parent would sacrifice everything for their child...

Often enough these are seen as all having their place and importance, though sometimes people would imagine a hierarchy here somewhere, depending on their culture - The ancient greeks being kinda misogynist devalued Eros as inferior to Philia as an equal bond, as do many “My spouse is such a nag!” type people im told are still around today, whereas modern believers in the “friendzone” seem to see Friendship as a consolation prize if not an insult (??because the worst thing ever is ??Cogeniality??), a lot of cultures insist you should obey your parents over everything even if they’re abusive asshats and of course religion always claims that invented and has the monopoly on any important human universals and praise abnegation as the highest good; Certainly the love of gods (particulary the monotheistic sort) for their creations is often described as such unconditional sacrifice, while those same religions decry attraction they disagree with as “low, carnal urges” to the point that medieval clerics questioned wether women have souls (because everyone is hetero & ladies don’t exist outside of being ppl’s wives amiright?)

It’s worth noting that various ancient societies had something like “blood brothership” which was for best friends was marriage is for romantic partners in that you could get some legally binding, indefinite formalization that made you part of each other’s clans. Meanwhile a romantic partner who is also a good friend is basically what people call a “soulmate” once you strip away the supernatural predestination myths around it; It’s sure how the Sims 4 implemented that XD

And obvsly we no longer see these as restricted to gender in that way. Two dudes can have eros. A guy and a chick can be friends.

And speaking of “low carnal urges” obviously shallow infatuation exists, but can’t friendship or family likewise driven by base instincts, such as they monkey drive for social rank and influence and the urge to procreate and make/raise babies which is probably older than pair-bonding. (which resulted in the potential for romance - a lot of animals just screw and are done with it.) Abusive Parents and fairweather friends everywhere attets that true love of any flavor can be hard to find.

Agape doesn’t really have a primal counterpart like that because it requires the human ability to even conceive of a “greater good” or “ideal” but in devotion there’s the danger ofyour kindness being abused, as well as that of zealotry - people who would kill or die for their ideologies, gods and dictators.

So perhaps a more differentiated view would be as these things as phenomena that can but don’t have to co-occurr depending on the relationship, all of wichhave their good and bad sides - you can have a perfectly fine “girlfriend” or a more ambitious “soulmate” and likewise a “buddy” or a “blood-brother” etc.. and those would not be the same.

Likewise further concepts have been identified and added, often in the more specfific context of various components for a romantic relationship to have, though you could quantify any sort of human attachment through various combinations.

Extended List

Eros - The one strictly romantic or at least sensual aspect. Attraction to the partner’s beauty and other sensual attributes, and also expressed through physical touch, closeness, a lot of togetherness and sexuality (Though Boinking is not strictly required; Be it because of young age, orientation or circumstances preventing the couple from doing the deed.) A passionate type of bond that can form quickly and involve an element of loss-of-control. This can, however, lead to impulsive actions, Soap Opera plots and burn itself out unless there’s something deeper connecting the partners.

Philia - The defining ingredient of friendships. A bond based on mutual sympathy. The involved parties enjoy each other’s company, find each other’s character appealing and may share common interests, opinions , hobbies or joint pursuts. Ideally this would be an equal bond that is all about giving each other freedom, echanging ideas and supporting each other through cameraderie. This one is largely unrelated to physical characteristics - Indeed most of ppl’s friends will not be romantic partners. On the other hand people who look for this sort of dynamic in a romantic partner will care more for personality and commonalities than looks.

Storge - Affectionate attachment based on familiarity. This can be the stuff of family bonds but also what you feel toward old childhood friends or pets, but also perhaps when you take a caretaking role towards a spouse, between a mentor a disciple, or in ‘found family’ type dynamics. It is mosty formed just by living in close proximity, and represents a source of stability and repose, but also a sharing of duties and responsibilities. This is perhaps one of the more ‘mundane’ bond flavors, but also one that engenders the strongest loyalty, even if the person screws up big - After all, Ohana means nobody gets left behind. If this type of bonds are high on your priority list, you will want to get to know the person well before opening up or comitting to anything.

Agape - Selfless Love - based on empathy and compassion for one’s fellow beings and the desire for their happiness with no expectation of reward.. Self-Sacrificing, unconditional, idealistic and far removed from the realm of material concerns and thus at times described as ‘divine’ or ‘spiritual’ - what we know as Charity, Altriusm and forgiveness. Random acts of kindness and thankless work for the greater good are classic examples; In an interpersonal context, it means to place the other person’s happiness before your own and accept them as they are. If this is a priority for you, you may be looking for an idealized, profound bond and be willing to be giving and devoted in return, but you’ll do well to keep your own needs and limits in mind.

Ludus - Playful love. Attachment and everything related to it as a source of personal pleasure, as well as pleasure as an aspect of relationships. Often involves some manner of sensuality or sexuality, but in contrast to eros, the primary emotions here are freedom, excitement and satisfaction. This is usually present at the ‘getting to know’ phase of a relationship, but can also be pursued for its own sake through conversational flirting, ‘just for fun’ sex and all manner of kinky stuff. A lot of relationships fail because the partners failed to keep alive a spark of playfulness through the years - but on the downside, there’s a risk for irresponsible behavior - So make sure to use condoms and establish clear communications so no one gets their heart broken.

Mania - Dramatic Love. The intense, consuming, shakespearian sort of love that many poems, songs and stories were written about - though this may also be felt toward someone one simply admires. Involves dynamic feelings centered on the partner, who is held in high esteem while the relationship itself is given high importance. Interactions with the partner strongly influence the person’s mood, leading to pronounced moods that go through ups and down; At the heart of the matter is a subliminal desire to receive validation from the partner - but if said partner is not really the Mania sort, there’s a chance that they might be spooked or overwhelmed instead. In excessive extremes, this can lead to disproportionate jealousy or even obsession.

Pragma - Sometimes called ‘enduring love’ but in itself probably best described as the relationship between allies, it is a bond pursued for and sustained by practical, reasonable concerns, to be willing and able to work together toward joint or individual goals, to put in effort, patience and tolerance, and make compromises in order to make things work and mantain the relationship throughout the drudgery of everyday life. The partners are drawn together by common priorities, compatible views, dependability and having compatible life plans. This is glue that keeps a good working relationship or lasting arranged marriage going, though any bond may need its share of this in order to stand the test of time, be it a friendship or a romance. People for whom this is a high priority often show that they care by helping you in everyday practical matters - however, they can also have pretty high standards and expectations for their relationships

Philautia - Self-Love or Self-respect. Not really to do with interpersonal attachment per se, but obviously relationships can impact it for better or for worse, and likewise this helps us to choose good relationships.

As if those weren’t enough, the person who made this paper - a certain Mr. Meged - made up some of his own which he felt still merited terms:

Meged’s Additions

Victoria - Love as conquest, that is, interpersonal relationships as a means to “win” recognition, respect or the attention of everyone around, to seek stimulation in the thrill of satisfied ambition or vanity. Despite or perhaps because of that, they prefer and respect potential partners who present them with a bit of a challenge or surprise; In that case they show their interest through vying for, if not demanding the person’s attention in which they can be somewhat persistent. This probably why people like stuff like Dominance-and_submission roleplays, sexy vampires, or the Princess-In-The-castle trope, and why phrases like ’you belong to me’ are sometimes considered romantic or hot. Sometimes ppl with this as their main approach to bonding can be somewhat inconstant, or selfish especially if they’re extroverts (since there are always new ‘conquests’), the introverts may prefer a stable uncomplicated setup.

Analita... eh that word sounds too much like a fancy term for buttsex imma just gonna say “Analytic Love.”, meaning something in the direction of ‘fascination’, yet more specific than that. These folks are typically reserved and try to analyze the object of their fascination from the distance, with a marked intellectual component - They try to understand how the other person “works”, that is to analyze their behavior and find connections betwenn their actions and reactions. The goal is to have the partner “figured out” by means of building a logical model of them, but when something doesn’t quite fit into it, they might just pique their curiosity even more and lead them to make futher observations to “observe” that model, which often has an abstracting-generalizing nature - indeed folks for whom this is a they have an idea of what a relationshgip should be like in terms of guiding logical principles on which they may not readily compromise - they’re looking to balance both their physical desires and intellectual needs and are drawn to people who are dynamic enough to be interesting to them, yet consistent enough. so even though they don’t idealize the partner or relationship the way some of the more ‘dynamic-feelsy’ flavors do, they can be picky and liable to dissapointment.

A/N: I do think that these are Things and that there should be words for these. I was actually looking for a word for the later or perhaps something more general than that. I mean these definitions are ovsl. a bit too tailor-made for what he was gonna do with them, but I do think he’s onto something more universal there.

But why, why couldn’t he pick something that sounds less like “Anal”? I finally find a word for this and then I can’t use it, because butt.

So what was this dudes’ point?`Well, he though that each function came with a characteristic type or range of them feels and therefore an affinity to a characteristic flavor in their attachments.

In particular, he drew these associations:

The Theory

Victoria and Se. Because socionics Se is aggrotastic anyways; There’s sure a tendency strive toward status, mastery/competition and stimulation/ excitement that is probably reflected in the courtship process as it is everywhere else.

Eros and Si - Largely drawing this connection because of the ‘sensual’ aspect, but also note that SJs tend to seek a harmony in both a physical and feelsy sense resulting in great loyalty and a willingness to overlook some of the partner’s flaws for the sake of stability and work to and create a nice environment for them, if anything they may try to adapt their partner to their needs - that said if they do not find the desired harmony, they will get dissapointed and part ways with their partner easily.

Philia and Ne - Bond will be based on a kinship of ideas, interests and motives and an underlying friendship with a sense of deep respect and understanding. A relatively selective mechanism that primarily unites like-minded people and stimulates growth of capability. To these folks equality is very important, so coercion or dictates and won’t remain loyal to anyone who dissapoints them, and, if the parther is too different in their thinking or doesn’t meet their expectations, they part ways without much regret.

Storge and Fi. A tenderness that includes deep understanding and compassion, complete with the ability to compromise and smooth over disagreement. These folks will characteristiclyshow much solidarity to their partner, leniency towards their shortcommings and a general striving toward a harmonious, stable, pleasant and laid-back style of interaction. It’s mostly about a connection of the sould more than anything else, but its crucial that the partner shows sensitivity.

Agape and Ni - Because they’re all abstrac-y and conceptual I guess.

Analita and Ti - Well yeah, he clearly made it up to fit this b/c he didn’t find a more fitting word in literature - that said he’s already heavily bending the definitions with some of these. (especially eros & Storge, for exam,ple; That’s not rly what was originally meant by that though I guess I see where he sees the applicability)

Pragma and Te - Choses partner by sober, pragmatic and ‘sensible’ parameters. Though the importance given to one’s personal priorities can be read as ‘egocentric’ , these folks are in fact oriented toward a ‘fair’ balance of giving and receiving, and presumes that one respect and understands the partner; There is a strivng toward the satisfaction of mutual interests.

Mania and Fe - desire for prolonged emotional intensity and exaggerated valuation of the relationship. This can be a a dramatic, demanding, evem possesive feeling with a fierce desire for complete reciprocation, but is at the same time capable of great compromise sacrifice and endurance. These are the sort of couples that argue a lot as changeable, dynamic, momentary moods play a big role.

Then, of course, it does was socionics often does and spends the greater part of the article bending into a pretzel in order to hamfist perfectly fine observations or ideas in that forced duality framework.

For the last time, Mister, I am NOT marrying an ESFJ!

(No offense to the ESFJs. I’m pretty sure they would want to marry me even less, especially since this Meged guy recommends that you do all the household chores for me like TF? How can “One person does all the work” remotely considered a functioning relationship?)

My 2cents

Hm...

I mean there are 2 basic ideas in here that I think should be differiented here -

A - that functions, especially the ego block functions, influence bonding behavior in specific ways and that it’s worth exploring what those specificificities are.

B - that those specifics are as postulated above, and that doesn’t have me wholly convinced.

Amusingly enough it seems to fit my priorities pretty well where my own main functions are considered - part of me is relieved to see that there’s a word for the Ti thing & how it’s actually very different to what the Te folks have going on, “logical principles” feature in more as general laws of whats fair & reasonable & you might pursue a not wholly reasonable in a Te sense connection because it’s interesting - in a way its closer to what Fi ppl do in that sense of wanting to “understand” the other person, but also very different in some parts, especially in the lack of that idealization Fi sometimes has - Your average TP is probably very aware of their loved ones’ character flaws, doesn’t place any exaggerated importance on relationships and won’t take anyone’s side just because they like them - it depends on wether they’re right or wrong, after all.

But IDK about the rest.

Many of the Fi users I know would indeed be in the “cute and stable” flavor of bonding and likewise I’ve encountered some SPs who were very much natural tops or Ni doms with a hidden romantic side (which I’d blamed on tert Fi TBH) but I’d hesitate to make that generalization - We can think of Fi users what we’d rather sort into the Mania or Agape categories, with the Fe users yeah the dramatic sort exist but the “reasonable, reliable, srz bzness” ones that would go in a Pragma or Agape direction are probably the majority and the Si one doesn’t seem to make sense at all?

What do you guys think? After all I don’t really have first hand experience with, say, a high Si user’s POV.

Random idea/speculation:

Could this be an enneagram thing instead, again with a proportionality related to stuff like wings & trifixes?

1 - Agape

2 - Eros

3 - Pragma

4 - Mania

5 - Analita.

6 - Storge.

7 - Ludus

8 - Victoria

9 - Philia

#socionics #mbti #cognitive functions

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itsmooglepom-blog · 7 years ago

Text

How I Learned to Not Hate Myself (And Other Women)

I grew up in the 90’s, and like most other millennials, I flourished in a unique and unusual time span also known as “The Age of Technology.” With the revolution of the internet and the explosiveness of the media, it was (and still is) easier than ever to spread thoughts, notions, and ideas.

During my most formative years, I was a huuuuuuuuge “Tomboy.” Imagine: A small girl who fancied video games, comic books, action figures, and computers as opposed to the expected barbies, baby dolls, purses, ponies, and/or anything else obnoxiously pink. Don’t worry- Even as a romp I had my fair share of stuffed animals, too, you can ask my mom. She had a hay day when she finally donated them all to the Salvation Army, believe me. Not many girls were very nice to me when I was in elementary school. The majority of my friends were boys. I saw girls as these mean, catty creatures I didn’t understand. I avoided them and refused to associate myself with them. I was DIFFERENT. Even at a young age, we’re taught to compete. And in this competition, I wanted nothing more than to WIN. Even from as far as I can remember, I didn’t want to be like “other girls.” Being like “other girls” meant you were bland, boring, and outright insufferable. It meant you didn’t have any ideas of your own and you conformed to a predictable stereotype. Girls were seen as weak and incapable. If you did something “like a girl” it was seen as an insult. And, of course, I did not want to be insulted. Why would I want that? I had a lot going for me, I already didn’t like the same things I thought other girls liked, so I was good. …Right?

These impressions became fundamentally etched into my being. They allowed me to be “The Cool Girl™” and quickly I adopted the moniker of “One of the Guys.” Because, to me, being (like) a guy was way more desirable than identifying as a girl. Sometimes, I would even say things like, “Aren’t you glad I’m not like those other girls? They’d be mad if you said/did xxxxxx thing. But not me.” I was an obelisk of obscurity, a commodity to be coveted.

Latching on to those sentiments was so easy for me. I didn’t have a great history in dealing with other double x chromosomes; it just fit like glove. Throughout junior high and high school, I had a handful of female friends, but only clung to those with similar interests. I recall very distinctly feeling both a sense of jealousy and superiority toward other girls simultaneously. Jealousy because I suffered through unsurmountable insecurity as a teenager, and superiority because I was nestled in the perfect presumption that I would always be better or smarter than them collectively. These were thoughts that existed somewhere deep, down in the darkest reaches of my being only to resurface later in life.

As I got older and matured, I found myself in some questionably abusive relationships. Often, I would agree with their misogynistic tendencies and somehow blame myself for the mistreatment I endured. These types of relationships became a pattern, resulting in a few different things: -Me hitting rock bottom in terms of dealing with my own self-esteem.

-My hatred for other women reaching an all time high.

-The eventual realization of how and why I was wrong all along.

These realizations started in my early twenties. Becoming an adult was exceedingly difficult for me, because I already had so much mental and emotional baggage I lugged with me. Around the age of 22, I started getting over an eating disorder I had been battling. Anorexia was a problem of mine that stretched from my teenage years to my early adulthood. And, admittedly, it’s all because of misogyny.

The magazines, the ads, the books, the posters; every where you looked, there was a thin, beautiful woman in your face. That was desirable. That was what I needed to be. What I needed to maintain. Sometimes, I would eat only a small sandwich and a banana in a day. Other times, I would restrict myself to oatmeal and juice. I kept justifying why I wouldn’t eat to make myself feel better. “Oh, I’ve been so busy with work. I didn’t have time to stop and eat.” I’d be with guy friends and they’d see an overweight woman jogging and it was open season. “Haha. Look at that fatty!” They would cry out, laughing.

I felt a knot in my stomach, it didn’t feel right to judge her. I mean, she was trying! Look, there she is! Making an effort!

“At least she’s running, though!” I replied, vehemently trying to defend her.

“Yeah! Running to go eat a donut, I’m sure.” One of them would bleat. I knew that feeling. I spent endless hours at the gym doing cardio to punish myself for a single cosmic brownie I didn’t have the will power to say no to. I would run and sweat and sweat and run, until my face was numb. Sometimes, I saw double. I remember looking in the mirror, blacking out, and waking up on the floor with a bump on my head. I was so dedicated to confining myself within this small body. I wasn’t allowed to take up space. Eating less and working out more was the answer. My overall health didn’t matter as long as I was “desirable.”

Fitness and gym culture became a large influence on my day to day life. One of my other more prominent epiphanies resulted from a common argument: “Why do girls wear makeup to the gym?” At first, I assumed it’s because they want “attention.” They must be there with a full face of foundation, perfect eyebrows, and contoured cheeks because they NEED constant validation. I mulled it over and realized that my views were a result of internalized misogyny. Not everything women do is a performative action to appeal to men. Women wear makeup for a plethora of different reasons. And the fact that I wanted to knock them for it was simply out of jealousy. I wasn’t brave enough to wear makeup to the gym, nor did I ever look as good as they did while doing it. Why did I even care in the first place? What caused me to be so brash? Why did I want so badly to dislike someone for something so simple? I became honest with myself and the answers flowed in. As a result, more topics of scrutiny began to arise. Dress codes, for example: I used to think that women should cover themselves as to avoid negative attention from the male gaze. I recalled the abuse I dealt with and how I was called a whore, a slut, a skank, you name it, for wearing a skirt, a tight shirt, and eyeliner. When discussing sexual assault or rape, people say things like, “Look how she was dressed! She deserved it!” trying to place blame on the victim as opposed to the perpetrator. I thought of myself, as a victim of rape and assault. I thought of how my abuser tried to make it my fault and how I reflected those actions unto others in the same situation. The fact of the matter is, a lot less rapes would happen if a lot less people would stop raping other people. Period.

My early twenties consisted of working in a largely male-dominated industry. I was often the butt of jokes, the target of blatant sexism, and a victim of harassment. A lot of my male coworkers expected me to balk to this behavior, but I was growing ever tired of the constant barrage of backhanded remarks and unwanted advances. I was accused of working at a video game store to “impress men.” But, I wasn’t. That wasn’t my intention at all. I loved video games. I always had. Yet, now, somehow, I had to PROVE that I loved them and that it wasn’t for attention. I saw myself as the woman in the gym with makeup, the one who wore it just to wear it, but got accused of doing it for someone else. Everything was starting to make sense to me. All of these circumstances were linked. My hatred toward women was more of a coping mechanism than anything else. It let me feel better about myself and provided me with a false sense of security. What I kept forgetting is that *I’m* also a woman, no matter how much I try to set myself apart. I couldn’t justify the disdain.

Ironically, fitness also acted as a significant step in my healing process. I connected with women who power lift and dare to look “masculine” without fear of judgement or ridicule. I learned to eat and treat food and respected my body as a vessel of my mind, as opposed to a temple of temptation. I started lifting weights and doing yoga. It was for me. Not for anyone else. And it felt great. I started wearing compression shorts, not to show off, but to be comfortable in my movement. Each time I would stretch them up my waist and walk out the door, I would recall how I used to see women who would wear them and think to myself, “How wrong was I!?”

What remains constant is that women can (and should) like what they want, but it never comes without ridicule. Ridicule is a reaction that is bred from one of three things: envy, projection, or insecurity. People are so ingrained to automatically have contempt for anything a woman does. Society takes any and every chance it gets to paint women in a negative light and perpetuate the terrible stereotype that has become commonplace. When you start seeing women as people with value, and not as objects, competition, or second class citizens to scorn, you become more satisfied with yourself as a result.

Internalized misogyny is a very real thing. It’s what caused me to see myself as less of a person due to my gender, develop an eating disorder, allow myself to be abused, and convinced me that I should act a certain way just so I could be called “cool.” That’s right, I used bigotry against other women just to gain brownie points with other people. And I’m not proud of it. What’s important is that I admit it, and hopefully my honesty will influence others to understand how easy it is to fall prey to this phenomenon.

Women are wonderful. Women are powerful. And there’s nothing to be ashamed of if you’re a woman.

#feminism #women #empowerment #empoweringwomen #loveyourself #lovewomen #nohate

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